Five years after Fulani herdsmen destroyed a Nigerian Methodist church in a raid that killed hundreds, an American pastor and attorney helped rebuild the church in time for Easter Sunday, which brought “hope and healing in the midst of a very murderous regime.”
New York City Pastor William “P.B.” Devlin, CEO of the nongovernmental organization REDEEM!; and Emmanuel Ogebe, an international human rights lawyer from the U.S.-based Nigeria Law Group, partnered to help mend the hurting Nigerian community.
Devlin, who is the missions pastor at Infinity Bible Church in the Bronx, told The Christian Post — “Healing and hope: those are two great words that we’ve seen in a very practical way.”
Fulani attackers destroyed and burned the Agatu Methodist Church in February 2016. They killed five church members, hundreds of Agatu community members, and destroyed over 70 homes.
In October 2020, Devlin visited Agatu and promised the church members that “by faith and by God’s grace and with hope in the Lord Jesus, the church will be completely finished by March 25, and then we will be in the finished church by Resurrection Day Sunday services [on April 4].”
Devlin returned to the U.S. and within just a few days he had raised half the $30,000 needed for the reconstruction.