By Florish Obanor
Blessing, a Nigerian, and Jake, an American, opened up about their extraordinary journey to matrimony, defying cultural expectations and family resistance.
In an interview on Femi Lazarus’s YouTube program, Stories, on Sunday, the couple shared how they got married in Nigeria without any family members present, navigating obstacles with unwavering faith.Blessing’s childhood was full of trauma, and she lived under the strict and exacting control of her stepmother.
She described her upbringing as a time of fear and oppression.”I grew up in a very tough environment,” she says.
“My dad doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t say, ‘How are you?’ When he comes home from work, we’d pretend to be asleep because just being there could get you in trouble.”
Blessing recounted one particularly traumatic incident when, at age 5, she was beaten so severely by her stepmother that she was left unconscious for three days.
“She punched me and slammed my head against the wall… When I woke up I was in the hospital on oxygen,” she recalls.
The experience left an indelible mark on his forehead, which serves as a constant reminder of his difficult past. Jake, who was a missionary at the time, met Blessing through a Christian discipleship program.
Though he had never been attracted to black women before, he immediately felt a strong connection.
“The first time I saw my wife on Instagram, I knew it was my wife,” he said, adding that he had never messaged a woman online before.Their relationship developed over five months of long-distance communication, primarily via phone and video chat, during which they discussed their faith and life experiences.
When the couple announced their plans to marry, they faced significant opposition from Blessing’s families, Relative expressed doubts and fears on Jake’s intentions, and some spread rumors.
“My mother began to tell my married people to the people who combined the organs Harvester who came to Nigeria to recover my body,” he said. She remembered her brother’s warnings not to allow Jake to go to Nigeria for fear he would be kidnapped.
“There was so much resistance from different sides and I felt like I was being attacked,” she said..Blessing’s health started to suffer due to the escalating situation, resulting in frequent illnesses.
Jake faced the difficulty of following traditional Nigerian customs, which ultimately led them to opt out of a traditional ceremony.
“We felt that the Lord was guiding us not to have a traditional wedding,” Blessing said, mentioning that Jake was reluctant to participate in customs that he didn’t feel were directed by God.Ultimately, they chose to have an intimate church ceremony with less than 20 guests and decided to skip the reception.
“We organized our wedding without meeting… after two weeks when he arrived in Nigeria, we tied the knot.”
She elaborated, “We only had a civil and religious ceremony. It felt like the Lord was advising us not to have a traditional wedding.”
“I felt that this was a sign from God,” she said, remembering how this decision coincided with a divine message she had received about keeping things uncomplicated.
