“The Akanu Ibiam International Airport has indeed become international as the fourth batch of pilgrims from the South-East have been flown out.
“This is now a total departure from the past when pilgrims from the South-East had to move to Port-Harcourt International Airport for them to leave for the pilgrimage in Israel,” he said.
Bishop Chukwuma, who is also the immediate past chairman of the South-East chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, spoke during the ceremony to mark the departure of Anambra pilgrims to this year’s Easter pilgrimage in Israel.
“We are hoping that the pilgrims will go as good ambassadors of Nigeria and will allow this pilgrimage to go through them, so that they could be transformed and come back not the same again but transformed to be better Christians to influence others,” he said.
Addressing the pilgrims before departure, the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Christians Pilgrims Commission, John-Kennedy Opara, thanked President Goodluck Jonathan for granting permission for the pilgrims to be airlifted from the airport.
Opara told them that pilgrimage was not a jamboree, “but a spiritual journey for encounter with Jesus that would touch their lives for good. He charged them to be good ambassadors of Nigeria.”
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