Nigeria

As Rebekah stood on a hill just outside her Nigerian village one hot day in 2014, she could do nothing but watch as her house and church burned to the ground. She and her neighbors were devastated at the sight of their village in flames and helpless to defend themselves against the heavily armed Boko Haram militants who had caused the destruction. But for Rebekah, that wasn’t the worst of it; she later learned that her husband and one of her sons had been killed in the attack. Seven months after Rebekah’s life was so radically altered by the Islamist attack, Nigerian military forces pushed Boko Haram out of the region. Though the destruction was widespread, government authorities allowed Rebekah and the other villagers to return to the charred remains of their homes to reclaim what was left. As she sifted through the ashes, Rebekah’s heart filled with hope at the discovery of her burned but still usable Bible. She bent over, carefully picked it up and brushed away the ashes. “Thank you, Lord,” she sighed. Although parts of Genesis and Revelation were burned, the rest of her Bible survived intact. As she continued to mourn the loss of her