A ministry which is interested in nipping in the bud, any form of obstacle which could stand in the way of a healthy marriage. In this interview, Hettie lets you in on how she came about this inspiration and the challenges involved.
“I am into events management and a distributor with Forever Living Products. I love helping people stay alive and look good and healthy, so I help people slim down, add weight, maintain their weight. I love beauty a lot and I cherish also making people look very beautiful, so I do make-up for special ocassions.
“Great! My childhood experience was great. I grew up in a loving family. One that showed me what love truly is. My parents are so loving and my sisters and brothers, wonderful. Some days, my dad would choose to go to the market and cook for the family. On the days he prepared breakfast, his special way of calling us to the table is, ‘Opportunity calling', then you see everybody jump out from whereever. Yes, he showed us love.
“When we were getting married, we prayed our marriage would not go the same way a lot of other marriages have gone, I mean divorce. So, we developed this urge to help salvage dying marriages. At the early part, it's always like ‘if I don't marry this girl or this man, I would die.' And then they get married. The first year, praise God, everything is going well. Second year, the babies begin to come, attention begin to shift. Third year, Oh! daddy becomes very busy; he has to look for daily bread. He gets so busy trying to make ends meet and he forgets the home. And by the time its like the ends are meeting, the people he is trying to get the ends to meet for are no longer there for him. He has lost his family; he has lost his relationship with them. This is not right.”
Hettie says this is the devil's doing. “It's all the devil's device to get back at God. You know, God started with the marriage institution before any other, the church or any organisation. So, in the devil's attempt at getting back to God. And when marriage is destroyed, everything in the society will go bad. So, we had this in mind. We began to reach out to couples, mending hearts. And I tell you, a lot of hearts have been mended.”
The lady with the miracle touch with which to mend soured relationships recollects; “December 24, 2004, was when Couples Bliss first made its debut. Since then, we have been having it bi-monthly. But because now, so many couples enlist for participation much more than we can fund and we do not have sponsors, so we will go quarterly. This is to enable us meets up with all the activities we often line up.
We also publish the Couples Bliss magazine. Apart from this, as God enables us, we give grants to the needy. Sometimes, we give scholarships to young children when we observe that their parents are not doing so well. As much as in our strength also, we give grants to some women who have children whose husbands are not doing so well. To these category of people, we give grants to enable them start small businesses. There are the reasons we do not want to bite more than we can chew.”
No doubt, you can't wait to find out who is eligible for a blissful event such as Couple Bliss. “The programme is not a church thing. It is non-denomiational. It is an outreach for married couples and anybody who has attained the age of marriage. Whether they are Moslems, Christains or whatever, as long as they are married or mature men and women who are ripe for marriage and want to learn. There, we are very practical”.
For the sources of funds for this worthy and laudable venture, Hettie says; “It's been just my husband and me for now. For as much as God helps us, we both have been the sole sponsrs since the inception of this cause. You would agree with me that this adventure is such that should be supported. Like the nucleus in the human cell, the couple – the man and his wife -are like the cell of everything happening in life. This reationship is like the DNA in the body. If anything goes wrong with the DNA, there would be cancer. This cancer of broken down marriages is the cancer eating up the nation and the world at large. But a healty marriage breeds good children. Good children translate to healthy and peaceful society. So, we need sponsors.”
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