ILI: History Makers Leadership Podcast
Explore the transformative journey that is leadership. In each episode, we will dive deep into strategies, stories, insights, and the core values that shape and inspire effective Christian leaders who make an impact - all around the globe. Get ready to unlock your leadership potential.
When leaders are equipped, kingdom impact multiplies. Equipping leaders and spreading the Gospel. Let’s change history together!
This podcast is brought to you by the International Leadership Institute.
ILI: History Makers Leadership Podcast
Ep. 84 | Christian Faith Under Fire: Nigeria’s Persecution Crisis
What does Christian persecution really look like on the ground in Nigeria, and how should leaders respond with faith and courage? In this sobering, but hope-filled episode, Shannon sits down with Jerry Anze to help us move beyond the headlines and statistics into the lived reality of believers facing violence, kidnappings, and ongoing insecurity throughout the nation of Nigeria.
Jerry even shares his own personal context and stories that reveal the human impact, the resilience of the Church, and why awareness matters globally. You’ll also hear practical ways to engage: how to pray with focus, advocate wisely, and lead with conviction when the pressure is intense.
This conversation is a call to compassion, clarity, and courageous action, reminding us that prayer isn’t passive; it’s frontline leadership. Prepare your hearts and be ready to gain insight, perspective, and next steps for standing with the persecuted Church in Nigeria.
Join a community of leaders who are ready to change history and make an impact in this world. When you take part in ILI training, you will discover how ILI's Eight Core Values will help you transform your leadership. Discover more at ILITeam.org/connect.
Christian persecution happens all over the world, in various countries in different ways. Today we are going to discuss specifically what does persecution for a Christian look like, feel like, and how is it lived out in the country of Nigeria? Hi, welcome to the History Makers Leadership Podcast. Today we have a special guest with us, Jerry Anzi. Many of you who tune into this regularly, you know who he is. And we are going to talk about something very specific and dear to Jerry's heart, and that is the country of Nigeria. Jerry, I'm glad to have you on today to talk about something that you love and care about. As we get started, I felt that maybe we should give some background to what's going on in Nigeria since 2020. So for those of you tuning in, maybe you're not familiar with Nigeria, in all transparency, we have had this podcast on the calendar for about four weeks. And since putting it on our calendar to sit with Jerry, it seems Nigeria has gone viral in the news. So if you're tuning in because this popped up because you've been researching about Nigeria, welcome to the conversation. We're happy to have you here. And we hope to share some things with you about what's going on. Jerry's going to share some stories, and then we're going to give you some action and how you can be involved in making a difference in the persecution of Nigerian Christians going on today. First of all, in the past five years, Jerry, the statistics look like, including the statistics from this year, there's been over 10,000 people murdered for their faith in Nigeria. And you know these communities, you know these people. There's been over 8,000 people kidnapped, which I know is personal to you because you know someone, um, maybe more than one, but I know for sure you know someone who experienced a kidnapping. And so we want to unpack that. And these numbers are alarming. It's hard to process here in the States when we're not living in that type of atmosphere. People tuning in may even question whether or not these statistics are real. So we want to ask you today, you know, have you been a part of witnessing the persecution in Nigeria? And do you believe that it is as bad as we're seeing statistically online?
SPEAKER_02:Uh thank you, Shannon. It's always a joy to be um to be here with you, especially in the podcast. Um, Nigeria is very dear to me. Um, it's my birthplace, it's the place I've lived my whole life. Growing up as a kid, uh, I experienced uh Christian persecution, not directly, but in the neighboring state. I heard when churches were burning uh down, uh, I heard where Christians were being killed. At that point, I began to wonder why would someone be killed because of his faith? Why will places of worship be burned down because someone decides not to uh worship the same way you do? So, and it kept going on all through uh my childhood age and right to today. It did not just start five years ago, it started shortly after the independence. Uh, you know, shortly after that, that was when all of these problems uh began.
SPEAKER_00:When was the independence?
SPEAKER_02:Uh in October 1st, 1960.
