Spotlight: Woes and new souls abound in Nigeria

ABAK, Nigeria — An economic downturn in Africa’s most-populous nation has believers struggling to pay for food and school fees for their children, says minister Monday John Akpakpan. John Akpakpan

But the financial trouble has done little to stop the spread of the Gospel, he added.

Akpakpan, a longtime evangelist in southern Nigeria and follow-up coordinator for the World Bible School correspondence ministry, reports 82 baptisms during the recent annual lectureship of Nigerian Christian Bible College in Ukpom.

Another recent lectureship in Ikot Usen resulted in 54 baptisms.

Akpakpan also reports baptisms during youth conferences at two Churches of Christ in southern Nigeria.

A group of Christians in Nigeria’s Akwa Ibom and Cross River states sponsors two missionaries to the West African nation of Sierra Leone. The missionaries spent two years there but returned during the country’s Ebola crisis. The missionaries plan to return to Sierra Leone in late November.

“Brethren we have a lot of challenges,” Akpanpan writes in a letter to supporters. “God being on our side — and with your prayers — our ministries will be fulfilled.”