Episode 479: Saturday Morning Mediocre Mission Podcast – May 30th
Eugene hosted another LIVE Saturday morning call-in show on our website and Youtube channel. This episode was focused on a recent development with a Christian persecution in Nigeria. Eugene spoke with a BTJ friend inside of Nigeria about a Christian Bishop who was just kidnapped.
Transcript of the Live Stream
Eugene: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to a another Back to Jerusalem podcast. It is a another Saturday morning. Kind of depends on where you’re listening. I’m coming to you live from Sweden, but you might be listening to this somewhere else in the world. I just got done. Do I just did a. Graduation with together with CMM, college of theology.
I apologize that we had to go a little bit later this time. I actually did the same mistake last week. I said it wouldn’t happen again, but it did. I did send out to kind of a, a, a message on my Facebook account to let people know that we would not be doing our meeting at the same time. this week, just because, I had to do the graduation, CMM theological seminaries.
Graduation was at 10:00 AM, and so I had to be there because I was one of the graduates. I actually got my doctorates from CMN today. So now you can refer to me as dr Bach. not really. I was telling a joke, about a good friend of mine that I’ve served with for many years inside of North Korea.
His name was Daryl. And I remember when. he and I were working together in Korea and he sat down with this individual. I’ve told this story before, but you may not have heard it. I thought, I just, I love this story about Daryl. I gives me, he’s no longer with us. He is now with the Lord and this story every time I think about it always brings a good memory of being with that dear brother.
But he was with this Korean. And Darryl was very educated. He had, he had a doctorate in biology from Indiana state university, and then he had a, excuse me, a communist cough. he had another degree, a doctorate’s degree in theology from, Trinity. And I remember him being in South Korea meeting together with this believer, talking with him, and while he was sitting down and having a discussion, titles were very important to this brother.
So this brother said, you know, I would appreciate it if you called me. Doctor referred to me as doctor as we are talking, because I think I’ve earned it, to which Darryl responded. I would appreciate it if you refer to me as doctor, doctor, because I think I’ve earned it twice. So I, I haven’t earned it twice.
I am following in the footsteps of my dear brother Daryl. but it was a graduation ceremony. I had to be there. It did delay me for a few minutes, so I apologize for that. This is going to be a special podcast. I don’t know how many people will be with us joining us during this time. I’m just going to put in the number for a brother in Nigeria because we have, we, we have a, a situation where a Christian Bishop.
In Nigeria was just kidnapped by a group of Muslims, and our Christian brother from Nigeria wrote to me, told me about this situation, and so I asked him to be on our podcast. I told him I would call him a little after 6:00 PM his time. I’m hoping he’s going to answer the phone. Let’s just try to give him a call and see if it goes through.
I just wrote to him. Earlier to confirm with him that I would be calling him, but I did not hear back. One of the challenges that he has oftentimes in Nigeria is getting good connection and you know what? I’m in Sweden and that’s kind of my problem as well. Right now, inside of Sweden, we have a challenge because here, during this time of day, I’m kind of in a more rural area, and I hate doing podcasts at this time, doing them live.
I mean, I can do a regular podcast, but doing them live is a challenge. I don’t know how the, how it sounds to you, those that are listening, if you write and just let me know. I can see we’ve got a few people listening live, but if you guys just write and let me know if you’re able to hear clearly or not.
This is a big worry of mine because, we do not have good internet where I’m at, so hopefully we do have. Good internet. I see you, Sharon. where are you writing from? Says, I love your updates. Thank you for that. those that are watching these YouTube videos later, you may not be able to see this, but you can write in the comment section while we are doing this show live.
Sharon would love to hear from you, find out where you are writing to us from. So if you’re still listening, please let us know where you’re listening to us from and let me know if we’re coming in clear. Let me know if we’re coming. Okay, great. Somebody just wrote in, da said, good reception. Thank you so much.
That’s a big deal for us. So I’m going to go ahead and try to call our friend, see if that goes through.
It looks like he may not be answering. This is his phone number that we are calling from. Sharon says she is listening from st Louis.
Okay. Unfortunately, we were not able to get through. Not really sure. It says the number is unavailable, even though we had ringing. the number says it’s unavailable. Hopefully we will be able to get through either through, let’s, let’s do this. I’m going to try to call him on Facebook. Maybe he has a Facebook connection and.
Just to get an update from him about this Bishop that was kidnapped, just recently in Nigeria by a group of Muslims. This is a picture. If you’re watching this live, I’ve just put up a picture of this Bishop, please keep him in your prayers and now we’ll just give a ring.
Bishop: [00:08:10] Okay.
Eugene: [00:08:10] So unfortunately we’re not able to get. And contact with him right now. But let me just give you a basic update, a rundown of what is taking place right now in Nigeria. And from there, what I want to do is move into China because what’s happening in China right now is extremely important for you guys to know.
It says, according to the news that. Bishop Joseph Mason, he is a Bishop in Nigeria. He is the chairman of the Christian association of Nigeria, C a, N, and he is a part of the narcissist state chapter. And there it seems that according to his son, about 11:00 PM on Wednesday night, he went to bed. And, and when he did, there was a group that basically came to their house.
