NIGERIA: To Kill a Good Man, To kill a Nation

Nigeria – Borno Governor says “Boko Haram on verge of seizing control of state.”
  

Rev. Faye Pama Musa killed by Boko Haram
(World Watch Monitor)

President’s State of Emergency decree fails to stop murder of Borno State CAN Secretary.
By Lekan Otufodunrin

(World Watch Monitor.org, May, 17, 2013) Borno State in Northern Nigeria has been teetering on the brink of a takeover by Islamist militant group Boko Haram, warned its Governor, Kassim Shettima, a few days before the declaration by President Goodluck Jonathan of a “state of emergency” in Borno and two neighbouring provinces.

The President’s declaration on Tuesday (May 14), which also applies to Yobe and Adamawa States in the country’s troubled North East region, was followed shortly after by the murder of the Secretary in Borno of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Rev Faye Pama Musa.

Musa, head of REME Assembly in Maiduguri (the Borno State capital) and Chairman of the state’s Pentecostal Fellowship, was reportedly shot at close range by two suspected Boko Haram members in his house, in the presence of his daughter, who pleaded with them to spare her father’s life.
A few days before, Borno's Governor Kassim Shettima had briefed visiting Senators and military advisers in a confidential security meeting on May 7, and warned them Boko Haram was close to seizing power in the state.

Shettima also said: “Underneath the mayhem of Boko Haram, beneath the madness lies the underlying cause, which is extreme poverty and destitution which have permeated all spectrums of our society.

“Only and until we address some of these issues, believe me, the future is very bleak for all of us as the current crisis is just an appetizer of things to come. Very soon the youths of this country will be chasing us away.”
Reuters quoted Senator Abdul Ahmed Ningi as saying: "What the governor said was frightening. He informed us there is a possibility that this state will be taken over by Boko Haram ... that they have the ability to do whatever they wanted here. I had thought Boko Haram had been subdued to some extent."

On May 14, CAN Chairman in the state, Reverend Titus Pona, who confirmed Musa’s death, said the Christian community in the state capital last week received a death threat from an unknown group to kill or kidnap a pastor, but it was dismissed.

“We never thought that the rumour could turn out to be true, and we’d told the Governor that our area was safe,” Pona told reporters in Maiduguri.

“Of course, there were no killings around this area before and where I am living has also been seen as safe, until they started killing people again. It is very unfortunate that they came to attack an innocent man.
“Our prayer and hope is that the amnesty declared by the President would help to fish out [those responsible] and bring them to justice for the innocent lives they have taken.”

The Governor promised in a condolence message to CAN that the perpetrators would be brought to justice and that Musa’s family would be provided for.

The National President of CAN, Ayo Oritsejafor, and Rev Felix Omobude of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, condemned Musa’s murder and called for improved security following Shettima’s admission that Boko Haram were on the verge of seizing control of the state.

Oritsejafor called for the dissolution of the committee created by the federal government to negotiate with Boko Haram and other violent groups in the country, saying “no reasonable agreements can be reached with terrorists”.

President Jonathan announced controversially last month that an amnesty was being considered with Boko Haram. Christian organizations and leaders responded almost universally negatively to this idea.

"Why should they be given amnesty?” said Rev. Joshua Ray Mains, Bauchi State Secretary. “Are we congratulating them for the people they have sent to their early graves, or are we encouraging them to continue with their acts so that other groups can take advantage of the amnesty and continue to disrupt the peace of the country?"
However, Bishop Matthew Kukah, head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, supported the amnesty, saying in his Easter message it would bring the country closer to a new dawn.

“To reject amnesty is to place oneself at the same level as these miscreants,” he said. “An offer of amnesty is not the same as a declaration of amnesty. An offer of amnesty brings the penitent to the table as a first step. Amnesty is a process, not a destination. The offer of amnesty will not solve all our problems, but it will bring us closer to a new dawn.”

The declaration of emergency across the three states, and the resulting mass deployment of military has been welcomed by many groups in the country.

However, the Progressive Governors’ Forum had earlier “implored Mr. President to be consistent with the combination of dialogue and mediation which he has already set in motion, and [hold back from] action on the planned declaration of State of Emergency in the affected states, which we believe would be counter-productive”.

end

Question: Should a nation fight to defend itself?
How many times in Biblical or modern history did
God help Israel fight her enemies? Nigeria. 

-- Blessings, Bill

IRAQ Islamist Extremists Want To Drive Out All Christians

Many believers have fled to Jordan and Lebanon or to the northern Kurdish region of Iraq.

Iraqi Kurds (Wikipedia.org)

SANTA ANA, Calif. (April 23, 2013) – Islamist extremists want Iraq to be a “Muslim only” country. As a result, Christians in Iraq remain continuous targets of violent attacks.

Each month Open Doors field workers receive sad phone calls and emails of Christian acquaintances who report attacks against the Christians near them. While most of them are part of the general violence, such as bomb attacks and mortar fire which intensified during provincial elections last Saturday, a part of the violence can be labeled as specifically targeted against Christians.

