God Told Me To Come Back For More Knowledge

 

Margret Eggah, a sandwich student in the degree class, shares with media and communication her experience in the mission fields and how CFI has contributed immensely to the success of her work. She completed her diploma studies as regular boarding student about two years ago, after which she embarked on voluntary service to reach out to the lost across several states, most especially the northern states in Nigeria.

According to Margret, after her diploma programme, which was about two years ago, she joined a missionary group on voluntary service. She first served in remote villages in Benue state and then moved to Niger State. One of her challenges which is common to all missionaries is the language barrier, Margret said she had to settle and learn the native languages to enable her to pass a message across. Apart from the language barrier, sometimes they go without food for a day and lack other basic necessities because they were not on salaries. They live daily trusting God to meet their needs.

After several months, Margret relocated to Niger State where settlers are predominantly cattle rearers. They are known as Kanuri, a tribe known to have a similar lifestyle to that of the Fulanis.  Margret said the people are difficult to deal with and therefore she could hardly give attention to the preaching of the gospel. Most of them unanimously said the gospel is not for adults but for small children, that they have gone past the level of hearing the gospel and therefore it should be shared with their children. For that reason, they gladly release their children to listen while adults go about their normal duties. Margret and other team members do engage the children with the English alphabet to enable Kanuri/Fulani children to read and write. And after a while, some of these children with the permission of their parents are been sent to different states away from their parents so that they can be put in standards schools.  These children are then handed over to reputable charity organizations that care, so that these children can be put in school. These children come once in a while to visit their parents because that was the only condition on which the parents agreed to give their children out. And when you see these children when they come around, they look better and even appear so impressive to their parents.

For about two years in Niger State, this is what Margret and the other team members were doing until three weeks ago Boko Haram attacked them on their mission field. Unfortunately, they killed the mission field leader with his two-year-old daughter while the rest of the team managed to escape. Boko Haram destroyed everything left behind.

Margret said what kept her in the mission field despite the overwhelming challenges is the lesson she learned in CFI. During her diploma studies, she learned how to endure hardship as a faithful soldier of Christ. A lot of things she learned from CFI kept her going.

In her words, “CFI has contributed to the success of my work in the field, with what I learned and saw within the campus. And God told me to come back and acquire more of this knowledge, because for me to be more relevant or useful, I need more of this knowledge. This is the reason why I have come for the sandwich programme to acquire more knowledge so that I will be more useful”.

Hearing and seeing what missionaries go through to propagate the gospel, there is every need to support missionaries. This will encourage them and promote the gospel to a greater level. This is one of the reasons why the number of city preachers are on the increase while few people go for rural evangelism. But villagers need the gospel as much as city dwellers.