BURKINA FASO: Pastor and Five Others Shot after Church Service

Source: Open Doors, May 7, 2019

[It] seemed like any Sunday for 80-year-old [Assemblies of God] Pastor Pierre Ouédraogo, who has spent 40 years serving his church and village community in the northeastern Soum province of Burkina Faso. On April 28, he gathered for worship with his congregation. And like every Sunday, he preached the Word of God with the wisdom that seasoned years of life and ministry bring.

But shortly after the service, an ordinary Sunday suddenly turned deadly and a church building where worshipers had just gathered became a crime scene.

Pastor Pierre was still talking with several congregants in the churchyard [when] a dozen men on motorbikes stormed the area.

A local leader who wished to remain anonymous told World Watch Monitor, “The assailants asked the Christians to convert to Islam, but the pastor and the others refused.”

Reportedly, the attackers gathered Pastor Pierre and the five other congregants under a tree and then confiscated their Bibles and cell phones.

“Then they called them, one after the other, behind the church building where they shot them dead,” the leader said.

He and his five congregants [one his son] were buried the same day in a ceremony that drew people from both Christian and Muslim communities. The pastor leaves behind his wife and six other children.

The community leader said that when he and others advised the pastor to leave the area, he refused, saying he “would rather die for his faith than leave the community he has been serving for 40 years.”

» Read full story or the related story from World Watch Monitor (with background on the spike in violence in this region). See also a report on this attack from the BBC, as well as one about another attack on a Catholic church this past Sunday (May 12). Let’s pray for Burkina Faso.

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