Hephzibah
Hephzibah Olusanya is a beautiful young lady, so charming that you feel irresistibly drawn to her at first contact. Besides, she bears a first name that, even as a Christian, sounds strange to the ear.
But smiling, she says it is a Hebrew name and it means ‘the Lord delights in her.’ “When I gave my life to God, He instructed me to start bearing this name. So when I got home on that day, the first thing I told my folks was that I had changed my name to Hephzibah,” she says.
Hephzibah has an unusual background. She is a born-again Christian and yet, comes from a Muslim family. Although her father is a devout Muslim, she can hardly recall ever being unhappy in her home. “He is the best father I can ever wish for. People say I am his favourite. Even he calls me his second wife,” she boasts.
Indeed, judging by the photographs that litter the walls of the family’s living room, one notices a striking resemblance between Hephzibah and her father, Alhaji Olugbenga Olusanya.
A 2008 graduate of the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, where she studied Mass Communications, she was once involved in a relationship that she expected to end in marriage. When it crashed, she was, as expected, heart-broken. “I felt very bad because it didn’t work out. Later, it occurred to me that what happened might be God’s wish for me. So I was no longer worried,” she says.
Although she was not a born-again Christian at the time, she was careful enough to keep the relationship a platonic one. “Maybe the lack of sex in the relationship was the reason why it didn’t work out. But my ex-boyfriend never complained about it,” she says.
Her family
Unlike many young people whose homes are severely under financial pressure, this warm lady has a reason to be thankful to providence. She says, “I have a wonderful home, a blessed one for that matter. My mother is a very wonderful and God-fearing woman. My siblings are also wonderful. We are a very peaceful family. I am happy to come from this family.”
The truth is that the family that Hephzibah calls her own is actually her foster family. She admits the fact with as much cheer as one who has won a major lottery prize. “Yes, it is my foster family. I have four siblings: two sisters and two brothers. I am the fourth child,” she says.
The way she says it, one would think the others were also adopted by the Olusanyas. But they were not. She is the ‘outsider,’ who became an ‘insider,’ groomed to the taste of her foster parents; properly integrated into the family, and so well-adjusted to her role in her new home that within a short time, she had started feeling and behaving as a biological offspring of the Olusanyas.
How she became a member
of the family
Surprisingly, Hephzibah has not forgotten the circumstances that led to her adoption by the Olusanyas.
She picks her words carefully and with a handkerchief, tries to wipe away the tears that have just started streaming down her lovely cheeks, as she embarks on a painful journey down memory lane.
She says, “In truth, I am an orphan. My foster mum used to know my biological mother; I believed they were close friends. I still remember my real parents clearly, even though I was very young when they died. Although, I have no idea how old I was at the time, I know that I was no longer a baby; I was already in primary school.
“One day, an uncle of mine came to our home and informed me that my real mum was admitted in a hospital somewhere. He wanted me to join her very soon. Not long afterwards, other people started coming into the house. There were so many people that I began to feel deep inside me that something was wrong.
“Soon my other uncles and aunts joined these people. Finally, they broke the news to me. They said my parents had died in a fatal accident. Before then, I had been having this strange feeling that I just couldn’t explain. While it persisted I had a sudden powerful urge to see my mother. I didn’t know it was a premonition of what was about to happen.
“So when the news came, I was shocked and frightened at the same time. I was frightened because it suddenly dawned on me that my mother was gone for good and that I would never see her again.”
Although, Hephzibah was not the only child of her parents (she has a brother), she was emotionally attached to them. The death of their parents hit her so hard that she was depressed for awhile.
Soon, her relatives and some friends of her old family offered to take care of her brother and herself. “They made many promises to my brother and I. They promised to take care of us. But none of them was forthcoming. I prefer not to talk about them, for now,” she says.
For a long time, Hephzibah and her brother were left alone to their own devices. Although they lived in the home of a friend of their family, they were ignored by their hosts. Nobody was willing to send them to school. At some point, she felt like hawking ice water to earn a living. She describes that period in her life as an unhappy one. She says she was always lonely and most of the time felt rejected by society.
She says, “For several years, I lived with this friend of my family, doing nothing and miserable, until my foster parents took me away and wiped my tears.
“At first, they invited me to spend some time in their home. I did. I spent about three weeks with them. When the time came to return home, my foster mother begged me to stay. She said that although she had her own children and other responsibilities to take care of, she had decided to ask me to move in and live with her. Also, she said her husband and children were willing to accept me as a member of their family.
“Right there, she said that I had become her third daughter from that day. She said that God had added to her responsibilities by giving her another daughter and she was confident that He would take care of us all. Then she took me to my room and I was happy.”
Life in her new home
While admitting that initially she faced some challenges in her new home, Hephzibah says she was not resented by her foster siblings. Certainly there was none of the usual pain- inflicting gossips that tend to stigmatise adopted children. She continues, “There was never a time that such loose talk was heard in our home. But on one or two occasions, I think, a relation was believed to have said in public that I was an adopted child.
“Also, something happened when my elder sister, Kofo, was getting married. As expected, on her traditional wedding day, being her younger sister, I was supposed to read the groom’s proposal letter. But a complication arose when the groom’s people insisted that she should read the letter herself.
“My parents disagreed and insisted that I should read it because I was a bona fide member of the family. You know, in this part of the world, most people do not believe in adoption. So they have neither respect nor consideration for adopted children. I had that issue with some people. But then, God took control along the line and He is still in control.”
Hephzibah says she eventually found happiness in her foster home. She is now so integrated in the family that nobody will know that she was adopted, unless they were informed by a member of the family.
Once, a woman dared to ask directly if she was truly the biological daughter of the Olusanyas. “The woman said she always stood in my defence when others gossiped about my identity. Of course, as a Christian, I didn’t want to lie to her. At the same time, I didn’t want to admit that I was an adopted child. So I decided not to say anything other than urge her to continue to fight for me,” she says.
However, Hephzibah confesses that on some occasions in the past, she had mood swings, which often resulted from her knowledge that the society was not positively disposed to her status as an adopted child. “Although my parents try their best to make me happy, I still had these moods. On such occasions, I would feel inadequate and rejected by the world,” she says.
All the while, she hid her pain from other people and hardly discussed adoption with them.
A lone crusade
At a point in her life, Hephzibah discovered that adoption was a concept designed by God; neither by man nor by Satan. She says that God called her to minister to orphans and to preach adoption to Nigerian Christians.
She says, “Adoption is God’s idea. It is not only when you are waiting for a child that you should adopt a child. It is meant for everybody because we were all adopted by Jesus Christ. Even single women should go ahead and adopt a child, rather than deny themselves the joy of motherhood.
“Even those who are married with children are free to adopt other children because adopting a child is seen in the eyes of God as an act of covenant.”
Perhaps to drive home this point, she started a Christian organisation four years ago. She pays regular visits to orphanages and refugee camps, distributing food and other items to children and encouraging them.
“Orphans need proper homes, not orphanages. You cannot compare the atmosphere in a real home where there is a father and a mother to care for you, to the atmosphere in an orphanage. The average orphanage is like a transit point where children have to wait for people to come and adopt them,” she says.
Source:http://www.punchng.com
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