Diversity Awards

THE 2013 DIVERSITY EXPO & AWARDS WERE A RESOUNDING SUCCESS
Business, Community And Public Sector Leaders Celebrate The Best Of Diversity

Toronto, October 8th, 2013. The Diversity Expo & Awards, held on Friday, October 4th 2013, at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto, were a resounding success. With a focus on harmony and innovation through cross-cultural integration, the project’s mission of inspiring, transforming, empowering, showcasing, celebrating and integrating elements of our heritage for a more perfect mosaic was experienced first hand.

Meanwhile, the Diversity Awards gala, hosted by Deputy Chief Peter Sloly of Toronto Police Service, featured a red carpet reception, dinner, entertainment, inspiring recipients & high profile presenters.”It was an honour for me to host such a great event that recognizes the best of our diversity.” said Deputy Chief Sloly, who decked out in his executive ceremonial police tuxedo.

“It is amazing to see the event so well attended and wonderfully received. Social media went ablaze with tweets and the engaging of friends via Facebook and Instagram,” said Moses A. Mawa, President & CEO of Silvertrust Media, which executed the event.

The twelve recipients of the 2013 Diversity Awards included Brampton Mayor Susan Fennell, who got the Public Service Award. The Leadership Award went to Albert Lo, Chair of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. Dr. Mamdouh Shoukri, President & Vice Chancellor of York University, re­ceived the Education Award and Slava Levin, CEO of Ethnic Channels Group, got the Media Award. Kay Blair, Governor at Centennial College, Chair of William Osler Hospital and Executive Direc­tor of MicroSkills, received the Excellence Award; while Arun Srivastava, CEO of Paystation Inc., got the Enterprise Award.

The Rotary Club of Richmond Hill received the Transformation Award and Douglas Cardinal, the Aboriginal architect who designed the Canadian Museum of Civilization, re­ceived the Lifetime Achievement Award. Thomas Saras, President of the National Ethnic Press & Media Coun­cil of Canada, received the Media Award. Sir Karim Hakimi, President of Hakim Optical, received the In­novation Award. Denise Herrera Jackson, CEO of Scotiabank Caribbean Festival, got the Heritage Award, while Grammy and Juno winner Dan Hill, received the Entertainment Award.

To see more photos of the event visit: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.515395685219819.1073741828.364441853648537&type=3

Fascinating Nigeria

I’m pretty impressed with this video. I love that people get to see a positive and beautiful side of my country.

I know there are a lot of things that need fixing back home but its good that the spotlight, for once, is on the good and not the bad.

Baffling Grace

I learned today:

– Sin silences my praise; it places a muzzle over my mouth and prevents me from worship.

I realized that whenever I strayed from God, I would think about songs of praise but I wouldn’t be able to sing them out loud because of guilt and then I thought of how my attitude towards praise and worship could be a thermometer to help me gauge my relationship with God. If you recall what the first few weeks after giving your life to Christ was like,  you’d remember the joy you felt, the inability to keep your mouth shut cause you just had to express your positive feelings somehow, so you’d sing and then like a cycle, because you sang, you got closer to Him and so on. Likewise, once you stop your praise, it shows that things have cooled down or are about to cool down. Just watch your self the next time you think you don’t really have to do what it is that you normally do that gets you connected to God, it means you have to check yourself and search for what is muzzling your worship before its too late.

– I am His bride therefore I am married so whenever I turn my back on God, I’m being adulterous.

I realized that whenever I take my eyes off God (usually after my praise stops), I grow weaker and weaker and then it becomes easy to say yes to the things of the flesh and ignore the things of the spirit. I heard it before that the Church is the bride of Christ but when I remove myself from the collective of the Church and consider myself to be married, it adds more weight to my relationship with God; it sort of reduces the distance I sometimes put between myself and God. So instead of thinking of Him as a being too high for me to reach, I see him as one would see a husband. Someone who cares deeply for you and who needs your care and love in return.

– If I keep my faith in God, I won’t stray

The thing is the only way to do that, is to work at it EVERYDAY, not some days but all the time. The enemy only needs one chance to sneak in and tempt you and if you aren’t focused, it would almost be too easy to get you to fall. Thus, I remind myself, the only way to know I’m keeping my faith in God is when I put effort into it, and the only way Ill know I put effort into staying focused is when my actions feel like work! I now understand that to trust and abide (constantly) requires consistent and continual effort.

– Even when we sin, He is always Faithful

His Grace is something I will never get over because it baffles me all the time. Not only because its undeserved but because whenever we ask for it, it is given! Regardless of whether its the one millionth time for asking for it.

