Hello, once again, my friends from all across the globe. I hope you’re all doing fine.
I want to sincerely thank you so very much for reading my first testimony. I humbly make a request, that you lend a helping hand in spreading the testimonies and sermons in this platform all over the world, for the benefit of others, and to the glory of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus The Christ, whose second coming is quite at hand.
My Second Testimony.
Today I’m sharing more testimonies about God’s intervention in my life at very critical times when my very existence was at great risks. In psalms 23:4 (KJV), king David wrote the following words:
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. “
My names are Joseph Achi and I have earlier revealed in my first testimony that I lived in the northern part of Nigeria, west Africa. I still do.
I live in kaduna state, which has become one of the most religiously volatile states of my country, even though our elders would be quick to point out that Kaduna has always been a beautiful and peaceful place to live in, as far back as they can remember, until in the 1980s when the peaceful coexistence of the Christian and Muslim populace was compromised by some few individuals using religious extremism as a facade for some selfish ethnic and political gains in the northern region. Since then there have been some very serious clashes between those two dominant religious groups in various parts of the region. I’m going to share only the incidents in which I was affected, and how God saved me.
1. In the year 1992, a bloody clash engulfed kaduna, starting from the southern region of the state and spreading to other parts of the state. The state capital where I lived was struck on a Sunday evening around 6pm.
On that fateful day I had gone to keep an appointment at a place where I was to meet and debate with a missionary of the Unification Church founded by a certain Sung Meon Moon. This missionary was preaching in my community what I considered to be an unsound Bible doctrine, which had almost compromised one of my Christian friends, but for the fact that I had discovered the unholy romance just in time.
As I was reasoning with my small audience our debate was interrupted by a Muslim mob chanting religious slogans and attacking both motorists and pedestrians on a major road not too far away from us. It was just a matter of time until their victims mobilized to defend themselves against that onslaught, and then the bloodbath began.
By my Christian upbringing I was taught to stand against bloodshed, and violence of any kind, so I found my way back home and locked myself into my home and started to pray. The conflict wore on into the night and there were sounds of gunfire and the desperate cries of people either fleeing for dear life or encouraging those fleeing to stop and hold out against their assailants to the death. The night sky glowed red from houses burning; death hung in the air and fear was palpable. The small Christian community I lived in at that time was sandwiched between two larger Muslim communities, and it was evident to anyone who could see that we were overpowered. But by God’s intervention the community did not fall; it held out into the early hours of the morning, and then there was some respite. However, that respite didn’t last because by 8 am our assailants launched another attack on our neighbourhood again, and this time it was even more fiercer than the first onslaught because the cover of darkness offered by the previous night had lifted off, and the two opposing sides were in plain view of each other.
Now through out the duration of that fight I didn’t take sides with anyone ; I locked up myself and prayed for everyone. I told God to put fear into the people’s mind so that they’d be afraid of being killed. I asked God to make both the Christian and Muslim warriors to turn backwards to their homes.
At a point the youth in my community were going from house to house compelling every able bodied male to join in the fight. My father was far away working in a different part of my country: there was only me, his eldest son, my mother, elder sisters and other younger siblings. The warriors asked me to join or risk being beaten. I declined the invitation and told them it was okay to beat me, but that Id be praying for both of the warring sides to lose the courage to keep up with the bloodshed and retreat. They left me but came back again after some time with more threats, and this time they threatened to burn our house unless I joined the war effort. I still stood on my scriptural grounds to “do no violence to no one” as seen in Luke 3:14. I told them I would be loyal to God’s word. To God’s glory they left me to continue with my intercession.
At that time of the morning a military aircraft started a surveillance flight, circling over head ostensibly trying to identify hotspots of the conflict , which wore on until 4pm in the afternoon when the military ground troop finally broke through to secure our small community and then provided a safe corridor for all evacuees from our community to go to designated police and military barracks as refugees until normalcy was restored.
I got to understand later that this became necessary because there were armed mercenaries brought in from a particular neighboring muslim country ( name withheld) to help in the war effort; so the military had to flush them out.
The military vehicles sent to carry us were not enough to accommodate everyone. My mother, two elder sisters and myself could not board any of the trucks so we followed the long line of displaced people to trek to the nearest police barracks. The military provided security all the way and seemed to be everywhere enforcing peace and order. However, when we reached the police barracks my family decided it was better to proceed some four or five kilometers ahead to the military barracks where we had relations to take care of us. But as we proceeded along we discovered that the area we were following had no military or police presence, and it was understandable because it was mainly a Muslim settlement and the fight had not extended there as it did to places with a Muslim/Christian mix.
