From a Christian pastor in Jos, Nigeria

We send greetings today, January 20th this year. No body is still in 2011. We wrote early this year about the trauma of high petrol price. some of you call it gas. What we call gas here is different. Enough of digression. That was just after the Christmas bombing by Islamic religious sect called Boko Haram ( Western education is forbidden or evil). Of course one has to be illiterate to hate and bomb literate people in the name of God. Further studies and investiagtion is convincing many of us here that Islam in Northern Nigeria is different from Islam in Souhern Nigeria. Many of the Islamic countries are experiencing the same problem. A week ago we had to close two of our congregations in Damaturu in Yobe. This is further North. I had gone and just returned from that place and hell was let lose.The pastor was almost killed. Most Churches were burnt and property of Chrstians destroyed. Meanwhile Labour organised nationwide strike action to protest the oil price hike. Govement brought it down abit. From 141 naira to 97 as against N65. It is still very high for most Nigerians but better than N141. The naira has also been devalued so it does not make any difference. Not only has petrol gone up, food and everything else has gone up.The most devastating thing is the threats to our lives. One of our pastors was chased by a BH man on a morocycle and shot at 11 times but all the 11 bullets missed him. He called me from Borno in the night and asked me to thank God that he would have been wasted by 11 bullets. Many of our pastors cannot live in the pastors houses any more because of the threats to their lives. Because the security is also divided on religious line, it is more dangerous to trust any of them.The oil price hike is not as threatening as the Boko Haram. The king leader was arrested and while in police custody he was reported to have escaped. The President in a nationwide broadcast has said he now knows that his Government has beeen infilterated by BH people. He has suspended the Police boss. The Inspector general of the nation will lose his job if the BH man is not produced. But that is it. We know that it is the work of senior Muslims in the country who have a hand in all these. Their goal has been to islamise Nigeria by all means. We have had no choice but to ask our members to defend their families and not to allow themselve be killed like animals. We do not wan to go and fight. We will not take up arms but cannot see mad men kill sane people. We have encouraged congregations to set up vigilante groups and get bomb detectors.We are not dealing with human beings anymore but wild animals claiming to be working for God. No, gods. Our eyes are on the Lord. If we fold our arms and watch them kill us are we cooperating with good or evil? These are hard questions in a hard time..Thank you for praying for us.