My story

 But God intercepted my path toward destruction on a fateful Sunday morning by the powerful message of Bro Johnny Anikpe (now a Reverend Minister), a senior student. I have so much to say about that day and this man, but I will save those details for another time. I expected that many of my friends in school would turn to Jesus because someone with my reputation got saved and joined the Scripture Union (SU). Imagine my surprise when this not only didn’t happen, but I had to deal with my close friends and family rejecting me because of my new beliefs. But my conversion was radical and my conviction remained deep.

The Holy Spirit chose not to reveal to me the details of what I was getting myself into. I went from one extreme to another in such a short time that my friends concluded I was insane. My zeal for Jesus was deep, all I did was read my Bible. Considering the negligence my newfound love of scripture brought to my school work, I was astonished as my marks began to improve. I read my little Gideon’s New Testament from cover to cover so many times that I felt incomplete without that Bible in my pocket.

Within a few scant weeks, I began to preach, a labor born entirely of my passion, and because of that fervency, I was made the leader of the Student’s Bible club. Looking back, I can see many flaws with this decision, as I was not ready for leadership at that early stage of my Christian life. But at that time, no one saw this as a flaw. With my popular status in school and unmatchable eagerness, I seemed a good choice. But I failed as a leader. However, I was not discouraged. I worked my way out of my failures each time, albeit alone. I often said to myself, “You’ve gone too far from the world to return. You’ll be like the dog going back to its vomit.”

After many years characterized by valleys of deception, denial, and pretending to seek His will (while doing my own) through school, bachelorhood, and marriage (April 2000), God intercepted me again.

My wife, my first son and I got multiple entry visiting visas to the UK in Dec. 2002 and visas to the USA in Feb. 2003. When it happened, we knew this was God because of the speed with which it all happened. Our desire to do His will soared as a result and we pledged to God’s will whatever the cost. Once again, I didn’t know what I was praying or pledging.

We started praying more than ever before, sensing the Lord had a purpose for us overseas beyond what we could see or imagine at the time. Honestly, though, we saw the open doors (i.e. the visas) as an opportunity to make money overseas and live a “better life,” which is the dream of many people and families in Nigeria. However, we asked God to have His way and direct us.
 
So on 18th September 2003, I arrived in Atlanta, Georgia, from Lagos without my family and without any serious plans, but with faith in the Lord to guide and direct my every step on what to do with the two months’ leave I had from work. The Lord told me to go and confirmed it through my pastor and a prophetic sister I happened to meet. To top it all, the night before I left Nigeria, I visited my Dad to say farewell. Out of the blue, he said, “I know you are going to be a minister of the gospel. Go. And God will be with you…” As we parted, I asked myself where his words came from? He should have been dreaming of financial affluence like me. Not ministry.

As a Computer Science graduate majoring in Networks and Hardware, I received counsel from senior friends who had traveled to the States several times on what I should do as soon as I arrived. However, when I got to the U.S., nothing happened as we’d all hoped.

A few days after arriving in Atlanta, the Lord said to me, “I have brought you here to get your attention…” I was not very happy about that message because I felt the Lord had ambushed me and was about to task me with another spiritual assignment. I’d been in youth leadership since high school,  throughout college, even in my local church back in Nigeria. I believed I needed a break from front row activities in church at this time, but as I thought about what He said, I felt maybe I was to be a pastor in a local church in the States.

The idea of a pastoral call thrilled me quite a bit, and I promptly googled “average pay of a pastor in USA”. It was all about the money for me then. Google gave a tidy sum and I liked the idea. But since I’d been praying and sincerely asking God to have His way, I was eager for the details of this assignment.

So I set out on a forty-day fast from the 20th of October 2003, to discover why He needed to get my attention and what He was calling me to engage. The book, Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, which I accidentally came across during the same season, was a great help. It was the book then. It greatly facilitated my fasting and prayer and brought clarity to my heart questions. As I look back now, I see how the Lord was leading my activities and choices during this time. He’s an Awesome God!

Those intense days of fasting with little food and water in a place like America was very hard. I felt like the “spiritual journey” that I expected God to take me on, transformed into a wild ride as He veered me off the beaten paths into something unknown.  Though I felt He pretty much killed me in America, He displayed His “love signposts” along the journeys of my life during this time. He taught me so many lessons on His mercy and grace. He spoke to me from many scriptures but I particularly fed on Matthew 14, Isaiah 55, John 12, and Psalm 49. Before I even read Psalm 49, Jesus told me that it was one of His favorite Psalms as He prepared for the Father’s task on earth. Not knowing what it read, I quickly hurried to read it, and it spoke to me so directly that it startled me. This Psalm will forever bless me. It addressed my innate and subtle ambition for fame, success, and wealth. It blew me wide open and finally killed the part of me that was set on financial prosperity instead of God’s will for me.

On October 15, 2003, the Lord said to me, “I need to get you to focus on what I plan in order to take you into my program. I have reserved this assignment for you. When you are prepared you’ll leave from here and into it.”

On October 30, He said, “I’ve invested my life in you. Consider that and understand my works. I’ll fulfill the good purpose the Father had long intended. Nothing shall hinder me for the time is so short. Abound in my word; yes, I say abound therein and the promise of heaven will not escape your focus. Never take a stand outside my plan for you, for a stand outside my plan is a fall into the enemy’s hands. I asked you to look up, don’t even blink.” These are the exact words  He spoke to me as I scribbled them, face-down in the darkness of room that evening.

From that day on, His emphasis was study, prepare, pray and wait. Almost every scripture I read was on being ready, preparation, or something along those lines. He made me understand that there was an emergency to be addressed and I was greatly alarmed. He made it clear during those days of fasting and praying for His will that my call was not a pastoral call at all. It was a clarion call to Missions. He didn’t say immediately where He wanted me, and I wondered where He might take me. 