He said that the house, the kidnappers came to the house at about 11:00 PM at night where the family members had already been inside the house for the evening. They locked the doors. Inside of the house was pretty safe. If you’ve never been to some of the more rural areas of Nigeria, basically you have homes that are, they’re not fortresses per se, but they do lock down.
So this is not a house like right now, where I’m doing this live podcast from is a rule area in Sweden. To be honest, we never lock our doors. I don’t even, I don’t ever carry a key. To where I’m at. We go to sleep every night with the windows open. We don’t have police in this entire region just because there’s so few people.
And, there’s really nothing that ever happens. And we have one side of our house facing the sun as it rises in the morning. And so when we built this small cabin, what we try to do is make as many windows as possible on the South side of the house facing the sun from our side of the mountain. And.
It’s mainly all windows. So it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, windows not quite floor to ceiling, but mainly floor to ceiling windows. And that’s not what you have in this area of Nigeria. If somebody wanted to break it, I mean, really wanted to break into our home, it would not be that difficult. Our windows are not Bulletproof.
They’re not smashed proof. Our windows here in Sweden, you could easily, you know, bust through the windows, reach in, unlock a door, unlocked the window. Cause we have doors that are just, you know, one big window. But in Nigeria where, where, where this Bishop is his home, steel door, steel, a big locks. you have windows with.
Bars so that individuals can’t fit in between those bars. So even if they break the window, they’re not going to be able to fit into those, into the window through those bars. So this is, it’s not quite a fortress, but it is locked down. And so the son said that that night, the family turned in for the evening as 11:00 PM on Wednesday evening.
And what happened was outside the kidnappers. Found a person that was working outside of the house, they beat him and then they forced him to call out from help for help. And so what happened was when the people inside heard someone outside that they knew calling for help, they opened the door. And that’s how the kidnappers gained access.
So there was a scuffle. They violently took the Bishop away from his family at gunpoint, put him on the back of a motorcycle, which was easier for them to escape. And then they took off and now they’re demanding ransom. And my prayers are with this Bishop. This has been happening every week, every single week.
We continue to see persecution against believers in Nigeria. I’m going to be doing an article on this, but during the time of Ramadan, even with the Corona virus, even with the Corona virus, we still saw an increase of violence from Muslims against Christians during Ramadan with several people being killed every single day during Ramadan that Justin did.
That’s right. You heard me correctly, that there has been killings, religious killings, taking place every day against Christians during the month of Ramadan. Where have you been hearing it? What news sources given you the information on this. I’m going to be soon as I get off of this, I will do a detailed article and put it up on back to jerusalem.com you can find it on back to jerusalem.com and get more information there.
I’m really hoping that we are able to hear from our brother. I’m going to try to give him a phone call one more time just to see if we can get through because I would love to hear from him. This is. Our brother from Nigeria. We’ve done a podcast with him in the past as he shared with us about the situation in Nigeria.
And my hope is, is that again, we can hear from him, so I’m going to just try to call his mobile phone.
Hello. Hey brother, this is a Eugene. Can you hear me?
Bishop: [00:14:06] Yes, I can hear you.
Eugene: [00:14:07] All right, great. Great to hear your voice. How are you doing?
Bishop: [00:14:11] I’m willing. I’m willing. I just, I had enough. I just got up.
Eugene: [00:14:15] Okay, great. I’ve just been sharing with our audience, so we’ve actually been doing our live podcast and I just wanted to get information from you.
I woke up this morning. And in my inbox, you had sent me a message about this Bishop that had just been taken from his home. He was kidnapped. Yes. Kit. What can you share with us about that situation?
Bishop: [00:14:42] Well, it seems as if, Christians have become the target of kidnappers. for instance, in the North and cognitive States, the Christian association on idea of spent about, about 400 million naira, you know, paying ransom of Christians who have been kidnapped, you know.
So the Christians are just become the target in, at the most States. In one of the towns there, the Christian association in Nigeria, 10, nine for that particular town was kidnapped by Boko Haram in January, about January the fourth or fifth or something. About two weeks later. he was, he was, he was killed.
And even they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t, you know, they, they, they, they took a video of, of his mother and they put it up on YouTube.
Eugene: [00:15:33] Oh my goodness. Wow. That is. Wow. That’s horrible. So
Bishop: [00:15:38] everybody goes to watch it. Everybody goes, I couldn’t watch it, of course, but able to go to watch it. I mean, they dug a hole and you know, when they killed him, they said that that was in January.
Eugene: [00:15:50] Mr. Dawson, you have done a podcast with me in the past. I thank you for your time. I’m really excited about connecting together with you. You give me updates on a regular basis about what’s taking place with the persecution against Christians in Nigeria. could you just give an introduction for those that are listening to our podcast, who you are and where you’re at at the moment?
Bishop: [00:16:14] Okay. Okay. My name is . I’m a missionary. let’s see. At the of my work is presently in West Africa. I live in Nigeria and, I worked throughout this country. I worked in the North in the Muslim lost and I worked in the East. I worked in the center in the central. So I w I belong to a country that is basically when it comes to religion, a dichotomy.
We have, Muslims in the mouth, and we have Christians in the South. Our, our governments majorly, is run by those who are Muslims. Okay. And, so Christians have had a high level of persecution. In Nigeria. for every attack on Christians, nothing healing and everything. We haven’t actually had anyone who was being arrested or even tried.
