Sometimes, life can catch people off guard with unexpected occurrences. Many people have had their lives suddenly punctured by some unexpected events they never imagined, or bargained for. While the unexpected renders some people perplexed and confused, some people pick up the pieces of their lives and trudge on in life. For the latter, the unexpected usually unfolds new and better opportunities to explore and regain their feet. That is the testimony of Prince Mike Adewoye; a mechanical engineer and the Proprietor of Racy & Sturdy Schools, Pipeline, Idimu, Lagos, who recouped his life after he unexpectedly lost his good job a week after his wedding,
“In the cause of how to face the challenges of life after losing my job a week after my wedding, I relocated from Ikeja to Pipeline, Idimu, Lagos, to start a new life with my barely one-week old wife. I was completely new in Idimu. Then, nobody knew me; I didn’t know anybody either in Idimu since that was my first time in that area. So, I started a dry cleaning business. I began going from house to house picking up dirty clothes from people to wash for them. Mind you, I am a graduate of mechanical engineering, but I was happy doing the drying cleaning job,” he shared in an interview with Christian Benefits on the genesis of Racy & Sturdy Private Schools, Idimu.
But unknown to Prince Mike Adewoye that his seeming odd job of dry cleaning the dirty clothes of people was just the path to fulfilling the dreams that he and his wife usually had; seeing themselves in the midst of children teaching them. Although Adewoye ordinarily explained the dreams away that someday he and his lovely wife would own a school to teach children. That explanation turned into a reality when he visited the house of one of his customers to collect his dirty clothes to wash, spotted an uncompleted building beside the house, and immediately calculated that the uncompleted building would be a good place to start a school.
“So, I discussed with the man I visited his house to collect his dirty clothes to wash, the possibility of using the uncompleted building to start a school. The discussion scaled through positively. And that was how we started the school (Racy & Sturdy) inside the uncompleted building though in a small form on October 23rd, 1995. My wife is a trained teacher. I decided to go back to school and studied Technical Education at University of Ado Ekiti. Before I handled metals; non living things, but now I handle children. I went further and studied Human Resources at MBA level to be able to handle the administrative aspect of the school. That’s how life has been from the beginning to where I am today,” Adewoye, a devoted Christian entrepreneur enthused.
Adewoye shared from his experiences that challenges of life in whatever form or grade are mere stepping stones to success. He sermonized that God would never allow people to have challenges without embellishing the challenges with hidden opportunities. “In any challenge that comes your path, God wants to see who you are, and how you will react to the opportunities in the challenge. When I look back at some of my colleagues that were sacked with me their lives neither have head nor tail today because they went searching for another jobs while I searched for, discovered and tapped into the opportunity in my potentials and in the sack incident that happened to me suddenly. Today, I am grateful to God,” he remarked.
Adewoye should indeed be very grateful to God because his once rejected stone suddenly became the head cornerstone. According to him, his former employees that relieved him of his services in his former company soon came looking for him through his relatives to ask him to return to his duties in the company when they realized the inefficiency of the person that replaced him in the company to handle some mechanisms. “Among those of us that were sacked I was the only one that had training in that white company in mechanical engineering. I told them even if they were ready to pay me N1m as at that time as salary, I would still not return to the company. So, I stuck to my dry cleaning business until God took me to my destiny in life a proprietor of one of the largest private schools in Idimu and its axis.
The Proprietor of Racy & Sturdy Schools, Idimu, Lagos, advises people that no matter what they are passing through in life God has not forgotten them. He pointed that God only wants to channel the lives of people for better whenever he allows any challenge come their way.“ When God brought me here (Idimu) I never knew he had such a big plan for my life,” he testified.
The prince also enjoined people, including servants of God, never to lose focus on God lest they sink like Peter did when he lost sight of Jesus Christ while walking on the sea. “Just be focused on God. Fix your eyes on him in that challenge. Only God is the giver of every good gift. Don’t ever challenge God. Rather, just appreciate him because he has a good plan for you,” advised Prince who was decorated by the prestigious Chaplains Fellowship of Nigeria (CFN) in recognition of his landmark achievements in quality and excellent educational services.
