Today I walked through a small village in Nigeria, where just
months prior hundreds of families were slaughtered in the wee hours of
the night into the break of dawn. March marked the calendar in a long
decade of conflict between Christian and Muslim, ethnic groups,
political groups, and neighbors.

This place once named for salvation and peace. Now, the blood of
God’s children, Christian and Muslim, cries out in desperation for
justice, peace, and hope.

We walked through the village to see homes that had been torched,
windows broken, and lives that had been shattered. We listened to
accounts from children to elders in the village of the bloodshed and
horror of that unexpected night in March.

As I listened to their stories memories floated to the surface of
fears I had as a small child. I remembered having this fear, from where
it came – I know not, that someone would break into my room and cut off
my limbs. I would sleep in a ball, curled up on my bed thinking that if
they went to cut off my legs, they would miss and it would wake me up to
run. My fear of someone breaking in was usually abated by my parents
assuring me that the door was locked, and that it would not happen. My
hope came from the belief that it was near impossible that something
like that would ever happen, that I could trust in the safety of my
home, my father’s protection, and my faith in the deadbolt on the front
door. My childhood nightmare was the reality of these children.

Mercy, a twenty-year-old girl, in the village told us her story
today. Her arm was bandaged from finger tip to elbow and her nose had
been sliced off from the tip to the left side. She was asleep in her
room with her siblings when she awoke to men in her room hacking her
siblings to death with machetes.

An elder in the village gave his story. There were gunshots fired; a
few here and a few there to waken the villagers out of their beds and
draw them out of their homes. They came out of their homes to find men
with machetes ready to kill. The only hope was to run and hide for most
of the villagers. This man lost ten of his children and his wife that
night.

There is an entire generation of children in that village that woke
up to my nightmare. The very thing that plagued me in paralyzing fear in
the night as a child, is their very reality.

I feel there are no words to process what I heard today. I will not
even attempt. As I pour over my reasons for hope now, I realize that I
had a false sense of hope. This hope was not universal or incorruptible.
It could not be extended to all. There was no eternal sense about it.
That leaves one hope, and One alone.

My team will be spending days at a
time in the villages that were brutally massacred. We will be focusing
on the children as much as we can. We know there is great HOPE.
We know that God can take what the enemy intended for destruction and
use it for good. We know that there is a HOPE for the
next generation that they will stand for peace, justice, and above all, LOVE.
We know that perfect love casts out all fear and that is what we intend
to bring: Agape, Abba, God, LOVE. He is perfect LOVE.

We will be praying with them,
prophesying over them, and teaching them. We will also play games with
them, sing with them, and laugh with them.

We have hope because we have Christ.
We have hope because we truly KNOW Him. It is from that relationship
that hope is birthed.

Through the years of devastation in
this city Muslims and Christians alike have twisted their books to a
terrifying end. It is flat out distortion, perversion, deception, and
the deadly will of the enemy. It is only Truth that will prevail and
bring freedom. All need to hear it. All need to come face to face with
Truth and Love and surrender.