My 2019 in retrospect
Like it is a tradition for every christian family in Nigeria to attend a “watch night” service at a church and pray into the new year, I did and shouted “happy new year” after a candle light prayer session at Royalty Christian centre, Agege Lagos.
The year 2019 was declared as our year of “A new wave of Glory” with a scriptural confession from the book of Isaiah 62:2
I remember vividly that I took the confessions personal and personalizing it, I confessed daily that “Adesunmbo, the nations will see you victorious! World leaders will see your glory. You will be called by a brand new name, A name given by the LORD himself”.
With an unwavering assurance and faith in God’s word, I made this confessions several times daily.
True to the words, on the 23rd of January 2019, I was selected and appointed as one of the brand ambassador of Cherie Blair foundation UK.
This was a call to help and empower as many women in business as we can in Nigeria for venture capital and more.
As one of my goals for the new year, I made a decision to shut down one arm of my event business operation, restructure and focus on imparting knowledge into the women in my community and beyond.
Starting February 2019, we embarked on the #inspiringchangedeliberately movement and pioneered the first ever ENTREPRENEURSHIP ADVANCEMENT TRAINING FOR MARKET WOMEN in my community.
As instructed by God, we obeyed and never struggled with funding. Instead we enjoyed tremendous support from everyone (both male & women) all across the world.
This enabled us to touch lives and impart knowledge to the market women of 4 major markets in the community of Agege. Together, my team & I visited the markets, did a market survey to understand the major needs and took on the mandate to deliberately support and encourage them for business growth and it was a huge success.
We gathered the market women in their large numbers for a talk, distributed tools and cash grants to further empower them and also donated a railings to guard the path way leading to the Iyaloja of Agege’s office as it was an obvious danger zone at the time we visited.
We couldn’t have done this without the timely support of some key members, volunteers and sponsors, that comprises of private owners of businesses in Nigeria, indigenous SME’s, families and friends, who collaborated with us to equip these women with key needs for sustainability in their micro businesses. To this I would love to say a big ‘THANK YOU’ to you all.
In March 2019, we hosted the most inspiring and motivational 2 days eventful 6th edition of the Annual Inspiring Change Conference with a 10member panelist of highly successful female entrepreneurs in Nigeria. This conference which was put together in commemoration of the international women’s day and was tagged : INSPIRING NEW DIMENSION.
We also had a live transforming ‘Girl Talk’ session and keynote speech to further impart knowledge on our attendees. This was followed by an array of exhibition at the arena by several SME’s who deliberately positioned for visibility and of course made sales.
Mere seeing the pictures of their graduation and reading their feedback of how impactful the experience has been for them and their business, made the highlight of my year, yet this was just the beginning of 2019.
As a follow up to my goals for the year, I structured a plan, according to the leading of the Holy Spirit, to pour into as many tribe members as possible, who may need direction through out the year. We had several strategic meetings and mentorship sessions in my office and sometimes via WhatsApp chat. With tasks and visions to run with.
One of my biggest achievement was the ability to fulfill this purpose to the glory of God, and seeing each tribe member achieve their dreams within a short time. This gave me the courage to keep at it and not give up on little beginnings.
As I poured into men/women, God blessed and enriched the works of my hand too.
God blessed me beyond my own imagination as I obeyed His leading one after the other.
While fulfill this purpose, I equally struggled with not having a stable live in Nanny as somehow, they just wouldn’t stay as long as I expected and that frustrated my goals badly to the point where the stress took a toll on my health. I started to experience severe pains in my right hand.
Despite all this circumstances, I was able to take care of my family, balance my health and nurture my children in between. It was hard, as I couldn’t do without using my right hand. Either to cook, clean or nurture my Toodlers, the right hand just had to be used against doctors order.
I also managed to complete 2 new books (due for release this year 2020) and I was privilege to write the forward of several others.
In April 2019 My first born was decorated as one of the best 11 players at the 2019 Green spring / Kanu football camp.
By Mid year, my second son had graduated from primary school and gained admission into high school while my newest champion clocked a year few days later.
By Mid year, my second son had graduated from primary school and gained admission into high school while my newest champion clocked a year few days later.
By Mid year, I was already counting my blessing and naming them one by one. I was shocked at how much God had accomplished through me. It really pays to work hand in hand with the Holy Spirit and allow God lead the way,
While this heart of gratitude phase was going on, the devil also tried to amplify the fact that I didn’t execute any social event in one arm of my business and that almost made me feel as a failure. I had a conversation with my pastor and mentor who advised me never to count against what I didn’t achieve but to celebrate the achievement while setting plans to restructure the other arm with a time frame and a set goal. This was also followed by a phone conversation with one of my close sisters who is doing really well in the events planning industry. Her words assured me that I wasn’t a failure at all, as there’s always a time for every thing and a needed break where necessary isn’t a set back but a set up to show up stronger and better. (I’m sure these words will bless someone whom the devil is trying to mess up by amplifying their failures. Please don’t give in to the lie of the devil. Instead, Get up and keep trying. There is hope, if you don’t give up. You are not a failure, you are a work in progress).
I celebrated my mentors more and invested in quality relationships. I also made time to support other women and made appearances in places where I could learn and be a blessing too.
