{"id":798,"date":"2021-06-23T19:07:30","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T19:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/?p=798"},"modified":"2021-10-25T15:59:30","modified_gmt":"2021-10-25T15:59:30","slug":"bible-survives-boko-haram-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/bible-survives-boko-haram-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Boko Haram Attacks Nigerian Village, Burned Bible Found Amidst Ashes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As Rebekah stood on a hill just outside her Nigerian<\/a> village one hot day in 2014, she could do nothing but watch as her house and church burned to the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She and her neighbors were devastated at the sight of their village in flames and helpless to defend themselves against the heavily armed Boko Haram militants who had caused the destruction. But for Rebekah, that wasn\u2019t the worst of it; she later learned that her husband and one of her sons had been killed in the attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seven months after Rebekah\u2019s life was so radically altered by the Islamist attack, Nigerian<\/a> military forces pushed Boko Haram out of the region. Though the destruction was widespread, government authorities allowed Rebekah and the other villagers to return to the charred remains of their homes to reclaim what was left. As she sifted through the ashes, Rebekah\u2019s heart filled with hope at the discovery of her burned but still usable Bible<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\r\n\t

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Request your free magazine<\/p>\r\n\t\t\tSubscribe<\/a>\r\n\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n\r\n\t\n\n\n

She bent over, carefully picked it up and brushed away the ashes. \u201cThank you, Lord,\u201d she sighed. Although parts of Genesis and Revelation were burned, the rest of her Bible <\/a>survived intact. As she continued to mourn the loss of her husband, a son, her home and her church, the charred Bible<\/a> was a source of great comfort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEach time I open my Bible<\/a> during my studies, it reminds me of God\u2019s faithfulness,\u201d she said. \u201cSeeing the ashes of some [pages] I could no longer read makes God\u2019s Word more alive in my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"NigerianRebekah said she takes special encouragement from verses describing the Lord as a husband to widows. \u201cI always look up to the Lord for every need,\u201d she said. But she looks primarily to the book of Job for solace. She said it helped her realize that her relationship with God is all she really has.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJob said, \u2018Naked I came and naked I go back,\u2019\u201d she explained. \u201cHe didn\u2019t come with anything and he is never turning back to God with anything. The Lord has given and the Lord has taken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rebekah still chooses to use her burned Bible<\/a> today. While a new one would be nice, her tattered copy has gotten her through difficult times. It\u2019s the Bible<\/a> her church gave her when she and her husband married, and it\u2019s the Bible<\/a> they had read to their children every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Persecutors often try to weaken the faith of Christians by taking or destroying their Bibles<\/a>. And many more believers don\u2019t own a copy of God\u2019s Word in which to seek God\u2019s guidance and comfort as they face persecution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even in communist<\/a> and Islamic countries where governments severely punish anyone caught with a Bible<\/a>, believers still regularly ask us for them. And The Voice of the Martyrs is committed to filling this need for Bibles<\/a> in the most dangerous and restricted areas of the world. In recent years, we have distributed more than 1 million Bibles<\/a> each year, and we won\u2019t stop until every believer has one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the damage caused by fire, Rebekah clings to her treasured copy of God\u2019s living Word and is grateful that it survived the Boko Haram attack. \u201cThat is what I am still holding onto,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Rebekah stood on a hill just outside her Nigerian village one hot day in 2014, she could do nothing but watch as her house and church burned to the ground. She and her neighbors were devastated at the sight of their village in flames and helpless to defend themselves against the heavily armed Boko Haram militants who had caused the destruction. But for Rebekah, that wasn\u2019t the worst of it; she later learned that her husband and one of her sons had been killed in the attack. Seven months after Rebekah\u2019s life was so radically altered by the Islamist attack, Nigerian military forces pushed Boko Haram out of the region. Though the destruction was widespread, government authorities allowed Rebekah and the other villagers to return to the charred remains of their homes to reclaim what was left. As she sifted through the ashes, Rebekah\u2019s heart filled with hope at the discovery of her burned but still usable Bible. She bent over, carefully picked it up and brushed away the ashes. \u201cThank you, Lord,\u201d she sighed. Although parts of Genesis and Revelation were burned, the rest of her Bible survived intact. As she continued to mourn the loss of her<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2005,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43],"class_list":["post-798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-field-stories","tag-nigeria","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nBoko Haram Attacks Nigerian Village, Burned Bible Found Amidst Ashes - Stories<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Even in communist and Islamic countries where governments severely punish anyone caught with a Bible, believers still regularly ask for them.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/bible-survives-boko-haram-attack\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Boko Haram Attacks Nigerian Village, Burned Bible Found Amidst Ashes - 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