Adegbenro and Favour: We Are Favoured

Every love story starts with Boy meets girl, but this story started a little differently. Grab a popcorn and pass the tray, chilled zobo on its way. 

Favour:

Sometime in 2019, an uncle-friend of mine had taken interest in how well I articulate and share things in written form via my WhatsApp status, so he mentioned to me that he would like to connect me to his step-brother who also had a keen interest in writing. After he connected us, I found that he had a community and was recruiting creatives as volunteers so I joined the group as a writer. Emmanuel at his own end also had joined the group to volunteer after attending a photography class hosted by the same guy my uncle-friend had connected me with. 

I honestly don’t have a memory of what happened until 2022, but I’ll share from Emmanuel’s memory of how we got each other’s contacts. . 

Emmanuel:

One random day, a lady had messaged me privately from the volunteer group trying to sell a bag she had made to me. I told her I wasn’t looking to buy a bag at the time, and she insisted that I could reach her whenever I was ready to purchase one. So I saved her contact for later even though I didn’t have the intention to buy later. A few weeks or months later she was celebrating her birthday, and I wished her a happy birthday. That was our second conversation after the first chat.

Favour:

I joined Living Faith church in 2020 through a friend, and in August 2022, I decided to attend AYAC on-site. My state church (LFC Basorun) had organised vehicles to convey youths to Canaanland and I joined in. The journey took so long and I shared on my WhatsApp status about things around traffic, Ogun state and bad roads, how I was sardined in the vehicle etc. 

Emmanuel saw the status and took a clue, so he asked if I was attending Canaanland for AYAC  and I answered in the affirmative. He mentioned he was also going to be around. So I told him it would be nice to meet.

Even though I didn’t know him at the time (we were barely just people who viewed each other’s status) I was excited to meet him in person. (yeah, I loved meeting new people). He said he would be really busy and wasn’t sure if he’d be able to make time and I asked what he’d be doing. He mentioned he would be serving in a service group and that if it was okay with me, I could come around and we could meet briefly. 

The following day during the morning session, I went to the Love entrance of Faith Tabernacle to meet up with him. I almost went round the whole Tabernacle trying to find my way to Love because it was my first time at Faith Tabernacle. (to be very honest, I took the stress because he had assured me he would be able to help me charge my power bank which I really needed help with during the camping period). 

After AYAC, we went back to being strangers. No Hi, no Hellos. 

Fast forward to January 2023, I updated a status about the forthcoming election and Emmanuel replied. For the first time, we had a really lengthy conversation not just about the elections but about other things. After about 5 months of having serious and lengthy conversations daily and getting to know each other, the question of moving things beyond friendship came up and he was clear with what he wanted – “he wants to journey through life with me by his side”. 

Emmanuel:

It wasn’t anything like butterflies (I don’t have ulcer 😅). I’m someone who is more objective rather than being emotional, emotions cloud judgment and ability to make proper decisions. 

From the election day we had a series of conversations that led here. What stood out for me was that she’s someone I could hold meaningful conversations with, I don’t have to explain the difference between stock fish and stock market. To cut the long story short we are here today. Glory to God!