June 2004

A letter from the Cragos Tom and Janet Crago Interim Mission Coordinators, Nigeria Box 626 Jos, Plateau State Nigeria

Dear Friends and Family:

Janet and Tom Crago

Statisticians have an annoying habit. When they compile data in seemingly endless rows and columns of numbers, it will often drive them crazy when zeros show up somewhere in the table, and they just know there should be positive numbers there! This can often lead to repeated efforts to check, and re-check, such audaciously incorrect information. How could there possibly be zeros there? As many of you know, in August of 2002 Janet and I were asked to assist the EYN (Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria–Church of the Brethren in Nigeria) in compiling membership and attendance data for all of their churches. And, sure enough, we found several reports, among the 1000 or so returned, that just didn’t seem right to this statistician! We found four different local church branches (LCBs) that reported that they had active members, but none of those four reported any attendance at church or Sunday School for the entire month of August! In one case, at Muva, more than one hundred members were reported to be active! Surely there had to be a mistake somewhere!

Being one of these obsessive statisticians, I proceeded to ask a number of different people if they had any idea as to why these churches would be reporting no attendance at their churches. The answer was startling. In all four cases, the villages involved had been attacked by armed robbers coming from the bush, and everybody in the town had simply fled their homes to find safety elsewhere! In some places, people had been killed during the attacks. Some of these attacks had occurred in January and February of 2002, and in August, 2002, as we did our survey, the towns were still abandoned.

Well, my obsessive curiosity had been satisfied, and the data made sense. And, this was certainly an interesting side note to our study. I concluded then that it would have been interesting to see these villages, but we simply weren’t ready to visit such places if the villagers themselves were afraid to venture back! But, in March of 2004, these abandoned villages were still calling out to me to be visited. I did so while Janet was tied up on a Saturday in March with an all-day Scholarship Board meeting at EYN headquarters at Kwarhi. Were the villages still abandoned? Where had the people gone? Were these still dangerous places to go? I had to go!

Enlisting the assistance of two EYN students at Kulp Bible College, James and Yohanna, who both knew this area well, we set off on March 13th, 2004 to find two of these unique Brethren communities. I was told we could reach them, in the Yawa District by taking the road from Wamdeo off into the bush toward Hong, traveling through Giwi and Uda, before going on to Kwahyeli, Tuful, and finally Muva. Both Tuful and Muva are LCB’s (local church branches or preaching points) of Uda, the mother church, and were two of the ones reported abandoned in August of 2002. These towns stretched out in a line along the same dirt track, with the road simply getting more and more primitive as we went. I don’t remember any bridges along this road, and we had to go down through several small river beds, so I can easily imagine that reaching these villages during the rainy season would be very difficult, or impossible, except on foot.

As we drove through Giwi and Uda, I was told that problems began in these villages when one of the many nomadic Fulani herders allowed his cattle to destroy the fields of one of the farmers in these rural village settlements. The police were called by the farmer, who demanded compensation for his lost crops. The Fulani man was found, and made to pay for the damage. Shortly after that, the Fulani man, joined by many other Fulanis, came during the night seeking revenge–looting, killing and otherwise assaulting the villagers and even looking specifically for the EYN church leaders who were “de facto” leaders in these communities. The EYN church was the only church in each of these villages. One EYN leader escaped by hiding up a tree in the dark. Several less fortunate people were killed in the same village.

Picture of villagers at Kwahyeli, where half of the town was in ruins.

