Still going strong at 84, Marilyn Hickey has taught millions how to love the Word of God and apply it to their lives. After setting out to simply teach the Bible, the former schoolteacher wound up with an international ministry that eclipsed that of her pastor-husband, the late Wallace Hickey.
Today she retains the love for Scripture that prompted a campaign in 1979 to get 1 million people reading and memorizing it that year.
“I was raised in liberal Methodism and when I got born again (as a teen) I said, ‘People are missing this,'” she recalls. “That’s still a passion. I’m always mentioning it on TV but I don’t have a campaign now. Maybe I should.”
On television since 1973, for the past 19 years she has co-hosted Marilyn and Sarah with her daughter, Sarah Bowling. Sarah and her husband, Reece, co-pastor Denver’s Orchard Road Christian Center, home base for Marilyn Hickey Ministries.
Still soft-spoken and outgoing after four decades in ministry, Hickey has become an international evangelist, a destiny prophesied long ago by Daisy Osborn.
Hickey has since visited 130 countries, including such Muslim strongholds as Indonesia and Pakistan. In 2012 more than 230,000 Pakistanis came to her meetings there, with 60 percent signaling acceptance of Christ.
Her itinerary includes an upcoming trip to the Far East, a signal that she has no plans to slow down.
“God is good to me with health and I love to minister,” Hickey says. “People ask me when I’m going to retire and I tell them, ‘I am retired.’ Retiring is doing what you like. I’m doing what I like.”