Wow. In our country that we’ve not had anyone arrested five before. I need a herdsmen attack for all the killings that are taking place in Kaduna jaws. I just, you know, no one, no one has been arrested. No one was doing trade, you know, so it happens that, we, we, we, he and I go with, with praying and, we have outfits cause she did a charge tested.
Still, in fact, I’m doing some studies on, on nonviolence,
studying, thinking Lord to arm ourselves, you know, reach. We also go and buy guns and get ourselves ready. What do we do in this situation? Everyone is pregnant. You know what I say? If you want, I mean, maybe it’s not. That’s great. So what exactly do we do? so we’re praying, we’re praying. the good thing is that the persecution is happening.
It’s happening to, to, how am I going to put it down there? Cause you ended up into shop enough of it because? Because we had the. We, we have this, this extreme prosperity gospel that had become very popular in Nigeria, you know, West Africa, he and my country, and I suppose the persecution is helping to shift us away from that, you know?
yeah. because there is no with within the prosperity. So called profit, prosperity, gospel. ideology. Muscadet is not part of it. You can understand the mustard and it’s not pocket suffering. He’s not even experienced yet. I’m struggling. So, yeah, suffering but explained. So it’s giving you a bit of confusion and it’s bringing some systems.
You know, sometimes it’d be a little 16.
Eugene: [00:19:11] Let me ask you this, Mr. Dawson. when looking at Nigeria, do you guys know anything about the kidnappers who kidnapped this Bishop? Is there any information in the news who they might be? Do you have a suspicion of who they might be?
Bishop: [00:19:28] We have a suspicion, yes, we do.
We have a suspicion because he’s not the first, I’m just like, okay. For instance, The Christian associated with Nigeria, just as it sounds, is what they are. The Christmas in Nigeria, right? Is, is, is, is it Bobby that was established actually by the government in the seventies on the ambassador right. To help to see, you know, and politically to stand for Christians.
He ain’t Nigeria. Okay. So, so can, can the highest, you know. John can speak to the governments, they can be, they can work as a pressure group accepts, et cetera. So this isn’t the first time, that it can, Gemma has been kidnapped. The first one in January was killed and it’s on YouTube. what I’ll do, I’ll get a YouTube video and send it to you and I’ll send you the link.
It’s available. He’s, he’s martyrdom. Them for everybody to see.
Eugene: [00:20:24] And what is, what is amazing is that YouTube has not taken this video down.
Bishop: [00:20:29] Which videos, of course not. Wow. Anywhere you videos of people being killed everywhere.
Eugene: [00:20:37] Wow.
Bishop: [00:20:37] You know, I refuse to watch it. I actually refuse to watch it, you know? But the good thing with him is that, in my opinion, that’s the content and from my dominant state, when Buco kidnapped him, after kidnapping him, they put him on YouTube and he actually, you know.
He was calm. He was actually calm. And she basically said, well, if it’s the will of God for me, I watch that video. If it’s the will of God, something to be said for the fine. If not, well, I’ll take you like that. You know, he appealed to the governor of the state to do something about getting in, you know, things ransom, but they killed him.
But in killing him, that’s when he made a mistake because they made that mind. Amanda and. You know, he’s, he’s, he’s, he’s funeral was a celebration. It was a celebration though. It was a celebration. He’s wife and everyone, they use the stadium in the demo and they celebrated his life, and his wife was there praising the Lord and people at that prison, the Lord.
So Boko around the Plaza shut us up. They didn’t shut us up. He actually, they actually democratized, inspired people to want to live for Christ and die for Christ, you know? And that was January. Yeah. My dear.
Eugene: [00:21:50] Wow. Let me just share something with you. I would love to hear your take on this because this is something that I’ve kind of been wrestling with.
So I’m writing an article about this right now. We’re going to be putting this up on back to jerusalem.com but, The international Christian concern, ICC, which is an organization. they did a study, over the month of Ramadan. You’re probably very familiar with the timeline of Ramadan because like you said, in Nigeria, you have a Muslim government and Muslim governments recognize the, the month of Ramadan.
Now, keep in mind, you know this as well, most countries around the world have been on lockdown because of the Corona virus. have you been on lockdown in Nigeria?
Bishop: [00:22:39] Yes, and we’ve actually, we’ve actually been, yes, we’ve had the restrictions in place, but, the Northern governors actually said it’d be deemed to be, they can’t look down their States.
But when we started having, deaths in Congress States in the North, then the governor decided to yak. He ha, you just had to put in place restrictions. Okay. You understand the fact that he put in place restrictions does not mean that the restrictions stayed in place because after a while he just had to say, Hey, you know, let’s let the people go shopping.
Yeah. You know, for, for the, for the, for the end of the fasting celebration, let’s people go shopping. Well, let’s, let’s open the
Eugene: [00:23:20] mosques.
Bishop: [00:23:22] The relaxing religion.
Eugene: [00:23:23] The reason I’m asking is that, international Christian concern just came out with some devastating numbers. Now, not all the numbers are in, but the data that we now have for the month of Ramadan, which just ended, there were about 260.
