58 revolutions around the sun

It’s a miracle baby

As times come and go, I realise I am a living miracle from the moment I took my first breath, with all the goodness and favour that has greeted me every waking day that has become the story of my life.

I am of all men greatly blessed, highly favoured, and extremely fortunate. Unexpectedly born at 26 and a half weeks at a time when it could have been decided I could not survive, even as the hospital in which I was born did not have the means to sustain me. I was taken to a hospital in another city about 25 miles away where I received the best care medicine could offer at the time.

An outlier to the convention

As a man of faith, every day whether acknowledged or not has had the hand of God sheltering and keeping me, through literally impossible situations, I can hardly count the innumerable blessings.

At another time, I was not meant to see my 44^th birthday, the prognosis gave me 5 weeks when the medical team in charge of my care made a diagnosis giving me the facts of the options before me. The good news depended on me tolerating the gruelling and debilitating chemotherapy for which I would be rewarded with more time.

Even medicine would prove me an outlier and the condition I had from studies at that time suggested the people did not last a decade. There were times I felt like a clock was ticking, it probably is the reason I hate the sound of ticking clocks. What was I learning from Captain James Hook in Peter Pan?

Living to live and thrive

Then, how have I measured myself against others thinking I will be limited by the experience of others when I was to live the life I am given to live and prosper. It is easy to live as if one were dying, yet there is a better story to live as one living and thriving regardless of situation or circumstance.

And here we are today, 58 revolutions around the sun, nothing I could have predicted or expected, it is all the grace of God, the prayers of many, the unstinting support of some, and the amazing love of Brian who plants a smile and grin that never wanes on my face.

I am full of gratitude to see this day and I believe there are many more amazing celebrations to come. In the stories I will write I cannot even begin to imagine the form or frame of words to narrate the miracles that astound as each day passes into milestones for which the praises to God will fill the mouths of many who love goodness, happiness, success, and joy.

This is my happy birthday.

Thought Picnic: I keep keeping on

Where we are and have been

Sometimes, I have to ask myself, what the image of success is in my own life and when looking around me. In the things I have done before, I have been quite successful, so the concept is not an alien one, there are so many references to suggest that favour and good fortune have been present in many areas of personal endeavour.

Then I think of times when it appears things are not essentially working in my favour and my attitude towards such situations. Generally, my outlook is positive, and the way I present is usually upbeat, yet all appearances could sometimes mask inner turmoil, the struggle to assert oneself, along with an apparent failing in confidence.

The mission is to believe always

At this point, I need to believe in myself and recognise those who believe in me, these things do happen and on speaking to one of my senior managers recently, he assured me that it happens to the best of us, we just need to keep believing in ourselves, despite the unfavourable, unfortunate, or frustrating prevailing circumstances.

To press a point about certain ideas I have, the ghost of a mentor was resurrected for me to reconsider certain aims, it just so happened that I also had a contrary retort from the same mentor when I was at crossroads, some 12 years ago. Nothing is entirely sacred or sacrosanct despite the respect accorded our mutual mentor.

I keep keeping on

Indeed, I want it all to go away, even a crazy thought or two has tried to reach into my mind that I have refused to entertain. I try not to dwell on aspects where it seems I have failed myself, lost my discipline and yield to distractions that convey me to harmful conduct. I do wonder if I have prayed hard enough or done everything I need to do, many of those things I probably do not at all want to do if I had any other option.

I count the many blessings that keep me telling amazing stories and the reality that there are phases in life, some long and others short, some with obvious cause and others not quite so obvious, altogether impactful in forming character, resilience, purpose, and direction. I may be down, but I will never be out until there is no breath, heartbeat, or hope to keep me going. That is a promise here and from on high.

There are things to do and places to go! [Bible Gateway - Romans 8:14 (The Message)]

Thought Picnic: For the wind that blows

Amongst uncertainty

The legendary Bob Dylan song asks, “How many roads must a man walk down, Before you call him a man?” I guess that is a question that comes to mind at certain times, even so, uncertain times of difficulty and adversity.

Then I think of the many roads I have walked down for which my manliness has been met with doubt, many that have left me wondering about how each day comes and goes with the battle against helplessness, abandonment, and incapacity, whilst striving to exhibit agency and autonomy.

There is a pressing of issues that demand attention towards which for now there is little resource to meet, yet one is persuaded that the momentary unpleasantness will give way to the better of life and expectation.

