Page 17 - Voice of the Persecuted Christians - Jul-Sep 2023 - 123

© Release International 2023
on – many like Jude have lost loved ones or been injured or driven from their homes – our partners provide them with vital practical as well as pastoral support.
Ladi Chohu, whose community was also raided by Fulani, told us: ‘We were in our homes when militants started attacking our community and chasing people from their homes. Most of us were chased into the towns. While we were there, they were attacking our homes and destroying and setting them ablaze. And they burned all our homes.
‘After the attack we came back to see if we could put things back together again but we couldn’t. All our resources had been burned. All our money and everything was gone.’
Release International partner Stefanos Foundation helped Ladi to rebuild her home
© Release International 2023
She added: ‘Then the rains came and finished off the destruction. So we were struggling to put [our] home back together until the Stefanos Foundation [a Release International partner] came and helped us to rebuild.
‘I much appreciate the support of Christians in the UK, particularly through the work of Release International to us at Stefanos,’ he said. ‘Over two decades, we’ve tried
to structure all that you send to us
in three forms. We are committed to making sure that the voice of these people is heard ... hoping that other Christians will get to learn about their suffering and pray.’
‘We can’t be sure of what Fulani militants might do in the future but we, the Christians, want this to be the end. We came back home and we are staying; and we are willing to stay in peace with them. We are trusting God that they will not be able to attack us again.’
Secondly Stefanos advocates on their behalf with the Nigerian authorities and internationally; and thirdly, and critically, responds to the practical needs of the persecuted and displaced such as supplying food relief as well as meeting survivors’ emotional needs.
Despite seeing his
wife killed and She said: ‘I would like people in the UK
‘They thought that I was dead and then they left until security came and took me to hospital. The whole community was attacked. They killed about eight people.’
Mark Lipdo, head of Stefanos, described the changing shape of persecution over the past 20 years. The oppression had started in northern Nigeria with the denial
Mark said: ‘You can provide physical support, because you see that a roof has been burned down. But some wounds are internal. And people
have come to live with them. You may see someone laughing but inside he has a secret heart wound. So we try
to engage with them in those areas through trauma healing ... which enables them to have a new hope and a new beginning.’
‘I forgive them. If God can forgive, who am I not to?’
As a result believers were attacked in their homes or on the street and forced off their land so they were not able to produce crops to feed themselves.
Like Jude and Ladi, Mark also appealed to UK Christians to pray,
as well as ‘to speak for persecuted Nigerian Christians within your churches, within your government’, adding: ‘We will continue to thank God for you as we bear this together to the end of the calling.’
Jude asked for prayer for himself and his community. ‘Maybe the prayers will touch the hearts of the herdsmen,’ he said.
That’s where the long-term help of
suffering terrible injuries, Jude has forgiven his attackers
to remember to pray for us; that what has happened will never be repeated. Pray that God will replenish what we have lost.’
of basic rights such as freedom to Of those who were shot Jude was worship, then had focused on issues
the only one to survive and, despite the loss of his wife and the injuries he suffered, he holds no bitterness towards the perpetrators.
such as children’s education and ultimately to the point where it became violent towards anyone who was not a Muslim.
Release international supporters has To help the oppressed simply to carry been so crucial.
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