Attacks from Muslims on non-Muslims with the death of about 426 at least 426 people. That is more than 14 people being killed every day by Muslim attacks during the month of Ramadan. During a time. When most of the world is supposed to be on lockdown. So lockdown coronavirus did not stop this attack.
And yeah, and this has been extremely devastating for me because I continue to follow you on Facebook. I continue to follow some of the news that you share and you will send me private messages about things that are taking place. You guys continue to see over and over and over persecution against believers, and you just said that there’s really nothing that is being done.
Those that are perpetuating these attacks are not being brought. To court, they’re not being brought to justice. They’re not being arrested or tried or investigated. And so my question is, what situation do you think this Bishop is currently in? Do you think that his family is in a position to pay this ransom?
Does he, do you think he has insurance that would be able to pay this ransom with a government? Pay this ransom?
Bishop: [00:25:06] Because the position which he lies in, you know, raising a ransom is possible because he needs to, because the position he holds, even even the state government the whole time in the whole of the country would raise the money.
See, I mean, come on. If the, if the, if the, if the kidnapped does ask for, you know, probably 50 million there, they could raise the money. Honestly, honestly, they could raise the money because of how important the money is. You know, you saw the article I sent you, but this man is too important. We can’t lose him.
So they were ready to take, they’ll be ready to pay the ransom. Okay. But the fact that you pay the ransom doesn’t mean, well, they’re going to release him. So we have plenty of prayer to pray. We’d had people to keep napped in that state. You know, joining January, I’m a dumb. No, I’m fine. Christians ping being ransoms, you know, anywhere they need Christian to just want to do, they just pray.
They just pray. They just pray. And it’s, it’s, it’s what we’re praying. I’m believing. Good. Pray. You know, I, we’re hoping that it doesn’t turn because that’s some people who have one not so, Full of faith, you know, and who could resort to other means. I wonder if you understand what I’m saying?
Eugene: [00:26:28] Yes, absolutely.
Bishop: [00:26:30] Let me, let me,
Eugene: [00:26:31] let me ask this. Are you a part of the Christian association of Nigeria?
Bishop: [00:26:37] what, how did I put it within the Christian associates in Nigeria, we have about four or five blocks. Okay. The Roman Catholic church. the nominal churches like Anglican, Methodist, the African churches, those are the white government organizations like Celesta church, chairman surfing.
We have CAC. Then there’s a block called P, F, N. That is the Pentecostal fellowship of Nigeria. Okay. Okay. So I am part of the Pentecostal fellowship of Nigeria. Pentecostal fellowship is a block in the Christian association of Nigeria.
Eugene: [00:27:13] Okay.
Bishop: [00:27:15] So when I, when I worked in some places in Nigeria, for instance, I go looking, you know, for a chapter or zoom.
You know, of the PSN and I introduced myself the halo. I’m allowed to D C these are my documents. I am on a fish out in the Pentecostal fetish from Nigeria. They give me the hand of a fellow fellowship, you know, and then I’ll, you know, help me in the work I’m going to do in a particular mission area, mission field.
You know, they give me, you know, necessary knowledge and knowhow for a place I’m going to work. Because I’m going to fish out, we’d PFM. So I would say yes, I’m pop of con, you know, I’m part of Canada, Christian associates in Nigeria because I am on official in PSN. Does that make sense?
Eugene: [00:28:00] Absolutely. And is there like a newsletter?
How did you find out about this, about this Bishop that had been kidnapped? Was it, were, were, are you directly connected with somebody that knows him? Do you know him? How, how were you informed.
Bishop: [00:28:15] Well, first of all, I’m informed because I’m part of. I work alongside with, a news editor. There’s a Christian newspaper here in Nigeria, comes out monthly.
It’s called church times, and it’s run by a particular awesome brother who’s . They’re on Facebook too. It’s called church times Nigeria. You know, so he gets all the information. At the same time, I’m connected to different mission agencies here in Nigeria. So I get information on direct into my, my, my, my, main books concerning whatever may be happening.
in Nigeria when it comes to , like for instance, I mentioned some people who, who, attacked. I mentioned people are talked about a month ago. Remember I do, the last person was kidnapped. The last person was just released yesterday. The last person was just released yesterday. Yes. So I get a direct in my inbox and it comes, of course not apart from being, in PSN.
it’s about relationship to it because I’ve been working in the mission field all these years. I’ve met other mission. He does directors, you know, and other missionaries. So everybody’s in touch, if that, the interesting thing is that if you ever walked in the middle belt of Nigeria or walked into the North of Nigeria.
You know where like we’re one where a team, no matter what agency may belong to the matter, what, Christian denomination denominational background you’re from, or what about church sent you to work in the North or in the middle belt? Nobody cares. Once we get that, we’re all one team. It’s only in Southern Nigeria that you say, Hey, I’m a Baptist, and another person will say, Hey, I’m a Methodist.
You know, in Northern Nigeria, every Christian there is one. Yeah. We work need to be one anyway.
Eugene: [00:30:00] Oh yeah, no, I, I completely understand what you’re saying. We see the exact same thing on the mission field. when you know, when you are in England, when you are in Sweden, when you are in Canada, it’s very easy to say, like you said, I am Baptist.
