Ministering to the Children of Martyred Parents

One of the things we often discuss on this blog is persecution that takes place in Nigeria.  And while it's very easy to read about Christians being martyred for their faith, so often we forget that there is a family left behind and in some cases, just the children are left behind as orphans.

We know from the beautiful Word of God, that the Lord loves the orphan. Exodus 22:22 commands us, "Do not mistreat any widow or fatherless child" (ESV).

Psalm 10:14 tells us, "But you do see, for you note mischief and vexation, that you may take it into your hands; to you the helpless commits himself; you have been the helper of the fatherless."

God loves the orphan, and He reminds us in Psalm 68:5 that He is the father to the fatherless...

But did you know that one of the sister ministries to The Voice of the Martyrs is The Stephen Centre International?  If you didn't, I wanted to let you know about The Stephen Centre because they are doing wonderful work with the orphans of victims of violence in Nigeria, as well as take in children that may still have a living parent who cannot sufficiently support them.

In an article titled A Refuge for Displaced Children we read the following...

Who are are Nigeria's special children?

Are they the physically or mentally challenged, orphans or children living with HIV/AIDS? These are the questions that could possibly assail the mind of the individual as he or she gazes at the structure so named. While there is no doubt that all the above-mentioned categories of children are special in their own way, SCI’s special children are those “who are victims of the several religious riots and other crises in Nigeria’s north especially.” This set of children is considered special by SCI because they have lost one or both parents to the violent crises. They are children who have definitely lost their fathers, who are regarded as the family breadwinners, to crises.

These children are the ones for which SCI exists. Whenever SCI spots them by seeking them out after violent crises, it brings them to SCI and provides them with totally free boarding, clothing, food and education up to high school level. SCI’s founder, Isaac Oluwole Newton Wusu, is a realistic person who admits “it is just a fraction of such children that we have here. There are many more of them that we can’t take in. We currently have 300 of them, so you can imagine how many more are out there.”

Meeting the children in SCI and asking them to recount their traumatic experiences will certainly evoke pity in you. Some of them actually witnessed the death of their father, mother, siblings or other loved ones. Nankpak Kumzwam is one such child. His mother, younger brother and sister were killed in his presence. Though he didn’t actually witness the whole gory episode with his eyes, as they were shot, he knows how it happened as he was also brutally cut by the machete of his family’s killer.

Can you imagine being a small child and not only seeing your family killed but also suffering a horrible injury as a result of being cut with a machete?  I can't, but this little boy did.

The article goes on to say...

He carries the scars of his machete cuts with him wherever he goes, reminding him that he once had a family he will never see again, reminding him of his close shave death with death at a very tender age. He remembers vividly that it was in 2002 and a riot had begun again in the Wase community where he resided with his parents and siblings in Jos, the Plateau State capital. Houses were being burnt, people killed and Nankpak’s father aided his family to run away into the forest while he stayed back to prevent the marauders from catching up with them. That was in the night. When morning came, one of their bloodthirsty assailants accosted them in the forest and ordered them all to lie face down in readiness for death.

In cold blood, the man took a machete to them and left afterwards, believing he had killed them all. He didn’t know Nankpak was saved though because his mother laid down on him, shielding him with her body. Fear had also paralysed him so he couldn’t move. Many hours after, he came to himself with the realisation that he was alive. He pushed off his mother’s body and staggered in a daze back into town. A neighbour put him up and he got to know that his father had also been killed.

Later, SCI came for him. Blessing Justin also came to the notice of SCI after her father’s grisly death during the Zango Kataf riots in 2000. Her father was an Igbo man and pastor, but he lived and worked in Kaduna where Blessing was born. Though she was just six years old in 2000, she recalls that: “On the Thursday before the riot started, our teacher told us not to come to school on Friday. When we got home, we passed the information to our parents.”

Her father did not however heed the subtle warning. He went out on the Friday and never came back. His wife was pregnant at the time and she found it difficult to tell Blessing the truth. Even though she couldn’t grasp the true situation of what was really going on, Blessing kept asking for her father. “My mother had to tell me that my father had travelled,” Blessing recalls still. The story that Tanko Ibrahim tells of his own experience is very poignant. In 2002 in Kaduna, there was a riot and he and his mother and other siblings hid in the forest, surviving on wild fruits, leaves and suchlike. They came out of the forest after six weeks when the rioting had subsided and just didn’t have the means to get to their intended destination, their father’s village.

If these stories move your heart, like they do mine, please pray for the orphans in Nigeria today.  Please also know that when you support The Voice of the Martyrs you are supporting the orphans.

You may read the full article about how The Stephen Centre International is ministering to orphans by clicking here.