Susan Olapeju Awobasivwe: Showing Love, Rendering Service at 50

Rev. Susan Olapeju Awobasivwe joined the Golden Club on October 14, when she clocked 50. The Port Harcourt-based pastor marked the milestone with a 9-day, activity-packed birthday celebration focused on thanksgiving, evangelism, helping the needy and a Brain and Beauty conference, THISDAY reports

Age 50 is a milestone that calls for celebration- a golden celebration of the gift of life. No wonder many roll out drums to mark this milestone with great pomp and with thanksgiving. It is also a good time to reflect on the passage of time and the purpose of life, choices made, legacy built and a future yet unknown. For Rev Susan Olapeju Awobasivwe, who clocked 50 on October 14, it was a time to give thanks to the Almighty, show love to the needy,win souls for Christ and to reflect on the journey of 50 years and the path untrodden.

Rev Susan Olapeju Awobasivwe, a certified speaker, coach and trainer with John Maxwell team, is theInternational Coordinator of Father’s Jewel Fellowship headquartered in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, with a mandate to lead women who live to please God and fulfill destiny.

The activity-packed celebration began with a White Worship Service on October 14, the day she clocked 50. It was a 5-hour praise and worship session, with each hour representing God’s faithfulness and enduring  mercies in each decades of the five decades she has spent on earth so far. The next day, October 15 was dedicated to the needy with a visitation to Old People’s Home, on 30, Harbor Road, Opposite Stella Marris Secondary School, where gift were donated to the residents of the home.

On October 16, despite the rain that fell, an awareness/soul winning session was held at Eneka to bring souls to Christ. This was followed on October 17 by the inauguration of a chapter of the Father’s Jewels Fellowship International at Eneka. The inaugural service with the theme: It’s Jubilee, was held at Robin Nest’s Plaza, Kilometer 1, New Eneka Layout, Port Harcourt.

Her 50^th birthday activities continued on October 18 with a Medical Outreach at the Rivers State Teaching Hospital, where support was given to a boy who had been in coma for a month and funding his treatment had become challenging. This was followed on October 19 by a Brain and Beauty Conference, with the theme: LEAP. Rev Susan, the convener of the conference, went down memory lane as she spoke about her upbringing and lessons learnt. She narrated an emotional story told by her dad, Pa Odubade, who died a couple of years ago.

“A few years before my father died, because my dad used to be the first person to call me in the morning to pray for me, and on that particular day, he called me and was praying for me. The prayer was like this,my father said he thanked God that he did not abort the helper of his destiny, because immediately I was conceived, the doctor advised that they should get me out, because immediately my mum conceived me, hell was let loose. They told my dad, you already had four boys, keep your wife, get this baby aborted and there was a possibility of her getting pregnant again. It was a bad case, but I don’t know how bad it was.

Rev Susan with her husband Mr Alex Awobasivwe

“He said all the doctors rejected my mum except one in Oyo State, who said he would manage the case, and that was how he managed my mum to deliver me. So my dad said he thanked God that he did not get me aborted because he would have suffered. So I came to this world by the mercy of God. I came to this world, they were already waiting for me. My dad had four boys, so I came in as the first girl. They were expecting me and that was why they called me Olapeju – wealth is complete. So I came in loved, I came in pampered. So I don’t have anything inside of me aside love,” she said.

Rev Susan dancing at a 5-hour Praise and Worship Session

She also used the opportunity to counsel parents on the need to raise their children with love as that would go a long way in shaping the kind of person they become and would make them to exude love wherever they go and to whoever they meet.

“Please listen to me, there is something psychologists call Nature-Nurture Dichotomy. You might not be able to change the nature, like I look like my mum, but you can change the nurture. So raise your children in the atmosphere of love. There is nothing I can give except love because I was raised in love. So growing up, I was nurtured in love, I grew up in love and I can only give love,” Rev Susan added.

… During a visit to the home of the elderly

A communion and celebration service was held on Saturday October 26 during which family, friends, partners in ministry and well-wishers praised God with hymns and worship songs,heard a sermon, danced, feasted and offered their good wishes to the celebrant. From the recorded good wishes from her aged mother, Madam Odubade in Ilesha, and her daughter, in Canada, played at the venue, to the goodwill messages from many others in attendance, Rev Susan Olapeju Awobasivwe’s sterling qualities were extolled. She was described as a woman of grace, embodiment of love, prayer warrior, minister of God, dependable friend, loving mother, faithful wife, and a beautiful soul, who is always seeking new heights to climb.

..At the inauguration of the chapter of Father’s Jewels Fellowship Int’l at Eneka

The celebration was rounded off with a Thanksgiving Service at RCCG Dayspring Parish on Stadium Road, Port Harcourt.

The Ilesha, Osun State-born graduate of Applied Geophysics of the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), attended St. Margaret Girls School, Ilesha for her secondary education. She is happily married to Mr. Alex Awobasivwe, who has been her pillar of support, and their marriage is blessed with four beautiful children – a girl and three boys.