I go to a Baptist church. I’m, I’m Pentecostal, I go to a Pentecostal church. but when you meet up and North Korea. I don’t ask you, I don’t ask you your denomination cause it doesn’t matter. I’m just excited. Yes. I’m so excited that I have the brother and sister, you know, that can be with me in that I can remember.
Bishop: [00:30:40] Let me just add something in the South when you have issues with, Oh, I’m seventh day Adventists, well I’m angry, but by the time you’re getting to Nigel’s seat. Okay, I’m going up North. Who cares? You go seventh day Adventists. It may be a point of, it may be maybe to dispute and debate in the South, but by the time you’re going to the Muslim North, who cares if you go, if you, if you watch it on Saturdays when she puts Sunday, we don’t care.
All we want to know is that you know, are you following Jesus? Are you living for Jesus? You preaching? Are you preaching the gospel that he eats? Nobody cares whether you use instruments all, you don’t use instruments, whether you’re quiet, whether whether your choir wears a uniform. Well, while you’re quiet, doesn’t wear uniform.
What are your pastors wear colors or they wear jeans. No body cares in the North. You know, it’s only in the South that you have all those points, you know, of all those, all those points, which I argue, but in Northern Nigeria, do just one. Let
Eugene: [00:31:41] me ask
Bishop: [00:31:41] you this.
Eugene: [00:31:42] When you are in Northern Nigeria, what is the Christian fellowship like?
I mean, are there open churches? Are there underground churches? Are there no churches? What’s the situation?
Bishop: [00:31:55] It actually depends where you are. If you’re in the city, okay. If you’re in the city or in a town in the North, but always be an area, just for Christians. Jonathan just said, just an area that would maybe be the locals there or the government or whatever would allow Christians or non-injury, so live in a particular area and also have judges in a particular area.
But then when you come out and you’re in the field. Right? You have to become very careful, like for instance, in a particular state in Nigeria where I worked, let me mention the state Zapata, where Sharia was first. It was first implemented many years ago on the governor called Gerima who started Sharia.
And in the States, you, you kind of just go on and buy land and build the church. You can’t do that. When you see, once you bite angry, maybe you’re doing a dedication service. They want to dedicate the building, you know, to the law door. You know, I mean, at the foundation level, you just have people that are shopping with bows and arrows, machetes, and they’ll tell you to stop building.
Eugene: [00:33:07] Really? Yeah.
Bishop: [00:33:08] So they do con con.
Eugene: [00:33:10] So you would have people show up ready to hurt you or, or, or kill you.
Bishop: [00:33:16] Wow. Yes, sir. Wow. Yes. That’s not fair. No, exactly. That’s just normal. So what we started doing was this, we would buy land, okay. And build a lodge. Would build them. We call it a copper lodge in Nigeria.
After the, after you finish your Tetra education university, you know Polytechnique, right? There is a one year national service, you know, graduates is meant to do. Okay. So in that one year we are going to be national youth service Corps. So in that one year, if you are from the South, they send you to the North.
If you go from the East, they send you the West from the Western region. So you work for one year. Sometimes in the area teaching in the schools, you know, it’s called national instead of this school. So what we do is I would buy land and build accommodation. Okay. And we would say it is for the youth corporates because youth call is a federal scheme.
Okay. So would lot youth Corp as their youth capacity stayed there, then we would use their living dead living room, living room, sitting room Paulo as a church. You get to that. So that’s on the ground, you know, we’ll have, there’ll be no signs outside the church. Why? Anything, you know, we’ll just, it’s an underground church and then we’d run, we’d have services there.
Now the thing is that when the locals here that do use cope as much, they will keep quiet because it’s a federal scheme. Number two, when they hear that you use CoPath I pray or having church in the building, they won’t get upset. Why? Because they just used coffers. Are you catching what I’m saying you, but what happens is that as the church goes on and maybe a couple of locals have given their lives to Christ, okay?
Like for instance, one particular loss like that was brought down in Tampa because they discovered that, Hey, these guys just, that just disguising, you know, they’re just using, they’re just using the color scheme as the means, right? Or building churches. They just came on that they just came on on that.
Now that they’re just using it as a scheme. So they came along and they burnt down the lodge. They burned down the place.
Eugene: [00:35:31] Let me ask you, let me ask you this. you had mentioned that this air, this, these areas are run by Sharia law.
I meant to be a, does that mean if a locals who are living in the Muslim areas decide that they would like to move to the Christian areas and become Christian. Is that possible? None of
Bishop: [00:35:54] that, that if I’m locals lacking
we’re in the Muslim area that Muslims comfort to Christ, they’ll have to leave. Wow. All there all there will be be recipients of honor killings, there’ll be killed. There became a big Apple once. Once you save souls in these particular areas, you have to keep them. To the South.
Eugene: [00:36:22] Okay. Okay. So they have to leave that area.
Bishop: [00:36:26] You have to leave that space. So what happens is we, we do have our particular missions agencies that have particular homes. Okay. They have schools, they have homes, you know, for, for new converts to come get trained. You know, get trained, get discipled, and then the real equipment are somewhere else. So they most need the area, or they’ll be the recipient of honor killings.
Then if they do know that that particular person has been the evangelist who has been winning shows in the local community, if I could just become the target.
