#BringBackOurGirls

From the Ashland Times-Gazette:

On April 14, on the other side of the globe, Godiya, age 18, breathed a sigh of relief that her physics exam had gone well. I don’t know if she and her classmates were wound up from the achievements of the day, chatting past curfew at their boarding school in Chibok, Nigeria, or if they fell into a deep, exhausted sleep, grateful that the end of the school year was in sight.

Godiza woke up to horror, as she and her friends were roused from their beds and rounded up at gunpoint after militants overpowered a military guard assigned to their boarding school. The school was the only one still open in the area following threats and attacks by Boko Haram, a group whose name means, “Western education is a sin.” As the girls trembled with fear, the world slept on.

Godiya was one of the fortunate ones, as early on in her captivity, she was brave enough to run off into the forest. Another girl described her escape: “We ran and ran, so fast. That is how I saved myself. I had no time to be scared, I was just running.” It’s reported that 276 of their classmates are still missing, young women with dreams of becoming physicians, teachers, and perhaps even political leaders who could broaden educational opportunities for other young women. And now they have disappeared, swallowed up into unfathomable horror.

The world searched for Malaysian Flight 360. The world searched for survivors of the Hong Kong ferry disaster. But for many days after the abduction, as desperate parents searched the Sambisa Forest with machetes and bows and arrows, the world stood silent about the missing girls of Nigeria.

The Nigerian government’s reaction has been disappointing at best. Suggestions have been made that the account was fabricated, that somehow it was the girls’ fault or that of their parents, and, early on, that the girls had been rescued. But in reality, there has been no Amber Alert, no coordinated search, and no public plea for their return. Danuma Mpur, the chairman of the local parent-teacher association, whose two nieces are among the missing, said: “We pinned our hopes on the government, but all that hope is turning to frustration. The town is under a veil of sorrow.”

I’ve tried to picture what it would be like. What if armed men stormed our high school and kidnapped three hundred of our young women as they took their final exams? Or invaded an AU dorm in the middle of the night and forced its young women residents into a caravan of trucks? It really is unimaginable. Yet this isn’t creative writing 101 or an action film. These are real girls, real families, real grief.

Hauwa. Mary. Yana. Ruth. Yawa. Tabitha. Filo. Gloria. At last count, two hundred and sixty eight others. Each one named with care by her parents. Each one sent to boarding school with the belief that education can change the community and the world. Each one kidnapped, missing, held as a prisoner. Twenty-seven days later, these young women are possibly being trafficked, sold into slavery, sold as ‘wives’ for as little as twelve dollars. And now, finally, as the social media world has been inundated with the hashtag,  #BringBackOurGirls, the world is paying attention.

Around the world, the cry is rising. Bring back our girls. On Twitter and Facebook, on the airwaves of NPR and on the pages of the New York Times, the world is finally waking up. Soccer moms, high school students, career diplomats and the First Lady of the United States are speaking the words, whispering the prayers, and sounding forth the cry. Bring Back Our Girls.

Long before Twitter, Facebook and hashtags were created, the anguish was expressed by the prophet Jeremiah (31:15, NLT): “A cry is heard in Ramah – deep anguish and bitter weeping. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted – for her children are gone.” In 2014, a cry is heard in Chibok, and in Warabe, where more girls have been kidnapped. These are the world’s daughters, our daughters. #BringBackTheGirls.