Another Father's Day, my dad and my kids' dad

Another Father's Day. I celebrate my dad and my husband.

7 Things I love about my dad. 

1. Very caring. He looks for us and loves to connect with us. We are his world.
2. Very jovial. Dad is 92 years old and he cracks me up (makes me laugh) every single time I speak to him.
3. Lover of God. He brought us up to follow and serve Jesus Christ. 
4. Big lover of education and fame. One of the great legacies he gave us is education.
5. Lover of people. Dad loves to make friends. He's able to engage with all sorts of people, no matter their tribe and tongue 
6. Very intelligent and an orator. Needless to say he's a great historian-he's 92 years old (lol)
7. Great singer and lover of music. Inside out artistic. I don't know any of us who doesn't have this trait too. (Even his grandchildren and great grandchildren) 

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7 things I love about my husband as a father to our children 
1. The most loving dad ever, right from their birth.
2. The most caring. I love how he cares for our children. He was and he is still involved with their everyday life, home, sports, recreation, studies, church, etc. 
3. The most accommodating. He accommodates their faults and he's always gracious to them.
4. The most encouraging. He encourages our children through their struggles and life challenges.
5. The funniest. He always finds time to crack jokes with them, tease them, laugh, go out with them, even though he's capable of putting them in their places whenever necessary. 
6. The most hard working dad, by far the strongest, the humblest and most helpful in our home.
7. God-fearing, Jesus lover, fun-loving and nominee for passionate dad award 2015  :)
Ich liebe Euch :) Je vous aime, mon mari, mon père.... love uuuuuu!!!

Dad and a sales' lady

Today as I got chatting with dad, I had the laugh of my life! 

Dad had just got back from buying groceries to replenish the stock at home. Never mind that dad is 91 years (in another month). 

So he got talking about going to a shop and almost bought a bag of rice when he realized it was expired. What's funny is that the sales' lady said to him "the rice is not expired' to which dad pointed to the writing on the bag of rice, with the expiry date clearly spelt out. The lady went on: "papa, it's the bag that's expired and not the rice in it". Hello!!!!

Dad expressed his shock at the sales' lady. " She taught she'd get away cheating an old man. "I told her straight my old age doesn't mean I'm stupid" dad said 

Indeed. Old age doesn't mean stupidity. Haha!! Hilarious!!

Dad is 90

Today, dad turns 90!
Thank you Lord for the gift of 90 years
Thank you Lord for his good health,
Thank you Lord for the people he raised with his wife, our mom.
Thank you for the heritage of faith he received and passed on to us.

Lord, We thank you for dad's life, his legacy, his love.

Bless Dad tonight. Bless Mom, Bless his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Fill him with the Holy Spirit and flood him with Your peace. And keep him ever close to You. Smile on him, be gracious to him and show him more favor.

Every day is a gift from God, no matter how old we are. As B. Graham stated. “I have discovered that just because we grow weaker physically as we age, doesn't mean that we must grow weaker spiritually. In fact, we ought to be growing stronger spiritually, because our eyes ought to be on eternity and Heaven – on the things that really matter.”
Saying like this has become one of dad's favourite utterances these days.

You are very special dad and surely honour is due for all the great experiences that life has given you.
You've been a blessing to us all and to today we celebrate you!

Congratulations!!!
Your life has inspired so many and your inner strength and faith resonate in everything that you do.

May every minute of your Birthday be filled with everlasting joy and pleasure. We wish you a healthy and peaceful life.

Warm wishes on your 90th Birthday. May your birthday bring much happiness and love you deserve on this day. HAPPY 90th BIRTHDAY DAD!

From Down Under 2013

Dad's only one regret

It has been awhile friends!
This is very slack of me but i've had many other things of life to attend to.

Every phone call to dad has been the same. I ended up laughing and laughing and wished i'd written every of our conversations down. Oh well! One day! Hopefully!!

Yes, let me get to what brought me here today!

We got talking and dad, these days, is for ever grateful to God for being alive still.
By the way, dad turns 90 in couple of months and that's so exciting!!!

So dad said to me. You know, Yinka, "long life is a gift". "God gave different types of gifts to people", he continued. "And I think my own gift is long life".

