The Chairman’s Report for February

In this issue of the newsletter
New: Second floor to be added to the building at Jos orphanage
New: Orphanage school will have larger facilities
Update: Programs to assist orphans from 2023/2024 Christmas massacres
Update: The tragic state of Christians in the birthplace of Jesus

New construction at Nigeria orphanage

Second floor being added to newest building

A generous supporter leads the way: A Religious Freedom Coalition supporter with a heart for orphans has donated the funds for construction of a second floor to our newest building at our orphanage in Jos, Nigeria.

God has a plan for the orphanage. I did not think we could expand the facilities until 2026, but the Lord is providing for the expansion this year!

The second floor should be completed within 90 days. There will be additional costs for furnishings and lab equipment. I am trusting the Lord for whatever additional costs there may be.

Our ministry is very careful not to take on grandiose construction projects. The buildings we have constructed in Nigeria at the orphanage and other projects have filled needs. Our first construction project was a school at an IDP camp in Benue State.

The school building constructed in 2021 consisted only of classrooms with no “administrative” space. The school was a joint project with the foundation of the Tiv Tribe queen, Felicia Ayatse. Her husband James is the Tor Tiv or king of the Tiv nation.

The IDP school construction project was finished just months before our orphanage in Plateau State was overrun and destroyed by Sunni Muslim Fulani herdsmen.

For the last three years the focus on Nigeria has been aid to child victims of terror while at the same time building up the orphanage on the land we bought in Jos, Plateau State. We are almost at the final stage of building out the orphanage.

Help find homes or build orphanages?

The Christmas massacre of Christians in 2023 left over 1,000 children as orphans. Our orphanage can accommodate at most 150 children while giving them a quality education. The better solution to an orphanage, if possible, is placement of children in the homes of relatives.

During 2024 our Heart for the Persecuted Church programs helped hundreds of children move into the homes of relatives by assisting with meals and education. Additional attacks by Sunni Muslims on Christmas Day, 2024 created more orphans in the Barkin Ladi area of Plateau State. The Jos Christian Refuge for Children has reached out and assisted those children.

The programs assisting orphans in the Mangu and Barkin Ladi areas are ongoing. As of today we are supporting 290 families that have taken in orphans from the 2023 and 2024 Christmas attacks. Without the help of Religious Freedom Coalition supporters such as yourself, the children would have continued to live at IDP camps until government funded orphanages could be found for them.

I have visited government funded orphanage in Nigeria and I was appalled. At the orphanages I visited, children slept on thin mattresses on the floor. Other than bathrooms there were no other facilities. Five days a week a bus picked the children up for a ride to a state school.

At one state funded orphanage I visited, the children had a few pieces of clothing in cardboard boxes near their mattresses. There were no computers, no TVs, no books and no Bibles. By comparison the orphanage funded by the Religious Freedom Coalition has a private school, a chapel, medical services and a cafeteria.

All of the 290 children we are assisting in homes are attending schools in their areas. The families all attend churches of various denominations weekly.

The children of our oprhanage are travelling about monthly to visit the orphans still at IDP camps bringing food, clothes and the good news of Jesus. Please pray for the orphanage children in Jos as they go to minister to the less fortunate.

Yet another orphanage? In the past our organization has been asked to take over two different orphanages that need assistance. Until the orphanage is fully sustainable, we are just not in the position to take on additional projects, regardless of the need.

BETHLEHEM

The cease fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has not changed the reality for Christians. Unemployment among Christians in the Bethlehem area still hovers around 90%. Christians who worked in Israel prior to the October, 2023 terror attack are still not back to work. There is a cease fire in place to exchange Israeli hostages.

When the cease fire ends, fighting will resume. Hamas has not surrendered and their terror will continue. Knowing this, Israel will not reopen the West Bank. Tourism is dead. Christians who did not work in Israel worked in tourism in Bethlehem. The hotels and restaurants are closed and there are no tours. We continue to assist disabled, mostly elderly Christians in Bethlehem.