Evangelism was intensified and our church grew by over a 100% increase in few months. My mentees were starting to record brilliant accomplishments, backed up with amazing results right before my eyes. My heart leaped for joy every time. I was a Proud mentor to Trail Blazers and world builders.
I thought of more ways to connect with more people globally as I was so enthusiastic about being a blessing to many.
I honoured the request for interviews, visited businesses to train executives and staff and also gave out free knowledge on all my social media platforms to mention a few.
I launched my YouTube series tagged “inspiring change with Sunmbo” . We launched out with a live broadcast with options for instant questioning & answer session and later moved on to pre-recorded episodes of topics related to questions asked by our audience.
My YouTube channel grew in number and I believe in 2020 we will do better.
In August I had the biggest blow of the year. My eldest sister passed on in her sleep just a day after our mother’s 81st birthday. This news broke my heart. I was devastated. No one saw it coming. We spoke just the night before and she was neither sick nor ill. Her voice and plans for 2020 replayed in my head many times. I couldn’t accept the reality of her demise till I mistakenly sent her a WhatsApp message and realized there’s no one on the other end to reply.
That pain is not one I can pen down as I still feel it intensely with this few lines. My consolation regardless is in the fact that she lived a good life. A life that was totally surrendered to God and kingdom service and we will one day see in Glory at the feet of the master.
She was a nurturer by default and everyone who knew her closely or from a distance attested to her genuine love for God and people. No wonder her funeral was attended by several people from all works of life. The thousand seater auditorium of Promise land church Connecticut was filled to capacity and the parking lot as I was told, stretched into close and neighboring streets around the church, just to pay homage to a loved one on a Friday.
My sister was indeed a rare gem and planning her funeral was one of the most painful yet comforting event I planned and executed to perfection in 2019.
By September, I was preparing the children for a new school year resumption and ordering school supplies from America as it is cheaper and more durable ( in my own opinion and from experience) When i got to the payment point, it dawn on me that I had used my sisters cell phone number for (OTP)token verification but she’s now late and there’s no calling or urgent texting like I was used to. I cried, cried and couldn’t complete the transaction. Oh death, where is your sting! Oh Grave, where is your victory?. I couldn’t bring my self to calling her spouse or any of her children to turn on the cellphone for me. That would be sooo insensitive I concluded and just wiped my tears and my shopping cart. At least, I could use other means available to me here in Lagos.
For a while, I was just living by the day and asking God for healing for myself, my mum and the whole family. It wasn’t an easy one but God did heal us all with time.
Without any domestic help still, I started to feel exhausted at little task. I would snap and transfer unnecessary aggressions around. I just always wanted to remain in bed and do nothing other than listen to my sister’s voice note or just scroll through her messages.
I was sick literally but couldn’t point out what the illness was. A metallic taste in my mouth was the only explanation I could give my husband and just like that, it dawned on my that I hadn’t seen my period ooo. Jezzzzz, “let’s take a pregnancy test to be double sure” he suggested. “I will by morning” I replied with a smile although I wasn’t sure I was ready for the surprise.
The ember months rolled by really fast. I had booked quite a number of speaking engagements and couldn’t imagine cancelling on my hosts.
I successfully attended all and delivered the messages as given to me by God including our 3 days annual KINGDOM AUTHORITY conference where I spoke for 2days at 2 different sessions (where I got the strength from must be divine) and even flew to dubai for another speaking engagement where I was awarded and honored with an award of excellence by NHN along side other great women doing great things and turning their pain to purpose to the glory of God.
I also got to meet and bond with a lot of lovely people. I was privileged to be in company of women whom I respect and hold in high esteem. Women like, Rev Laurie, Aunty Adesua Onyenokwe, Dr Ezeka, Princess Bola Adelani, etc and so many others.
My birthday came right after and for me, it was like a day of my remuneration. A day of computation of the value of my dedication and worth of my commitment to family, friendship, relationship and humanity.
Was I disappointed at the outpouring of Love? No way!
My birthday celebration started from mid night. When my children and husband took turns to wish me a very happy birthday with their warmth and hugs. The members of the inspiring change tribe blew me away with a surprise saxophone lead praise session at my house around 7am in the morning.
They came bearing gifts, cakes and food. We danced, praised God together and sincerely I couldn’t hold back the tears.
God indeed crowned my year in plenty and blessed us with the fruit of the womb. He divinely compensates my family again with multiple additions and gave us beauty for ashes.
Not one of all the LORD's good promises to the family of David & Adesunmbo Adeoye failed; every one was fulfilled. 🙏🏽(Joshua 21:45)
I see BIGGER GOALS IN 2020, because God said to me “THERE IS MORE in our year of HIGHER LEVELS.
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE 💖 FROM MY FAMILY TO YOU AND YOURS.
You can subscribe to my YouTube channel here ⇩ https://www.youtube.com/user/SunmboAjaba
And follow me on my social media space with the links below
Twitter: https://twitter.com/
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/
Instagram:http://instagram.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/
Instagram:http://instagram.
Don't forget to stay closer as much as possible this year so we can take a flight into HIGHER LEVELS together.
THERE IS MORE ..... watch out!!!