In the wind

Hardships that visit to lay markers down in the stories we get to tell, each time we pray we are not exhausted by prevailing circumstances much as we are comforted by the encouragement and support of those who hold us dear.

It belies one’s fragility that the outward appearances of stoicism are just that, there is much strength and there is weakness, good fortune, favour, and blessing are the buoys of hope that carry us along that we do not sink into despair or despondency. Sometimes, you wish for just a miracle and then even the normal course of events are miracles in and of themselves.

The answer is blowing in the wind, I guess to feel that realisation, you need to be out where the wind is blowing and not have your hat blown off.

Thought Picnic: In triumph beyond the memories

An ordeal called life

I called the matriarch for a chin wag just after work and what a conversation we did have all down memory lane into streets and avenues I never knew existed. Paths and tunnels couched in stories that have probably never been told to anyone else, the wealth of experience in a world where the loved have the darkest hearts known to man.

The things I learnt were hair-raising leaving me tingling with sensation that the saints lain under tombstones long ago were anything but, the evil they perpetrated lives in the tales that get told in remembrance of them.

At a point, I thought, should all these reminisces be jotted down and then told for if not one for non-fiction, it exuded the elements of fictional thrillers, but for the grace of God, here we stand, and they are long gone.

Grace and enduring peace

Then you wonder about the inability of people to capture the zeitgeist, the things said in jest that have become the definition of people in whom we once laid trust. They have forgotten taking umbrage at strained relationships they in their careless talk forsook.

Yet, in not any one of them have we been left blinded or in their shadow, for in the deliverance of great favour and fortune with the goodness of people as angels we have risen. We would tell stories of amazing triumph that leaves the slights way behind in the completely forgotten, for we have been blessed and that prayer has been a living stream from the mouth of the matriarch.

For all her faults even amongst those who have sought to besmirch and assail her, she remains faultless, navigating the strangeness of this world with premonition and insight, guided by the divine through the many valleys of the shadow of death to new still waters beside green pastures, her soul restored, her peace enduring. I smile thinking, I do love my mum.

Thought Picnic: Hands of favour

Bless my soul

The favours I have obtained I can only be so grateful for, from those who open their hands to those offered their time, it is like a time of blessing for which I must be very thankful.

For the end of the last day at my accommodation did start in darkness, darkness for work was being done on the pylons. In fact, that was twice experience for the morning had a cut-out too when a new generator was being installed.

There wasn’t much to do in the dark than to snuggle under the duvet until the lights returned just about an hour later.

Peaceful the night was as ensconced in the room one did nothing else but for the pill time. Sleep was restful for the day to come which started as early as just after six.

No small town

As I prepared, a message came offering a lift to work; not one I could refuse and one I gladly accepted as we met at the tail end of my breakfast.

Traffic in this small town in the morning is close on horrendous whilst parking at the grounds of the stately home that represents the campus of offices was almost fraught, a sea of cars as far as the eye could see in the almost 15 car parks littering the place – it was hardly 5 minutes past 9.

Getting a scope

We met with our manager and then made for our new desks where we covered a number of agenda issues we would be discussing on a telephone conference with the antipodeans of Africa on Thursday.

The much it appears we have to do is obscured by the lack of clarity as to who, what and how the people we would service will be affected. So many bridges we would have to cross but we cannot cross those bridges until we reach those rivers.

Yet, as introductions go, we are getting the feel of how far technology would go but the bigger issue would be with people, process, procedure and politics.

The important thing is to know what to engage and when to escalate, striking a balance of compromise and coercion. In my view, this would be quite interesting and great fun.

Useful conversation

Over cups of Starbucks lattes we talked and considered, assumed and then debunked those assumptions, we should be weary of crystal balling the issues when we should ask direct questions and only be satisfied with clear answers.

My new place, smaller than the last was a comforting welcome and then the offer to take me to the shops to get things I might need, very generous and affable, you then realise that travel is the source of knowledge to share in making really wonderful conversation.

Pleasant, it was and yet, this is only the second day. With thanks I look forward to the next.

The Gift

I have a gift

It dawns on me daily as I write that I have a gift, a great gift like talent put to my care, to tend, to nurture, to grow, to use, to do many things to the glory of my creator.

