Founder and Senior Pastor of Daystar Christian Centre, Sam Adeyemi, has revealed the reasons behind his relocation to the United States.
During a virtual interview with Seun Okinbaloye on the ‘Mic On’ podcast, Adeyemi discussed Leadership Beyond Governance Politics and the Role of the Younger Generation in Nigeria. The hour-and-a-half-long interview was streamed on the Mic On YouTube channel on Sunday.
Earlier this year, Adeyemi emphasized the need for older generations of Nigerians, including political and religious leaders, to take action and improve the country because the younger generation would soon start demanding answers.
Adeyemi cited COVID-19, EndSARS protests, and troubling dreams about Nigeria as reasons for relocating. He explained, “When COVID-19 started, all our children were in the US, so everyone stayed with their families. We stayed with our children. The week services resumed was when EndSARS started, so 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 realize I shouted out loud in real life.”
The preacher, originally from Kogi State but born in Niger State, added that whenever they planned to return to Nigeria, a bad dream would cause a setback.
“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.
As president of Success Power International, an NGO organizing leadership, financial, and motivational seminars, Adeyemi mentioned that whenever he and his wife set dates and booked flights to return to Nigeria, he would have a bad dream about something terrible happening.
He also noted 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.”
Adeyemi informed the elders of Daystar about the situation, and they agreed to keep the church running.
“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.
The host of the radio and television ‘Success Power’ programme, heard and seen in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, said he and his wife stayed in the US after the church leaders’ Zoom meeting.
“Six months later, we were still in the US for one year, tearing me apart. 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,” he noted.
He added that the experience in the US highlighted Daystar’s strengths, including investments in training and established systems.
“I’m passionate about building systems so the church does not collapse. It is fantastic, and we call it an organizational 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 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.”
PUNCH Online reports that Daystar Christian Centre, based in Lagos State, was inaugurated on November 18, 1995, and now has branches across various states in the country.
SOURCE: PUNCH NEWSPAPER
