SPREADING THE LOVE
Love
SAN ANTONIO MAN CO-FOUNDS NONPROFIT TO HELP NIGERIANS
murder, kidnapping from Muslim extremists, are a few, The next time your car needs a along with churches being major repair or your bathroom is burned to the ground. As a flooded with foul-smelling water Christian, Ango was forced to because the toilet overflowed, flee to avoid torture or death. remember that your inconvenience Her daughters are with her, Mike Arnold | Co-founder is someone else’s dream. but she is now a widow. The rest of her family (a mother Particularly, someone like Hanatu Ango. and siblings) are scattered throughout Nigeria and even in Cameroon, which borders Nigeria A member of the Hausa, a native group to the east. within Africa that comprises 30 percent of the population of Nigeria, she fled her She lives near the Nigerian capital of Abuja home region with her three daughters, due in an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) to persecution from Boko Haram, an Islamic Camp. There’s no running water, no jihadist terrorist organization in electricity, and she and her daughters live in northeastern Nigeria. a “house” consisting of sticks and feedbags poorly assembled. “We left in the middle of the night and took nothing with us,” she remembered. “I saw many “I started crying when I saw the shelters,” Ango people killed.” recalled. “Not even cows or goats would sleep there. The rooms all leak when it rains.” Nigerian Christians face severe persecution that many Americans can’t imagine. Genocide, The plumbing is crude, as makeshift toilets are B Y R I C H A R D ZO WIE
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very close to the shelters; the camp sewage flows on the ground in puddles and ditches that send streams into the dirt. Ango added that children often get a fever because of the food they eat. She receives no aid, no assistance. She grinds corn daily to earn a living, which is just enough to feed her children and herself. Mike Arnold, a San Antonio native who now lives in Blanco and co-founded the ministry Africa Arise, visited with Ango while touring the IDP Camp. He asked her what they needed the most and her answer wasn’t what he expected. An educated woman, Ango, who had started a teaching program, said what they really need is more teachers. Educated children will refuse to do things that Boko Haram commands them to do,” she said. Teachers are scarce in the IDP Camps. “[Having more teachers] was atop her list of
D e ce m be r 2020 / J a n u a r y 2021
