I watched my dad build again- from scratch!

Growing up, I was a certified daddy’s girl. I still like to think I am. 😅

All of my sweetest childhood memories are with my dad. Playing football on the porch, shooting pixelated birds in a video game that had a weird plastic gun, watching wrestling (or actually wrestling him on the couch), listening to him read to me, or he watching me read. Sweet memories.

He used to drop me off at school, too. Mostly because I didn’t like school (I’d rather play with friends and fake my homework… but that’s a story for another day 😂). Certified daddy’s girl, I say.

My dad was also a businessman. He owned a shop that was both an internet café and a provision store.

Well, one morning, on our usual school run, he got a call. We detoured to the shop. And we saw that the place had been robbed. Computers, money, provisions, stolen. (still remember like it were yesterday).

From what I remember, that was when life started shifting.

Eventually, he shut that shop down. We had moved into our own home, so he relocated the shop closer, but it became something simpler: just a printing and photocopy shop. I remember walking all the way from school some days just to say hi to him.

Things were quite okay until my dad, who is also a pastor, was “transferred” to Accra. At least, that’s what we were told, or more appropriately, what we all heard in the church that evening.

But life happened, and the Accra plan didn’t work out. What followed was one of the hardest seasons I think my dad's ever had. He was home, not preaching, not pastoring, for about a year. He would go to church and sit at the back. Well, as a kid, I didn’t fully understand what was going on. But looking back as an adult now, I see how that year must have been hard for my dad. I remember him spending hours just reading.

He was probably wrestling with God in ways little Ivy Hollys couldn’t see or even understand. After almost a year, he made a decision. He made the decision to join a different church, and he was to be the head pastor.

But that decision meant starting over. Doing everything from scratch!

When we started, there were no instruments. It was a family congregation (you get?). The church met in an unfinished building. Yet every Sunday, and every weekday, I watched my dad show up like he was still preaching in that big, equipped church we were in before.

But me, I was an annoyed teenager.

I was angry that I had to leave my old church, all my friends, the comfort, the familiarity, for a new place that didn’t have anything.

I still remember one day, I begged to go back to the old church, and my dad said no. I cried long and hard. But my dad did something that day that has stayed with me.

He barged into the room I was in, while I was crying, and I honestly thought he was going to beat me for sulking 'unnecessarily'. Well, he didn't.

Instead, with so much pain in his voice, he said,“Ivy, do you think I’m not pained? That I had to leave so many years of building a church, of pastoring, of investing everything I had into something, just to start again? Do you think that doesn’t hurt?”

Sigh.

Little Ivy Hollys didn't know much, but that changed things for me. I gave up sulking and decided to help however I could on this new road.

Over the years, I’ve watched that little church grow. I’ve seen people join. And I’ve seen my dad (with great support from my mum) raise a congregation with love and consistency.

I call my dad A MAN OF RESILIENCE!

Somehow, I see what I've learnt from my dad play out in my own life.

Somehow, it's deeply ingrained in my mind that things will always work out. Better said, God will always work things out!

So I can say I am a lady who is not afraid to start again. That quiet tenacity? That ability to rebuild from scratch? I got it from watching my father.

From my dad, I have learnt;

• The power to begin again.

• The quiet strength to stay when others leave.

• The humility to do what’s needed, not what’s convenient.

• The faith to build with vision and prayer.

• Consistency!

So now, when I find myself at rock bottom, I don’t panic. I always remember that it's okay to build again.

Because I watched someone do it. Over and over again.

Rev. Isdore K. Hollys. Today, I want to say thank you. You raised a tenacious daughter (which is why when you ask her to come home, she doesn't. But she misses you too😂😂😂). You raised a daughter who loves you deeply, sees your sacrifice for the body of Christ, and honours your resilience. God bless you!

To you reading this: Maybe your relationship with your father has not been the best. Maybe there are memories you’d rather forget. But today, if nothing else, choose to honour him, simply for being your father.

HAPPY FATHERS DAY TO ALL FATHERS AND FATHER FIGURES!