As early as 9 am, the church premises entertained men, women and children residing close to the church community who came for medical check-ups and were also eligible to go home with medium-size bags of rice and clothing materials.

Speaking on the occasion, Mrs Peace Okonkwo said: “When I turned 60, I gave my whole money for cervical cancer screening. I said we would use the whole money to treat women. Cervical cancer is treatable. When we went to one of the villages, one of the pastors said, I wish you came last year because one of my women died of cervical cancer. It’s a fulfilling purpose, but we still need to do more.

“As I turned 70, the thought of reaching out to the less privileged came to mind. These days, the price of foodstuffs is on the increase. Hospital bills are enormous and many people, instead of going to the hospital, have fallen back on self-medication. We always do palliatives for church members but, on this particular occasion, we decided to do it for outsiders, non-TREM members. The church members are the ones working and sorting out their needs.”

Deacon Frank Nabena, a member of the planning committee, noted that the occasion was to honour Bishop Peace on her 70th birthday.

He said: “She wants to carry out a community impact. She wants things that she would do that would impact not only the church but outsiders within this environment. That is why we have different types of impact ministration. First, we have clothing materials that we are giving out to the public. We invited over 500 people (not church members); we also have rice, and groundnut oil, we have exercise books for children and we have medical ministrations.

“We want you to tell us what kind of medical assistance you want. If it’s your eyes, then we will take your vital information and you go to the eyes section. We also have reading glasses that we are giving free.

“We have prostate screening for men. We also have breast cancer screening (we have a secluded place for that); we have blood pressure tests, we have blood sugar tests and malaria tests. We have a pharmacy section to dispense drugs to people that doctors have prescribed them. We have 15 medical doctors. We also have about 16 nurses and a laboratory scientist, pharmacist and other qualified personnel to man each section so that we don’t have hitches.”