Feb. 27, 2006 Grand Rapids, Mich - When a faction of Muslim rioters in northern Nigeria posted leaflets warning Christians to leave or be killed, four missionaries with Christian Reformed World Missions left the area along with 15 Nigerian Christian families.
Dave and Jan Dykgraaf, of Grand Rapids, Mich., and Larry and Rose Van Zee of Pella Iowa, braved a six-hour drive through the mostly Muslim regions of northern Nigeria on their way to a temporary safe haven in the central Nigerian city of Abuja.
On Sunday morning they finally were able to get some sleep after a tense and dangerous weekend.
Before he left on Sunday evening, Dave Dykgraaf wrote an email to his coworkers in which he described the weekend's horrors.
"The Catholic compound is nearly destroyed [in the northwestern town of Kontagora]...reports are that many people were killed and burned last night," he wrote. "As we came back, we stopped in Gulbin Boka [a village about 25 miles north of Kontagora] and saw the letters that had been attached to the houses or shops of the non-northerners [mostly Christians]."
The letters, written in the Hausa language read: "You Christians go back to your land. If you do not go back we will kill you."
While the tension seems to have reached a boiling point via the now widely publicized Danish cartoon depictions of the Muslim prophet Mohamed, in Nigeria it is not so clear-cut. Part of the context there is a closely matched population of Christians and Muslims that share a history of conflict and fierce competition for political clout.
Geographically, most of the residents in the north of the country are Muslim and in 12 states they have instituted Shari'ah law, which discriminates against non-Muslims. Most Christians in Nigeria live in the south.
Aggravating things was a recent rumor circulated internally, that Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, a Christian, intended to amend the constitution so as to allow himself a third term.
Further fuel came from a deadly exchange in which northerners killed Christians from the south and southerners retaliated by burning mosques and killing Muslims.
Over the course of several years this type of conflict has created deep, divisive wounds.
Christian Reformed World Missions has been in Nigeria since 1920, and has been involved in assisting Nigerians to develop a national church that today includes several denominations with a total membership of well over 300,000.
-30-
...................
Henry Hess
Director of Communications
The Christian Reformed Church
To learn more about the Christian Reformed Church visit www.crcna.org <http://www.crcna.org/pages/index.cfm