Can you imagine walking into a grocery store and being unable to read the food labels? Or being unable to understand the instructions on your medication bottles?
For many, literacy has become as easy as breathing. We encounter thousands of alphabet letters every day, and our brains seemingly magically form them into words we not only can decipher but understand. In this article alone, your brain has already processed over four hundred characters and turned them into nearly seventy words.
For many in Nigeria, however, the lack of literacy is an obstacle. It not only hinders their ability to read labels at the grocery store and on medication bottles but also to understand the Bible.
“My friend Rev. Dr. Adesina Abegunde told me that when he started pastoring New Port Baptist Church in Apapa in 2023, he discovered that there were members who appeared to speak English fairly well but who in reality couldn’t read or write,” said Rev. Dr. Folashade Oloyede. “It became a big challenge to his ministry among the people.”

Because Rev. Dr. Folashade Oloyede works as Director of Strategic Initiatives for West Africa at Our Daily Bread Ministries (ODBM), she immediately recognized that New Port Baptist Church would be a perfect location to implement the ODBM Literacy Program.
Created in 2021, ODBM’s Literacy Program utilizes modified Our Daily Bread devotionals, Bible stories, and more to teach people how to read English in just one year.
“I guided Rev. Dr. Adesina on how to use the ODBM Literacy Program, and then he started a literacy center in his church,” said Rev. Dr. Folashade. “That small step of faith has become a giant stride. Now, the church’s literacy center is still thriving.”
But New Port Baptist Church isn’t the only church Rev. Dr. Folashade has connected to the ODBM Literacy Program.
Between October 2023 and July 2024, she helped facilitate seven training workshops around the country, where she’s taught ministry and community leaders how to implement the ODBM Literacy Program into their organizations. As a result, seven new literacy sites have opened in schools, churches, and seminaries, with three more preparing to begin soon. New Estate Baptist Church in Abuja has even started distributing additional ODBM biblical materials to people in their community.
“I have witnessed a sparkling light in the eyes of people touched by our Literacy Program,” said Rev. Dr. Folashade. “Recently, in Daodu Village, we met a young man who had resigned himself to the fact that he could never go to school again. After a few weeks with us, hope came alive in him as he brushed up on his knowledge. We helped him secure admission to a college of education, and he’s currently trying to raise funds to resume school next academic season.”
If you would like to learn more about and support the ODBM Literacy Program, click here.