Our friend and partner Sunday Agang, wrote this to our congregation. We can thank God for ways we are honored to join his work with Sunday in Nigeria.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
I bring you greetings in our Lord’s precious name. Although COVID-19 pandemic has shutdown our world, you have been in thoughts and prayers.
In Nigeria, the cases of those affected have continue to rise by the day. As such there is no hope of opening schools. With the rising cases, we will not even want to expose our students to the risk.
Anyway, this email is to express my profound gratitude to you for all of your wonderful expression of obedience to the Gospel of Christ’s love and righteousness to us as a family, institution, and community. For during this time of lockdown our students could not afford to raise funds to pay their debts. Even those who could afford to pay stopped making any effort to settle their outstanding balances. However, God used some of you to enormously contribute the funds that enabled me to pay both April and May salaries. Others of you also contributed to the food crisis COVID-19 pandemic has caused in Nigeria. Thus, I am thrilled to inform you that both of your efforts have helped us to not only to produce thanksgiving to God, but to also multiply it. For example, due to your support, my house became a food basket for the poor and needy members of our community. Our people face two major challenges: (1) People who could only get what to eat by going out on daily basis were lockdown and there was no way they could get what to eat again came to our house to get foodstuff. (2) Unlike in the States where there were palliative measures taken to cushion the economic effect of the coronavirus pandemic during the lockdown, the Nigerian government only brought palliative materials once at the beginning of the lockdown. Since then we have not seen anything again. Consequently, more people are dying of hunger than from COVID-19.
Thank you so very much for what you have done to help me stand in the gap for my faculty, staff, students, the poor and the needy members in our community. Undoubtedly, your continuing partnership in the Gospel with me has brought profound joy, renown, praise and honour to God. Thus I will end this email with these words of Saint Paul, which I read in my devotion today: “Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will thank God. So two good things will result form this ministry of giving—the needs of the believers in Jerusalem [Nigeria] will be met, and they will joyfully express their thanks to God. As a result of your ministry, they will give glory to God. For your generosity to them and to all believers will prove that you are obedient to the Good News of Christ. And they will pray for you with deep affection because of the overflowing grace God has given to you. Thanks God for this gift too wonderful for words!” (2 Corinthians 9:11-15 NLT)
Thank so much for your “obedience to the Good News of Christ”!
Warmly,
Sunday, family, seminary, and community