SPEAKER_00:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_02:So it dates back to then, but over time it became more intense and more obvious that there's a crackdown on Christians uh and on Christian communities, and there's a systemic jihad that is taking place in the country, uh, and the government have been turning an eye away from it. Uh, thousands of Christians have been killed over time. But in the last five years, the attention of the world has been drawn to the reality of what's going on on the ground because we've had uh Christian organizations doing advocacy, we've had some countries also witnessing what is happening and they're speaking out for it. And uh we've seen scores and scores of churches. I can't even put a number to the uh number of churches that have been burned. I can't even put a number to the number of Christians that have been killed because of their faith. The statistics that we receive from open doors and other Christian uh organizations, you know, they just give you a rough estimate. Right. There are communities and villages that are cut off from media. There are communities and villages that we don't even have an idea of how many people are being killed on a daily basis. And these things continue to happen daily. Christians are killed, they're attacked on their farms, others are being killed in their homes. There's a targeted and systemic attack that is going on on Christians and on Christian communities, on missionaries and those who are uh are working uh for the sake of the gospel, especially in northern Nigeria. Now, when you come to central Nigeria, where in most places we call the Middle Belt, we have also experienced uh a very strong uh resistance, especially by the people of Jos and Plateau State. They have tried to overrun this state over time. They go to the villages and they raise down these villages. I lived in um uh I lived in a community some years ago that was less than 25 minutes to one of the villages that was attacked. The village was called Dogo Nahawa. Over 200 people were killed in that village, mostly women and children. Now, in that community, they have a safe house. If there's a crisis or violence erupts in that community, they have a place where the women and children go for safety, not knowing that that safe house has been compromised. So when these killers came to that village around 1 a.m. in the night, they started shooting in the air sporadically, and immediately you hear gunshots in Nigeria, you know there's a problem.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_02:So the people in that community knew that all is not well. So they began to send the women and the kids to the safe, uh to the safe house, not knowing that they were sending them to the lions then. As the women and children were coming, they were hacking them. I'm telling you, it was a mass burial. I was directly involved in some humanitarian uh aid and activities that took place in that community. Three churches in those villages were were burned down, completely raised down. Myself and another friend, we did some project to help some of the churches there. But that is just one attack. There's been another attack in another community that was, I think, 35 or 40 minutes away from where I live. On a Sunday morning, about 80 believers, including the pastors, were killed in the church. These killers came, surrounded the church, and all the believers in there, set the church on fire, locked the doors and windows, nobody escaped. If you try to escape, they they will kill you. So everybody that was in that church during that morning service was killed. Nobody was arrested, nobody was accounted, and they continue to do this with impunity, if you will, with government backing.
SPEAKER_00:Wow, that is incredible. Um, so you talked about the middle area. Explain to us the strategy that the uh militant Islamists are using against the church. Because I know if you travel into southern like Logos, you're not gonna really experience any of this. So people who travel in the southern part of Nigeria may think this is an over-exaggeration. So kind of explain to the viewers what is that that strategy that they're using and where are they trying to take over in Nigeria?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so it's important to also note that Joss is in the central part of Nigeria, and there are a couple of states. Joss is the capital of Plato State, and there's Nasarawa state, and there's Taraba state, and there's Bainway State, and uh and and one other state. So those states they are in the central part, but Joss is like the face of it.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Now, Joss has a very strong Christian heritage, is what you would, if you will, call a Christian state. The people are very hospitable, the people are very Christian in in the way they conduct themselves, in the way they relate, and in the way they live. And uh there are lots of Christian organizations that are headquartered in Joss Campus Crusade for Christ in Nigeria. It's called the Great Commission Movement, the Navigators, the Whitecliffe, several other organizations, and they have a beautiful weather and nice geography, so it makes a lot of Westerners and people want to come in there. Now, Islam has been dominating in northern Nigeria, and they've been pushing to come towards the middle belt, the central area, and overrun this state, but they've always received a very stiff resistance. So if they try to come because it's a jihadic movement, if they try to come and they cannot um uh Islamize the place, they try to take it forcefully. So they come with violence, they attack villages, they will come at night in their numbers. You will have a hundred militants well armed attacking you in the middle of the night when you're sleeping. And they slaughter people, they burn down their houses, they burn down the whole community. So it creates fear in the community because they are vulnerable and the people are displaced. Some of them go end up in the IDP camps, and some of them, if they have families and relatives, they move or they just relocate to other communities and start life afresh. Now, those villages that have been raised, they become empty. Nobody is nobody wants to go there because they are afraid of a second attack. And there's been situations like that that once a village is attacked and the people are displaced, if they try to come back, those attackers come again. And we've also had situations in Plateau State where villages that were attacked were vacated, nobody was there, and the killers came and they're living in that place. So the government and the security forces know who these people are, but I don't think they have the guts and the courage to want to go and arrest or attack this, arrest these people these people. Because if you if you uh attack our uh communities and we leave the communities, and you come and you're living in a place that does not belong to you, the government should intervene.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_02:But there's been little that has been done in that case, and a lot of people feel that uh that they need justice, you know, for this. So it's been reoccurring like that in several villages that are outskirts. Now they come into the cities sometimes, once in a while, they will come into the cities, do an attack, and leave.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And mind you, the village that I quoted earlier that where that was attacked, Dogonahawa, he was he was about 20 minutes away from the governor's house.
