Founder and Senior Pastor of Daystar Christian Centre, Sam Adeyemi, says the reasons behind his family’s relocation to the United States were borne out of several dreams inspired by the Holy Spirit, as well as testimonies of family members inspired by same.
Adeyemi spoke during a virtual interview with Seun Okinbaloye on ‘Mic On’ podcast.
The interview focused on leadership, governance and politics and the role of youthand made available on YouTube.
Earlier this year, Adeyemi had explained why the older generations of Nigerians must put their act together and make Nigeria work.
He said then that it was important for the older generations, including the political and religious leaders, to retrace their steps and get the country working because the younger generation would soon begin asking questions.
Adeyemi revealed that COVID-19, EndSARS protests, and, notably, troubling dreams about Nigeria prompted his relocation.
He said, “When COVID-19 started, all our children were in the US; so, everyone stayed with their families. We stayed with our children. When EndSARS started, we were preparing to return to Nigeria.
“When the EndSARS protests ended in violence, we stayed back a bit. When we were ready to return to Nigeria, a different experience altogether happened.
“My wife had a dream in which she travelled to Nigeria and returned to the US, which was a bad dream. I told her I wouldn’t say I liked this dream.
“Three days later, I had a dream. We both travelled to Nigeria in my dream, and I was in a big fight. I was being attacked violently, and I had to ask the Holy Spirit in my heart what to do.
“He said I should call the name of Jesus Christ. I shouted ‘in the name of Jesus Christ’ in the dream and didn’t realise I shouted out loud in real life.
“My wife woke me up at 2:00 a.m. by hitting me and asking what was going on. We decided to take it seriously, especially considering a dream we had three days earlier.
“We prayed fervently, sensing danger. Three hours later, I fell back asleep and had another dream. We were in Nigeria this time, and I was in a fight,” he added.
The gospel preacher and motivational speaker, who hails from Kogi State but was born in Niger State, added that whenever they planned to return to the country, a bad dream brought a setback.
The president of Success Power International, an NGO that specialises in organising leadership, financial, and motivational seminars, revealed that whenever they (he and his wife) set dates and booked flights to return to Nigeria, he would have a bad dream about something terrible happening to him there (Nigeria).
He further stated that he had never experienced two dreams about the same event in one night.
“A few days later, we called family members in Nigeria, and one person said, ‘I’m feeling very uncomfortable about you travelling to Nigeria.’
“We called another family member who said, ‘I feel uncomfortable about you coming.’
“What is going on! We just turned and looked at each other, pondering the situation. Then I said, ‘You know what? I’ve been a Christian for 40 years.’
“At this point, if God is speaking to me, I should have an idea that it is God speaking. Something is going on. I don’t know what it is, but I want to pray more.
“And at that point, we called a meeting of all the leaders in Daystar Christian Centre—the top 120 leaders on Zoom.
“They said you’ve never deceived us before. If God asks you to stay, stay as long as He directs. We’ll continue this journey,” he asserted.
Adeyemi said he and his wife subsequently stayed in the US after the church leaders’ Zoom meeting.
“I discovered that, until COVID-19, I’d been out of Nigeria for eight weeks. To now be away when you had the church with 40,000 members…
“I’m passionate about building systems so the church does not collapse. It is fantastic, and we call it an organisational miracle. It was almost three years before we had the Holy Spirit’s clearance to return to Nigeria.
“But what eventually the Holy Spirit would tell me was that He wanted me to shift my focus from just being the pastor of a local church to that of global walk that I had known that I would do.
“So, right now, the focus shift is to do that global walk while we keep Daystar running, leveraging technology.”
