The Bible Says that two are better than one (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12). God’s Word to be true, but if we are human and honest, we will often admit that marriage is hard. So what does the Bible say about marriage? Scripture can provide us with heartwarming advice and encouragement exemplified in these Bible verses about marriage

Here are the 10 Loving Bible Verses About Marriage

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

1 Corinthians 16:14

 Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

Song of Solomon 4:10

 1 Corinthians 14:4-8

 2 Corinthians 12:9

Ephesians 4:29

 Colossians 3:13-14

1-john 4:18-19

Romans 12:9








1 Corinthians 13:4-8


Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 

1 Corinthians 16:14


Do everything in love.

 Ecclesiastes 4:9-10


“Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!”

Song of Solomon 4:10


How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much more pleasing is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume more than any spice!

 1 Corinthians 14:4-8


“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

 2 Corinthians 12:9


“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Ephesians 4:29


“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”

 Colossians 3:13-14


“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

1-john 4:18-19


There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.We love because he first loved us. 

Romans 12:9


Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

Bible verses about love and marriage will give you  the opportunity to express your emotions whether it’s through your invitations, your vows or the details of the ceremony. Scroll through our entire collection of scripture or quickly discover verses that best suit you: 


10 POWERFUL BIBLE VERSES ABOUT GOD’S LOVE
10 Financial breakthrough bible verses with prayers

Source: Voltzmusic.com

The Principal Reservoir Engineer, Oando, Oluseun Solanke, was quoted in a statement as saying, “The industry has begun to appreciate the value of gender balance and how it impacts the populace. We need to see the Nigerian government taking a more active role in trying to push gender balance as actively as it does local content policies.”

She spoke in Paris, France, during the Women’s Energy Council panel discussion at the Oil and Gas ,Council’s Africa Assembly, with the theme, ‘From Encouraging Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Subjects to Balancing the Boardroom: Gender Diversity and Equality in the African Energy Industry.’

The panelist discussed how the challenges women face in the workplace varied between international oil companies, national oil companies and independents, and how oil and gas companies could encourage more participation in STEM subjects and entry into technical fields for women, among other issues.

Giving a keynote speech at the Africa Assembly, the Vice-President, Africa, ExxonMobil Corporation, Pam Darwin, said, “After a 35-year career in the industry, I personally believe that to improve diversity in the energy sector, we need to invest in energy in developing resources and widening access to energy; education by investing in students with a focus on STEM fields; empowerment in grassroots’ efforts to promote women entrepreneurs, and employment to tackle the challenges of diversity.”

At the just-concluded Nigeria Oil and Gas Conference in Abuja, the Chief Legal Officer, Oando, Ngozi Okonkwo, commended the organisers of the event for the increased female participation and consideration.

She said, “I’m excited that there’s a significant increase in the number of females on the panel I moderated. It is very important because it shows that the industry is recognising the relevance of women because this is an industry that is clearly male-dominated.

“There have been a lot of changes with respect to women in the workplace and women are rising. I am happy that as a conference, we recognise the importance of women. The views of women are important and the viewpoint that they have should also be shared with the entire industry at a conference like this, so it’s really important and exciting.”
--
Click here to read more

Group Managing Director of Nestoil Group Dr Ernest Azudialu-Obiejesi has called on the Federal Government to invest more in gas infrastructure rather than crude oil, which according to him will continue to decline in long term economic value as the world continues to embrace cleaner forms of energy.

Dr Azudialu who was speaking at the Nigeria Oil and Gas summit in Abuja said ’many countries in Europe are at the forefront of this energy revolution, and with time, African countries, including Nigeria will be dragged along. It is time now to embrace a paradigm shift, and change Nigeria’s energy focus squarely from crude oil to gas’.

He also called on the Federal Government to allow market forces determine the cost of gas in order for the Nigerian economy to benefit from Nigeria’s gas prowess. The Nestoil Group Managing Director said it was rather sad to note that a country like South Africa without Nigeria’s natural gas reserves produces over 40,000 megawatts of electricity for a population of only 57 million people while Nigeria could only manage about 4,000 megawatts of power despite having the 9th largest gas deposits in the world.

