Conflict in Jos

I should have written about this sooner, but I'm not really a reporter. Even if I had written earlier, I wouldn't have been able to add any news about the conflict. So now, about 3 weeks after the violence broke out, I guess I'll give a summary for those who haven't heard anything about it. Please understand that this is NOT necessarily an accurate account, but rather my collection of the fragments that I gleaned from online news agencies.

Back around Thanksgiving (for us Americans), there was an election in Jos for what I will call a ctiy councilman's seat. After early predictions that the predominantly Muslim party's candidate was going to win, people gathered to see the results. When no results came, they got restless and feared that the government was tampering with the results...not an uncommon practice in one of the world's most corrupt nations. Violence broke out and soon the political tension mixed with religious/ethnic tension and it escalated. I have heard numbers that put the total number of deaths above 400, but who knows what is accurate. Homes, churches, businesses, and home-based prayer centers for the Muslims were burned. The Faith Alive clinic escaped without damage, though several of their staff lost homes and I would imagine that many patients lost theirs as well. The last I heard from Dr. Chris was actually a letter from a California woman who has been at the clinic for a few years now. She said that the clinic was operating at a lesser capacity than normal and that the staff had not all returned. Things essentially were taking a back seat to the recovery process.

I was alerted about the violence through an e-mail sent by one of my fellow travelers. If not for that, I would have had absolutely no idea that anything was happening. To the best of my knowledge, the rioting didn't even make a ripple here in the US media. All of my subsequent information came from Reuters.com and BBC.com. That same weekend, as you may know, gunmen terrorized Mumbai, India. That tragedy which claimed the lives of 179 people, garnered all of the headlines, while the deaths of 400+ in Jos didn't even warrant a mention. Now , I am not trying to say that one event was more tragic than another, the loss of any life is tragic, no matter the location or number of people lost. My theory is that the loss of 400 lives in Africa is not big enough to merit serious media attention. I have nothing to back this up with, it is strictly opinion, but I think that Africa sees so much turmoil that news agencies must have a cutoff for how many people have to die before it becomes newsworthy. But even then, why aren't we hearing daily updates about Darfur? For some reason, Africa is still the lost continent.

I hope that anyone who is reading this will pray for peace and healing throughout our world and for God's love to be felt by all people. May God be with you this holiday season. Merry Christmas.

If you are interested in making a contribution to Faith Alive, please visit their website www.faithalivenigeria.com. Share the love of Christ by making a donation in the name of a loved one instead of a traditional present this year.