Adigun Olodumare -A Perfect Package of God

Posted on November 8th, 2008 in Service, Suffering by Adelani Aderemi

Dear berethren whenever trouble comes your way let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong incharacter and ready for anything. James 1:2-4 (NLT)

His parents named him Adigun Olodumare. This deep Yoruba name literally translates to “A perfect package of God” They gave ascent to the testimony of David in Psalms 139:14 where he said “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!  Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. (Emphasis mine) They rejoiced as all parents would do at the birth of a child.  They had high hopes for his future. And this piece shall be focussed on the mother of Adigun, whom we popularly called Iya Adigun.

I did not know the childhood period of Adigun, I started knowing him when he must have attained age 30 and I was still in my early teens. Then he was fully grown in all parts of the body except the head. The skull was very small and that must have affected the size of the brain which was very limited in capacity. His speech was badly impaired and so was the hearing. One needed to get used to his style of speaking to know what he said. There were many things, activities and occurrences Adigun had to develop his own vocabularies for within the limits of the syllables he could manage to pronounce. He had an uncle who was a barber in the neighbourhood. Adigun couldn’t pronounce barber correctly, his variation was banba. He couldn’t pronounce ‘M’ but he could manage N. So his rendering of ‘Mama’ was ‘Nana ‘ Children loved to ask Adigun who bathed him and his answer was usually ‘Nana ni’ meaning ‘Mama mi’ or my mother.

His was always clad in a simple calf-length gown called ‘buba’ since trousers and shorts were too sophisticated for his brain to cope with. He would not be bothered with footwear as he had enough trouble maintaining balance as he walked (or sauntered?)

Yet Iya Adigun considered him a gift and reward from God (Ps 127:3) If she did not proclaim it on the streets for us to hear, we saw it in her care for her son. In absolute submission to the sovereignty of God, she doted on Adigun from infancy to middle-age. She scrubbed him regularly, helped him dress and worked hard to feed him. You can best imagine the jeers and harsh comments of neighbours, friends and relations, yet she was undaunted in showing Adigun motherly love. How did I know this much? We lived in the same neighbourhood and I had the priviledge of observing things for over ten years

Adigun gathered many sobriquets from children and adults alike – Dman, DeeDee, Diig, but the mother lovingly called him Emmanuel, which I gathered was his baptismal name. Adigun was baptized. At times when her (grown up) son must have strayed away and was late in coming home, the woman would comb the whole neighbourhood, carrying an oil lamp, asking people if they noticed Emmanuel nearby. Adigun was never free of sores and the mother was never tired of dressing them though she knew quite well that the dressing would not remain intact for long.

Iya Adigun performed a wonderful service to God in those days. She knew that God is the ultimate circumstancer of our lives. What she found her hands doing, she kept at it as Solomon admonished though she never could read. She was faithful in the highcalling of her daily work of being a mother, even to Adigun. There she was, nursing a child from whom she never expected Thank You Mama. A child who could never show her honour but appeared as a reproach all the time. A child who would never take care of her in her old age even if he outlived her. Here was a fully grown man who could never have defended  her if she was being molested. She never expected to nurse a grand-child from Emmanuel but through her submission to God, Jesus, God with us,(Isaiah 7:14) saw her through the fiery ordeals.

I cannot claim to know how Adigun was a perfect gift of God for his parents but God knows. I do not always know the meaning and reason for my trials but God knows and that’s what matters most. But I know God is love. I know, for the Bible says it in Romans 8:28 that, God makes all things to work for the good of all who loves him, whom he has called for his great purpose.

Iya Adigun, as we called her, never climbed a pulpit to preach a sermon. She neither could read a bible nor tract, She didn’t speak in tounges and neither did she serve in any capacity in the local church. She sold firewood and leaves to earn a living. Yet, she exhibited an outstanding faith in God. She never showed any bitterness of heart to anybody because of her plight. She carried on through such tribulation with endurance and patience. She finished her course. She wept her eyes out on the day her Emmanuel was knocked down by a hit and run driver on the Ife-Ibadan expressway. Her son lived for about forty years and she nursed him for all of those forty years. Now she is long dead but her faith lives on for us to talk about.  I strongly believe that she is now in eternal peace together with Emmanuel – the Lord, Emmanuel Adigun and all other Saints gone.

So if you are suffering according to the will of God, keep on doing what is right, and trust yourself to the God who made you, for he will never fail you. 1Peter 4:10

Many people had the opportunity to be good to Christ through Emmanuel Adigun but they squandered such grace. Many times, my late father would dress Adigun in new clothes so he could look descent but some callous human beings around would strip him again and the next day, we would see him in rags. He himself came to report one day that the loaf of bread given to him had been taken away. This was when my father arranged for Adigun to be taking his meals right in our house. He charged his young wives who did the cooking of his food to include Adigun’s ration in their menu. And any day any of them served Adigun with indignity, we would all hear the story of Lazarus and the rich man over and over again.

In heaven, and that very soon,  Jesus would speak to the hit and run driver who ended Adigun’s life “You killed me” and the man would be shocked. I have never met you in person Lord, I didn’t kill you. Jesus would also accuse those who were wicked to Adigun “You could not feed me and you also took away the food given to me by others” They also would say “Lord, when did we do that?” When you did it to Adigun, you did it to me would be the Lord’s answer.

We have ample chance of redeeming the time as the patience of the Lord means salvation. The poor and the less priviledged are always around us. We have orphanages, old people’s homes, sick bays, lepers colonies, refugee camps all around. The casualty wards in hospitals are bulging with people who need our helps in cash and kind, material and spiritual. Right under your nose, where you work, in your neighbourhood, in your church, there is a person you can help. Why do you stay idle?

What fuelled Iya Adigun’s love for her son even in this wicked world where the sanctity of life is no longer respected?