They call it cognitive dissonance, the idea that we believe what we cannot logically explain, inexplicable but wondrous. Yet all around us nature breathes miracles of order and disorder, my perspective not dimmed that as order prevails over disorder, each day is a blessing to be thankful for.

Unforced expression

I know the power of originality, the spontaneity of inspiration, the presence of flow that comes with each moment I set my fingers to my keyboard with a thought seeded in my mind and growing on my screen as if possessed of something beyond conscious arrangement.

For many a time, I have started with something and ended with something else, the direction like a boat on the water, resting on the rocking of the waves even though a rudder ensures we reach the place, the place called a destination.

The gift comes in the first draft, a rough diamond of a gem, if that draft is lost to the ravages, imperfections or careless use of technology, I am left with signs that a gift has been used but I can never reproduce that original stream of inspiration. My memory only recollects what it believes it has seen rather than what my brain has first processed, it remains a wonder when I read back to myself what I have done.

The talent

Yes, the gift shows up in many of the things I have written, that is because of use, it is not because it has been perfected but because there is a realisation that ability exists. God-given ability.

Then I confessed to a niece as I have confessed to a friend and maybe too many others in one way or the other about this gift. For it is not one that comes for the reason of money, of fame or of glory, for it brings something greater, it brings honour. I have learnt to be grateful for the absence of popular recognition but the abundance of honour from those who know and know it well.

“I am coming to the realisation that somehow I have been blessed with a gift, yet, like the one talent given to that servant, it has been buried for the fear that I might not use as well as I am supposed to.”

Such great honour

Each time I recognise the blessing of the gift I have, I feel like the servant who was given just one talent according to his ability.

I know I am no accomplished author, no distinguished writer, no recognised commentator, I would win no prizes, I would make no lists, but the gift has enduring quality. Buried as it seems to be, the talent has not increased like it increases for many whose talent feeds them, but its value is undiminished.

One talent, used for over 10 years, giving words to deep things of experienced life from the ordinary to the deep, from the joy to the pain, and now, I come into 2014 full of gratitude as I unearth this one talent and pledge not to be fearful and ungrateful, but to find ways to use it better and increase it.

To give voice to the voiceless, to give hope to the hopeless, to encourage those facing defeat, disease, despair, disgrace, debt, denigration, denudement and much else, for I know by experience and observation many of these things have tried to take cornerstones in my life, but have been smashed to smithereens.

As I began writing this, I was listening Steven Furtick of Elevation Church on the New Year’s Eve party and he said, “Count your battles* and consider them blessings.” @stevenfurtick

*The battles that didn't beat you

*The beatings that didn't break you.

This is God

This is beyond counting our blessings, and yes I have had battles, prominent amongst them is my battle with cancer in 2009. I have had many other battles and beyond measure I am blessed above anything I have ever deserved to wake up each morning to new life, to new hope, to new things and new inspiration.

That is grace, that is favour, that is mercy, that is kindness, that is love, and that is God.

Take it or leave it, believe it or not, because Albert Einstein is considered one of the greatest minds that ever lived, soon after he died, his brain was removed by Thomas Stoltz Harvey for analysis. Then, he did not think there was much special about the brain until recent science suggested differently. [NPR]

In the knowledge of 1955 pathology, that gray matter was no different from that which we all have except for what the man who lived in the body that had the brain did with it.

Know your gift

And so, as we realise the gifts bestowed on us, let us know to use them better for application, for usefulness, for increase, for good, for honour, for goodness, for humanity and for the glory of God, whether you believe or not.

The talent you have is useless when there is no life in the body that needs to utilise and express the wonder of the unique and amazing gift you have. Each of us is unique, as you can read from the stories shared on my #YourBlogOnMyBlog Series, 24 to date with 11 stories to go to commemorate my Decade of Blogging.

Blog - To Celebrate My Decade of Blogging

Use your gift

This gift opens doors, as I was made to realise after discussing how I got 35 people out of 44 confirmed interactions to submit blogs from the 9^th of December to Christmas Day inclusive.

This without as much as a strict deadline but through sheer persuasion with the greatest latitude given them to write anything that takes their fancy. I am blessed, and I am thankful, full of gratitude the gift has not given me enough words to express yet.

You have a story, you have a gift, you are talented, let it shine. That is my resolution for 2014, to be as expressive as I can ever be of this amazing gift and bring increase to the talent placed in my care. My responsibility can no more be left to others to wonder why it is being wasted or being left unused. Think on this.