Eugene: [00:37:00] Let me, let me, yeah, let me just change gears for a minute and ask you, is the reverse also true? If Muslims from the North relocate to the South, do they have to have special permission, to have, meetings?
Do they have to, are they able to build mosques, buy a property and build a Moscow?
Bishop: [00:37:21] They can do anything you like. Muslims come to the South, you know the South, the South is the South. The South is very free and open. The South is very free, open and tolerant.
Eugene: [00:37:33] but the South is also the Christian
Bishop: [00:37:35] area. Yes.
It’s all the Christians there, so it’s very tolerant. Everybody is tolerant of everybody, basically here. Yes. It’s, it’s free. It’s open. It’s commercial. Yeah. Which is,
Eugene: [00:37:46] it’s a sign of Christian. It’s a sign of Christianity.
Bishop: [00:37:51] Yes, yes. It’s open. It’s open, but the North is not, I cannot go to a particular town in the morning if I want to buy it.
If I want to build a house, I’m gonna build it in the non-indigenous area of the town. Okay. Okay. I got go try it. Jonathan all happened. Does it show up in blend down? Whatever it is I have or kill anybody that’s there and nobody’s going to say anything about it.
Eugene: [00:38:17] No. I mean, this is very common. This is not that what you are describing is not specific for Nigeria.
This is all over the Muslim world. This happens for Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan. when, when you, if anybody that is listening to this podcast, if you go to Cairo. In Egypt, there is a section of the city that is set aside for Christians and the Christians that are forced to live there is where they take all the garbage every day.
So the, the entire city of Cairo gathers up all of the garbage for all of the restaurants, all of the hotels, all of the residential areas. They load up the garbage. I mean, you’re talking about tons every single day, and then they take it to the Christian area and literally pile it up in front of their doorsteps.
So if you go to the Christian area of Cairo, it smells like sewage roll. Sewage. I mean, it will make you want to vomit because it’s the sun and Cairo. It gets hot, it gets warm. So you have all of those festering juices and and garbage that is just starting to, the bacteria begins to grow. Then you got flies and maggots and it’s, it’s absolutely disgusting, but that is where the Christians have to live.
And that is where it almost as a way to shame you, that’s where they bring the entire city’s garbage. To that area. So what you were describing of Christians not allowed to live wherever they want. Christians not able to just buy land and start a business or start a church or build a home. This is very, very common, for those that would like to pray.
So those that are praying for the believers in Nigeria, those that are praying for this Bishop, what can you share about prayer points that before we cut off.
Bishop: [00:40:20] it’s, it’s, it’s important, in praying for the Bishop, what I think is most important for our country now, right? I mean, for believers here in Africa, leaving here with Africa is boldness.
It’s so essential. Boldness. I mean, come on, w some of us will be killed. I mean, that’s just, that’s just the way it’s going to be. You know, them is part of it, but we need to be bolded. These things. I, I feel that if we have boldness really in all of this, that’s all we need. Boldness. We have the name of Jesus.
We have the word of God. We have the Holy spirit. But boldness is lacking. Okay. Well, I mean, boldness to go, just to go. I’ve discovered that many of us have seen because of what we’ve heard to go, and if we’re afraid to go, people are going to continue to perish. And I feel these, these acts are to intimidate.
It’s just terrorism. These acts are to TBD, just to stop us from glory. So I asked, the prayer we need is for boldness. That in spite of all that is taking place, we will still go for the captains, for, for, for the kidnappers and for abused, had this and everything, the praise, the global, open their eyes and send them a strong gospel witness, open the eyes and sent them a stone.
I mean, I want to share these repeatable people go, there was a, there was, I don’t say this to offend anybody. One of our big time pastors sent out a prayer bulletin. Concerning what is happening and the plans that I find the plans book around and send me fighters to the South. You know, there’s knowledge of truck loads of young men being sent into the South.
Just like, you had, you know, boatloads of young men leaving Syria, leaving Iraq, you know, I’m going to do to, to, to Europe, you know, so you have truckloads of young guys coming into the South and they safe and envision before I’m, et cetera, you know, so. Cool. So this, this Postel asked us to pray that God would, would, reach vengeance on these Muslim Radic thoughts that will be earthquakes in that comps that God would basically kill them in everything.
So when I was sent to the prep will listen. I said, no, this even the mind of God for these ones, we have to stop seeing them as people. As our enemy. Nothing’s enough of seeing Muslims as if the Muslims are the devil they’re used by what? These are human beings like. Oh, just like what Jesus did. Louisa just like Paul the apostle, so we need to pray for their eyes to be opened.
Use the name of Jesus to do, to accommodate backness and you know, and the covering cast and the veil over their eyes and pray to the Lord to send them a strong gospel witness, you know, because the salvation of these people, the salvation of the people, the salvation of one of their prophesies, the salvation of one bookworm officer, right.
Open the door for the gospel in many areas. Just one of them. No, just one of them. And it’s all of them. I mean, that’s the end of the insurgency. And there is power in God to save these people. And these would stop if we would stop being intimidated, right. And stop being so bitter and angry and vengeful.
