27-02-2015 About 600 of these children staying with us at “Home For The Needy”
We are pleased to update you concerning the displaced children from the North East of Nigeria.
By now, we have about 600 of these children staying with us at “Home For The Needy” in Benin City. Still, every day we receive calls of children from the Boko Haram-affected areas, who are crying on phone, telling us that they want to come and stay with us. As long as the children remain in the conflict area up north they are in constant danger of death; either through starvation, sickness or the worst: Boko Haram.
The terrorists are desperately wicked and systematically search for those who were able to escape and are hiding in the mountains. When they are looking for them, they spray something into the air that is hotter than pepper so that wherever people are hiding they will begin to cough, and then the terrorists can easily locate them and kill them...
It is only by God’s grace that those children with us are still alive.
Children told us that they were in the midst of gunfire with bullets only missing them by inches.
Other children told us that as they fled, they had to cross a mighty river. They told us that the river was flooded with dead bodies of people who tried to cross but were not able to make it. Later on, heavy rain fell, which made the river to rise in a way that it was no more possible for many people to cross to the other side, and Boko Haram was already coming at their back... Needless to say, they were all killed by the insurgents mercilessly.
Also, the terrorists wanted to force the children to convert to Islam, threatening to kill them if they refuse – but nevertheless, the children stood their ground for Christ and insisted that they will never deny Jesus. They were ready to die for their faith, but miraculously God helped them to escape.
We also heard more pathetic stories of how those hiding in the mountains are suffering. The children told us that if one of them will manage to find just one dried up cob of corn, they will use a big stone to grind it to powder, and then everybody will rush to get to lick as much of that tiny heap of powder as they can. They are so desperately hungry......
Also, there was a woman who hid in the mountains with her ten children for six months, and they just had one jerry can of clean drinking water which they had to manage so seriously that they took the water like medicine. Just imagine the incredible thirst they have been suffering...
We could go on and on like this. Altogether, it is incomprehensible what great affliction those in the North East are going through. They need our prayers and every kind of help we can give to them!
For us here in Benin City, the biggest challenge we are facing right now is accommodation.
Presently, we have about 1,200 children staying at Home For The Needy altogether. Now the few houses we have are no longer able to accommodate the great demand of children in need of our help – children are even sleeping in open places outside. Nevertheless, they are grateful to be in safety.
However, we really need a big miracle so that we can build more houses for accommodation as soon as possible, both for the children already staying with us and for as many as still want to find shelter with us!
Also, the urgent need to complete our 28 permanent class rooms is still there, as our temporary wooden school building is completely congested. Many students need to be taught under trees or under a canopy of bamboo canes and palm leaves.
As we wrote in our previous newsletter, when the permanent class rooms are completed we could also use some of them to accommodate more children temporarily.
Still, another great challenge is the daily feeding of the children – with the increasing population at Home For The Needy it is not easy, because when food is coming in, it is finished shortly after.
Therefore, we are very grateful for every prayer and every support, be it financially, materially or any other way!
Let us join hands together to take care of those vulnerable children, let us do our utmost to get their lives restored, and let us also not forget those in north east Nigeria who are still hiding in the mountains and in caves right now, who are still eating grass and are dying of cholera and starvation every day – if we do not help them, who else will do? If everybody waits for another person to do something, then at the end nothing will be done!
Thank you very much for all your love, care and support so far! We are grateful to have friends like you standing with us!
God bless you all in Jesus name!
