"Think about your family at home, and imagine that you are on your way home and you are stopped by a mob of vicious people saying, 'Repeat after me or die.' Suddenly I realize our faith in the West may be fairly broad theologically, but it is not all that deep sometimes. These people in Nigeria, they don't know a lot of answers to Bible stories, and they probably can't give a good discussion on why Arminianism and Calvinism are right or wrong. But I can tell you that when people step up to them with a gun or a knife, and they are asked, 'Will you repeat after me?' and they say, 'No, Jesus is Lord,' their theology is very deep and we need that. I need that."
Dr. Paul met with doctors who treated victims who survived the March 2010 Dogo Nahawa attack in Nigeria. He comments further: "I have been an orthopedic surgeon now in practice for 25 years, and I have done a lot of emergency room work. I think 500 or 501 is the total number of people in this grave, approximately 450 from Dogo Nahawa and another 50 from the sister village that also tried to escape the Muslim attackers are buried here as well.... I have not seen this level of human tragedy in all my time I don't think, at least in such a concentrated form. It affected me because of the ... volume of it and seeing beyond, and knowing what the injury means to the person, and knowing how little resources are available in this country. As I prayed, I said 'God, what are you doing here? What is this?' I just had a terrible time with it.
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| A boy sitting with his mother cries during a funeral for people killed in religious attacks in the Dogo Nahawa village |
"They haven't given up. They believe that they are going to carry on."
(from Voice of the Martyrs, January 2011 newsletter)
(for more, see news stories from allAfrica.com, ChinaDaily.com)
When you are so poor, and a christian, you are forced to look to the future, to heaven where you will live forever with Jesus in peace, it makes life in this world seem less important. They don't have much money to give to causes, they ARE the cause. They are in a different situation than us, they have less responsibility because they HAVE less, it gives a sense of freedom in Christ, where their spirit is the FOCUS, because this life cannot compare, and they are free to grow, to love, to forgive, this is their life focus. The more you have, the more weight you have, not only of distractions, but of responsibility. The test Jesus gave the rich man was to see his depth of devotion, having so much experience depending on riches to save his life in this world, he failed the test. It is SO hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven for this reason. Can we really give it all up for Jesus? As a strong believer, when faced with death it wouldn't be in question. Here in America we are faced with much different trials. Do we stand or fall, deny or trust & obey Jesus on a day to day basis? How often do we get faced with the option to directly deny Jesus here in America? I know of only 1 so far. The girl who got shot in the head at the Columbine tragedy. The boys were atheists and evolutionists (the shirts they were wearing told the story)... they directly aske her if she believed in God, to which she replied "Yes, I believe in God!" and then they shot her in the head...there was a witness hiding who relayed the story. I can only imagine being in these people's shoes who died for Christ, but imagine being the witness who survived!
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