We have to stop that and that and that. I said, I don’t want to be offensive, but that is the danger of this prosperity gospel thing. No binge of this prosperity gospel. Somebody gets martyred inside of you to begin to pray, you know, prayer of salvation and prayers of, of, of, of repentance, et cetera.
Instead, you’re praying prayers not, you know, the killers will die before their time. Their children would die. You know, the whole family would die. I mean, come on. What kind of prayer is that? And that’s a very common prayer. Yes.
Eugene: [00:44:22] Wow. Wow. Well, brother, we pray. We pray for wisdom. We pray for, like you said, boldness.
we will definitely keep you and your family and your ministry as well as this Bishop in our prayers. I want to thank you for answering the phone, and if, And if you are this excited after waking up for a nap, brother, I hate to hear how excited you get when you really get,
Bishop: [00:44:47] we’re on fire. We’re on fire here.
We’re on fire here. Awesome is Lord. I love it. So much work to do. What does expected about it? I want to add something. My wife and I were having a conversation recently, well, not recently. It’s like three years ago. And you know, ask you a question. If I get cute, would you see it as defeat? Would you see that shameful?
And she said, no, no, she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t. That she would see victory. I really helped me. That helped me a lot. So you have a family. I have a wife and three kids. I’m always going to the field. and you know, what happens is I’m killed. What, what happens to my wife and kids, but my wife she did was she touched the tree, you know, so I just, I just didn’t go for the kind of woman I married.
Eugene: [00:45:31] Amen. Brother. That’s sounds like a fellow warrior. Love it. Thank you so much for joining us. And, I look forward to talking to again in the future. God bless you, brother.
Bishop: [00:45:44] Bye bye.
Eugene: [00:45:47] I, we received a couple of calls during the time that we had, our brother on here, but I apologize. We were not able to take those calls during this time.
I didn’t know if anybody would actually be listening to or calling, just because we’re so far off schedule right now, but I really wanted to do this podcast so that we could get the information out there that. Our brothers and sisters in Nigeria are suffering. They are being persecuted, they are being targeted because of their faith.
They’re being targeted because of their faith and it’s, it’s not really making it into the news. If roles were reversed. If Muslims were being attacked by Christians, if Muslims were being taken as into and being kidnapped and being held for ransom by Christians, if Christians were attacking the homes and burning down the homes of any religion, whether it be Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam.
Do you think for one moment that you would not hear about it in the news? Oh my goodness. It would be wall to wall coverage. There would be an apology tour as there should be an apology tour there. This alone should be a testimony to the nations that Christians are different. This is one of the reasons why you can see artists, brave, quote unquote edgy quote unquote artists.
That take the cross of Christ and put it into a jar of urine, or, I was playing, a, kind of like a quiz game. I’m trying to think of the name of, it doesn’t come to my mind right now. My wife had just bought this card game. it’s something that we enjoy doing with her family. her family came and joined us in.
Stockholm a couple of days ago, and we were playing this, this game of, of, of knowledge where you have to answer questions from art, history, whatever. And one of the questions I remember was, can you name the animal that the of the feces that was used by some artists to make a picture of Jesus? And it was human.
No, no, no. Sorry. It wasn’t, I was getting ready to say it was a multiple choice. It was not a multiple choice. I thought it had to be between human and dog feces, and that’s probably the most common. That’s what’s most readily available to make a picture or a painting or an image of Jesus. But the answer actually ended up being a elephant dung elephant dung being used to make an image of Christ.
Now. I don’t know what the picture looked like. I didn’t look it up. It was just one of the trivia questions. We, the question was asked, we answered, we moved on. I got it wrong. I said it was dog, feces, but it wasn’t, it was, it was, it was elephant dumb. Can you imagine a picture of Muhammad. Being done in animal dung, I tell you what all hell would break loose.
Christians would be coming out against whoever made the dunk. The animal dung. Christians would be the first to condemn and make moves to stop that kind of activity. But. You don’t have artists that do that, those that say that they’re edgy, they’re not that edgy. Those that say they’re brave, they’re not that brave.
Yeah. Madonna can make a, a do a tour and show how brave she is by, you know, desecrating the cross or priests or Christianity wouldn’t dare do it to Islam. Not in a million years. So our brothers and sisters in Nigeria are not facing persecution because they’re making images out of elephant dung on, on the prophet Muhammad.
They’re not facing persecution because they’re taking the Crescent of Islam and putting it into a jar of urine, as you’ve seen done towards Christians. No, they’re being persecuted because they’re Christians. That’s it. That’s the only thing that they’re being persecuted for. And one of the things that really is a challenge for me as I listened to my brother Dawson share about the situation inside of Nigeria is if Christians are so quick to act against others that would desecrate other religions.
Where is your voice. When it comes to persecuted Christians. Now I’m not talking about standing. I love what brother Dawson was saying is that we’re not against Muslims. We pray for the Muslims. We love the Muslims. We pray for their salvation. Christ died for them. They have been led astray by a very evil religion and demon.
Muhammad himself gave a testimony that he was tricked by demons and gave information in the Holy Koran because he had been tricked by demons.
Muslims are not our enemies. Those that kidnapped this Bishop is not our enemy. We do not, as believers, want to gather arms and go to war with the Muslims. We pray for them. We go into spiritual battle, not against them, but to save them. We battle not against flesh and blood, but against powers of darkness and principalities and high places.
