By Don Fitzkee
Chiques Church of the Brethren in Manheim, Pa., will host a presentation by Nigerian Brethren leader Musa Mambula on Sunday, Nov. 9, at 7 p.m. Mambula is a writer, educator, and current National Spiritual Advisor for Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (EYN, the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria). He will speak about the persecution of Christians by Boko Haram terrorists in northern Nigeria and the church’s response. The evening will conclude with a time of prayer.
Last April more than 200 girls–many of them EYN members–were kidnapped from a school in Chibok, which had been started by the Brethren in the 1940s. As many as 96,000 EYN members have been reported displaced, thousands killed, and more than half of the church’s districts have been closed. As recently as Oct. 29, the EYN church headquarters property in Kwarhi was overtaken by Boko Haram.
The Mission and Ministry Board of the Church of the Brethren in the United States recently allocated up to $1.5 million to respond to the crisis. The money will be used for shelter for displaced families and emergency food rations, among other things. (For more information about the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, persecution by Boko Haram, and the US church’s response, visit www.brethren.org/partners/nigeria/news.html .)
Chiques Church of the Brethren is located at 4045 Sunnyside Rd., Manheim. For more information about the program at Chiques, contact Carolyn Fitzkee at 717-664-2252.
— Don Fitzkee is chair elect of the Church of the Brethren Mission and Ministry Board and director of Development for COBYS Family Services in Leola, Pa.