Bauchi Missions

Below, Jim Holdcroft speaks in one of CFI’s classes. We still have plenty of new students coming into the college. The man interpreting below (on the left) is David, the son of an Islamic king. He has been seriously persecuted for many years. He is studying at degree level now with CFI and wants to join CFI staff when finished to do mission work. He spoke in one of our churches last Friday night (which I attended) on Acts 4/5, about unity in sharing in oneness and God not allowing deception into the church. It was very good.

In the last couple of days harmattan weather patterns have returned. This means pretty strong breezes with whirling sounds blowing in dust off the Sahara and cooling things down. We are still in the dry season which goes till late April. The mangoes come out near the end of dry season. There is a lot of beauty to appreciate here.

Bauchi State

Yesterday afternoon David, Emmanuel Razack and I left for Bauchi State and arrived in the main city about 4:00 pm. This is an Islamic city where an extremist group were “nipped in the bud” by police last year. There are frequent Islamic riots there against Christians. There we picked up one our past graduates who pastors in the city, booked a couple of old rooms and then drove another hour to one of our mission stations. 

Mission Station 1

The CFI students had given two large sacks of clothes for the people. The part we play is only a bit compared to what the team and students throw into the work. There is a much sharper rise in poverty levels outside of any of the main cities and people are very cut off from civilization. We arrived at the mission and gave the clothes to our pastors there and had a look at the mission station and plans to build a larger church building. Plenty of people are coming to the church now. We call it a mission station because its purpose is to reach out into the large farming communities in even more interior places where cars never go. We are getting ready for an evangelism program next month as many farmers migrate into the town before the rains start. These people are all pagans. Those we have reached so far are very open to the gospel.

We then drove around the area through dirt and fields, over rocks and between mud houses. Its pretty horrid: large pagan communities living in horrible conditions. Keep driving and you leave them and enter large Islamic communities. We stopped in the main Islamic centre and visited the king. It was just at the time of evening prayer and the king and his main elders were in their mosque. We greeted them and then waited outside till they had finished. (If they had of invited me in I would have been glad to kneel beside them. Many of them are doing all they know and this is to be commended at times.) Then I was invited to sit down with the king, and his elders and guests with me all sat on the floor. This is how they insisted we be arranged.

The people greet very profusely. They exchange continual greetings many times over and this goes on for some time and can get quite noisy with so many speaking across at each other back and forward. This is important to them. When it is finished we introduce the reason for our coming. This is followed by their welcome speech. Then we talk about why we came. This is followed by their response. We gave the king a bag of rice to share with his people.

In this case the king was David’s brother. His father recently died and his brother came to the throne. These are the people who attacked David for so many years, trying to arrest him or kill him, and had him hunted down through many states. (When we get converts whose lives are in danger out of the area now we have to do it secretly and carefully, confusing spies by changing locations, people escorting them and clothing etc.) Now they are thanking me for training him and showing a lot of appreciation for it. I answered that they are all welcome to come to Jos and join David in training or to visit, just as they have welcomed us. I spoke to them, praying that the Lord would touch their hearts and they then asked me to pray for them (which I did amidst many hearty “amen’s”) and then we left. 

We heard that the former king’s wives (eight of them) wanted us to visit them so we went in and sat down. They came out and sat on the floor, with loads of children on their laps. They greeted us for long and it was noisy (very pleasant). One of them was David’s mother. This meeting was similar to the first, in all very enjoyable and I believe fruitful. I am also expecting more in David’s wider family and community elders/wives to be saved.

We left there and drove through the farms back to the mission station where we had (for want of a better term) a crusade (outreach meeting). About 400 people had gathered and were watching a movie about Jesus we set up on a projector (in the Hausa language). Our head pastor there had a microphone and was also explaining it. After that I preached and then we prayed for the people and then left. After the meeting the people who are touched come to the mission for prayer and bible teaching. We also visit them in their homes or on their farms. David’s brother (who stopped sharia law from taking hold in that town – he suffered in doing this but the Lord intervened) gave us the land and buildings we are using for our mission station.

We drove back to the main city of Bauchi where we had the two rooms booked. This meant driving alone late at night with very few cars on the road, through many military and police check points (many of whom are normally drunk, brandishing pretty nifty weapon). But they were all quite cordial, friendly and happy to talk with us. None of them asked for money.

Mission Station 2

Ay 7:30 this morning we set off for a second mission station: one we started recently. This is at Tafawa Balewa, another town in Bauchi State that has had many Islamic riots against Christians over the years.  We met our pastor in the town and visited his office. We have two pastors there. Their main task is to reach out to the Islamic tribes – the Hausa and Fulani. Our leader there is part Fulani, one of our graduates, a very intelligent man with a heart of love for these people. We drove out to interior farming areas where the Fulani have their communities. He goes among them and shares the gospel with them in their own settlements and homes. We thank God for the Holy Spirit who causes these people to respond. Again, this pastor is self motivated and is earnestly reaching many with the gospel, people who are cut off and whom no one is reaching. We are so happy to work with people like this and value them very highly on our team.

We arrived back into Jos this afternoon and driving between the CFI college and our house we passed a convoy of armoured tanks and other military vehicles. I think this heightened presence is in our area because the government announced that tomorrow they are destroying the Bukuri market (about 1km form our college - which was burnt down by the Hausa in the last riot), in order to rebuild it. It is imagined that the Hausa people wont want this rebuilt and the army is in place to ensure things go smoothly.

My prayer is, “May God give us your grace to send out many, many fruitful labourers selected by you into the harvest.”

Hope you enjoy reading this, and that I have been able to describe things a bit vividly for you.

Love from all the team in Jos, Kent