SPEAKER_05:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:So they are getting yes from the governor's house, even right up to this time from the government house. So it's it's a statement they are making. If we can get this close, we can even get closer.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I remember speaking with someone who lives in that region, asking them what is it like to raise children there? Because their children were my my children's age at the time. And they shared with me that there are certain areas their kids cannot go because it is so dangerous. And I think in America and Western, we we can't imagine what that's like, that you raise your children in faith and in godly values, and they because of that faith, they cannot go to certain parts of the city for fear that they will be kidnapped because it the way that they dress and the way they act is not Muslim, and so therefore they can be targeted for kidnappings. I know that you've experienced something very close to home with that. And I wonder um if you're willing to share, have you ever experienced an attack personally?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, um, I mean, for the ki for kidnapping of it's not just for children. There are places that I personally cannot even go in Nigeria. Just the mere fact that you're a Christian and the mere fact that you're a pastor or a missionary and you're known, you may get into some communities and never come back alive.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:Even in the city of Just, there are places that I cannot go in freely. But it's interesting that the Christians find it difficult to go into some of those communities because they are afraid of being attacked and killed. But the Muslims can freely live in Christian communities and they will be protected and not killed. But Christians cannot do that. So that is another situation. Now, for the issue of kidnapping, it's been rampant. And what they've been doing lately is to kidnap the children, especially of Christian workers. If they come into your house in the day or whatever time, they will not kidnap you or your husband. They will take your child. Imagine them kidnapping a three-year-old child, a five-year-old child, or a 10-year-old child. Think about the trauma that that child will go through for the rest of his life, and think about the trauma that you as a parent will have to go through. So that has been happening. Um, that has been happening a lot and it's common. I have I've had people that are very close to me that have been kidnapped. I have a relative that have been kidnapped and and luckily released alive. I've heard stories of people that were kidnapped and they never made it back, even after they paid the ransom. The most heartbreaking story was a woman uh from Kaduna State who was kidnapped with two of her children. When this woman was kidnapped, the they called and they began to um to negotiate for a ransom. The ransom was paid and they killed this woman and killed her children after receiving the ransom. So they've been doing uh a lot of that. In 2013, I was I was personally attacked uh at home by maybe five or six six of them. They just surrounded me, bundled me, and I was I was I was this far from being killed. Every single moment I spent with these people, and it was less than a 10 minute encounter. Every single second that passed, I felt I was gonna die. I can never forget the voice of one of them that kept saying, Let's waste this guy. Let's waste this guy. He said it three times. How God delivered me from these killers, I have no earthly explanation. But I did know God saved me from that day, and uh I know what it means to be in the clutches of these people. Again, um, as an organization, ILI, I coordinated ILI in Nigeria for 11 years, and we've been able to do lots of training in northern Nigeria. We trained more than 5,000 Christian leaders in northern Nigeria, and uh some of the villages that we trained these leaders were attacked. There were clusters of villages that were together in one area. Uh about five or six of those villages was attacked in one night, and over a hundred men were killed. Their target was the men. They came straight to the house, they go for the men or the boys. If they see the boys, they go. So when this happened as an organization, we were concerned because these are people we know, these are people we've trained, these are people we've had real relationships with.
