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…Childlessness is hell, no one should experience it –Wife
From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
For 17 years, Mr. Chris Odi and his wife, Chinwendu, sought for the fruit of the womb to sweeten their union. The delay was agonizing and expectations from the public were high as the woman was the daughter of Methodist Church’s Prelate Emeritus, Dr. Samuel Kanu Uche. So, “miracle should happen.”
The couple survived on prayers, fasting and hope till God recently answered their prayers and ended their 17 years of childlessness.
To celebrate this “miracle child,” Chibuchi Micheal, family and friends of the couple flooded the Streams of Joy International Church, Abuja, penultimate Sunday, for his dedication.
Chants of joy and electrifying musical renditions turned the church into a carnival of a sort as the couple shared their story of how God turned their sorrow to joy, capping it with “what God cannot do does not exist.”
In an interview with Daily Sun, Odi, the child’s father, went emotional as he recounted their troubling journey of childlessness.
He added that the boy’s birth has made him a father for the first time, which is the dream of any married man.
He said: “My heart is so full of joy because, finally, people will call me father. I know it is not easy. It has not been easy for the past 17 years. But we so much believed in God and we believed that one day God would answer our prayers.”
He said himself and his wife tried a number of fertility treatments without success, including in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) session.
Recounting his bitter experience with people during the long period of waiting, Odi said many jeered at him and shamed him over his predicament at the slightest provocation, while some friends advised him to take another wife.
He said: “But I remained steadfast in God and kept my hope alive as I always believed that one day I would be a father.
“When it would come was what I didn’t know but I knew that God would answer us and, today, we are happy. We are excited and our hearts are full of joy.
“If I start recounting what people said, some to my face, it’ll be a long story. Some people would ask: why are you wasting your time with a woman that cannot give you children?
“Some hushed me at meetings and said, if men are talking, are you supposed to talk? And I laughed because I knew that I was not the cause of the situation, neither was it my wife.
“My wife did an IVF session, but it failed. So, if man could give us children, why didn’t those treatments and IVF work?”
The delighted father said they hope to raise the child with the proper morals and guide him in the way of the Lord.
He counselled couples who were still awaiting for the gift of a child to hold strongly to their faith, never give up, and have faith that God will come through for them.
In her remarks, Odi’s excited wife, the child’s mother, said it still felt like a dream to her.
She added that childlessness was something she would never wish for anyone, including her enemy.
She said: “I feel so great. You know, sometimes, when God does something for you, it will still be like a dream, just like the Bible says that when the Lord turned the captivity of Zion, it was like them that dreamed. It is still like a dream because 17 years is not a joke.
“I am now being called a mother, my husband, a father and my parents are now grandparents.
“And for my son, Chibuchi Michael, he is already a great son. He is one in 10 billion sons.”
Dame Nnenna Uche, the Prelate’s wife and the child’s grandmother, expressed her joy as well. She said that it always pained her to be asked why she prayed for other childless couples and they were blessed with children while her own biological daughter remained childless.
She referred to the newborn as a child of consolation, adding that the child would be a channel for more kids for the couple.
On his part, the Prelate, the child’s grandfather, said that the baby’s delayed arrival portends a remarkable future for him.
He asserted that many of the great persons in the Bible had similar birth circumstances: “We have been praying. There is no other thing that we know than to fast and pray, and God has shown us that he would visit her. And you know that great men don’t come easy. People like John the Baptist, people like Samson, they don’t come very easy. They come after a period of waiting and they come and become great people. So, this child is a child of waiting and a child of faith. My experience was that of hope and great anticipation. So, I anchored my faith in God.”
