The story of COMFORT

The STORY of COMFORT

(the names have been changed for this article)

On our family's prayer board at home, we have "persecuted Christians" under the world prayers section.  Churches and Christians around the globe are uplifting these members of the body of Christ in prayer.  Most of us, at least in the United States of America, pray for these people without having any connection other than our faith.  We mourn for them, but we don't really understand their persecution.  How could we?  Although we have forms of persecution here, it is not common to face life and death situations based on our faith.  We are blessed in this.  

When Comfort, a member of Abundant Life Lutheran Church in Charlotte, NC, prays for persecuted Christians, the pain hits a little closer to home.  Comfort is from Nigeria.  She relocated to North Carolina many years ago to attend college, but her extended family, including her mother and siblings, still live in Nigeria.

Nigeria.     You have probably heard of them.

ISIL, ISIS, the Islamic State, Boko Haram - whatever name the news chooses to use -  is taking military control over many parts of Nigeria, particularly the north which is an official Muslim State.

A group of girls from a boarding school in Nigeria were abducted, the whole school, and never returned.  "Convert or die" is something our brothers and sisters in Christ have heard in their own ears.   Nigerian Christians face some of the greatest persecution this world has ever seen.  

When Comfort prays for persecuted Christians, she is pleading with her Father to protect her family and friends, to defend their Faith, to strengthen their confession, to help them face persecution with a confidence in Christ only given by God Himself.  

When I asked her how her family deals with this she said, "They know they can't live in fear.  God will protect us."

Truer words have never been spoken, because Comfort and her family know that even when Christians are killed for their Faith, God has still protected them.  His protection comes in the form of the forgiveness of sins won on the cross.  That is a protection no Islamic State can overcome.  

Comfort knows this.  Her family lives in southern Nigeria, and therefore, currently still has some protection from the threat of ISIS from the north.  She continues to pray along with all her fellow brothers and sisters in Christ that God will physically protect her family on this earth and spiritually sustain their Faith in the face of fear.  

In her life here, she is blessed with a husband (a man she met after moving to the United States) and two children.  She recalls back to her first days and years here, where racism was such a new and bizarre concept for her.  She was in college, but didn't really have any concept of the historical reasons for racism in the U.S., and it came as a shock to her.  

Comfort grew up Roman Catholic, because boarding schools were provided free of charge from the Roman Catholic church in Nigeria.  The only other choice for school was very expensive schools within the community.  Her family did not have the money to send her to the community school, so she would be sent to the Catholic boarding school each year.  During secondary school (6th-12th grades) she would be unable to go home for the entire school year.  

After she and her husband had children, she was looking for a daycare.  Abundant Life Lutheran Church was running a daycare at the time, and so her fifteen year membership at this church began.  The pastor's wife of the time just kept saying, "We would love to have you at church."  Comfort would say, "Well, I am Catholic," even though she had not been actively attending church since living in Nigeria.

One Sunday she came with her family just to be nice to the pastor's wife.  She says she keeps coming back because the people really care when she isn't there.  Both of her children have been Baptized here.  This thirty-member congregation has become her family on this side of the ocean.

And so, as her family, they raise up her Nigerian family in prayer each week, recognizing that our Risen Lord is one, across oceans, forgiving the sins of all who believe in Him.  And thanks be to God for the faith given to Comfort and her family and all Christians in times of persecution and in times of peace.  The Lord keeps giving us His gifts.

Submitted by Kelly Stout-

Journeys of Faith contributor-

 Kannapolis, NC