I learned that three villages were actually attacked in this area, including Kwahyeli in addition to Tuful and Muva, but that not everyone in Kwahyeli had fled after the night attacks. A few brave souls stayed on. In both Tuful and Muva, everyone had fled. The attendance figures at Kwahyeli were a bit low, but not so low as to prepare me for this first village. It was with surprise on my part that we found most of the village of Kwahyeli in ruins! The houses, made of mud with grass roofs, were now, after more than two years, mostly just crumbling mud walls that could be seen all around the town. When the bush fires come each year during the dry season, the grass roofs of unattended homes became easy fuel for the advancing walls of flame. Remarkably, we found the EYN church at Kwahyeli still intact. The wide expanse of barren ground around the church, and its zinc roof, had seemingly spared it from the bush fires. And the fighting here was not so much a fight between Moslems and Christians as it was between nomadic herders and the farmers. So the church in Kwahyeli, like the ones soon to be seen in Tuful and Muva, was standing and functional when we came into the village. Virtually every other building had been destroyed except the churches! A few buildings had now been rebuilt, or maintained, in Kwahyeli, but easily half of the town was in ruins. Passing down the road a few more kilometers to Tuful, we found again ample evidence of a much larger town than it is today. We found the villagers very interested in our visit, and most of the village came over for a group photo in front of their church. In Tuful, everyone had apparently stayed away for the 2002 growing season, but a few had returned in 2003 for the following growing season, which runs from April until November in this part of Nigeria.

Our last stop on that day was at Muva–and getting there made it clear that not many had passed this way recently! The dirt track was grown up with bush grass. We scared off a viper sunning itself in the road. We even spotted elephant dung by the side of the road as we approached Muva. I was told that elephants migrate through this largely uninhabited portion of the country twice a year. I wasn’t sure the car would make it across the last dry sandy river bed before reaching Muva, but, by taking our time and driving carefully, we managed to make it through.

Muva, until two years ago, was apparently the largest of the three villages. We arrived that day to find fires burning around several of the houses and compounds. Until just one month before our visit, we learned that the village had been still abandoned since the events of early 2002. But, ten families have now returned to Muva, and we found them burning the brush and grass that had encroached on the town since leaving it two years before. As in the other towns, the church fared better than any other part of Muva. When the villagers returned, they found the church had the only roof still standing! As a result, we found many bags of grain piled in the back of the church, where they were being stored out of the weather, and away from animals, until their own homes were rebuilt. By burning the brush and grass around the compounds, these families were preparing to re-roof their homes, and to simultaneously drive out, and keep away, snakes and other wild animals from their homes and compounds. At one time, I estimate the village must have had more than 50 families. As we met that morning in the church, I asked a number of questions of those who were there. Were they worshiping again in the church? Yes, they said, but they were still relying on one lay person in the church for leadership. They had only been there about a month, and there was plenty to do to get ready for the coming rainy season. They hoped to have an evangelist join them eventually.

How long has this village, Muva, been there? Virtually everyone in the church said they had been born in this village, founded in 1936. The lay church leader said he had lived in Muva his whole life. Before the attacks, the church had grown so large that they were hoping to have their church officially recognized as a local church council, and to be able to call an ordained pastor to lead them.

Where had they been for the past two years? They indicated they had dispersed to several different towns nearby. But, not all had gone to the same place. This was their home, and they were happy to be back in their village.

But, what did they think of the dangers here, and the herders formerly in the area? I was told that following the night raids on the villages, local law enforcement officials had sought out and killed many of the nomadic herders. And, since that time, the area had been abandoned by farmers and herders alike. The farmers hoped that the attacks were now just history and that nothing more would happen. But, only God knows what the future holds! Memories tend to die hard.

Before leaving the Muva Church of the Brethren to rejoin Janet, and a subsequent return to our relatively uneventful lives in Jos, I asked to lead the group in prayer. We prayed together for peace, for a good growing season, and for a return to life as they knew it before these tragic events. I assured these Brethren that we would share the story of their trials with the church in America, and that they should be encouraged by the fact that others far away cared about them and would hold them out in prayer. We know you will!

Your Servants in Christ,
Tom and Janet Crago

Interim Mission Coordinators in Nigeria

Editor’s Note: Tom and Janet Crago will complete their service as Interim Mission Coordinators in mid-July, when Bob Krouse will begin.

To support the mission in Nigeria, please send contributions to: Church of the Brethren General Board, 1451 Dundee Ave., Elgin, IL 60120. Make checks payable to the Church of the Brethren and designate for Nigeria missions.