Happy holidays!

Happy Holidays everybody,

E ku odun eku iyedun emi wa yio se pupo re laye ati laaye wa o ,

With Christmas a few days away, it's beginning to look a lot festive.

So, it's shopping time, party time, vacation time, family time, gift giving time, bonus time, travel time, football time, basketball time, TV time etc. With all of that, and the economy, and politics, and even the unrest world - it's time to celebrate!

How will you be celebrating?

These are my personal recommendations for maximum holiday enjoyment.

a. Send cards that are lovely to as many as you can.

b. Spend as much time as you can to play with kids yours and relatives`. They relax you and bring you back to a less stressful time. 

c. Get together with the people closest to you and tell them how grateful you are that they're in your life.  

d. Stay positive. Stay sober. And stay focused on family,

e. Make peace with at least one person. There's someone you'll see during the season that's not your favorite. Talk it out if possible and make it a better relationship. You'll feel great!

f Be your own Santa Claus. Buy yourself something nice. Something you really want if you can afford it!

I feel grateful to all members that YAJ is alive and functioning today.

You have missed a lot if you did not attend this year, but we love you and we missed you. Let’s do it together next year, igi kan kole da igbo se o.

Odun tuntun ti ombo yio se oju emi gbogbo wa o!

President.

Rounding up!

E ku dee de iwoyi o! meaning, good day!

Wow it`s December! It’s just like yesterday when we all said Happy New year, wasn`t it? We go through series of holidays or celebrations from Ileya (Eid al-Adha) Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas to close the year.

It has been a wonderful year and I`m sure we all have something to thank God for this year. We want to thank you all for attending our last meeting. We also thank you all for your contribution especially Mr. Gabriel for sharing his experience on how to successfully raise children in Japan despite a very short notice. Even though there was no much questions for that Q & A slot we created which was a forum to air our opinions, ideas, complaints, concerns etc. We do not want to assume that everything is fine. We always want us to, like someone put it,” dare to ask” and “let`s agree to disagree” to give room for creativity in solving problems in our community. The fact is that most of the biggest catastrophes that we've witnessed rarely come from information that is secret or hidden. It comes from information that is freely available and out there, but that we are willfully blind to, because we can't handle, don't want to handle, the conflict that it provokes. But when we dare to break that silence, or when we dare to see or ask, and we create conflict, we enable ourselves and the people around us to do our very best thinking. It was an example of what we experienced at the last meeting and it is a healthy way of helping the association to grow starting from each one of us developing habit of being patient, listening more, understanding one another more and to love one another more.

Open information is fantastic, open networks are essential. But the truth won't set us free until we develop the skills and the habit and the talent and the moral courage to use it. Openness isn't the end. It's the beginning to taking our association to a higher level.

Thank you everyone once again, wishing you a happy and healthy month as we round up the year especially if you were born in December.

Segun.

Happy holidays

E ku deede iwoyio!