“If these attacks take place in a Christian neighborhood or a Christian village, you can assume they are targeted, especially against the Christian population of the neighborhoods and villages,” said an Open Doors field worker. “Since the fall of Saddam Hussein 10 years ago, an estimated 1,000 Christians have been killed, a relatively high number compared with percentages killed from other groups in Iraqi society.”

A Christian in Mosul was the target of two attacks in one week last March. After the first bomb exploded in his house on a Wednesday, a second one was thrown over his fence on Sunday. The Christian saw two young men running away. The second bomb, wrapped in a black bag and a women’s t-shirt, was deactivated by a military engineering team.

In early April, Adbuljabar Khidher Toza, another Christian from Mosul, wasn’t so fortunate. Armed men shot him to death in front of his house.

All these targeted attacks serve only one purpose, shares the field worker:

“We received documents and threats stating that the aim of the Islamist Insurgents is to make Iraq a ‘Muslim only’ country; they want the Christians out.”

Louis Raphael Sako, the newly-elected Chaldean Catholic patriarch of Iraq and Syria, says he is afraid of what Islamist rule would mean for Christians. “People are afraid of a kind of Islamic state as it was in the seventh century where Christians would be considered second-class citizens,” he said.

According to Open Doors’ 2013 World Watch List materials, there are only an estimated 330,000 to 350,000 Christians left in Iraq. There were more than 1.2 million Christians in the early 1990’s. Many of the believers have fled to Jordan and Lebanon or to the northern Kurdish region of Iraq. Iraq is ranked No. 4 on the list of the worst persecutors around the globe.

Sako urges Christians to stay: “We must stay. This is our history. This is our cultural heritage. When we leave, everything will leave with us.”

Jerry Dykstra, a spokesman for Open Doors USA, adds that “since the start of war in Iraq 10 years ago, the situation for Christians has deteriorated each year. Christians have faced church attacks, kidnappings, threats and death for their faith. They have no faith in the government providing security for them. Please keep Iraqi Christians in your prayers. Many feel they are alone and forgotten.”

The Open Doors ministry in Iraq includes trauma counseling, biblical training for church leaders and Muslim Background Believers, distribution of Bibles and Christian literature, community development projects and working with Internally Displaced Peoples (IDPs) in Kurdistan.

For almost 60 years Open Doors has worked in the world's most oppressive and restrictive countries, strengthening Christians to stand strong in the face of persecution and equipping them to shine Christ's light in these places. Open Doors empowers persecuted Christians by supplying Bibles and Christian literature, training Christian leaders, facilitating social/economic projects and uniting believers in the West in prayer for Christians, who are the most persecuted religious group in the world and are oppressed in at least 60 countries. To partner with Open Doors USA, call toll free at 888-5-BIBLE-5 (888-524-2535) or go to our website at www.OpenDoorsUSA.org.

Christians Evangelizing Muslims

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Evangelizing Muslims is a Calling God will Honor.

 

“Behold, a sower went forth to sow.”

(ChristiansUnite.com)

 

The Cross and the Crescent (excerpt): For all kinds of reasons, evangelizing the Islamic world presents a tough challenge. But it is no more impossible than evangelizing the Roman world was for the first disciples. The apostle Peter tells us that evangelism is the main reason for the establishment of the Church (1 Peter 2:9-10). A glance at the book of Acts will show that the early believers evangelized fearlessly (Acts 2:8, 4:20,29; 8:4, 13:1-4). Every Christian sharing in the Lord's Supper is reminded that “as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes” (1 Cor 11:26).

God never orders the impossible. When he commands the Church to evangelize to the ends the earth, He equips believers with what it takes to obey. This is why He must be obeyed without reservation. You cannot call Him “Lord,” and say “no” to Him. The Lord does not take a “no” from His followers; to call God “Lord” and then say “no” to Him is a contradiction in terms.

When the Lord orders, He empowers His people to obey.

“Who ever goes to War at his own expense?” asked Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:7. What is more, when we obey Him, He guarantees the results. He is always on the throne. Before Jesus delegated his disciples to witness for Him, He told them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18). To those who obey and go, He says, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

Also, remember that you are not the one doing the conversion work. You are sowing the seed of the word of God. In the parable Jesus told in Matthew 13:1-9, nobody asked the sower to check if the ground was good or thorny or stony. His job was to scatter grain. In the same way, the conversion of the heart is something only the Holy Spirit can accomplish.

Paul had no delusions about this. He asked the Corinthians, “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you come to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building” (1 Corinthians 3:5-9).

-- Abdul Hadi

International Bible scholar,

apologist and evangelist

Special Visit (OneWithThem.com). You will meet true Christians in the Persecuted Church from around the World. Glimpse their lives each day on the "Devotional." Walk as early Christians walked with Jesus in the New Testament. Know the real church is not a building, but God's love power among people. To read, sign free for the“Devotional.”

Blessings,

Bill