The Nestoil Group Managing Director said the Nigerian power deficit will not improve if the Federal Government does not take the drastic step of completely allowing market forces to determine costs. He said a willing-buyer-willing-seller scenario that allows gas producers to sell to off takers at commercially viable rates is what will encourage investments in the gas sector. He said the successful deregulation of the Telecommunications sector in Nigeria was a good case study that the Oil and Gas industry should emulate in order to stimulate exponential growth in that sector. According to Dr Azudialu, the Telecoms sector is growing in Nigeria because Government regulations are relaxed enough to allow competition to drive pricing and product offerings.

Dr Azudialu gave the example of China which significantly turned round the fortunes of the country in over 20 years by investing in Power and other infrastructure. ‘The primary catalyst for China’s growth was the country’s strong stance to invest in building a robust infrastructure. They built large base load power plants in many locations to provide reliable power to its growing manufacturing industries. With these power plants that run primarily on coal, China is able to produce goods at competitive prices’ he concluded.

Nestoil is Nigeria’s largest indigenous Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Commissioning (EPCC) Company in the Oil and Gas sector and has been a significant contributor to the industry since inception in 1991. With over 1,500 direct employees, Nestoil continues to redefine industry standards in Pipeline Construction, Repairs and Maintenance with associated facilities for Dredging, River Crossing and Shoreline Protection.

Click here to Read More

Why should you become a real estate investor?

There are, after all, many ways to make more money in life. Statistics released by the foremost authority on personal finance, the Internal Revenue Service, revealed that most personal wealth of US taxpayers is held in real estate. Has the thought of running your own business, being your own boss, or calling your own shots ever crossed your mind? The IRS further points out that the most likely way for anyone to become independently wealthy in one lifetime is through entrepreneurship and through owning your own business. Opportunity seekers can spend countless hours researching the best paths for making money.

If you are one of those people, you can stop your research. Becoming a real estate entrepreneur provides you with the highest probability for economic prosperity. One reason why  real estate is so good for making money is that it is the IDEAL investment.

Income: Real estate can provide you with steady, tax advantaged income, often referred to as cash flow. You can rent real estate to a tenant.

Overtime, rental payments from that tenant can payoff your mortgage, cover any property management and maintenance costs, and can still leave enough for you to have a steady income. Although there are other in-vestments that provide a steady income, such as bonds, and stocks that offer dividends, real estate typically provides a larger amount of income than bond coupon




Equity:

When you buy a house/ houses, you purchase property at a price lower than its market value. When you get a good deal, we call the difference between what you bought it for and what it is worth equity. The old saying, “In real estate, you make your money when you buy,” applies here. When you buy a house well below market value, you instantly get equity. By comparison, someone purchases publically traded stocks at market value.

The market may undervalue or overvaluing the stock at the time of purchase, but either way, someone purchases at the exact moment a stock, the price paid is what the market will pay for it. With real estate, however, you can buy a property well be-low market value and literally turn around and resell that same property for tens of thousands of dollars a more few moments later. We do this often, actually.

Appreciation:

Over the course of the last hundred years, studies have shown that overall, residential House has kept pace with inflation. In some areas, residential property values have even appreciated above and beyond inflation. For wise and educated investors, appreciation is an added financial bonus to being a real estate owner, not the reason to buy property.

Since predicting the future has proved to be a difficult task, buying real estate based on the other factors outlined earlier is a far better decision than betting on if or when a property will appreciate. You can only enjoy real estate appreciation if you own it. Therefore, owning as much real estate as you can, as wise as you can, can give you the best probability of gaining from appreciation. And if it comes your way, be appreciative.Buying a House is a good decision that yields great profit overtime

How to Think Like an Investor

“Man’s greatness lies in his power of thought.” - Blaise Pascal In my early years of teaching real estate to budding entrepreneurs, I would skip the mental aspect of investing and get right into the meat of real estate. It was a mistake. What I discovered was that mentoring people on the mechanics of real estate investing was fairly straightforward.

Once they had the instructions on what to do, the difference between those who succeeded and failed was because of what was going on inside their head. Having all the knowledge on how to invest will be worthless unless you have your head straight. Before you can be a real estate investor(buy a house), think like one.