Happy New Year, Happy 2014.

Thought Picnic: Winning the battle of ifs

Unrefined

The thoughts in this blog are still unravelling, the words working into a framework and yet without a clear indication of what the structure will be. One of those ones.

Friends

I was speaking to a friend of 27 years standing yesterday [The use of 'standing' is more Nigerian-English parlance for stress and emphasis in speech.], and I mean a friend, one who just about knows enough of my deep secrets to keep them safe regardless of what happens to us or between us.

Yes, I have that kind of friendship and only three people stand in the place, the stature, the element and the knowledge of what is the I of me. I cherish them for they are the winds beneath my feeble wings.

Struggles

As we conversed, I told him of the many things I have been doing to match up; interviews I have attended and stuttered in, stumbled through or flunked badly, seemed to reveal personal inadequacies of knowledge, depth, ability or experience, many of which I was struggling to fix or patch up with limited success – I’ve been running out.

Out of steam, out of ideas and still juggling balls of doubts and fears in the swirling winds of worry and anxiety, this all requires an intervention.

The intervention came in the words of my friend, he reminded me that there is no job I have ever embarked on, no matter how challenging that I have not performed well in – that is true.

Chance

There are jobs where at interview I have been promoted to a higher role for the depth of knowledge or wealth of experience I had, but not in that particular activity or use of certain sets of tools in the job specification, I found favour and they were favourable towards me.

Whilst ability is important, my friend indicated that I may not or will not get through on ability alone and what matters might come down to likeability, favourability, maybe personality or amiableness.

Chance is opportunity and timing meeting at the point of access and before me is an open door where many before have been closed.

Faith

I remember my toughest battles and realise that I have thrived the most when I have let go. Buoyed on my faith and my beliefs, the times when I was weakest facing death are when I have accepted where I am to gain strength to move on and live.

Therefore, my friend was saying to my hearing words I have spoken to my many friends in their own difficult times, a healthy form of plagiarism, considering my recent blogs. For the biggest battle is in the mind and then in the mind-set – shift those mind-sets and things begin to shift, the sense of being overwhelmed lifts for you to latch onto the possibility of overcoming.

I must live full of gratitude and thankfulness for the many things that have become my story.

If

I was caught in a battle of personal ifs making me inadequate for challenges where I should use the divine knows to take me beyond my learnt and limiting limitations.

“If I could, I would, BUT I am, I can, I do, I will, I excel.” The 'BUT' in that quote is my struggle; it is the bridge most difficult to cross.

Whereas, that same bridge is sure, is strong and is built to withstand all influences, the first step and the next step, one after the other to the other side – I can, I have to regain the belief I can and go to do.

Favour

Favour and mercy – Finding approval of those who have the power to decide might partly result from your ability, but it is rarely as objective as that. The liking people might have towards you is the difference between being presentable, which is what you can do, and being acceptable which is their prerogative.

For those who believe, the variable that is not in your power to control is the one that either finds you helpless or the one where your prayer is to find favour and in finding favour you gain entry.

Trust

Know to commit, know to pray, and know to trust, for the one that trusts will find the wind that lifts beyond fears, doubts and anxieties to excel in courageous exploits.

I am a man of faith, I trust in God, where I have been weakest and unable to produce but realised that He is my rock, the fall is never to the ground to shatter into smithereens but into loving arms of assurance – He has got my back and this journey; I will come through with a better story. That is the power of hope above despair.

Thank you, God. “Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do they will, O God).” Hebrews 10:7

There is a destiny to fulfil written to a script of assurances and promises, never inadequacies; that understanding is what I must gain and appreciate better. I am loved; I should begin to love myself more.

Thought Picnic: God's Grand Plan of Fixing my Slashed Tyre

The plans I made

Despite all I have seen, if I had to be told I live a wonderful life and not realise it myself, I would have failed to count the many blessings, small and large that waylay me at every turn and bring me such happiness, fun, joy and encouragement.

I planned to attend prayer meeting at church this evening and had arranged to meet up with a friend two stations further on to journey together to church.

Usually, I cut it fine with just enough time to ride my bicycle to the station, lock it up and catch the train, but I also needed to get tickets so I made much more allowances for that and just some time.

