THE LONGEST 24-HOURS

I am in the boot of a car with two other guys! What can you see? All I can see are trees. Imagine receiving that message from your 16-year- old brother! As if that was not scary enough, the next message to follow almost brought me to my knees in fear of a cardiac arrest. Permit me to backtrack a little so you have a clearer picture of the situation:

My mother and brother were having a little scuffle over his going to the market to finish his school shopping. Being the big sister, I offered to pick him up once he was done noticing how my mom seemed worried about it which was unusual since he usually went to such places without an issue. I told him to simply call once he was done and I would come to get him. Problem solved, everybody is happy at least that was what I thought. I guess it was because I had little knowledge of what had transpired between them and the dreams they had both shared that morning.  Perhaps if I had come in a little sooner, I too would have been apprehensive and not willing to let my brother go anywhere.

We were to take family pictures with my grandmother (my favorite grandparent) since we were all home for the Christmas holiday. Pictures were to be by 4:00 pm and I was excited since I was the queen of pictures. It was an hour to the time for the pictures and my mom was almost blowing my phone with calls and messages asking about my youngest brother if he had come home or called me. She seemed pretty upset and I was like ‘it is just 3:00 pm please calm down'.

I didn't think much about it because he is a very sensible child, usually home before 6:00 pm and would call to let you know his whereabouts if ever he was running late; so I felt my mom was just being overprotective and smothering him since he was the baby of the house. It was not until about 7:00 pm I began to worry. I could not contact him and he was not with any of his friends.

We had just returned from searching for him, when my other brother got a text from him saying he was in the boot of a car with two other guys and all he could see were trees. He had finished his shopping early and decided to just take a cab home. That was the last thing he could remember but that was going to be the start of the longest 24 hours of our lives.

Upon receiving the text, my mom broke down in tears and said ‘God, my child'. Then almost instantly, got up and wiped away her tears. It was at that very moment the reality of the situation hit me. My youngest brother had been abducted. But what we were yet to find out was that he had not been abducted by kidnappers but by ritualists!

Nothing could have ever prepared anyone of us for this type of situation but, my mom had raised us right so we knew where to go and what to do. We began to pray and address it in the only way we knew and that God’s way. We started to praise the only One we knew had the power to change anything and make the impossible possible. I told my mom not to worry, like Peter, my brother would return home (Acts 12:5).

That night was a super long one as we spent it like a vigil. We received the last message from my brother at about midnight stating ‘they have stripped us down and beheaded the two people who were with me, I am the next and I am scared. I have to do away with this phone now because they are coming and I do not want them to see me with it. I never thought this would be how we would part but I love you all'. Goodness, gracious, imagine receiving this from your 16-year-old brother!

By morning, we were at the police station trying to get them to help trace his number since they had refused to attend to his case as a missing person due to the fact he had not been missing for 24 hours. What could keep us going even though he had informed us that he was the next person and the two with him were already dead as well as other people they had met there? It is called FAITH.

Long story short, the call was traced to Abuja (Karu-Nyanya axis). When we heard that, fear gripped my heart while discouragement was waiting to set in. It was at that point, my older sister told us to start calling my brother's name and send him messages affirming our love for him and how we needed him to come home. We kept sending the messages even though we were not receiving any response.

I recall going to the house and seeing so many people inside. When you see that amount of people in any Nigerian house, it is either to celebrate or to commiserate i.e. to sympathize. Everything at that point looked surreal to me. I could not believe what was happening. I remember thinking ‘God why us? We are good people. We try to keep your words, we do as much as we know you asked us to, we pay our tithes and offering, we help. So Father why us'? It almost felt like I was watching a horrible Nigerian movie but it was not a movie. It was real life and my life for that matter.

My dad was a former military officer, I had an uncle in Secret Security Service (SSS) and family friends who were generals but nobody could help us. Nobody but God!! I sent my ex-boyfriend a message because he had a sister in law who was an amazing minister and whose words I believe so much. I asked him to help, explain our situation to her so she could render a prayer for us. He called me back and said she asked him to tell me one thing, ‘Faith and Fear do not coexist'. The moment I received her message, I knew what to do. I needed to kick fear out totally and hold on to the only thing that had the power to change every situation, FAITH!!

