Wasted on Jesus Week 1, 2013

About 7pm, there was shouts and banging at the gate of the base. People were shouting and forcing their way into the compound. He knew they were fundamentalists threatening Christians. Mark just has a brief prayer with the Cameroonian with him in the house and they tried escaping for their life by climbing the roof. Mark- Obisike Ojunta was a reserved brother yet full of life; a graduate of Project Management from the Federal University of Technology Owerri. He worked with Nal Merchant bank and resigned because he was restless with the burden in his heart for the unreached. Being an only son from a family of four had its own struggle but he had braced all odds to be where he is just to fulfil the calling of the master. A friend and brother whom I met first at the school of missions in 2003; one day he came up to me and asked how I was finding training with all the challenges of adjusting to many things like eating of the tuwo and miyakuka. I could see his struggle yet he wanted any tips to go through the training since reaching the unreached tribes required us to have a near life exposure such that contextualization could be easy. We prayed for grace and shared a few tips on being open to God and the trainers as keys to go through. Shortly after the training, Mark spent some few years learning Hausa language as a means of communication in Katsina from where he went to Zamfara to tell the lost about a saviour who died for them. A year later, when there was a call to reach the Kotoko people group who had no believer amongst them on the Nigeria side, he took up this challenge and went. He endured their rejection and all until the environment became tense due to the insurgency of the fundamentalist group in Maiduguri. People were being killed almost on a daily basis so the place he was living became unsafe and the leadership of the ministry asked that they pull out for safety but Mark felt the Lord would have him change location to a less tense area. On Saturday the 27th of August 2011, he moved his wife and two daughters out to Gombe and stayed back. Later that day, he had a speaking engagement with some believers (non indigenes) in the town after which he got home to rest and eat. Then came the attackers! On sighting them, their attackers open fire. Mark jumped in to the next building while the other brother ran into an open field to the Cameroun borders for safety. The next morning, somebody rushed to the house and met him almost dead and took him to a nearby hospital but reported to the police where he later died. I remember his four years among that tribe, I say he lavished or wasted his life on Jesus for the lost. He has left me and others an example to do same. Stop being afraid of those who kill the body but can't kill the soul. Instead, be afraid of the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell. Mat 10:28(ISV) Would you join those who will waste their lives on Jesus for these tribes? Jude is a missionary with CAPRO