Nigeria (MNN) — Earlier this
week, Boko Haram launched a spattering of attacks within hours of each
other in northeast Nigeria. In one assault, they gunned down eight
Christians as they were leaving church. Boko Haram members also ambushed
a Nigerian military convoy, and beheaded a village chief and his son.
All this comes in the wake of failed
negotiations between Boko Haram and the Nigerian government to swap
kidnapped women and girls for imprisoned insurgency members.
It’s been seven years of Boko Haram
militants terrorizing northern Nigeria. But the crisis they’ve
instigated is not grabbing headlines like their Euro-Middle Eastern ISIS
counterparts or attacks on the West.
(Photo courtesy of Open Doors USA)
Greg Kelley with World Mission
says, “They’re causing all kinds of terror and it’s incredibly
difficult. In fact, there are so many communities in northern Nigeria
that Christians have 100 percent evacuated just because they are
literally targeted and murdered on site as they’re identified.”
This crisis isn’t just Nigeria’s problem.
It’s affecting countries around them — and really, no matter how far
the effect goes, Christians need to fight against and pray for
injustices.
“The reality is that Boko Haram,
although they’re concentrated in Nigeria, their influence has spilled
over into Niger and Cameroon, specifically where you have hundreds of
thousands of refugees. The numbers we have are that there’s an
additional 400,000 refugees in just those two countries as a result of
Boko Haram.”
Because of the hostilities, northern
Nigeria can be a very volatile area for ministry. And Kelley says it’s
exactly where World Mission has been called.
“Literally, as Christians are fleeing, the people we work
with are leaning into and going into those very places and sharing the
Gospel with these terrorists, essentially,” explains Kelley.
“Nigeria is a dichotomy in missions,
because [in] the southern part around Lagos you’ll find all kinds of
Christian activity and churches and meetings…. But there’s a line that
literally runs right through the center of the country. North of that is
majority Muslim, south of that is majority Christian. So all of our
work is targeted in the northern part where Muslims live and worship,
and that’s where Boko Haram is very active.”
A devastating fire set by Boko Haram militants. (Photo courtesy of World Mission)
Over 2.6 million people have been torn from their homes because of Boko Haram. Most are in camps now, and they need hope.
“There are these IDP or Internally
Displaced People camps scattered throughout northern Nigeria where
Muslims have essentially been congregated because of Boko Haram, and it
really makes them very accessible [for ministry]. So our strategy is
going into these IDP camps in northern Nigeria where there are more than
a million people just in Nigeria alone living.”
According to the United Nations, northern Nigeria is seeing
famine-like conditions created by these attacks. Many of the refugees
used to be farmers, and have now lost their livelihood.
“We’re being told there are 20,000
children right now just on the verge of death due to malnutrition in
these camps in Nigeria. And we bring in food and sanitary items, and our
partners are building relationships with them and just loving them
without strings attached.”
Kelley continues, “And then of course they share The Treasure,
which is World Mission’s solar-powered audio Bible in the native
tongue, which is Hausa, and people are gathering around, Muslims
gathering around in small groups listening to the Word of God in these
refugee camps.”
But why audio Bibles, rather than the written Scriptures?
Kelley says not only is the community in northern Nigeria highly oral
and relational, but also, so many schools in the area have been
destroyed and literacy has gone down.
“Even prior to [Boko Haram], there
was a highly illiterate area. But once you bring the chaos in of people
running indiscriminately from place to place, it takes out all of the
infrastructure which includes medical [and] it includes schooling. So
people literally don’t have access to schooling right now in so many
places in northern Nigeria, so the illiteracy levels we’re seeing,
they’re getting even worse now,” explains Kelley.
(Photo courtesy of World Mission via Facebook)
“So audio Bibles are critical because the people can’t read and they
do things in oral cultures together anyway. So it sort of hits the sweet
spot of them listening and engaging with the Word of God.”
World Mission would love for you
to get involved in making sure aid and spiritual resources get into the
hands of people in Nigeria!
“People can send resources. It takes us about $50 to send a Treasure
into northern Nigeria, and then another $50 allows us to feed an entire
family for a couple of weeks with rice and provide clean water and that
kind of a thing.”
He also encourages, “We need people
to pray. We need to pray that as Boko Haram has caused chaos, that the
Lord uses it in some way for us to share the Good News of Jesus Christ
with people who have never heard before.”
Kelley leaves us with this thought:
“It does create an opportunity for the Church, even though it’s not on
the radar, it’s not being promoted aggressively in the news like some of
these other things. It’s a huge crisis in our time, in 2016, that the
Church needs to respond to.”
Click here to donate to World Mission and send The Treasure and humanitarian aid to our Christian brothers and sisters in Nigeria!
Source: Mission Network
News
Topic: Boko Haram guns down Christians leaving church
