Ruckey Peniel: Mending broken hearts, restoring troubled relationships

By Nnamdi Okosieme

I got introduced to her two years ago but it feels like I have known her for a lifetime.

The first time I spoke with her over the phone, the warmth in her voice was palpable. As we interacted, she let out that hearty laughter of hers that has become all too familiar today.

She had wanted help with getting publicity for one of the many humanitarian programmes she runs, and our mutual acquaintance and my boss, Godwin Dudu-Orumen Esq., the current Chairman of the Edo State Sports Commission (ESSC), had pointed her in my direction.

From that first phone conversation has developed a relationship of mutual respect. I had taken an instant liking to her not only because of the way our first conversation panned out but also because I had checked out her out and was impressed not only with her resume but by her passion for people; her love for humanity.

Ruckey Peniel is a special breed. Beautiful, bold and intelligent, she is a deeply religious lady who infuses in her person the godly virtues of love, kindness, openness with the professional ethical demands of discipline, commitment and dedication to duty.

It would be tempting to call her call her a relationship expert but that would be missing the essence of this special lady. It would be tantamount to diminishing her quality and misrepresenting her calling. Experts are by nature individuals versed in their field of endeavour with vast knowledge to command both attention and respect. They are however, impersonal beings dispensing knowledge for the ideas they canvass to an undifferentiated universal audience. Ruckey on the other hand, speaks directly to the inner person, connecting in a spiritual and emotional way with her audience.

Through her Hope Now TV, which can be accessed via her Facebook Page and her website, she daily dispenses valuable nuggets of wisdom to millions whose relationship, marital, filial or professional are mired in turbulence.

Her carefully considered and graciously delivered words cut through the layers of pain, hurt, rejection or dejection felt by her listeners to strike at the core of their personalities, birthing hope and engendering a new confidence to rekindle dying embers or propelling them to move on.

Many a relationship has been saved and marriages restored through her timeless interventions. In addition to her Hope Now TV outreach, Ruckey also organizes the annual Hope Now Conference in Switzerland where she has been based for many years, and in other parts of Europe. The conferences attract the cream of relationship gurus and ministers of God who walk their audiences through the complex terrain of relationships, equipping them with strategies to skillfully navigate the landmines that terminate relationships.

In 2020 and 2021 though, the Hope Now Conference has held virtually on account of the challenges posed by the rampaging Covid-19 pandemic. Still, this has not detracted from the quality or impact of the conference.

This year’s edition of the conference held on November 27 and was hosted by Ruckey and her husband, Pastor Dada Olajuwon, who has been a pillar of support to her through the years.

Aside her efforts at restoring relationships and helping victims of fractured relationships heal; Ruckey diligently lives out the instructive words of Ephesians 2:10.

That passage informs children of God that they “are created in Christ Jesus onto good works, which He ordained beforehand that we should walk in them” and has been one of the motive forces propelling Ruckey’s Vessels of Hope programme.

 

For years she has run that programme in some countries in Africa including her home country Nigeria. Through the Vessels of Hope outreach, she extends help to widows, the homeless and other indigent members of society providing food, medicine, clothing and funding as circumstances demand.

During the last physical outreach of the programme in Nigeria in 2019, she tirelessly coordinated the efforts of her team from her base in Switzerland to ensure that all went according to plan. Even though the Covid-19 pandemic made it impossible to organize physical outreaches in 2020 and this year, she nonetheless reached out to these often neglected members of society through a well organized scheme executed by her team her in Nigeria.

In addition to running her own programmes, Ruckey has for years been volunteering for programmes run by other individuals and organizations. She has had to set aside her law degrees and project management certificate to immerse herself fully in serving humanity.I once asked her what drives her, why she pushes herself so hard and she simply told me:

“No life is worth living if it doesn’t make people happy, if it doesn’t lift burdens and if doesn’t improve the quality of the environment where God’s children dwell. No one lives on this earth forever. We were created for a purpose and it is our duty to discover that purpose and fulfill it.

“The Yoruba people have a saying, which translated into English means that may I not live my life like a snake, which slithered through the rocks and left no footprints. I would like to go back to my maker when my journey on this earth is done, satisfied that I have done what he demanded of me”.