For Pastor Philip Adewumi breaking negative cycles is a life mission that has given rise to a powerful new book, Break that Cycle.
The Nigerian-born resident of Gordon’s Bay leads Hopespring Bible Church with his wife, and is deeply involved in community upliftment through its NPO Hopespring Africa Mission, which serves youth of Temperance Town, Broadlands Park and Sir Lowry’s Pass, among others.
In 2012 Adewumi was working in a Montagu community where he observed young people’s struggles, including dropping out of school, unemployment and teenage pregnancy.
He set about researching a tendency towards recurring negative generational patterns that prevailed there.
Adewumi found the problem often lay with the family, the bedrock of society.
“If the home front is healthy it naturally affects the society,” he said.
He found South Africa’s persistent social issues, such as high crime and limited prospects, are often rooted in problems such as absent fathers, divorce and domestic violence.
Children living in such circumstances often internalise and perpetuate the negative behaviours.
The book places a strong emphasis on courage.
Adewumi shares his own powerful testimony: his father had no Western education and his mother only Grade 2. After his father died when he was in Grade 9 the odds were stacked against him.
“It takes one person in a generation to create a negative cycle,” he asserted. “It will also take a person in a generation to break it.”
Adewumi defied the odds, finished high school and university, and became the first in his family to fly in a aeroplane; he broke the cycle of ignorance and poverty.
For him true courage is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to swim against a negative current, moving away from the known until change materialises.
Adewumi offers practical steps to build a “Cycle of Blessing”. Much like wealthy families that build their prosperity over generations, breaking a negative cycle means laying a solid foundation, which requires discipline and a commitment to planning for the success of future generations.
He hopes readers will be inspired through his book to take the steps and empowered by courage, to become a different person.
“Life is all about choices,” Adewumi concludes. “I encourage everyone reading this to choose life, hope and possibility.”
๏ฎ Break that Cycle is currently available at Sunset Books in Beach Road, Strand. Readers can also engage with the message via the “Break That Cycle” podcast on YouTube.
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