Reverend Jackson at ribbon cutting ceremony with Reverend Edosomwan, and Fairfax City mayor, Robert Lederer.

March 17, 2008 -  Fairfax, VA.  The Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. provided the keynote address at the grand opening ceremony of One God Ministry located at 4280/4282 Chain Bridge Road in Fairfax, Virginia.

The new facility ends three years of church services in the cafeteria of Providence High School.  The new church facility boasts classrooms, youth and adult activity rooms, state-of-the-art media center, a bookstore (built to hold fourteen thousand books), and fellowship hall.

The Reverend (Dr.) Johnson A. Edosomwan (eh-DOS-sum-wan), Chairman and Trustee of One God Ministry, told the near capacity filled crowd that it was a long, hard process.  Almost brought to tears, Reverend Edosomwan reminded the congregation of the bible verse found in Luke 1:37 which reads, “For with God nothing shall be impossible.” 

Reverends Jackson and Edosomwan became acquainted when Edosomwan was a young man living in Miami and recalls Jackson’s moniker,  ‘Keep Hope Alive’.   

“It was those words that let me know that someday I will leave the ghetto I was living in”, said Edosomwan.

“Where there is hope, there is life”, said Jackson.  “Hope is a weapon.  It will lift you up when you’re down.  There is power in hope.”

Jackson further expressed that it was hope during the Civil Rights Movement that made America better.

“It has been forty-three years since Dr. King and the civil rights movement.  America has gone from terror to terrific”, said Jackson, citing the struggles during the civil rights movement that would later benefit Americans of different races and ethnicities.

“We are becoming a better America”, Jackson told the crowd -  but also touched on areas he says still need improvement; specifically gun violence and the prison epidemic in the United States.

“Right now we have first class jails and second class schools”, said Jackson.  “But I see a new America.  An America that will choose schools and a better future, over funerals and jails.”

Reverend Jackson became the first African American in 1984 (and again in 1988) to run for U.S. president and says that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are conduits to a new and better America.

Dr. Edosomwan is featured on the cover of the March issue of Leadership Excellence Magazine along with his column titled Role Models (page 20). 

Edosomwan is married with three grown children, and one adopted child. 

The ceremony awarded members of the Fairfax City Council; Mayor, Robert Lederer, and Sussex County’s Board of Supervisors with plaques for their contribution to the successful completion of the worship facility.

Photos.