So i asked him why he thinks God's gift to him is long life. He replied " You know, i really don't deserve to live this long, taken into consideration the fact that I've done a lot of bad things." "I think long life has to be a gift of God to me,  not that I deserve it." Dad said.
He went on and mentioned that there were many good people who one would think should still be alive but are gone.

One statement which really touched me was when dad said "if there was any regret i have in life is that i didn't give my life to Christ earlier enough". He went on: "the moment i gave my life over to Christ my whole life circumstances started to change. And I believe, he meant for the better.

Although this is not one of dad's jokes, I'm so grateful to God that dad shared it with me.
He further explained how he was just playing church but never really lived for God. Hmm..
I think i'd leave that for another time.

Thanks for reading this blog.
Hopefully i will be back here soon.
Love n blessings!

Solar or no solar!

Talking to dad yesterday, as usual, we got talking about the weather. Dad wasn't very happy about the very hot weather condition and the fact that it had not rained for a while- And it's the raining season as well! Argh!

I got talking about how blessed Africa is with the sun and how they can easily take advantage of the sun to generate electricity, since there's abundance of it.

To my greatest surprise, dad had a totally different view on that. He was opposed to the idea of tapping light from the sun and thought what a dangerous thing that is!

Dad now reminded me of how God had promised never to destroy the earth with the rain anymore. He was sure the destruction of the earth is now definitely going to come through the heat from the sun instead! (rolling eyes)

For my dad the idea of generating power from the sun is asking for trouble. But how? Ask me! Lord help!

Dad further narrated how nobody has been able to get to the sun planet as they've done to some other planets. He said the only reason for this is because the planet sun is too hot and unapproachable.

He then concluded that it is a dangerous venture to continue to generate electricity from the sun.

Poor me! As tired as I was, I didn't have much time to talk. I guess i might have to give dad the endless list of the many things which use the heat generated from the sun. That will be another time.-

As far as I know the solar system is so easy and more convenient as there won't be any need to build dams and all the hassles involved in generating electricity nowadays.
Just saying...

“Videre est credere” Laugh it off with Dad!

I remember my dad was very good in languages back in the day.

He would conveniently converse in the major languages of Nigeria, namely Yoruba, Hausa and Ibo. He could also speak some other ‘not-so-major’ languages of the country. I remember he would make attempts to speak some Latin as well!

Funny, thinking of it now, I never really saw this trait as a gift he has although I used to be proud of him every time he spoke to people from all these languages’ areas.

Why am I referring to this now or what is the point of all this?

One late night, during my usual chat with dad on the phone in far away Nigeria, we got talking about the world cup.

By the way, my dad is a great soccer fan (football as it is called back home).

So we got talking and I asked how he’s finding the games so far.
“Oh the games”, dad said, “you know we have not had electricity for the past 3 days and so I have been ‘debarred’ from watching the games” he concluded.

“O what a shame” I said. Trying to encourage him I said, “I’m sure dad you’d still get the news of how the World Cup is going from other people somehow”.

To that, Dad did not sound very happy and guess what his reply was:

“What does it matter if I get reports about the games?, as the saying goes in Latin “Videre est credere”

“What!What!! Dad!!! What does that mean dad”? I didn’t quite get him at first. Then I burst out laughing!

Before I recovered from my laughter, dad added that “Videre est credere” is Latin which means “Seeing is believing”.

Apart from helping me to understand the pronunciation of the phrase, dad further explained the point he was making.

“I rather see the games myself. I could see all the nitty-gritty of it all, he added. That makes it more interesting and fun than having somebody tell me the story” explained dad.

I could not agree less!

And guess what else I discovered? I realized that my siblings and I took after dad as far as language skill is concerned.


That story is for another day. For now….“Videre est credere” hihihi!!!

This one is from my big bro'

Hear this... I once asked dad "what is his one great wish now that he's old"

He said "he wants to die before Mum"

You would have thought he's being nice and considerate to say that. But here is his reason:

He said "if mum goes first, who will cook for me since I do not eat any food prepared elsewhere.

Hehehe!!!