Source: Mission Network News, January 20, 2015<\/p>\n
Picture this: You go to church one Sunday. You worship God, hear an inspiring message, pray, talk to friends and then you leave, hoping to return the following week. Unfortunately, when you return, your church has been burned to the ground by protesters.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s exactly what happened to 61 churches in Niger over the weekend, says missionary Neal Childs who\u2019s working there. \u201cLast week, churches all across the nation went on without any idea that churches would be burned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Childs works with churches in the region. \u201cFour of our churches were attacked. Three [they] actually got in and did great damage. Two of our pastors\u2019 homes were also burned. A Bible school was also burned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Childs says the attacks happened simultaneously in Niamey. It appears police and other security officers were overwhelmed and couldn\u2019t control it.<\/p>\n
How has this affected the church? \u201cThe church is strong in Niger, and it\u2019s growing. And we believe that as a result of the persecution, it\u2019s going to grow even more. All this senseless attack will only be turned around for the growth of the church.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00bb Read full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00bb Editor\u2019s note: Reports from the BBC<\/a> (and elsewhere) mention only 45 churches burned in Niger but also attacks on French-linked businesses<\/a>. The violence is connected to anger at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo<\/a>, also felt in other former French colonies<\/a>. See also Niger: Christians, Churches Targeted in Protests<\/a> (Open Doors).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Mission Network News, January 20, 2015 Picture this: You go to church one Sunday. You worship God, hear an inspiring message, pray, talk to friends and then you leave, hoping to return the following week. Unfortunately, when you return, your church has been burned to the ground by protesters. That\u2019s exactly what happened to … Continue reading NIGER: 10 People Killed, Churches Burned<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5325,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5324\/revisions\/5325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}