In 2002, the year Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram was founded in northeast Nigeria, a band of jihadists attacked a Christian church in the region, burning the building to the ground and murdering multiple members, including the pastor.
The attack was a shocking precursor to what’s transpired in the years since as Boko Haram, which aims to implement strict Sharia law across all of Nigeria — including in the Christian South — began to spread its murderous ideology.
Ongoing violence
More than a decade later, terrorists struck the same church, which had rebuilt and continued to meet. This time, machete-wielding jihadists beheaded the widow of the late pastor and killed the youngest of her five children.
Then last April, on Good Friday, militants hit the same church yet again, setting it ablaze as part of a larger round of deadly attacks on Easter weekend across Nigeria’s North and Middle Belt.
The pastor — who as a child had lived through his father’s murder, then his mother’s beheading and his youngest sibling’s death — survived the attack, and the congregation, with help from a Nigeria-based ministry, has been able to salvage much of the church building and reopen. But many Christians living in the Muslim-majority North, especially in rural areas, are not as fortunate.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Jerry Pierce and originally published by Decision Magazine.
