{"id":4801,"date":"2016-04-25T11:16:59","date_gmt":"2016-04-25T16:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.brethren.org\/?p=4801"},"modified":"2016-04-25T11:16:59","modified_gmt":"2016-04-25T16:16:59","slug":"pastor-puts-peace-in-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/2016\/04\/25\/pastor-puts-peace-in-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Pastor puts Peace in Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_4805\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4805\" style=\"width: 150px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blog\/2016\/pastor-puts-peace-in-practice\/norm-carol\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4805\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-4805\" src=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Norm-Carol-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Norm and Carol Waggy\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4805\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Norm and Carol Waggy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Contributed by Norm &amp; Carol Waggy<\/p>\n<p>Several days ago during a break at Majalisa, a pastor handed Norm a picture of 8 members of his congregation who were killed by Boko Haram, along with pictures of his\u00a0church and parsonage which were also destroyed last year.\u00a0 We had listened several weeks ago as he shared some of his experiences, but we had not found the time to return for a second visit.\u00a0 He wanted us to see, as well as to hear, of his congregation\u2019s suffering. \u00a0He related that the EYN Nassarawo church had outgrown its facility, so a new church and parsonage were built just 1 year prior to the destruction of all three by the Boko Haram.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4804\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4804\" style=\"width: 278px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blog\/2016\/pastor-puts-peace-in-practice\/lives-lost-nassarawo\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4804\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4804\" src=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/lives-lost-Nassarawo-278x300.jpg\" alt=\"Nassarawo church members who were killed\" width=\"278\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4804\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nassarawo church members who were killed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Norm asked him if he found it hard not to hate those who caused the damage.\u00a0 Without hesitation, he responded,<strong> \u201cNo, the Bible makes It clear that we are to love our enemies, so I cannot hate them.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong> He went on to tell that the 2 men who destroyed the structures were found to be his neighbors.\u00a0 When the police captured them, they asked him \u201cPastor, what shall we do with these men?\u201d\u00a0 He responded that as a Christian, he did not want the police to kill them, but rather to set them free.\u00a0 He noted that \u201ceven though the two are still Muslim, I know that Islam does not condone such violence.\u00a0 Boko Haram is just a fanatical, fringe hate group that does not follow God.\u201d\u00a0 Later one of the two helped to clean up the burned buildings.\u00a0<strong> Our EYN brother said \u201cRemember, God CAN turn ANYONE around.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0 In a sermon at Majalisa, we were reminded that even the apostle Paul started out as one who hated and killed Christians!\u00a0 There is always hope for each child of God, so we must be careful not to hate them.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4802\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4802\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blog\/2016\/pastor-puts-peace-in-practice\/burned-church\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-4802\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4802\" src=\"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/burned-church-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Nassarawo:  Destroyed church\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4802\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nassarawo: Destroyed church<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Contributed by Norm &amp; Carol Waggy Several days ago during a break at Majalisa, a pastor handed Norm a picture of 8 members of his congregation who were killed by Boko Haram, along with pictures of his\u00a0church and parsonage which were also destroyed last year.\u00a0 We had listened several weeks ago as he shared some<\/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-4801","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\/4801","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=4801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4801\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}