This was an assessment made by the Aid Workers who are working among Christians in the North East of Nigeria. The truth is that some of our brethren are discriminated against when it comes to aids sharing. These are people that all their means of livelihood have been wiped off. Even if the insurgence ends today, their lives will never remain the same. They need help urgently.
What are we doing as a church in Nigeria? What is your church doing? What is your fellowship doing? What are we doing as families? What are we doing in our organizations that have Christian leanings? Where are our sacrifices?
Is it not unbelievable that some Christians are dying of hunger but our offerings have not changed; resource allocations are still the same; and our preaching rarely mention them? The Nigerian Church seems to have become what C.S Lewis called Men Without Chest in his book The Abolition of Man. We show a lot of exuberance and make a lot of noise but our hearts are not touched to express our gratitude to God in practical ways towards the sufferings of our fellow man. We seem not to feel anything in our chest. We have a massive opportunity to preach the gospel now but we seem to live nonchalantly as if nothing is happening. The opportunity for social work is a great opportunity we can all leverage on to preach the Gospel of Jesus now the door is wide open. Some of the monies we raise in the South to build structures can be sent into this work. We can cut something out of our vacation and holiday spending in order to help some of these ones rebuild their lives. By now, the matter is supposed to be everywhere on the websites of churches in Nigeria. Unfortunately if you google, the results will only show the Roman Catholic Agencies and other foreign bodies. We seem to be more concerned playing politics.
From the story the Lord Jesus told in Luke 10, the man was wounded and abandoned along the Jericho road. The Samaritan was the one who showed compassion. Men and women are wounded today both physically and emotionally because of persecution just across the neighborhood. The "priests" and the "Levites" of today have not behaved differently from the same way they behaved in Jesus' story; but where are the Samaritans that will show some compassion today?
You can be used by God to motivate your church to do something. You can write us at evergreenword@gmail.com or editor@evergreenword.com in case your church does not have any plan and you want to participate. We can link you up to agencies that are working in these camps. As you consider in your heart how God will want you to respond, may He bless you.