I don't know what my other siblings were doing at that point but I went to my mom's room, picked one of my brother’s favorite outfits and then went before God to argue my matter out.

The bible had recorded God raising at least 10 people from the dead and I recall him saying we should seek and we would find, ask and it would be given. I remember God telling me that when we pay our tithes, he will rebuke the devourer on our behalf and that our fruits will not fall before their time. He said we should test him and see I remember him saying ‘He is not a man that he should lie'. He said He honors his words above his name and his words cannot go and come back without doing the work it has been sent to do.

So there I stood before God, reminding Him of all He had said. Everything I had ever read in His words and believed. I stood there telling Him that whether my brother was dead at that point, I didn't care because I knew He could bring him back to life. I had seen it in the bible and so unless the Bible was lying and His words could not be trusted, then, let my brother not come back to us alive. If He could bring Peter back at the point of death, then He could do the same for my brother. I had never done a dry fast in my life but that day, I did it without thinking twice (sometimes we think we cannot do things but if the truth be told, it's simply because nothing has pushed us to do it).

 My friend came into the room and heard me praying and crying. She didn't say a thing but stood there silently agreeing with me and it meant so much to me because my heart was so grieved and I needed someone there who understood what I was doing and not look at me as if I were crazy. I had seen Elisha and Jesus breath life over dead people and so I was going to use my brother's clothes as a representation for what I had seen done in the bible and wait to see if God would fail me on this test or not. If the Bible be true, then let it prove itself. I had put God in a test He could not afford to fail because the Word of God was all I knew and believed.

At about 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm, we heard a scream and commotion at the gate while we were praying and yes, as you can guess, my brother had come home but collapsed on a car in front of the gate. God had come through for us!! We had stood united in faith and were unrelenting despite the circumstance and reality of the situation we had been faced with. Facts are simply realities of a situation but never the truth of a matter. The truth of anything is what God says about the matter. As a family and with the best type of family friends, we had stood our ground in prayer and received our request. Even though he had several cuts on his body, his head was wrapped in a bandage and could not talk, he was alive and that was all that mattered.

I wish I could give you a more detailed account of what had happened but for the purpose of time and space let me give a brief recap: they had used scorpion venom to inject him without knowing that it causes paralysis to the heart and then death. So yes, he had died and was thrown with all the other dead bodies. He said something woke him up as he heard his name being called (remember what my sister said we should do). A voice then told him to get up and run. The bible says you shall hear a voice saying here is the way, walk ye in it and that was how it was.

He ran and they ran after him (It's a good time to note that my brother has always been a long-distance runner and so God had prepared him for that day because he had seen it coming. Nothing takes God by surprise). A man appeared in the forest amid the chase. Upon his presence; the others chasing him ran away. It seemed that man had superior powers. The man saw my brother unconscious from the loss of blood due to the cuts and exhaustion. He bound him in the bandages and brought him to Maraban Jos (the main entrance of Jos). He dropped him there and left. My brother looked to say thank you but he saw neither man nor car.

Was he an angel or something else? I cannot say but I can say this ‘God is mindful of us and always looking over His words to perform it. No matter how impossible a situation looks, remember it is never difficult for God because His Hands are not unable to save. God wants us to exercise faith and take dominion of all He has given us and put under our charge.

I do not know what thing has come before you that you want to cave in and give up on but dear people, if the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is the same spirit that lives in us (Rom 8:11); then we have a powerful spirit that can command every principality, demon, and its likes (Eph 1:21-23).

As for my brother, he is about done with his National Youth Service. He is doing brilliant and is the one addition in our lives we are not willing to make do without. I love him so much and cannot picture a life that he would not have been in it.

Every time I see him, I see the power of prayer and faith. Nothing has dared my faith as much as that and so no matter what I see, I know that when we stand united in faith, prayer and the Word of God, we can overcome it.

So as the year runs out, I charge you to believe the Word of God and refuse Fear. In the words of one of my favorite pastors, Pastor Jemima Mbaya ‘Fear and Faith cannot co-exist'! Pick one today and address that thing that is trying to address you through the word of God!! Open your mouth and speak what you want to see.