Nigeria

Like many Christians in northern Nigeria, Alice has suffered multiple attacks from Muslim extremists, but she is not disheartened because she knows that Christ told us His followers would suffer. Though it has been nine years since her husband was murdered by militant Islamic Fulani herdsmen, every time Alice Bulus hears about a new attack, she re-lives the pain of the day he died. “When I hear the sound of a gun, I panic,” Alice said. Alice and her family were asleep when men with covered faces stormed into their home around midnight on Jan. 13, 2011, in Nigeria’s Plateau state. After calling her husband by name, the men shot him as he opened the bedroom door. Alice, who recognized one of the attackers as a neighbor, tried to stop the bleeding as her husband lay crumpled on the floor and their five terrified children cried in the corner. When the Nigerian military arrived in their village about an hour later, they took Alice’s husband to the hospital. But it was too late; he died on the way to surgery. Crisis upon Crisis In Nigeria, they call it a crisis. Attacks by Boko Haram terrorists and nomadic Fulani militants are

Sept. 11, 2014, began as a happy day for Mary Patrick. She and her older sister were walking to a wedding in a nearby village with the bride-to-be and the bride’s younger sister. But their lives, like those of many other young women in Nigeria, changed forever with the terrifying sound of yelling and gunfire. Mary, who was 24 years old, quickly hid in a nearby house with the others when the Boko Haram attack began in Adamawa state, in northeastern Nigeria. They hid in the house for four days before being captured while trying to escape. “The only thing I was thinking when they took me is that I will die,” Mary said. “I know they will kill me. I’m just praying to God everything that I do that is wrong, that the good Lord will forgive me.” The horror that Mary faced during four months of captivity with Boko Haram became clear to a front-line worker when he tried to buy her a meal. “I wanted to buy food for her and bought some meat,” the worker said. “She told me she couldn’t eat the meat. She said, ‘In the camp they used to eat human flesh, so

Despite being threatened with death and disowned by family members, Dawo was determined to share the gospel with the Fulani people. And his determination hasn’t wavered since losing his brother. The day after Dawo’s cousin burned Dawo’s Bible and kicked him out of the house, 20 young men surrounded the new believer, wrestled him to the ground and tied his hands and feet together with rope. When he had placed his faith in Christ three days earlier, he couldn’t have imagined that what he was about to endure would change so much for so many. As a member of the Fulani people group, it was assumed that Dawo was and would remain Muslim. He had moved in with his cousin in a large city in Bauchi state, Nigeria, intending to enroll in an Islamic school. However, his path was radically altered by a series of vivid dreams in which he saw heaven and encountered Jesus. Prompted by the dreams, he used the little money he had to purchase a Bible and learn more about Christianity. What he learned led him to abandon his traditional Fulani religion to follow Christ. Moved by the realization that he had received salvation, he declared