On the week of November 23-28, as every home was preparing for Thanksgiving in the USA,  and my fasting season was about to end, He spoke ceaselessly to me about suffering for Him, even death, but in a loving way, too amazing for me to describe or even discuss. So loving was His manner that the thought of these things did not scare me at all.

On November 28, He said, “Someone’s coming for you for the Mission reserved from the date of your birth. When he calls on you, go.”  He directed me to 2Cor.4:17-18, “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Though I have known this scripture and even taught others from this passage, when He spoke this to me, it was as if I had never read such words in my life. 

As I was praying in those days, I slipped into a state that I can now identify as a trance. I saw myself looking up to an elevated throne with many stairs, which I perceived to be the throne of God.  Someone was sitting on the right side of this great throne and all manner of very bright lights were flashing like lightning from the throne. And then I saw a man on my left side near the throne (who I imagined to be the Lord Jesus) and he was crying with great pain and passion. Sweat flew from his long, curly hair as He continually made efforts to get out of His seat, but a human-like hand would come out from one side of the throne and stop Him each time He made an attempt to stand. He attempted to get up many times but the hand kept stopping Him.

I didn’t understand what was happening but eventually, I felt maybe Jesus wanted to come for His Bride, to return again for the Church. This was my interpretation as I watched the drama. The passion from that exchange was too strong for me to withstand and I began to cry aloud and shout. I woke up with tears in my eyes. I weep every time I recall this vision, even all these years later.  I got up from the floor where I lay that day, totally convinced the Lord longs to return immediately. It was then I understood the urgency with which He’d been telling me to prepare and be ready. 

I got the visa to come to the USA on the 5th of Feb 2003. On the 5th of February 2004, I was sitting in a Missions Training Camp, organized by Elijah Company Inc in Richmond Virginia, a missions mentoring organization I found on the Internet. I was so hungry for missions, so much so that when I saw that training opportunity, I went for it. I wanted to get more information since I’d never had missionary exposure of any kind. If anyone had told me a year before this date that I’d be getting involved in missionary work of any kind, I definitely would not have believed it.

All this while, I didn’t know that my church, Victory World Church Norcross Atlanta had a school of ministry that started in August 2003. When I found out about this, it was too late to enroll, so I had to wait for the 2004/2005 session starting in August 2004. I was the first person to enroll. I had shared my call with Larry and Laurel Derstine, who were the Mission Pastors at the time and also heading to the school of Ministry. I won’t forget Larry’s counsel to my wife and I as we had lunch together with him and his wife, and the insight he gave to my vision of the “throne room struggle”. He was dead on and the Lord confirmed his views.

My Ministry His-Sickles International Missions was born at this School of ministry called Victory World Ministry Training Center (VWMTC), during a class on Visioneering. Pastor Dennis taught the class and asked that we cast a vision of what we felt the Lord was leading us to do. It began to make sense to me after all, that I came all the way to America, to discover my big Why.

The Lord had said someone was to call me and I was to leave for the mission from the States. From the time I left and returned to Nigeria in November 2004, no one called me. I started making plans to go to Sudan. Larry introduced me to Greg Ford, a beloved brother that had missionary passion and connections in Sudan who was being supported by my church in Atlanta. When I met him on Sunday, June 6, 2004, he had invited me to come work with him in Sudan but asked me to finish my training first. He would also need to get permission from the pastor in Sudan to confirm if he wanted me or not.

That was the last thing we had discussed on the matter. When I waited for him and didn’t hear a word, I started ahead with my own plans to go to Sudan. I did not have the money for food at home, not to mention money for a plane ticket to Sudan. So I decided to go by road. From the map I looked over, Sudan didn’t seem that far away from Nigeria. Since I lacked the money to fly, the journey by road would be much cheaper, I thought. How naive I was! 

God intercepted me again with two incredible surprises on the 8th of June 2005. I received two emails on the same day, one from Greg Ford of Global Quest Inc. USA, who I’d met the previous year in the States and the other from was from Matt Mittman, a dear friend I met online in a Christian chat room run by CSN Radio also in the States. The title of Matt’s email was – God has provided. Matt said he had sent me $3500 for my trip to Sudan! While Greg in his own email was asking if I could join him on the 26th of June in Uganda as he was planning to go into Sudan for outreach with some others from the States. He then concluded by saying, “I’ll call you to put you through.”

As I read these emails and reflected on the awesome events of that day, the Lord reminded me what He said many months back “… if you follow me and obey this call, you’ll never lack what you need, but you could lack things you want.”

Two days later, I got the call from Greg Ford. As I picked the call, the Lord reminded me He said someone would call me and this was that call. I had completely forgotten this word, but as I realized the magnitude of it, tears of joy flowed freely from my eyes. I was in awe of God! He’d called and He was making a way when it appeared impossible. He alone is GOD!

This was how I set out for Sudan. I didn’t know what I would do there, as I’d done any and everything that I thought was missions. In 2007, while on a bus ride from Uganda to Sudan, my focus narrowed to students and youths. The Lord reminded me again how, many years ago, He had sent me to go to the high schools. I saw this word He’d given me on August 19th, 1991, as I had written it in my Bible with the date.

Back then, I thought I was to minister in schools in Nigeria. Although I tried, I couldn’t get anything done. But now, here I am, doing it in South Sudan and loving every second of it.

It seems I will be here for a while to come, to raise a generation of God lovers that will make Jesus famous with their life and love across the borders, northward.

Even so Lord Jesus!!