That little space between your ears is powerful and unfortunately, it doesn’t come with an instruction manual. The following chapter is your instruction manual on how to operate your brain so you can be a successful real estate entrepreneur. Plus, at the end of this chapter, you will test your mental skills with an Investor IQ exam.

Your Why:

Why should come before what. Why you want to do something is far more important than what you will do. We humans get excited about new endeavors and then after the new-ness wears off, we move onto something else. Most great achievements in life do not happen overnight. In fact, it’s usually the exact opposite.

Your greatest triumphs probably took time to come together, right? Real estate investing is no different. After the excitement dulls and new-ness of real estate fades, what will be the reason, or reasons, for you to continue pursuing your goal of being a successful real estate investor? When I first got started, I wanted to work from any-where, have control over my time, be boss, call my own shots, earn what I was worth, make a lot of money and become financially free.

That’s not too much to ask, is it? At my job, I had to show up at the office, I couldn’t work from anywhere. I had no control over my time. I didn’t call my own shots. The boss told me what to do. I wasn’t able to earn what I was worth, make a lot of money or become financially free.

Through real estate investing, many individuals just like you have been able to increase their net worth substantially, obtain the things they always wanted to have, reached their financial goals faster than they thought possible, and preserved their wealth for their retirement and/or their families. and many have done so without much money to start with, or without any money to start with at all. The fact is, real estate investing is a powerful tool for building and preserving wealth no matter where you live and no matter who you are. and unlike some investment opportunities, real estate investing has “staying power.” demand for real estate in most areas is constant although there are economic factors that influence the market and its demands. The good news is that when the economy is in a slump, there are tremendous opportunities for good real estate deals because the number of buyers decreases along with tougher economic times. now is just such a time and that makes investing in real estate more lucrative than ever. The key to building wealth through real estate is having the knowledge to understand the market swings and pressures and then being able to capitalize on the opportunities as you find them. There will always be a never-ending supply of buyers looking for everything from their first home to their retirement home—and you will be the investor who has exactly what these buyers need. Before we go into greater detail in this manual about profiting with real estate, locating and negotiating deals, evaluating properties, and making the most out of some of real estate’s best opportunities, let’s take a brief look at the real estate investment market in general to see why it provides so many avenues for building wealth.

The Major Benefits of Real Estate

The benefits of investing in real estate are many, from creating situations where your profit potential is up to you, to building a lifestyle some people only dream of. With real estate, you can:

• Own your own Business Work part-time or full-time, be your own boss, and time things according to your schedule and goals.

• Take advantage of appreciation Real estate typically appreciates around four to five percent annually. This appreciation rate generally takes place as part of natural market growth, essentially, without you doing anything. To illustrate, consider homeowners who purchased their homes 20 years ago and now find themselves with N200,000,000 in equity in their homes at ikoyi lagos, something they never thought about at the time they purchased the home. Beyond that, you can create situations where you “force” appreciation, such as through renovations or cosmetic improvements to a home (we call this rehabbing properties). This is where the work you put into a property makes it instantly more valuable than the price you paid for it.

• Generate Positive Cash flow you Can use – Some investors will purchase property in order to rent it out and create positive monthly cash flow. Property can sometimes be rented for more than the total expenses (principal and interest, taxes and insurance), so you can make money from the rental, while someone else is building equity in your property. another way to buy and hold property is to lease it to someone else with an option for them to purchase it in the future. This technique creates excellent positive monthly cash flow since these tenants are willing to pay more than the average renter will pay

• Create a edge against inflation – Even in times of inflation, opportunities abound with real estate. That’s because inflation tends to force higher real estate prices and because the underlying asset (your property) can be counted on to be there through inflation (while some other investments may not survive economic downturns).


• Make Money Wth low Risk and low start up costs – The market for potential customers is huge and you can start your business in real estate investing with little or even no capital of your own. There are always private investors in the marketplace who have the money to invest but do not know how (or don’t care to do the work) to do the deals themselves.

I have been working as a maintenance engineer at Nestoil for eight years now. It has been an exciting run as I have had the opportunity of working in different areas of the company, and indeed the industry.

