Becoming Faith

20th January, 2001 Faith Lazarus was born in silence.

Not the silence of fear, but the calm that follows a prayer answered.

She didn't cry like the others. Instead, her eyes opened wide, as though she came into the world already aware of its noise. The midwife paused, hand on her chest, before smiling and whispering, "This one go see far."

Her parents were young.

Her mother, Anne, fresh from youth service, still wore the scent of unfinished dreams. Her father, Lazarus, had just secured a small office job with a furniture company in town. They had little, but they had each other and now, they had Faith.

Her name was chosen quickly, but not carelessly.

"Faith," Lazarus had said that night as they sat beside the kerosene lamp.

"Because that's what brought her here... and what we'll need to raise her."

The Noise Before the Calm

Faith wasn't born quiet. In fact, she tested every neighbour's patience before she turned one.

She cried for no reason, flung her feeding bottles, chewed slippers, and once threw her father's Nokia into a bucket of water.

She disturbed.

But the strange thing was what calmed her.

Whenever someone mentioned "school," "book," or even "ABC," her energy shifted.

If Anne picked up a book, Faith would crawl closer. If a pencil dropped, she'd point at it like it was sacred.

She would watch TV cartoons not for the music, but the letters flying across the screen.

She didn't like lullabies.

She liked alphabets.

▪️ Eden's Cradle

At age three, she began her journey at Eden's Cradle Nursery School, a modest school tucked inside Ojimba Street, with cracked tiles, rusted swings, and walls painted in fading pastels. The school gate groaned when opened, and the blackboard was so worn that the chalk sometimes squeaked in protest.

Faith wore her first uniform like royalty the gown awkwardly long, her socks crisp, her school bag dangling below her waist.

On her first day, she held her mother's hand tightly until she saw the other children. Some cried. Some licked sweets. One was busy tearing a notebook.

The teacher knelt and asked,

"What's your name, baby?"

Faith didn't answer immediately. She scanned the room, then pressed her small hand against her chest and said softly,

"Faith."

It wasn't loud. But it was certain.

▪️ The Girl with the Slate

Those early years, her slate became a part of her body.

Other kids scratched theirs on the floor or used them to hit each other. Faith treated hers like a treasure.

Each morning, she'd clean it herself, trace letters slowly, and cry in frustration when a curve refused to form correctly.

Her pencil was always short, always sharp.

Her strokes were light, her spacing precise even before the teacher taught what spacing was.

By Nursery 1, she could write her name in small block letters.

By Nursery 2, she copied sentences from the blackboard without skipping words.

By Nursery 3, she could spell dictation words before the teacher finished saying them but she never bragged. She just nodded quietly, like someone ticking a list only she could see.

She didn't raise her hand for attention. Only when she was sure.

And when she wasn't sure, she stayed silent but her eyes stayed glued to the board, burning with quiet hunger.

One teacher whispered to another,

"This one dey carry herself like say she get result to submit."

▪️ Signs at Home

Her mother, Anne, noticed the signs first not in grand gestures, but in folded paper.

While washing Faith's uniform one Saturday, a note slipped from her pocket:

Numbers, neatly written. 1 to 20.

There had been no homework. Faith had written them for no reason but her own.

Another time, Anne caught her using white chalk to draw letters on the bare floor, copying shapes from an empty milk carton. She wasn't playing. She was practicing.

Her father, Lazarus, saw it during morning devotions.

Once, while reading Psalms aloud, he skipped a verse, and Faith looked up sharply, then quietly turned the Bible back to the right place.

He smiled, then asked,

"Na you be pastor now, eh?"

It wasn't just her brain. It was how she watched everything. How she asked questions.

One evening, while Anne was peeling yam, Faith asked,

"Mummy, why do some people not know how to read?"

Anne froze for a second not because she didn't have an answer, but because she never expected the question from a child still learning to tie her shoelaces.

At first, they brushed it off. Maybe she was just sharp.

But when her Nursery 3 teacher called Anne aside after midterm and said:

"This girl isn't just intelligent. She's different. Keep an eye on her."something shifted.

They began keeping her drawings. Marking dates on her schoolwork.

They stopped comparing her to anyone.

They started paying attention.

Not because they wanted to pressure her but because something told them that this little girl, with her slate and her stillness, was born for more.

Faith didn't know any of this.

She was just a little girl who loved the smell of books and the sound of questions.

But in small ways, she was already changing every room she entered.