Just about a kilometer to the barracks we ran into a Muslim mob coming out from the afternoon prayer in a nearby mosque. They made a beeline for us: it was easy to tell that we were Christian because of our mode of dressing. They first question us to know where we were coming from, and after they learned of it they gleefully proceeded to take revenge on us, stating clearly that people in my community killed lots of their Muslim brothers in the battle of the previous night. They allowed my mother and sisters to go away alive but started dragging me off to my death. I was just smiling as they pulled me along because I felt a sudden surge of peace and calmness which I could not reconcile with the hostile atmosphere surrounding us.
I told my family to go ahead, with a promise that I’d meet them at the barracks shortly.
Honestly I just said that to them before I even knew that I was saying it because even if I could break free from that blood thirsty mob and make a run for my life, it won’t be long before I’d be cornered somewhere in that large Muslim community and lynched. Well, I didn’t even have such intention.
In the meantime, my mother adamantly stood with me even after I had persuaded my sisters to try and reach the barracks as allowed by our assailants.
They soon started picking up metals from a nearby mechanic workshop with which to hit me, while yelling and pulling at me all the time. But before they could deal a single blow on me, an elderly man, whom I thought was their imam, ordered them to stop.
I was brought to him and he questioned me further to know more about me. I told him I was on my way to seek refuge at the army barracks nearby. He asked if I was not one of the people fighting their Muslim brothers at my community, to which I answered that I was not one of them. He took two other elders and they went apart to make some deliberations and afterwards returned. They asked to search me to see if I was armed, but before then they asked me to declare what I was having with me. I told them they’d find in my bag my Bible, a few cloths and shoe. That’s all. Someone was mandated to confirm what I had said, and it was just so. Then the man prayed for me (his authority over them suggested to me that he was their imam). He said because I was a man of peace, he asked God to protect and give me the peace that I was seeking. I answered with a wholehearted AMEN.
Hallelujah!!! I knew that God just gave me back my life because I took a neutral stance in that conflict.
The mob became restive and murmured against that seemingly unfair judgment meted out by the elderly man. They were appealing to him to consider the blood of their Muslim brothers spilled in my community, but he sternly rebuked them saying in response that I said that I was a man of peace. He ordered me to go on ahead to my destination.
So I left with my mother. When we arrived at our destination, my sisters were already in a mourning mood at the outskirts of the barracks, but when I showed up God turned that mourning to joy!
Hallelujah!
However, our joyful reunion was cut short by a stampede; some persons were running towards us at the top of their heels. We ran into the barracks also and afterwards got to find out what had happened. It happened that they too followed behind us in a bid to reach the barracks, but the same mob that stopped me attacked them and killed a few of them just within few minutes after I was let go.
May their souls rest in peace.
Looking back now, I believe the followings to be the unseen but yet prevailing facts of what transpired at that time of the conflict:
1. That that small Christian community ( about 20% of the total number of residents of that town) armed with only sticks, stones, few dane guns, bows and arrows, survived that 22 hours onslaught by a well armed group of Muslims and hired mercenaries fighting them from two fronts, not because of any act of bravery on their part, but only because of God’s divine intervention.
See Jeremiah 1:18-19 (KJV):
For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen walls against the whole land….And they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith the LORD, to deliver thee.”
2. I’m happy to say that because of the stance I and my few friends took to do no violence to anyone, it gave us the opportunity to speak to other Christians who got involved in the fight, and they later repented of their involvement when they learned it was scripturally wrong. And God was glorified.
2 Corinthians 10:3-4(KJV):
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
3. That my escape from that Muslim
mob was God’s own divine way of manifesting His sovereign power in saving me even from an unwilling enemy; the fact that they pursued and killed some refuge seekers at that same spot, just a few minutes after I left, proved that that elderly man wasn’t just feeling generous when he allowed that angry mob to let me go unharmed; it was God who worked out my deliverance from death that day, in order to give me back my life which I had laid down for His sake when I refused to join in the fight, though under very serious threats by my own community.
Psalms 106:44, 46 (KJV):
“Nevertheless he regarded their affliction, when he heard their cry: He made them also to be pitied of all those that carried them captives”.
Isn’t it all true when the Psalmist wrote, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in Psalms 50:15, saying:
“And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.” ?
It is my humble and heartfelt prayer that this testimony will help restore someone’s confidence in God’s power and ability to help them in the hour of their need.
God bless you.
Amen.
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