SPEAKER_00:When you go through training for five days with people, you become family. Family, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Our hearts are knitted together. Absolutely. So we began to think how can we as an organization step in and help these people? This is not a time for training, this is not a time for any of those things. This is a time to step into their shoes and be there with them. So we decided as an organization to check on those widows because their husbands have been killed, you know. So we got 100 of those widows, and because we cannot go into that state for fear of our own security, we got them out of the state to the to the city of just to a Christian mission guest house. Uh, we kept them there for a week, and uh, it's a six hour drive. So we got somebody and security to transport them down, and they brought them 100 of them. We housed them and we got a ministry that we partnered with that do trauma healing to just come and administer trauma to these people. This was the first time that I was face to face with victims of Boko Haram attack. I'm sorry, I was sobbing all throughout those days. I did not do any presentation, I was just there. The team were doing the team, uh, the ministry team was doing the trauma healing. Hearing the stories from these women on how their husbands were killed was hard. I remember one woman, she came and she said, um, she said when the killers came, they made her sit down, they pour gas on her husband and force her to watch him burn to death. One woman was literally like she had mental problems because of the cruelty and how they killed her husband. On the last day of the training of the trauma healing with this hundred women, they have a session they call Taking Your Pains to the Cross. It was a solemn moment. There was worship going on in a very low tone, you know, and the women were all lined up, hundred of them in the conference hall. I was sitting in the back, and in the front of the hall, they had uh a wooden cross, and then they put a basket right under the cross. They told everyone, go write down all of your pains, your hurts, your fears, and everything, and you're gonna put it on the foot of the cross. This woman came, each woman will come, worship was going on, and she would drop the paper. And then this woman came, she stood in front of the congregation, she looked at everybody, she held on that cross, she held a cross so tight, she said, I cannot forgive this kid. But because you said so, but because you said so, and because God says we should forgive, I forgive it was powerful. And that is a little bit of what believers go through in northern Nigeria. There's uh there's a video of another Christian leader, he's the he's the leader. We call it Christian Association of Nigeria, is an umbrella organization that how that houses all of the pastors and churches in each state and nationally. So they have a national office, and each state has an like a branch, and each county has a branch. So each state you go to, they have the Christian Association of Nigeria, and every church that is in that state is part of it. So this guy, he is the state uh chairperson for the Christian Association of Nigeria. They caught him, they kidnapped him, and they asked him to renounce his faith. He said it's too late. They slit his they slit his truth. It's on video. I have the video very difficult to watch. And there's been several other instances where Christians were kidnapped and they were asked to renounce their faith, they refused. They will either shoot them in the head or they slit their truth. And that has been happening in northern Nigeria. So for anybody to deny that there is no genocide going on in Nigeria is a lie. There's genocide and it's systemic and it's been going on over time. Churches have been attacked in Kaduna, churches have been attacked in uh in Jaws, in the city where I lived. I mean, when I first lived in Abuja some years ago when the first crisis actually broke out in Jaws. When I was in Abuja, my parents called to tell me that there's crisis going on in Jaws. I did not believe them because there's no way the crisis will happen in Jaws. Jaws is a Christian state, the people are nice. No, I did not believe them until I saw it on CNN. And it was two days before 9-11 here in America. It was the 7th. And then 9-11 happened here. And 9-11 overshadowed what took place in in Nigeria, but a lot of people were killed. My parents tried to give me a picture of what happened. They said on the streets there were people littered, dead bodies on the street. Churches were burnt that were not far away from where we live. There was total silence in the town, as if something has happened. Of course, something evil has happened. There were no movements, there were just dead bodies littered on the street in the city of Jaws. That was when I first believed that we were under attack. And this is just one. There are several mass killings and mass burials that has happened. You know, we have a there's a reverend currently in Nigeria called Reverend Dachomo that is advocating and drawing the attention of the world about the killings that's happening in Nigeria. But a lot of people are saying there are no genocide. I I I know personally have been and I know where one mass uh grave was. The people were so many that were killed that they couldn't even uh bury them individually. They just dug a huge ditch and put and buried everybody there. Personally, I know that is genocide. And that is just one out of so many of those mass graves that are happening. There's been communities. I have been to with a friend of mine in uh when I was back in Nigeria. Uh, there was one village, his home village, my friend, was attacked. Three villages were attacked then. My friend called me and said, Hey, let's go check. Sometimes when those crises happen, when I was in jaws, we go to those communities to just get first-hand information and see how we can help or mobilize help. I've never been afraid in my life like when we went to this village. We drove, I was the person driving, my friend was in the car, and another lady who is a representative in the state parliament for that particular area. So I was driving the truck. As we were going into these villages, it was the most fearful moment of my life. No people, all you see is just desolation, houses burned, nobody, nothing happening. It was just total silence. And then when we got to a point, we parked the car and said, Let's walk down and see. And then out of nowhere, we saw one person just came out and said, What are you guys doing here? Get into your car and leave. I was driving that car, I was driving that car so fast that day I told my friend, I will never ever do this again.
