Zechariah
4:10
King
James Version (KJV)
10 For who hath despised the day of small things?
On the night of April 14-15, 2014,
as many as 200 armed men invaded a girls’ school in Chibok in north-eastern
Nigeria. An estimated 276 senior high school aged girls were kidnapped. The
extremist Islamic group called the Boko Haram claimed responsibility for it. Their
aim is to destroy western education, especially that of women. They have been
credited for having killed at least 4,000 people during the first three months
of 2014. In Boko Haram’s announcement, they indicated that the girls would be
sold as “wives,” in reality sex slaves, at the going rate of about $12 each. The
Nigerian government initially denied that it had happened. Finally on May 4,
once stories surfaced from parents of missing students and from students who
managed to escape and it became known internationally, the government stated
that it was doing everything it could to find the girls. However, no increased government
presence had been felt in the area. The first I heard about this atrocity was a
brief mention of it on a 5:30 a.m. news cast on May 6. This news was not felt
important enough to be mentioned at the normal times that I listen. Almost a
year has gone by now and hardly anyone even remembers the event. None of the girls
have been rescued.
What was my response? I was very
upset about it. Being the father of two daughters, I imagined how bad I would
feel if one of those kidnapped were my daughter. What would I do? I sensed the
totally helpless feeling a father must have to be up against such a force of
evil. Looking at Google Earth, I saw a huge forest just to the north of the
town. It would be really easy for these terrorists to disappear into that
jungle. Going into that jungle alone would be suicide. Even if I could have raised
a posse, we would be no match against the Boko Haram.
What can I do about this or other
similar situations as I sit in southern California suburbia? Very little! If I
write my congressman and my senator, what good would that do? Probably none! If
every reader were to write our representatives in government and if all of our
friends were to write and if all of their friends were to write against this
renewal of the slave trade, then the combined pressure could possibly force
action.
Lord, help us not to despise the day when all we can do is small
things!
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