Lohdir often pondered the meaning of her name which meant wait and see. Her early childhood had been fun. Her parents had a happy marriage and adored their five children. She still recalls lazy days when she played in the family compound with her four siblings, and enjoyed going to church each Sunday; everything had seemed so idyllic back them.
Childish dreams shattered however, the day Lohdir’s mother died after a short illness. Lohdir carried her pain deep in her heart and had never understand how quickly her father had found someone to take her place - a young Christian woman whom he married just one year later.
Suddenly things began to go horribly wrong. Her father was persuaded to become a Muslim, although his new bride insisted on keeping to her Christian heritage. Undeterred, Lohdir’s father took three more wives, who began to expand the family as they produced a new child each year. Her father found it easy to absorb the increase, as he was now an important man, one of the tribe’s ‘kingmakers,’ among a select group of elders who decided who would rule the area, and which laws were passed.
Through it all Lohdir remained a Christian, and was dismayed when her father decided to send an Islamic scholar to convert the children of his first wife to Islam. She recalls the day when the man arrived. He wrote verses of the Koran on a small blackboard, instructed the children to remember what they had been taught before taking a cloth from a small basin and began washing the board. He then instructed them to drink the water. Lohdir was horrified and refused.
Her father was summoned. He wanted an explanation. Why won’t you drink the water? “It’s dirty,” Lohdir replied. “Before you, countless people have drunk water like this, why not you? Undeterred, Lohdir still declared. From that day, she began to rebel against the cleric. She told him, “I will never become a Muslim.” Again, her father was called. “Why will you not become a Muslim?” he raged. “When I was a child, you used to take me to church with mother. I want to be Christian like my mother,” Lohdir answered.
When she began to skip school, her exasperated father decided that she would be sent away with her younger sister to study. After searching the area for the best available academy, he made a choice – a Christian seminary - where they learnt more of their mother’s Christian faith. As she progressed to senior college in a city of Islam dominated Northern Nigeria, Lohdir made a choice … she wanted a personal relationship with Jesus and was baptised in a stream.
Although he never publically admitted it, Lohdir suspected that her father still secretly believed in Jesus. During a visit home during the school holidays, she recalls him telling her, “I know Jesus is alive, I know He lives, I know He is the Messiah. Follow exactly what the bible says, read it and understand it. Pray fervently and never do what is not written in the Bible.” He continued, “I will never again try to force you to become a Muslim and I will never again discuss this with you.”
Meanwhile, unrest between Muslims and Christians was escalating. Lohdir was visiting friends in a Muslim area of Jos. In the old days Christians and Muslims used to live peaceably side by side; what was happening in her city? Now there were specific areas where the different faiths resided; it was unsafe to do otherwise.
It was Friday, the Muslim holy day. People were coming out of the mosque shouting. Some were brandishing weapons – machetes, knives, daggers. A trailer was unloading ammunition into a nearby home, and Lodhir realised that big trouble was ahead. She decided it was time to go home and tried to hitch a lift on the back of a passing bicycle, but it was too late.
Lodhir and her friends took advantage of the lull in the fighting and ran for their lives, past the mutilated bodies and dying believers. She reached a Christian area and arrived at a prominent hotel covered in blood, gasping for breath, and shouting for help for the beleaguered believers.
Fighting lasted for three days, escalating from district to district, before the army intervened. Lodhir watched as retaliations occurred across the city. “I couldn’t find it in my heart to feel sorry for the reprisals that occurred, although I never took part in the killing. Now I have repented of those feelings, the anger and revenge that I felt. Now I know the way to fight the hatred is by praying.”
Will Lohdir succeed in rising up an army of praying women to intercede for persecuted Nigerian women? Yes, in God’s strength she will live up to her name – just wait and see.