SPEAKER_04:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:And it took us a while to get to safety. And this guy, he's a full annie guy. He's one of those tribes that have been attacking those Christian communities. We don't know if he was alone there or he had some people there. We do not know. And for God's sake, if they wanted to kill us in that place, they will kill us and nobody will know. They will kill us, set our car on fire, nobody will ever know that we were killed. So I've been into that, I've been through that situation. So this is happening every day in Nigeria. There are villages that are cut off, they have no networks, they have no good roads, and Christians are living in those villages. They go to their farms, they are being attacked, they are killed in their farms. Sometimes they say it's heather, farmer clash, it's not. How do you send your cattle into people's farms to go eat up their crops? And this is the only source of their livelihood. They grow this to feed their family and to sell and make an income. But you send your cattle into their farms to kill to eat up their crops. That is unfair. And the government has not taken any uh real strong measure to end all of this. So, yes, Christians are being attacked. There's a genocide going on, and it took President Donald Trump just two tweets to get the attention of the world today. And I'm telling you, a lot of Christians in Nigeria are so appreciative of him being vocal about that, even if nothing is being done, just the fact that he made those tweets brought a great awareness and made everybody to sit up and begin to do the right thing. One leader was saying, Why is Donald Trump uh threatening Nigeria? Another leader responded, Donald Trump doesn't threaten, he promises and he always delivers. And this we believe is a promise. If what he said in his tweet, if the Nigerian government don't get themselves together, he's going to come and help them. And we need that help. And I'm telling you that Christians in Nigeria are pleading and begging for uh President Donald Trump to intervene in whichever way he will to end this genocide um uh happening among Christian communities in Nigeria.
SPEAKER_00:Especially it's it's only getting worse. Yes. And so it's it is so important that the attention has been placed on their oh yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, in this year, according to the statistics we receive from different organizations, just between January and August, 7,087 Christians were killed for their faith. And and as that is what is reported.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, what's reported, right? Some of it's not known.
SPEAKER_02:No, some is not known. And again, the statistics says 7,800 Christians were kidnapped because of their faith. I mean, I know several people that have been kidnapped. And I have a friend who is also part of the ILI family that is a hostage negotiator. He has negotiated the release of several people. I remember when I was in Nigeria one night in the middle of the night, around 2 a.m., I got a text message from him. He said, Hey Jerry, pray for me. I don't know where I'm heading to now, but I'm going, uh I'm going to negotiating the release of a Christian brother. He went when he described his encounter with these people. Oh gosh, I don't have that courage to do what he did. But that guy, he is very courageous. He is as stubborn as anything you can think of. And even when he met with the kidnappers, he was he showed them so much courage that as they were talking on the phone, he spoke with them with so much confidence and courage that the leader of the um of the uh uh kidnap group wanted to see who this guy is. Wow. In the middle of the night, he came with the money, cash. They told him, they directed his car, told him where to drive, and then he walked several miles into the bush in the dark. And then he began to see lights, like lamps, light somewhere, and then two people approached him, you know, and then they talked to him, they asked for the money, he gave them the money, they counted the money, the money was correct, and they went further to go and meet their leader. And when he met the leader, the leader, you know, praised him for his courage. That he has never seen anybody that has spoken to them like that. Even in that situation where he was, he still spoke to them with such courage. It takes God to do that. So, yeah, that's the situation about it.
