Born to a devout Christian parents – Pastor Jimmy and Esther Samson Udoh – Joel grew up in a spiritually charged environment, occasionally manifesting capricious behaviour that played back in the memories of the then interested observers the series of prophecies that were told of Joel even while he was still in the mother’s womb. Being the last born of the family, he was given the necessary parental care and attention.
Before his entry into the world, it was prophesied through different sources that a highly spiritually placed priest would conduct his christening ceremony. However, it happened accordingly, for a few days to the christening Sunday, a senior Reverend in charge of the entire Ibibio/Annang district of African church of Nigeria had sent a letter to the parish pastor informing him (Pastor) of his intention to fellowship in his parish that Sunday. So by this strange coincidence the christening service was conducted by the Senior Reverend of the Church. This had brought to pass the prophecies about his infant dedication.
At the age of seven, he had refused to use his hands to feed himself and had always given explanations why he would not do so. This rather strange behaviour attracted many individuals from spiritual community who kept visiting the family with different prophecies and interpretations of this attitude which revealed all but one thing. And because of ignorance or negligence on the part of his parents (who almost got tired of him) of the implication of his abnormal behaviour he fell deadly sick. The sickness exhausted all medical prognosis and treatments, and was mysterious in nature.
However, somewhere in faraway land, the Rt. Bishop Okon N. Ironbar, the great high priest of the then Calabar Province, which comprised Calabar, Ibibio and Annang divisions of the Church, caught a vision about the strange infancy of Joel and his divine purpose and presence on earth. For several nights he was disturbed until he could no longer conceal the vision.
In total response to the revelation, he shelved his tight schedule to give attention to it. He sent out a search team to all districts under his province to locate where the revealed child could be found. And the search was successful.
On discovering Joel, the Right Bishop Ironbar invited his father who was also a pastor in the church, and told him all he saw in his vision, and his plan and urge to personally consecrate and anoint child Joel for his divine purpose on earth. The high priest made known to the father the danger of losing Joel by death without the stipulated spiritual ceremony. On that note, the father narrated the ordeal and experiences encountered in the family since the birth of his son, Joel.
A few weeks later, a combined service was called up at the headquarters of the district of the church where the father of Joel served. In that service the Right Bishop announced to the large congregation reason for his very unusual, unceremonious presence in their midst. At that time he called for child Joel and lifted him up to the heavens and offered a prayer of faith to establish and confirm Joel’s mission on earth, and anointing him, he gave thanks to God for “allowing him to witness yet another prophetic account in the history of humanity,” (quoting him). At the end of the ceremony, the Right Bishop nicknamed Joel: “Bishop” (after his priesthood).
On the same day Joel was taken away from his parents to stay with the great high priest at the missionary house in Calabar in Cross River State (then South-Eastern State). They ate together, slept on the same bed, and always talked together. Before Joel returned home to his parents he was completely well and had begun to eat by himself, without a dose of medication.
From then on, Joel began to live a life of magic. As a young boy, he began developing talents that would make history throughout his life. At the age of nine he would lay hand on the sick and they would recover. Because of his unique spiritual endowment, he was made member of prayer group of the church and was also the youngest communicant ever in the history of the church till date.
At twelve, he took a deeper spiritual dimension. He started administering prayer by material means. Often times he would pray over water and give to the sick to drink or bath with and healing would take place automatically. At school he would pray over writing materials for his colleagues and sometimes give them consecrated water to drink for good memory during examinations periods. There were occasions he would pick up small stones from the ground, pray over them and give to his colleagues to place under their pillows at night and they would be shown in the dream all the questions that would come up in the exams. And it would happen just accordingly.
Before the age of seventeen he had rescued many marriages and families from break up through spiritual means. Still at teenage he had helped many barren couples become productive. As a young boy, he was gifted in praying over any object to serve as a point of contact with solutions to problems. He was called by many names. Some called him “magic boy”, some “God in the flesh,” some “the new old prophet,” etc. Yet some saw him as “a being from another planet.” And, though embarrassed at sometimes, these could not stop him unfolding his mission on earth.
Philosophy and religion were the subjects about which Joel read most. He discreetly studied Henry Drummond’s Natural law in the spiritual world, and from this developed a spiritual viewpoint more expansive than most people had in that era. This was the first material on metaphysics ever read by Joel. During all his youth there were all indications that Joel would become one of the great spiritual teachers of his time. He always insisted that his own understanding was the result of a natural growth and enforcement and that this evolution was not available to all.
Midway into his higher secular education, he soon found, however, that his heart was not so much in the classroom as it was in nature, and the contemplation of life. He spent most of his time reading spiritually enlightening books. Alone in the countryside one day, he asked himself the questions, “What is God? Who am I? Why am I here?” He mentally tangled with the local preachers and church fanatics’ views of religion and man, and he doubted the answers he got in church. The preachers taught that God had dictated the Bible and Joel could not accept that. He believed the Bible and all holy books’ authors had been deeply inspired, but that the preachers of his day got their own information second-hand and erroneously attempted to use the Bible as proof of hell and eternal damnation.