Esan Akugbe Benevolent gestures, Touching Lives.
...as Orphanage, Baby Esther displayed
On the 18th of December, 2022, Comrade Godswill Okougbo, Mrs. Kate Iboi, Mrs. Charity Odiagbe and I, on behalf of Esan Akugbe for Good Leadership Unity Forum, set out to visit motherless babies’ homes and hospitals to present cash gifts to the motherless babies as well as to indigent patients in the hospitals.
On that fateful day, one striking phenomenon caught my attention at Zuma Hospital Orphanage, Irrua, where Baby Esther, who is perhaps the youngest of the children, cried as she felt bad when Mrs. Iboi, on whose arms she was, dropped her with the Orphanage Mother, as we were about to leave.
Tears welled up my eyes, and many thoughts and questions flashed through my mind. For example: what if you grew up like baby Esther? Where are the biological parents of this baby? This baby, like any other needs parental love and care… How many more Baby Esthers are all over the world? I had no answers to these questions.
One very salient message from Baby Esther’s action, points to the fact that, these orphans need us, they appreciate our presence and our gifts, and every time we the privileged make out time to visit them and extend our hand of benevolence to them, they are happy.
As you read this my experience, there are several families that have more than enough to eat and drink, such that their dustbins always receive remnants of food items on a daily basis, it’s time for such people to remember the like of baby Esther.
It took me this long to write this my experience, because, each time I tried , the memory of the little innocent baby Esther, crying after us, wishing that we stayed behind kept coming back to my mind.
The motherless babies find themselves in the situation they are by Gods arrangement, not by their choice and if the arrangement of God, has put us in privileged positions over many others, we must endeavor to extend our kind gesture to these “parentless” babies; that way, we are also saying: “thank you” to God for placing us in a privileged position.
As we celebrate, rejoice and plan for our children and families, let us be reminded that, there are many Baby Esthers out there waiting and looking forward to us to also extend our hand of goodness to them.
As we wrap up 2022 and a new page of 2023 gradually opens up, may God grant us the will power and resources to remember the less privileged in our midst.
Merry Christmas and Happy 2023 in advance.
- Oriaifoh Godwins