We battle against Satan. We battle against the the demons that have taken control over large areas for generations. by the way, my, my brother, Dawson has written and said, you know, in Nigeria, we need prayer and workers and they need visits from brother and abroad that are willing to go and serve together with the missionaries like brother Dawson and the regions that have been closed off.
These areas can only be set free through the power of Jesus Christ. If you are listening to this podcast, I want to just let you know that you can find this podcast live on back to jerusalem.com/forward/live every week on Saturday. Whenever I do special podcasts, I have chosen to do a few of them also live and you can find them right here on this website, on back to jerusalem.com forward slash live and also.
If you are enjoying our videos or want to be kept up to date with our videos that are being put up every single week, we are putting up new videos, new content from myself, other members of back to Jerusalem as well as brother UN. You can find those videos. They are there. There’s a wealth of resources that are there.
Click like click follow, follow us on YouTube. It makes a big difference when right now we have just over 2000 we’ve just started a couple months ago updating our content onto YouTube. We’re hoping that you like it. If you do like it, please choose to follow us on YouTube. It will allow us to get more.
Access to people that are wanting to follow back to Jerusalem. There are a lot of people that are friends of back to Jerusalem, followers back to Jerusalem, but they’re not aware that we’re on YouTube. By you liking YouTube, you help us create a bigger presence. You help us get the word out there. So if you’re listening to this podcast, please go to YouTube and click follow.
Like us follow us on Facebook as well, but YouTube is the area where we could really use your help. One of the challenges that you’re going to see within the next couple months, especially with elections ramping up in the United States, is that you don’t have a lot of options when it comes to social media.
Social media is going to become more and more restrictive that I guarantee. You’re going to see that there are there, there was a, there was a, well-meaning believer, that had written on Facebook a couple of weeks ago about the idea of removing yourself from social media, like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, these kind of social media outlets.
And he felt that as Christians, it is our duty. To reach out to those that have not heard the word of Jesus Christ and use these platforms for the good news of Christ. I am completely on board with that completely. The challenge, however, is this, there is coming a time and the time made already be here.
Those that are listening, you might argue that the time has already arrived. That social media outlets are no longer allowing you to have a voice to share your views, whether they be Christian or otherwise, but they now exist to make you think that you’re sharing your views when actually you are now the target for propaganda and that.
Propaganda. My friend might just very well be anti-Christian propaganda when Christianity becomes associated with lack of science, lack of understanding, lack of socialization. Then you can easily get categorized as a danger to society. And what you post could either be blocked or shadow banned shadow band is when they block you, but you really don’t know what nobody else knows it, but nobody really sees the posts that you post.
It’s kind of like back to Jerusalem. We’re kind of in this purgatory jail right now. As it relates to Facebook. We get very few, interactions with our Facebook account. We had more interactions. When there were only a few users when we were down to probably less than a thousand then what we do now with over 35,000 users, people that have actively gone on to back Jerusalem, Facebook page and hit like they are being deprived of our content.
If they want to see it, they have to actively go on and look at it. But even though you are, might be. Shadow banned or blocked or your information is not really getting out there. You are also being targeted by all kinds. Mainly it’s marketing right now, but there’s also a social scheme taking place where what you are allowed to see and what you are not allowed to see is being controlled by the powers that be, and that’s never been more revealed than right now with what’s happening with the who.
This is one of the reasons why we have come out with Dean dash.com Dean dash.com is a free. Platform that allows everybody to have an equal voice with nobody being shadow banned or blocked. We haven’t had a block anybody yet. We don’t take people off because their views may not match ours. You are free to express your will.
Now, the great thing about ding dash.com is that it is open and closed countries where Facebook, Twitter, YouTube are not allowed. Ding dash.com at the time of this recording is actually open inside of China. You can sign on anywhere and connect with people all around the world, sharing information, sharing photos without having to worry that that information is being shared with the government.
Now people say, well, the government can log on and see what’s going on. Yes, they can. The difference is this. You can share your information with a select group of people and no one else, and that information is not shared with the government. You can send a private message and that information is not shared with the government.
This is key. You can log on right now, ding dash.com or even better, go onto your phone. Go to, whether it’s an iPhone or an Android system, you can go to the app store and at the app store, look up back to jerusalem.com or I’m sorry, look up ding dash.com ding dash ding dash ending dash what you’ll see is a speech bubble.
Within that speech bubble. You’ll have. Just lines and dots. That’s why it’s called dot com is named after the dings and dashes that were used during battle among, areas that wanted to share information in a secure way using Morse code. That’s why we named it deem dash. And if you look at the code, the Morse code within that box, it actually spells out Jesus.
So. We would love for you to come on board. Join us at dot com and connect with believers all around the world. Vietnam, India, Nepal, Butan, China, other areas around the world. We would love to have you with us on ding dash. Dot com thank you so much for joining us for a another back to Jerusalem podcast.
Again, I’m Eugene Bach coming to you live on a Saturday morning. I pray that this was a blessing for you and may you continue to pray for this Bishop in Nigeria as well as the underground house church of Nigeria and the persecuted Christians of Nigeria. God bless you.