SPEAKER_00:Well, Jerry, I'm grateful that you shared all that with us. I know some of that is very tough to share, um, but it's tough to hear. Um And as we talk about seven thousand alone this year, each of the three of those that have been killed are in a better place. We know they're in heaven, but that it does leave behind the hurt, the trauma, the pain. Uh each of those stories you shared from the women, someone is carrying that pain. 7,000 someone or more family members are carrying that same exact pain that we felt as you shared that story. And I think telling that story is important because it helps us um put ourselves in someone else's shoes to know the suffering and the pain they are experiencing. Um and as we watch, I I know that Nigeria's thousands of miles from here and people watching now hearing how difficult it is, they're gonna want to know how they can help. What can they do to um advocate? Um I know politically speaking, some people watching there's lots of people who don't like Donald Trump. Um, but we are grateful for the attention that he has placed on that. Um no one else is doing it. And so I think anyone who knows what's happening there, anyone who's experienced the pain and the suffering wants someone to speak out. And as you were sharing um earlier, besides the pain of what the women experienced, there was a part of me that was wondering how painful it is to feel your suffering alone because no one knows. And then some of the people that do know don't believe that it's as bad as what people are saying. And so someone like you who's experienced it, you've walked alongside people who've who've witnessed the pain and the suffering and and been victims of the these attacks. What can we do to add our voice so that they know we see them and and we believe and we love them?
SPEAKER_02:I think there's a lot that um that the Western Church, let me say the Western Church can do, and Christians around the world, Ayala is already doing so much in that area, and I'm going to be more specific about what we're doing. Uh, but I think one of the most powerful forms of support that we can give is prayer.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we can pray and provide spiritual support to these believers that are suffering, uh, to be present uh in them uh with them during uh this time of trauma. We have teams in Nigeria that are doing their best uh to be there to console and comfort with those families when it does happen, and just to provide encouragement to them. Another thing that I think the Western Church can do is to provide advocacy and awareness. Use whatever platform you have, your church, your ministry, your nonprofit, speak about it, let people know that people need to be aware what is going on uh in in Nigeria. They need to know that uh that a real genocide is happening, and we can advocate, you know, and have people that uh have influence, you know, that can talk about this and also help. Also, the Western Church can help financially and help, you know, in humanitarian uh with humanitarian aid like ILI did when those women were were attacked. ILI stepped in and helped them. This is not time for training, this is time to be with them. Their farmlands, their crops were all destroyed by these people when they came, apart from their husbands that were killed. ILI stepped in, ILI provided them some seed money to go and start start up businesses. Some of them are farmers, ILI provided them with hybrid seedlings, provided them with fertilizers, provided them with warm clothing because at that time it was even raining season and it was cold. Their houses, some of their houses have been uh destroyed, no roof, you know. ILI helped them in that, and then ILI also provided them with foodstuff that can last them, you know, for a little bit, you know, as they try to stabilize. So we can have Christian communities that can do that, and also uh we need partnerships and training, like what ILI is doing. Leaders need to be trained on leadership, they need to be trained on discipleship, they need to provide all kinds of training that is going to help strengthen the Christian community and help them to be um to be self-reliant as well. But training is very important, and what we're doing in ILI now, doing the media and storytelling, it's very important. The world needs to know what is happening uh in Nigeria, and I think we have done a lot in helping with that. Now, ILI has been very, very key in helping with this. Apart from the trainings we have done in the past, right now, we're currently working on doing a big training again in different counties uh in Nigeria, in the northern state of Nigeria, including communities that you may be familiar with. You remember the community where um those schoolgirls were kidnapped? Chibok, we have alumni people we've trained in the past. We're going to do more trainings there, uh, either this year or early next year. But we're beginning some trainings in the next two weeks. We're going to have teams already, they're strategizing right now and mobilizing key leaders that will be trained on leadership. We need organizations to come do leadership training, equip the pastors. Some of these rural pastors have no education. Some of them, the only formal education they have is ILI that is attached to their names. And ILI has been very key in helping to train these leaders, and some of them are planting churches, some of them are have growing churches in their community as a result of this training, and they are able to disciple and evangelize their neighboring community. So we have we have been doing a lot as ILI and we continue to do that, and we're hoping that other organizations will step in as well and you know be there for those Christians that are suffering in Nigeria.
SPEAKER_00:You know, one of the things about ILI is we are a leadership training organization. Sometimes it's hard for people to process, you know, what is the importance of training a leader? And so I sit here with you though today. One of my favorite stories to share with people is one person was trained. You weren't trained in Nigeria. They took you to another state, you were invited, went through a training, and you've come back to Nigeria and the entire country is different because of your training through God, of course, and the doors he's opened for you. But the impact you have when you equip a leader can literally transform a nation. There are certain things we can't share on this podcast because it's going to be shared.
