{"id":4544,"date":"2015-10-24T08:13:55","date_gmt":"2015-10-24T13:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.brethren.org\/?p=4544"},"modified":"2015-10-24T08:13:55","modified_gmt":"2015-10-24T13:13:55","slug":"saratus-escape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/2015\/10\/24\/saratus-escape\/","title":{"rendered":"Saratu’s Escape"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tBy Janet Crago<\/p>\n

Personal Note:\u00a0 This story was especially important to Tom and Janet Crago because Saratu\u2019s goat herd got its beginning in 2007 with a donation of $100 from Florence Crago, Tom\u2019s mother, who was moved to help a widow in Nigeria when she heard her story.<\/p>\n

\"Saratu<\/a>
Saratu and Rita<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was Oct 3, 2014.\u00a0 They first came as thieves, and were dressed as soldiers.\u00a0 They surrounded the whole village of Gavva East.\u00a0 Saratu and her mother were at home.\u00a0 It was 8 o\u2019clock in the morning and Saratu was taking her bath.\u00a0 When they started firing their guns, the sound of gunshots came from all over the village.\u00a0 Everyone started running for the mountain.\u00a0 The Boko Haram insurgents killed some people and kidnapped many women and children that day.\u00a0 Saratu was one of the lucky ones.\u00a0 Her mother was with her and they were fast enough to run and escape captivity.\u00a0 Saratu tells of gunshots passing very close to her and how panicked she felt.\u00a0 She ran until she thought she would burst from lack of breath.\u00a0 It is a steep climb up the mountain.<\/p>\n

After that day, the Christians from Gavva East did not return to live in their village.\u00a0 They were too frightened. They stayed on the mountain.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t want to leave their home area and were hopeful that the Boko Haram had gone away for good.\u00a0 This area of northeast Nigeria has had a very lucrative farming history.\u00a0 They grow guinea corn, sesame seed, and onions.\u00a0 But the Boko Haram were persistent in their aim of driving Christians from the area.\u00a0 They came again on Oct 14, 2014.\u00a0 They dressed in football (soccer) uniforms and pretended they were Christians.\u00a0 They told everyone to come out and that it was safe, but the ones who came out were killed or captured.\u00a0 Many more women and children were kidnapped.\u00a0 The men were killed.<\/p>\n

The word spread that the Muslims from Gavva East went to the Sambisa forest and joined Boko Haram.\u00a0\u00a0 So, the neighbors and former friends of Christians in Gavva East had now become their enemies who were trying to kill them or drive them away from their homeland.\u00a0 The Boko Haram insurgents came back to the mountain hideaway on Oct 24, 2014.\u00a0 They came from all directions around the mountain and surrounded it.\u00a0 Saratu and her mother hid in a small cave.\u00a0 The Boko Haram spent one week of relentless searching by surrounding the mountain and calling out to people to come out.\u00a0 They would cry out every day saying, \u201cCome out, come out, you will not be killed if you convert to Islam\u201d.\u00a0 But if you refused to convert they would slaughter you (cut your throat) and throw pieces of your body into the community\u2019s mountain spring water source. They spoiled the water for everyone.\u00a0 Saratu and her mother never came out.\u00a0 They remained true to their Christian faith.\u00a0 They stayed hidden while trembling with fear.\u00a0 They refused to convert.\u00a0 During this horrible week of intense fear, other insurgents were in the village of Gavva East looting houses.\u00a0 They took away everything valuable, including the zinc roofs of the houses.\u00a0 Then they set fire to the Christian homes.\u00a0 It was a very difficult week.\u00a0 The Christians in hiding would come out in the dead of night to search for a way to Cameroon.\u00a0 Finally, they left on their trek to Cameroon.\u00a0 Because they didn\u2019t have water, they kept their eyes open for wet spots on the ground.\u00a0 When they spotted a wet site, they would dig down until water started filling the hole.\u00a0 When the water filled the hole enough, they would drink the water.\u00a0 They did not eat for a week on this trek to Cameroon.<\/p>\n

Survival in the Cameroon, too, was difficult. The town where they went was predominantly Islamic.\u00a0 They discovered that if they could do a little work for a Muslim home, they would be given a little money for food.<\/p>\n

At one point, a Muslim man who took passengers to Yola told them that he would take them to Yola for 5,000 Naira ($25) each, but he just took their money and disappeared.\u00a0 Many others fell for this trick as well.\u00a0 Finally, Saratu and her mother were able to arrange transport for the two of them to be taken to Yola for 18,000 ($90) each.\u00a0 Saratu\u2019s father was able to send them the money.\u00a0 When they got to Yola, it was easy to arrange transport back to Maiduguri.\u00a0 By that time, Saratu\u2019s girls had not heard from their mother for 6 months.\u00a0 They had lost hope that she was still alive.<\/p>\n

Saratu is a widow with four daughters.\u00a0 Her husband, Daniel, was killed in a road accident<\/p>\n

\"Twins<\/a>
Twins Walla and Wassa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

when Saratu was just 27.\u00a0 Walla and Wassa are her oldest children and twins. They are attending university.\u00a0 Rita has just completed secondary school and is staying with an uncle.\u00a0 Her youngest, Renate, is attending boarding school.\u00a0 Saratu left 22 goats behind when she had to flee.\u00a0 Losing her goats was a big concern because she was using the money from the sale of goats to pay for her girl\u2019s school fees.\u00a0 They also gave her a source of protein for her own family.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Saratu is now about the business of recovery.\u00a0 She recently got a job at the Center for Caring and Empowerment Initiative (CCEPI) in Jos, run by Dr. Rebeccah Dali, the wife of EYN\u2019s President.\u00a0 She is very happy to have work again.\u00a0 Before her escape, she had been employed by the Literacy program in Gavva.\u00a0 This program was a function of EYN providing much needed education in the Gavva area.\u00a0 That program doesn\u2019t exist any more because all Christians have had to leave the area and all the buildings have been destroyed.\u00a0 The Christians of Gavva East are still mourning the loss of the Literacy program.\u00a0 They now have to focus on moving on with their lives in another area.\u00a0 Please pray that God will bless them in their new workplaces and that their industry and Godliness will have a huge influence in the new place.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Janet Crago Personal Note:\u00a0 This story was especially important to Tom and Janet Crago because Saratu\u2019s goat herd got its beginning in 2007 with a donation of $100 from Florence Crago, Tom\u2019s mother, who was moved to help a widow in Nigeria when she heard her story. It was Oct 3, 2014.\u00a0 They first<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[139,370,419,813,814,882,921],"class_list":["post-4544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nigeria","tag-boko-haram","tag-ekklesiyar-yanuwa-a-nigeria","tag-eyn","tag-nigeria","tag-nigeria-crisis","tag-peace","tag-prayer"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}