God has long been working in the life of Bayile Adeoti, and, while the world of social enterprise and entrepreneurship has known it for some time, the nation is now taking notice. In the span of a few short years, she has been in the audience of His Majesty King Charles III at Westminster Abbey, Holyrood and Buckingham Palaces – just one of the many blessings worked together for the small-in-stature Malawian whose life reads like an inspiring list of God moments.
A dream fulfilled
Born on the same day as the late Queen, at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Malawi, Bayile (pronounced Bi-ee-lee) grew up with a little girl dream; that she would one day receive a personal invitation to spend their birthdays together at a garden party, over sandwiches. In 2022, her husband took her to London where they spent her birthday watching the canons fired from Tower Bridge in the Queen’s honour; later that year, the Queen passed away.
Though it seemed her dream would never take place, in 2023, the day before her birthday, Bayile received a beautiful, embossed, personal invitation to King Charles III’s coronation at Westminster Abbey. Still secretly desiring in her heart for that party and sandwiches, to her surprise, she received another invitation to meet the king, this time in Edinburgh at Holyrood, where they did dine on sandwiches, and this May she met him again at a garden party at Buckingham Palace. “I think God honours our little dreams, and it’s in His timing…it’s not with the Queen, but I’m still going to Buckingham Palace. Also: Gosh God, who am I that I would get to be in front of the king three times?”
Eight-year-old Bayile’s fulfilled dream, and the theme of royal hospitality are fitting details. Dechomai, the name of her business, is a biblical Greek word that speaks of hospitality. “You find ‘dechomai’ a lot in Matthew. When Jesus is sending out His disciples, He says to them, ‘when you go to places, and if they receive you in a certain way…’ To receive people hospitably is to ‘dechomai’ someone.” In Dechomai, what started out as a way to provide paid work experience to people from ethnic minority communities and students in the hospitality industry, the business has gradually evolved to fit its founder’s heart for training others, inspired by the biblical story of Joseph and his different gifts and abilities. “Dechomai was always going to be a training business, but I didn’t know what that looked like” – that is, until 2019, when God led her to the realm of entrepreneurship.
Hearing and obeying God’s voice
The obvious thread of obeying the voice of God is constant through Bayile’s story, from providing her business name straight from the mouth of her pastor in church after she’d prayed about it, to memorialising moments of godly inspiration in a journal she received at Bible college. “There’d be some classes, something would make my heart flutter, and I started writing in that journal. I carried it around every day; I still have it next to my bed – that’s the blueprint for Dechomai.” She goes on to reference one of Dechomai’s new projects, the First Minister’s Start Up Challenge, a Scottish government initiative supporting young people from 18-30 from marginalised groups in entrepreneurship, “part of that is in the blueprint, so, like Joseph, God gives you a dream, but you just don’t know how it’s going to happen. It’s about obeying His voice and that secret place. First, I have to know God, know who He is, know His characteristics, to hear His voice and His instructions and be obedient. There are times when I do it my way and He’s like, ‘no, remember, I’m the CEO, you’re just the COO, don’t override me because this has happened before and I will kick you out’. So, I need to be obedient…I see Dechomai as a tool, as an opportunity for God to be glorified.”
The journey to a surrendered heart
Bayile’s heart to submit to God was born out of her mother’s faith. Coming to the UK from Blantyre (a major Malawian city that happens to share a name with the birthplace of Scotland’s greatest missionary to Africa, David Livingstone) to Bath, England for primary school, she moved to the west end of Glasgow for her secondary education. Growing up, Bayile and her sister weren’t very impacted by the traditional upbringing of her Catholic father and Church of Scotland mother. However, after her parent’s divorced, her mother went back to Malawi – where her life changed significantly. “Mum found a relationship with God. All the heaviness and sadness had gone away, and she wanted my sister and I to have the same thing. Her pastor prayed over us; we gave our hearts to God (we didn’t even really know what that meant) and we started speaking in tongues instantly.” But she says that the fire was quickly quenched when she and her sister returned to Scotland to no discipleship. “When mum moved over, she was still on fire, but I was so far away from God.”
As she honoured her mother’s return to Scotland, visiting different UK churches and hearing various travelling ministers, Bayile received words of knowledge and encouragement but explained it all away as fake, thinking that her mother had probably talked to them about her first. It was how her mum stayed close to God during her battle with kidney failure, trusting a specific word He’d given that her healing would come through a medical history-making transplant that would bless many, including doctors (all of which came true), that opened Bayile’s heart to a real relationship with Jesus. A pastor said to her that there must be a church that felt like home, after all the congregations she and her mother had visited. One came to mind; it had fairy lights that comforted her. Around the same time, a Muslim friend encouraged her to find grounding in her life through faith, suggesting a specific church she’d been to that would be perfect. When her friend dropped her off, she found it was the same church she already had on her heart. When she walked in the door, the first person who greeted her said the special words: “Welcome home!” She even went on to meet her Nigerian husband at the small group she began to attend.
Madness is doing the same thing and expecting a different result
“God always had His hand on me. God always directed me, opened doors for me,” and though church was like a training ground where she learned public speaking through the welcome and offering ministry, she knows her chosen field of ministry is the marketplace. “I feel more called to the marketplace, wholeheartedly. My heart beats for the marketplace. I don’t hide my faith. I will openly say, ‘I’m a person of faith, I don’t know whether you are, but my heart was stirred, so here’s a voice note with a prayer.’ I’ve never had anyone say ‘no thank you’ or report me. Most of Jesus’ time was not in the synagogue or the temple. It was in people’s homes, in the markets, talking to people. That’s where I find it easier to share Jesus.”
Supporting others well
Bayile loves Luke 1:37: “Nothing is impossible with God,” or, as it can also be translated, it is impossible for God to do nothing. The self-starter, hand in hand with the Lord, is well aware He is always desiring to advance things. “Two years ago, I realised that what Dechomai was doing was not enough. The narrative was the same: ethnic minorities and women find it easy to start businesses, but the support is not there. Madness is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. What if we use technology to create a different result?” She was introduced to the man with whom she would start BobbAI (an AI-powered platform that helps entrepreneurs access personalised business support). “Within six weeks of meeting, he offered me 20% of the company and asked me to be his co-founder. Within eight weeks, we went 50/50. I was getting ideas of who we should speak to, what we should do, and he would say to me: ‘how did you think of contacting that person?’ I would say: ‘God.’ Again, it’s being obedient to His voice.” BobbAI is named after Greyfriars Bobby (a dog in 19th-century Scotland who stayed faithfully by his owner’s grave until death). “We’re the entrepreneur’s trusted companion, and we’re creating an AI agent for the Scottish government to support entrepreneurs.”
Full of the fire of inspiration, Bayile Adeoti’s ministry heart is noticeably rooted in God’s greater mission. “It’s not just about the people we impact. It’s about the staff. Dechomai is not me, it’s just something that God has given me. Dechomai belongs to everyone. I don’t want to be the face of Dechomai…I’m just His COO. I can’t hold it tightly because one day He’s going to say to me ‘release it’. Can we impact the people that work with us as much as the people we support? Can we impact our partners, so that they also feel God’s love?”
This woman of God’s secret to success is being all about her Father’s business.
Words by Hope Bonarcher
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