SPEAKER_05:Right.
SPEAKER_00:But there is a strategy. There are people who are mobilized for that strategy to counteract to what is happening in the north through leadership development, through equipping leaders in the harvest field, because there are Christians in the North.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:They are being very strategic in how they are engaging with people and sharing the gospel. And some of them have learned through ILI certain strategies, written goals, and in villages have been transformed through that leadership. But it started with an invitation for one person to go, which has transformed a nation. 12,000 and counting leaders have been trained in Nigeria. And so if you're if you're watching and you've ever wondered, you know, what's the point of leadership development, you know, maybe you haven't experienced the other side of the benefits or the the pains of bad leadership or the benefits of good leadership, I should say. But we have seen nations transformed when the right leader is trained and has a right strategy that God has ordained and anointed for the work. And so one way that you can partner with us, ILI, is through supporting Jerry. Um we can put the link below. You can support him. Maybe you can share with I know we're we're wrapping up, but maybe you can share uh the reasons why you even had to come to the States in the first place.
SPEAKER_02:Well, because of the nature of the work I do and uh uh how widespread we're getting in uh around northern Nigeria and across the country, I was very fearful for my uh security and my children, especially uh because kidnappings were becoming very rampant and uh the insecurity was just so growing so much that we felt it was time for us to leave. If not, we were at uh on harm harm's way. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And you didn't make that decision alone. I know there was some leadership here at ILI that was actually advising you. Yeah. Uh we've noticed some some issues in your safety now that you've been traveling more throughout the north. And I know they were even encouraging and advising that for you.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and then something incredible that also um played into that somewhat is that your wife survived the Rwandan genocide.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Um Leticia, I mean, she was uh she was a victim of the a survivor of the Rwandan genocide.
SPEAKER_04:And a victim.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And I mean, she lost her her dad and her mom during the genocide, and her mom was hacked in the head and in the leg during the genocide. So it was it was very traumatic for her and her entire family. Uh, at that time, uh, losing her father and a brother, and just be face to face with all of these killers. She was almost gonna be killed at one point, but uh God delivered her, and then she was happy to move to Nigeria just to come to Nigeria and start experiencing about the same thing again going on. So that reminded her of her past, and uh it was too much to bear. So it was it was better for us to move into the States. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we're glad to have you. Thank you. Um thank you so much for sharing today. Um, it's been incredible to hear. I know I've heard most of these stories, but it's it's just so hard to imagine the pain and the suffering um that's going on over there and wanting to be able to do something. Um so thank you for the work you've done. Thank you for being diligent. Um we appreciate you and the work you're doing and how you stay in touch with everyone there and advocating for Nigeria here now that you're in the States. Um for those of you um I kind of mentioned already, but we would love to um help you take a next step. Uh as Jerry said, uh prayer is very important. Um we can list some specific areas that middle area of Nigeria and then North Nigeria, those leaders there need prayer. Um if you want to uh make a financial contribution um to the work that Jerry's doing there, uh we'll give you those details below. Um and we thank you for even considering that. Um and oftentimes people uh will ask for prayer and it seems like uh okay, you know, I'll I'll pray. But we truly see, know, and believe that prayer is the strongest weapon. Um we have seen miracles happen here at the office with things happening behind the scenes in persecuted nations, and we've watched prayers be answered when that was all we could afford was was prayer. And so um it is not a last resort or the only thing you can do. It is the most important thing to do for our brothers and sisters in Nigeria. For those of you of influence, this is a leadership podcast. If you have influence in a business or organization, or maybe you are an influencer online, we would ask that you would be a voice for what's going on in Nigeria, um, post about it, let people know through your uh engagement and your social media handles what's going on there so that other people can pray and be rallied to support the number one nation where Christians are dying. Um I don't know how accurate that is, but I know in in 2022 for sure, 90% of every Christian that died came from Nigeria. And those statistics are only getting worse. So add your voice, add your prayers, and if you feel led in being generous, you can add your support. We thank you uh for tuning in today. Thank you, Jerry, again, for being so vulnerable and sharing your heart with us today. We appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you.