The plans overturned

I got ready, unchained my bicycle and one look at the front tyre showed that someone had found the bizarrely twisted pleasure to dig in the tyre and slashed the inner tube – that this should happen in front of my house was just cutting, I had never in my 12 years of living in the Netherlands and many times of securing my bicycle outside had my tyres slashed and it is only in my first year that I ever and only once had my bicycle stolen.

I reported the event on Twitter, got sympathy and I never thought it could ever have been a hate crime; my street does have quite an international feel to it.

New plans working fine

Putting my cane together, I walked up to the bus stop informing my friend that I might not catch the pre-arranged train, but I was just in time for the bus, to get my ticket and catch the train. The clouds were looming ready to belch their store of rain and I did not think I was that prepared but my trusty umbrella was in my bag. We met up and travelled to church, my umbrella saving us from getting drenched to the skin.

We were on time to help set up the meeting room and the meeting started as I thought about how to get the bicycle to the repair shop just about 2 kilometres away and how long it would take to repair the bicycle before I could use it again – all sorts of permutations of solutions tried to take away my concentration but I persevered in prayer all the same. The prayer sessions were exciting, different and really edifying before we had a break.

My friend returned home and then I asked another friend residing in my city if I could have a lift back home. That was arranged when I saw that my neighbour arrive for the leadership and volunteers training session.

Altering the plan

After the session, I asked if I could have a ride back home and he obliged, I cancelled the other arrangement, we got in the car where I told him the tale of my slashed bicycle tyre.

He just about encouraged me enough to get my hands dirty after he shared with me how he learnt to be a handyman having known nothing about maintaining and repairing motorbikes just two years before.

I was not sure but I was willing to try, I really did not have to wheel my bicycle to the repair shop or remove the wheel and hump that by bus to the repair shop, I just needed to find out what size of tube I needed, get that from the shop, remove the old tube, take out the wheel, put in the new tube in the tyre, let in some air to set it on the wheel, then put the tyre back on, fix the wheel and then pump the tyre to the right pressure.

The part about letting some air into the tube was quite useful information borne from experience; I was somewhat ready to try something very different.

An unexpected plan

When we got home, I showed him my bicycle as he concluded it was a slashing rather than a mere puncture. He read the measurements for the tyre and then it suddenly occurred to him that he might have a spare tube in his car.

Apparently, a few weeks before, he bought two different sizes of inner tube for his bicycle being unsure of which size will fit and on fitting the right one he had lost the receipt he needed to return the other tube for a refund.

That tube just happened to be the right size for my tyre as I planned that I would fit it on the morrow only wondering about where I might have put my bicycle pump. The lights were down and the dark of the night had come as he offered that we do it there and then.

So I wheeled the bicycle into his backyard and he set up the lights, got out his tool box and disconnecting the brakes, he got out the old tube, loosened the wheel and put in the new tube, applied manly grease to the nuts and threading and basically put my bicycle back together again.

You cannot make up such as story if you wanted to, Buddy who might not have known for sure why he obtained two tubes and that he will have a passenger in his car on his ride back home, but he was the answer to the incongruous, the improbable and literally uncanny – maybe God does move in mysterious ways His wonders to perform, but at the end, it all came together in a grand plan none of us could have contrived.

Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?

I know that I was distraught, probably annoyed and at a time confused as to why anyone would find any pleasure in the wilful destruction of another man’s property but I was never bitter. There was going to be a solution eventually but it never went according to my plan and it was solved long before the day was over without me having to worry much and spend anything apart from the wheeling of the bicycle to the backyard and lifting the wheel ignorantly off the frame before checking where the washers were.

My friend, Buddy was a God-send beyond anything I could have imagined and I was grinning from ear-to-ear after it was all done with care, consideration, charity and kindness in an expression of unconditional love. "Buddy, you've been a great buddy," I said. Yes, that is his wonderful name lived out to reality.

In the last two months, goodness, mercy, kindness, favour and goodwill has chased me down and overtaken me so many times, as a man of faith, I can only say God has my back and has my concerns to mind – it is just amazing that God had already set in motion the plan to fix my slashed tyres long before it happened and it is a wonder how many times we have missed latching onto the good things He has planned for us long before we reached the difficult paths, situations and circumstances we come up against in our daily lives. 