Quote of the day: We are never more fulfilled than when our longing for God is met by His presence in our lives. – Billy Graham

To Be

I want to be the person that gives thanks to God everyday.

I want to be the person who always has a nice word to say. In Proverbs 12:18 it says, ‘Some people make cutting remarks, but the word of the wise brings healing.’

I want to be the person who doesn’t let my failures define me. I’ve heard that its not the fact that you fell that matters, but that you had the courage to get back up.

I want to be the person who’s thoughts are controllable.  A person is a product of their thoughts, so I want to be happy and hopeful

I want to be the person with a smile on my face. The one who doesn’t let life’s dissapointments stand in my way of being happy.

I want to be the person who shows my loved ones that I love them and that I’m grateful to have them in my life.

I want to be the person who learns to try new things. I mean if not, I’d never get to know what I like and what I don’t.

I want to be the person who is not afraid to come out of my comfort zone. It’s not easy but it’s usually satisfying or so I’ve heard 😛

I want to be the person who remembers that time waits for no man, so I shouldn’t waste a minute of any day.

I want to be the person who trusts wisely.

I want to be the person who makes my parents proud.

I want to be the person who lives and doesn’t merely exist.

I want to be………. you fill in the space

The fact that I write, ‘I want’ doesn’t mean I’m not already but that I’m reminding myself of the things I want, so I keep doing them. In the end when all is said and done, I still want to be ME, because we know we are at our happiest when we can just be ourselves.

Question #2

“It’s easier to pull someone down than it is to lift them up.” If you read that, which one do you do?

Passion

It would move me if it had legs, it would push me if it had hands, it would lift me if it had arms and I would view the world through it if it were eyes. What I write of is Passion. Whenever we hear that word, immediately the notion of strong feelings regarding something/someone comes to mind. For some reason though the word has been bouncing around in my head. I tried to remember if there was any time it could have been associated with me. Then I remembered, I have a passion for my family, reading books, Nigerian food…lol, music, history and the most important of all my faith 🙂

Then I learned that the word ‘passion’ comes from the ancient Greek verb ‘paskho’ which means to suffer, which got me to re-evaluate my understanding of the word. I figure if you have a passion for something, and you could never experience or do it again, it  would feel like suffering to you or another way of thinking about it is that, when you’re passionate about something, you’d be willing to suffer to get the chance to whatever that thing is. I guess we misuse the word because I’m sure there are some things I say I’m ‘passionate’ about but if I were told to give them up, I know I wouldn’t suffer and that goes for a lot of us 🙂 I suppose as one grows older you are more able at telling what incites passion in you and what doesn’t.

One thing I do know is that Christ had passion for us. His passion was so much he died(suffered) for our sins so we could be saved. It leaves one thinking of a tough question, ‘What are you truly passionate about?’

Question #1

Peace, joy and love. If you truly have these things, what more do you need?

Wrapped

My prayer for today and always, ‘Father, I want to become so wrapped up in you, that I won’t know where I end and where you begin in my life.’

Compassion can be said to be mercy in action. If your claim of having mercy lacks expressive action, then it is merely sympathy, not compassion. #OpenHeavens

Patience

Patience. That’s a word that isn’t usually used to describe me, mainly because I don’t have that it in abundance. I know most people feel like I do, you can’t stand it when someone wastes your time. But lately I’ve been praying about it because its been said that patience is virtue and I’d like to have me some ‘virtue’, who wouldn’t  ;). Also I need patience because anytime I feel like someones wasting my time, I get worked up, which I hate. But most importantly I need patience because if God can be patient with me regardless of my flaws and faults, I think I ought to try to be patient to others, don’t you think so? So wouldn’t you know it, yesterday, my patience was tested and I have to say I did better than I expected. I’ll explain why I think so.

My church is hosting the first R.C.C.G. convention in Canada and yours truly volunteered for the Hospitality department, you know the dept. that makes sure all the special guests are well fed and comfortable.  Yesterday my dept. scheduled a meeting for 6pm at the hotel where the guests will be staying. True to Nigerian fashion, the meeting doesn’t start till 9pm. I will not lie and say I didn’t think about leaving  a couple of times or that I wasn’t constantly checking the time but the funny thing was my feet wouldn’t move :). In the end I stayed, got some work done and didn’t get home till 2am. I learned that being patient isn’t that hard, its all about my mindset. I came for the meeting because I wanted to help and I decided while I wouldn’t leave until I accomplished what I came to do.