Global
2 minute read
Sixty-seven years ago, my parents were medical missionaries in Borno State in the far north-east of Nigeria, working with the Church of Christ in Nigeria* (COCIN). Borno was Muslim Nigeria. Dedicatedly Muslim. Notwithstanding that my parents had their hands full with leading a hospital ministry, my father was deeply challenged by ‘the blank map’ of what stretched out hundreds of miles even further north than the Mission hospital.
And, so, the Lake Chad Project was founded in the early 1960s to bring medical care and the gospel to the unreached people groups of the Lake Chad Basin.
Dare we believe that this people-catching Lord calls us now to throw out our nets in renewed partnership?
The Buduma, the ‘people of the Reeds’, live around – and on the floating islands of – Lake Chad. During my parents’ 18 years there, one could count on two hands the number of Buduma who came to faith in Jesus. They are classed as a ‘Frontier’ people – a people group with virtually no followers of Jesus, no church planting movements, and still needing pioneer cross-cultural workers. Today, there are (only) 140 known Christians out of 160,000 Buduma.
Since 2002, the area of the work of the Lake Chad Project – and its peoples – has been cut off from the Church and (western) missionary work due to the activities of Boko Haram.
It would be very ‘deep waters’ to venture back into the Lake Chad area. Deep waters of incredibly risky faith for African Christians to travel and live there; let alone non-African workers. And yet, to the thrill of my heart, Amos Mohzo, the first president of COCIN from Borno, spoke quietly to me in 2024 that he has been personally stirred by the vision to reach out again to the unreached peoples around Lake Chad. Including the Buduma.
COCIN was planted by our Mission in 1904, and today is a church of approximately 3 million, with a continuing commitment to the unreached Muslim peoples of Nigeria and beyond. I am tremendously stirred to see how Pioneers can serve this church – that God graced us to plant 122 years ago, and with whom we signed a historic new partnership agreement in 2024 – to relevantly support her efforts in putting out again into deep waters for the sake of planting the church of Jesus Christ amongst the Buduma of Lake Chad.
‘Follow me and I’ll make you fishers of men,’ Jesus said. Dare we believe that this people-catching Lord calls us now to throw out our nets in renewed partnership – the Church in Nigeria and the Mission based in the UK and Ireland? I dare believe we must.
*Now Church of Christ in Nations
Header photo: David Stanley, Flickr