Thought Picnic: It's Goodbye to Oostelijke Handelskade 1121

Those many losses

I cannot say which loss has affected me the most; the loss of my job, the loss of my health, or the loss of my home, each compounding the other in order and yet, I am still standing.

It has not been easy at all, and today, exactly 10 and a half years after I took the keys to my apartment, I handed the keys not to the agent but directly to the young couple who have now come into possession of it, just like the couple who sold the place to me did in 2001.

I took them on a tour, showed them a few essential things, and gave some advice about the upkeep, the need for good neighbourliness, and something about what made my home a wonderful place to live in all those years.

Not a boring moment

Of all the losses I have suffered, my health took the greatest battering and it is the one that has now made a most remarkable and miraculous recovery.

For everything else, where there is life and good health, there is hope and with hope, you can find a new job and maybe get to own a home again.

If anything, when I look back over the 46 years of my life, there has never been a boring moment, it has been an amazing unfolding drama of living, for richer and for poorer, in little and in plenty, in sickness and in health, in blessing and in misfortune, in miracles and in catastrophe [It is like life’s marriage vows of a single man] but one thing remains – I have had God on my side, good in my life and goodness from so many people that I have very little time to grumble when it is positively occupied with being thankful.

My safety and thankfulness

As I closed the door to my apartment yesterday on the last full day of my living there, I thanked God for giving me such a beautiful place, everyone who visited always commented about the view which looked unto two harbours from the seventh floor – it was a refuge, a fortress, a castle with the formidable crenellations, I felt really safe there when it seemed the whole world was against me.

I remember a few years ago when the side-effects of a particular medication created feelings of acute claustrophobia that every room seemed too small, as I stepped into my living room, I meditated on Jesus being all the space I needed knowing that if I stepped out of my home I may never return and though my consultant could not allude to why the side-effects took hold, soon I was fine and safe where I always was.

To recover with interest

As the search for a new place to call my own commences, I have through the grace of wonderful people found a place for my independence from where I hope to recuperate, rejuvenate, reaffirm and recover the many things I have lost with interest.

I had to write this because it was goodbye to my wonderful home on Oostelijke Handelskade in Amsterdam.

I am still standing and I intend to win.

Thought Picnic: Not Crying MayDay on my Potential

Collecting in potential

There was one meeting last week, he had come to collect, they had managed the pound, shillings and pence in the thousand-weight for years and now wondered why things were not coming in for months – well, things were not coming in.

It could have been a meeting of great trepidation but the most important thing was just to tell in it as it is and have faith that they will believe, believe in I, believe in a future of hopes and expectations maybe with the past serving as a pointer to the future.

Indeed, we all have potential, but what is potential if no one will wait and someone would not assent to allowing for the potential to be realised – we all want to square and squaring up is a function of time and good fortune, blessings and miracles or even something others might call luck.

If I may by May

It sounds like a sob story but it is an everyday reality of coming back from the brink to a place where one can hold ones head up high being no prisoner, being no debtor, being no slave – being a being, a somebody with something of substance and great value.

He heard, he sighed, maybe that obvious stoicism in the present vulnerability spoke to him in ways that one could never imagine – we will look to May, one may work to May, by May things may be as they may in a much better state than now – we have found someone who believes in potential, seize the opportunity and begin to thrive.

You may lose on travel

The whole night was spent doing the numbers, figures never scrutinised before appeared in the sheet and the once blurred image shadowed by the mist of nonchalance suddenly revealed truths one once never bothered to review.

It those days, things just happened because the resources were always there to help them happened with the need to get involved – sometimes that lack of attention came at a costly price but that never made one bat an eyelid – now one peered and looked and observed and understood and learnt and knew.

The weather was inclement as the chipcard system robbed one twice in broad daylight without the hope of restitution, one would be told the system is foolproof; did I just see the system start up with the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system? I did, the most modern ticketing system is running like one was sending a rocket to the moon on coal – one sometimes humours the thief.

May is the time

Another meeting to attend planned from the week before, a continual put-off that needed to be put-on and gotten with. No stony faces but smiles, no condemnation but encourage but May is the word, may I and only might I till May have reprieve.

They saw some potential and were willing to wait it out till we may at May decide if one may by all means be able from May – one has potential, but it all begins to mean something more when there are others to believe with you.

And so in spite of all of the issues and circumstances, the words of the blog come back to those who could – Do you have a job for me?