GLOBAL VOICES
Our Long Journey to Kwarhi, Adamawa State EYN (Church of the Brethren Nigeria) Pastors Conference 2020 in Mubi in Northeast Nigeria (10—15 February 2020) Luka Vandi Uti is the managing director and CEO of Africa Christian Textbooks (ACTS). Because he works and travels throughout Nigeria, he faces life-threatening dangers often. He has been to training workshops and conferences of Media Associates International. The Board of Missions gave a special gift to ACTS for the publishing efforts and outreach described in this article. After praying and trusting God for safety, my team and I decided as planned to travel to the Northeast, a fearful part of Nigeria where every minute of safety is appreciated because anything can happen. By 6 a.m. we departed to Jos Plateau, trusting God for the 10- to 12-hour journey ahead of us, a longer route to Mubi (Kwarhi precisely) in Adamawa State where the headquarters of EYN (Church of the Brethren Nigeria) is situated. This used to be a seven-hour journey through the Biu-Mubi road, a shorter route we no longer take because of the insurgence in that area. This Biu-Mubi road is “Kururuwanka banza,” which literally translates into English a “Your shouting amounts to nothing.” This route has a link to Sambisa Forest where several famous people, including the Emir of Gwoza, were killed. Gwoza is in Borno State, which was headquarters of Boko Haram before the Nigerian military pushed them back into the Sambisa Forest. With the help of God, we arrived at the headquarters of EYN before 6 p.m., overjoyed and grateful to Him for such a smooth and safe journey. Throughout the years, ACTS has lost more than ten bus, car and truck engines on this road, and so we found this to be a big success and blessing to have reached our destination without issues. The bus and we passengers arrived first, while the truck took two days to reach the conference in Kwarhi, Adamawa State. We were very happy
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to see that everything went as planned. The bus and truck were packed with books, tracts, Bibles and flyers for the usual work of distribution among the population. We were able to distribute our targeted books and tracts to ministers and sold some books to them. The second success was the turnout of clergy. More than 900 ordained clergy attended the conference. We had anticipated 1,300, but some people couldn’t travel because of security changes in their areas. We cannot say the exact number but were told that some roads were closed down because of recent attacks by the Yaran Malam (the preferred, so-called dignified name of Boko Haram, since it dangerous to call them “Boko Haram” directly to their faces). We did a brief meeting with the leadership to strategize on how to reach every minister, including those unable to attend. We started with a successful meeting with the leadership who gave us assurance of their support, to bring about a coordinated and symbiotic relationship between ACTS and the pastors. The secretary of the minister’s council, Rev. Bukar Lallai, accepted the role of distributing the relevant items to the ministers. The conference started with worship on 11 February 2020. The President of EYN Church, Rev. Joel Billi, welcomed all members and an encouraging sermon was preached from the visiting speaker Brother Dondo Lorlamen, from Calvary Ministries (CAPRO) in