In my current role as Maintenance Lead for OML 42 and Warri Operations, I am in charge of ensuring that all our equipment are always in reliable and top-notch working conditions. I work round the clock to ensure that all projects have functional equipment as well as all operational vehicles. With each day comes new challenges and opportunities to learn a lot.
Some Memorable Career Moments

My professional development at Nestoil has been amazing; I have participated in technical roles in dredging, shorelines protection, pipeline engineering, piping engineering, survey works, civil constructions, flow station operation and maintenance and numerous other functions within the company.

I have also successfully supported the completion of the Nembe-Cawthorne Channel Trunkline Replacement Project (NCTL), Soku gas projects, OML 42 for the start and completion of the Odidi re-entry, Jones Creek Phases 1,2 and 3 works, IMPAC Engineering operation and maintenance of the Odidi Flow Station, among many other projects.
What the Future Holds

The careers of everyone at Nestoil is very important, and the company is dedicated to providing training, mentorship and other requirements to ensure you continue to succeed. My greatest satisfaction is not just in doing what I love but also positively touching lives in the process. Beyond my contributions to my professional role, I’ve also significantly impacted workers from the host community who have been assigned to me as trainees over the years.

For students and recent graduates looking to start and grow a career in the energy industry, I advise a strong and committed dedication to work. Always think outside the box and be open to learning new things every day.

Read More

In March 2019, Tropical Cyclone Idai, a category 2 storm, made landfall near Beira City, Mozambique and caused so much catastrophic damage that left over 600 dead and over 1,500 missing. Barely a month after, a different storm, Tropical Cyclone Kenneth hit Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado Province, also causing widespread devastation. Over 4,000 kilometres away in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, the continuing emission of black soot is incubating a series of disastrous long term effects such as respiratory tract infections.

Although these events may seem unrelated, they boast an underlying singular cause – the furtherance of global warming and climate change, driven by CO2 emissions and other air pollutants. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 92% of people worldwide do not breathe clean air.

Around the world, air pollution costs economies $5 trillion yearly in welfare. Ground-level ozone pollution is set to cause a 26% reduction in staple crop yields by 2030. But what actions are causing this rise in air pollutants? What is the worst-case scenario if we’re not able to tackle this catastrophe? And do our everyday activities promote (and possibly reduce) its effect?
The Use Of Fossil Fuels Is Driving Air Pollution

One of the primary sources of air pollution is the emission of sulphur dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Our cars, trucks, planes and other means of transportation we use regularly are the major causes of this emission. This is particularly more prevalent in cities around the world with more relaxed laws on vehicle worthiness as cars and other vehicles with properly serviced engines produce less of these harmful pollutants.

Agricultural activities, such as the use of pesticides and fertilizers, burning of farmland, are also significant sources of air pollutants. This is one of the reasons why air pollution has been difficult to beat; we rely so much on these processes for moving around and growing the food that we eat.
Drought, Floods and Cyclones Are All Linked To Air Pollutants

The implications of air pollution on human, animal and plant life are far-reaching; it has been linked to disability and early death as a result of respiratory diseases, cancer and many other health diseases. The effects on our planet are perhaps even more catastrophic; air pollution is playing a pivotal role in the growing impact of drought, flooding and even cyclones.

The rise in global temperature is causing the polar ice caps to melt faster, resulting in floods and the increase in sea levels, loss of habitat, and many more cataclysmic events around the globe. I can only draw one conclusion from these implications – we need faster and more efficient ways of fighting air pollution, and these are already gaining ground. For example, the United States company 3M has designed smog-reducing roofing granules. These granules keep buildings cool by protecting against UV rays; this reduces the dependency on air conditioning and subsequently, the amount of air pollutants going into the atmosphere.
Cutting Through The Soot

The less fossil fuel we burn, the more we’re doing to reduce the impact of harmful air pollutants and climate change. Before buying your next car, do some research about its fuel consumption, bike more often, rideshare, use public transport, plant trees around your home, patronise renewable energy sources, and do more of everything that will help protect our environment.

As individuals, corporations and governments, we all have a role to play in combating air pollution and preserving our only planet if we’re to sustain our way of life, or indeed, any life at all.

What lifestyle choices are you making to reduce air pollutants and #BeatAirPollution?