Indigenous Missionaries Leave Legacy of Faith

Our missionaries need prayers. What is happening in the North Eastern part of Nigeria is a disaster; but most of the brunt is borne by Christians who are being targeted and killed. Read these wonderful testimonies about the lives of five ECWA missionaries who served and died in Nigeria. Take out time to pray for them during your family devotions and church prayer sessions.

From Morning Star News:

“These missionaries have been laboring in very dangerous, remote mission fields, far away from modern civilization,” said Elijah Ipole, head of media for the ECWA’s Evangelical Missionary Society (EMS). “Some have had to bury their loved ones while in mission fields. Some have had their properties looted or completely destroyed by the enemies of the gospel.”

Established in 1947 to empower indigenous African missionaries to take over missions work from foreign missionaries in Nigeria, EMS has lost five of its leaders to Boko Haram and other jihadists in the last four years, according to the ECWA president. One of them, the Rev. Isma Dogari, was murdered in Bauchi state in 2011. 

An EMS report describes his death:

“The Muslims took him to a mosque just by the roadside and, once inside, gave him a Koran and told him to denounce Jesus and live. But he refused and told them, ‘You need Jesus Christ in your lives.’ They then plugged his eyes, brought him out of the mosque, took him under a tree and asked him again to denounce his faith and live, but repeatedly he told them, ‘You need Jesus.’ At this point they stabbed Rev. Isma Dogari with a knife, slaughtered him and burned his corpse.” 

The Rev. Bukari Bunga, a director with EMS, told Morning Star News that Pastor Dogari was killed on April 10, 2011, while working in the Muntoshi Station. He was killed in Mararaban Liman Katagun. Other EMS missionaries killed by Muslim jihadists, according to Bunga, were pastor Ezra Ibrahim, killed in his station at Sabon Gida on Sept. 19, 2014; pastor Joshua M. Nana, killed in Bassa village in 2013; pastor Yunana Kinge, killed in Rafin Pa, Zankwa of the ECWA’s mid-central region on June 25, 2012; and pastor Yakubu Wazari, killed at Jos’ main market while taking his son to school on Jan. 8, 2011. He has served in Bani Kauwa II in Kasuwan Magani of the mid-central region.

“Please continue to pray for our missionaries, their families and the converts in the various mission fields, as you continue to bear in mind that the gospel is being preached by these missionaries in increasingly volatile and very deadly crises situations,” he wrote.