Stories of Faith: A Girl’s Walk With Her Lord (1)

For God is able to do what He says he will do

Heb 11: 1 KJV 

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  

Heb 11: 1 AMP 

Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality—faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses]. 

Heb 11: 1 EASY 

This is what it means to trust God: We will be sure about the things that we hope for. We will be sure in our minds about things that we cannot even see.

According to the New York Times, today, July 2nd is the exact middle of the year 2025. A fitting day to set this ball in motion. In May 2024, I graduated from NYU, and in my social media post, I had a line that said, “I can totally write a book…” It was just an expression that basically implied there was a lot I could say. I remember someone in the comments saying, “...write the book,” to which I replied that I’d only do that if God said so, and she said she’d pray, lol. In my mentor’s message to me after my graduation, there was a line, “...I feel like there is a whole faith journey that has a lot of remarkable lessons for the Saints in your story that it should become a book, we’ve got to do something about it… what God has shown you is something we have to document for believers…” 

I came into 2025 knowing that God wanted me to write more in all my expressions - faith walk, safety, impact investment, and personal growth. As an author of 6 books, I can write, but I honestly do not like to write for others because it takes a lot from me, and I do not mean that in a bad way. It takes over my brain space and my being such that I cannot rest till it’s out. So,  I started the faith walk one through an IG carousel series where I write on a topic by answering a "question".

Well, in May 2025, exactly a year later, the Lord said, “Stories of Faith” and I had a knowing it was the NYU story. He expanded my heart on the how and the why. Since He knows I’m always running away from the work involved in writing books because of my love/hate relationship with writing, He has graciously allowed me to start it as a series on my blog. Therefore, that is what I’d be doing. Over the coming days/weeks, I’d be sharing the story. Maybe it will eventually be collated for that book, I don't know. For now, I’ve committed to the blog series and it is my hope that it achieves the intended success metrics the Lord shared with me. Happy reading!

The Beginning

Almost every year since 2021, God keeps sending people to me across the religious divide (Christians, Muslims, and the in-between) who want to study abroad to get answers to their questions. The major reason they come to me is that they do not have all the funds needed; otherwise, they would not need my input. So, I always start with this thought: "There are 3 ways to study abroad when you do not have all the funds:

1. You get a fully funded scholarship 

2. Your family and friends support your bills

3. You do not have 1 or 2 to a 100%, but God says you should go anyway"

This series is about going anyway on account of the Word of the Lord. 

Many years ago, I made a plan for my life and identified people with similar trajectories. I knew then that I would love to pursue my graduate degree abroad, as it would allow me to explore some of the things I wanted to feature in my life’s journey. As the time drew closer, I wasn’t sure of the University or the country until the Lord brought New York University (NYU) to my attention in the last quarter of 2019. I saw there was an Oprah Winfrey scholarship, and I did my best to put forward a stellar application. To show you how much of a novice I was in these abroad schooling matters, that was the only school I applied to, lol.

March rolled around, and I received my admission letter, but I did not get the scholarship. I was genuinely perplexed, a whole exceptional student like me, lol. When it became obvious towards the end of the month that I would not be able to go due to a lack of funding, I was so sad and had to let the opportunity go. But on the 22nd of March, I stumbled on Esther 8: 8 during my Bible study. In this story of Queen Esther, even though Haman’s plans to annihilate the Jews had been exposed and the king was on Esther’s side, there was a written decree that would still have an effect on the Jews, and Queen Esther wanted the king to revoke it. Essentially, verse 8 was the King giving her the right to write a new decree however she wanted in His name, and it would be done for her. The Lord brought this to my attention because He wanted me to write a decree. So, I wrote mine.

My prophetic journal

After my decree, I let the admission go, forgot about the decree (this decree will feature in 2022), and decided to apply again in the next cycle. This time around, I was wiser. I looked through the curriculum of the program I wanted at NYU, and I started taking free courses on EDX that aligned with some of the topics because I wanted to get ready to go back to the classroom full-time. I also applied to 3 scholarship opportunities, 2 in the US and 1 in the UK. When I re-applied to NYU, one of the questions was what had changed since my last application. I mentioned the personal study I had been doing, amongst other things.

March 2021 came, and I didn’t get the opportunity in the UK. NYU gave me admission without a scholarship, and the third opportunity in the US was negative. The night the third opportunity fell through, I was so frantic and started making calls to several people about other opportunities because I knew I was supposed to be in school by September 2021. My battery ran out and I had to sleep. I guess my angels thought, let’s knock her out so she can rest, lol.

