Thread by @LarryTaunton

HOW THE LORD WORKS MYSTERIOUSLY: 🧵

As you must now know, there was a pro-freedom march in London today.

Led by @TRobinsonNewEra, it was a huge success. According to Metro Police, only 50k showed up.

Does this look like “only” 50k? Lol.

There is a backstory here that…

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…involved one of the speakers and goes back more than a decade:

I met Nigerian Anglican Bishop Jwan Zhumbes in seminary. We were immediately drawn to one another by a desire to confront Islam and bring aid to those who suffer at the hands of Muslims.

Knowing I was a…

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…writer, he invited me to visit his diocese in Nigeria’s Plateau State to see the sheer scale of the terror for myself. Much to his surprise, I accepted and went.

In those days you had to fly into Lagos or Abuja and take the extremely dangerous open roads to the north….

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…through what were essentially war zones. And it’s on the open road where you are most vulnerable to attacks.

The Fulani Herdsmen Militia and Boko Haram, both Muslim terrorist groups, are very active in central and northern Nigeria. You might be driving on a lonely road…

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…when, suddenly, a nail strip is thrown out in front of your car. You brake heavily, hit reverse, and behind you, from out of the bush, come AK-wielding terrorists to take you hostage (white people are prized), riddle you with bullets, or hack you to death with machetes….

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That’s the reality of life there for Christians, but you’d never know it because of the media blackout.

It was my great privilege to spend time with these dear Christians who hid me, fed me, welcomed me into their homes, and told me their stories.

I went home and…

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…reported the terror in a piece for Fox News titled “The Forgotten Christians of Nigeria.” People were blown away by the stories, some suggesting I had exaggerated what Muslims were doing.

There was no exaggeration:

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There was a holocaust targeting Christians….

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The article gave a momentary bump to the attention paid to the situation, but that was about it. Sustained engagement was not forthcoming.

So, we kept pushing wherever we could while…

(You can read the Fox News article here:) foxnews.com/opinion/the-fo…

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…others tried to help. I asked my friend @ericmetaxas if he could put the bishop on his show. He agreed, so we flew to NYC….

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The pastor of my own church interviewed Jwan before the congregation….

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We did podcasts and talks in homes and radio interviews and anything we could to bring attention to the crisis.

But it just wasn’t getting any real response. Indeed, many seemed to think ignoring it was the right thing to do. “Focus at home!” they’d say, as if the…

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…West was immune to the Islamic terror.

Worse, Jwan’s wife died of cancer. Then he told me he was feeling unwell.

Having no medical insurance, I took him to two physicians, both Christians, who were friends of mine.

Their diagnosis: “It looks like stomach cancer.”

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St. Vincent’s Hospital took him as a patient and provided him with $600,000 worth of treatment for free. People in the community pitched in to help.

For 5 months Jwan lived with us. All of our family volunteered to take him back and forth to his chemo treatments….

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People came to pray for him and with him. At times, the outlook seemed bleak.

Bring attention to Christian persecution? That was no longer on the table for us. We were just praying he’d live.

But the Lord was playing the long game and taking us through a valley to get…

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…to the mountaintop.

After many trying months, we were able to send our brother home a healthy man.

We then resumed our all-too-quiet fight on Islam in Nigeria and in the West. We brought the Bishop back to our home last month to do another show on the subject.

I made…

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…sure his visit overlapped with one of @LozzaFox’s visits in the hope that Laurence, who has bigger “influencer” connections than I do, might find a way to help.

Moved by Jwan’s story, he contacted @TRobinsonNewEra and @AllisonPearson. Could they tell his story?

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Tommy invited the Bishop to speak at today’s march in London, and speak he did. Powerfully.

He spoke not only of the fact that it was British missionaries who brought Christianity to Nigeria a century ago, but that they had abandoned the heritage that he now brought back…

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…to them.

He warned of Islam’s tactics and that what is happening in Nigeria today will be Britain’s and the whole of the West’s nightmare tomorrow.

And he did it in Parliament Square right in front of the Houses of Parliament.

Do you think the Lord was in it? Oh, I…

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…know that He was!

I rejoice at the efforts of my brothers and sisters who, all along this decade of perseverance, kept going.

I thank @LozzaFox and @CaliforniaFrizz and all who made this happen.

Can God use you? Absolutely. He doesn’t demand your success. That’s all…

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…in His hands. Indeed, I wager Isaiah and Jeremiah would have few followers on X. No, the Lord wants your obedience to His call upon your life, and every now and then, like today, He gives you a tiny glimpse of what He’s doing with your meager efforts.

Tommy’s intro is…

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…great.

And @LozzaFox’s reading of Ephesians was wonderful, too — though it’s the first time I’ve heard a Bible reading that was preceded by “these as*h*le, cretinous, fking w*nkers.”