I woke up to an email from NYU Wagner asking if I still wanted a scholarship, and if I did, I should fill out a form. In my mind, I thought, “Of course, I want a scholarship, what type of question is this one?” I filled out the form and explained why I needed more money. A few days later, I received an email offering me $20,000 towards my over $80,000 fees. I asked for more, and the response was more like, take what we’ve offered or leave it. I spoke to my friend Alexia because I was concerned about where the rest of the funds would come from. She said, “They gave you something, take it and God will work out the rest.”

I took it to the Lord in prayer. “Father, I did not know this school. You brought them to my attention. They are giving me only $20,000, where am I supposed to get the rest? What am I supposed to do?” And I heard so clearly as if someone called my name, “crowdfunding”. I didn’t even think twice, I outrightly said no. This is because, as much as a part of my life has been in the public domain, I am a private person. I like to manage myself by myself, and here was the Lord asking me to bring my private issue into the public domain. I wanted none of that. Interestingly, I had done crowdfunding for causes and even advised others to leverage it for causes before, but I didn’t want to do that for my education.

That same day, another friend of mine, Emediong, called to talk about something else. During the conversation, I said to him, “Can you imagine that God wants me to run a crowdfunding campaign? I can’t do that.” He kept quiet for a bit and then he said, “What is crowdfunding that we cannot do?” He then proceeded to build my belief of the possibility of implementing a crowdfunding campaign. By the end of that call, I wasn’t fully convinced to do it, but the aversion to it had been erased. By the time I woke up the next morning, Emediong had researched and sent all the resources needed to run a crowdfunding campaign.

But the Lord needed me to be all in because I had a long journey ahead. Over the next few days, I was still thinking through my choices, and I felt led to look through my prophetic journal. My prophetic journal is a record of all that God has said to me since I became conscious of Him speaking directly to me. When I opened my journal randomly, I landed on January 18th, 2020, a Word God gave me through my mentor, PDDK (excerpt on only the parts relevant to this series)

“...go in boldness as if you have everything you need to do everything I have told you to do. Take bold steps on the account of my Word to you… What are you afraid of?... Why are you afraid of starting out, putting your all into it, and for it to fail? Why do you detest failure so much? Why? Go on my Word. Go boldly. Go courageously… Go on account of my Word. Run, run, run, soldier run. Do what I have put in your heart. Ask around for help wherever I ask you to ask for help. Don’t hold yourself back. Don’t say I don’t want to come across as being too forward or of wanting too much. Ask and it will be given to you. Funding is not your problem; courage is. Believe me and you will see my salvation…”

Talk about God coming for you from the pages of a book to smack sense into you. That was the heavenly clapback I needed to reset my brain into purpose and destiny. I put on my big girl pants, reached out to NYU to accept their scholarship offer, worked with a few friends to create a crowdfunding campaign (#UgochiGetsIntoNYU), and we rolled it out in April. Two weeks into the crowdfunding, I wasn’t seeing the kind of money that could move the needle, so I went back to God. “You said I should do crowdfunding, I am doing it, but I cannot see the money.”

He said, “I want you to see in real-time what international students go through in the desire for further education because at some point you will give out scholarships and you need to understand the process.” Ah! My heart dropped. That’s when I knew for real that this was going to be a long journey. So I said, “But you know me, you know I’m obedient if you ask me to do something, I will do it, it doesn’t have to be like this.” However, even as I said it, I had an understanding that it’s different when you do something because you are asked to do it as opposed to when you have an intimate knowledge of the situation. 

To be continued.

Key Lessons

1. Be a person of excellence. Commit to always improving yourself in private. Self-mastery and self-governance are major differentiators between people with equal talents.

2. The calibre of people you surround yourself with is critical for your next level in life. Build great relationships before you need them. You need voices that encourage you, build you up, and can still call you out. Friendships have been critical to my life’s journey. My mum always said, “Ugochi, you have good friends”. She was and is still right.

3. Failure is not your identity, so do not be afraid to fail. The fact that you failed at something does not mean your entire life and destiny failed, only that thing failed. I do not like to fail, but in 2020, God fully cemented my perspective on failure. It’s possible to do everything right and still fail at something. Take your lessons and move on boldly.

4. God’s Word is bankable. Write it down and always remind yourself about it. His Word is alive and active. It is useful today, in 2 years and in 10 years. Being sure of what God has said to you is an antidote for fear, doubt, worry, and the bitter tongues of men. Focus on God’s Word.

5. When God asks you to do something, it’s not just about you. This realisation should make you sit up and take your life seriously. It doesn’t have to be for a million people for it to count. With God, success is doing excellently what He has called you to do, whether it’s for one person or for millions. Have you complied with the last instruction you received?

As you read, you probably picked your own lessons, feel free to share yours in the comments. It might help someone else who will be reading.