The Pearl of Great Price: Stories from Nigeria's Persecuted Church
On a Monday morning in the bush outside Port Harcourt, a room full of women who had buried husbands, children, and siblings to religious violence gathered to pray. Not for themselves. For nations.
Their leader asked which countries they felt the Lord calling them to intercede for. They said America. They said Iraq. They said Israel. Women who had lost everything spent the morning asking God to move somewhere else.
We came to Nigeria to teach at a Discipleship Training School for 150 widows and survivors of Boko Haram and Fulani violence. We left having learned more from them than we taught.
This is the story of that week: a village built in the bush, two women named Grace and Mercy, and the Friday night our team knelt to wash 200 pairs of feet. It's also the story of what comes next, and how you can be part of it.
A Village in the Bush
Our team arrived in Port Harcourt on a Friday and spent the weekend just being present. No teaching yet. Just sitting with the women on the base, learning names, sharing meals.
The base itself is built like a village. Homes sit close together along walking paths. A central meeting area anchors the community, along with a prayer and worship hall, an outdoor kitchen, and a small commissary.
It stretches for miles into the bush outside Port Harcourt. Rain fell most days we were there. Birds and wildlife moved through the trees around us, a strange kind of beauty surrounding so much grief.
One afternoon, a base staff member served us chinge, a traditional Nigerian snack of fried termites. We tried it. We agreed, unanimously, that it tasted like Texas barbecue. It was a small thing, but it mattered. Sharing food is how trust gets built.
The Persecuted Praying
Monday morning began with an intercessory session for the entire base. Our team expected to lead women in prayer for their own safety, provision, and healing.
Instead, the base leader asked a different question: which nations is the Lord asking you to pray for? Women who had lost husbands to Fulani militants and Boko Haram raids answered without hesitation. America. Iraq. Israel.
It would have made sense for these women to pray only for themselves. They didn't. Their instinct, even in grief, was to turn outward and intercede for people they will likely never meet.
That's not the story most people expect when they hear "persecuted church." These women aren't only surviving. They're carrying a burden for the nations while they do it. It's the same posture we hope to carry home with us.
What A Week Looks Like
From Monday through Friday, our team taught DTS classes each morning, served in the base clinic, and spent afternoons connecting one-on-one with the women.
Evenings were reserved for worship and prayer, some nights in the hall, other nights outside at what the base calls the Plaza of the Nations.
The teaching mattered. But the real ministry happened in the in-between moments: a woman sitting down next to you at lunch, ready to talk. A quiet conversation by the football field. A shared laugh on a porch.
It was in those afternoons that we heard the stories of Grace and Mercy. Their names have been changed here to protect their safety.
Grace's Story: "My Husband Is Now Happier Than He's Ever Been"
Grace's story starts with rejection. Her father rejected her from a young age. As a girl, she went through circumstances so severe that she was declared dead for two days.
When the Lord raised her from that, her community didn't celebrate. They called her a ghost and rejected her again.
She met her husband, married him, and had seven children. Life was steady until the Fulani began advancing on her village.
Her husband called his brother to come take Grace and the children to safety. He stayed behind to gather their last belongings. That is when the Fulani killed him.
The man who killed her husband called Grace, from her husband's own phone, to tell her what he had done.
Grace's response wasn't rage. She told him, "My husband is now happier than he's ever been, because he is now with Jesus."
Grace has since lost four of her seven children to disease and illness. Her three remaining children live with family members while she attends the DTS.
She isn't waiting to heal before she serves. She's eager to return to her state and preach the Gospel with boldness, because she has seen God's faithfulness firsthand and wants her community to see it too.
Mercy: A Life Marked by Violence, Held by Jesus
Mercy grew up in a Muslim home. As a child, she followed a neighboring family to church and gave her life to Jesus there.
Her father beat her for it. He denied her meals and verbally abused her for following Christ. She stayed anyway.
As a teenager, she married a Christian man and had children with him. Boko Haram killed her husband during a raid on their village. Mercy escaped with her children to her parents, who rejected her from staying with them. Boko Haram killed three of Mercy's siblings around the same time.
When Boko Haram came to her own village, one of the men recognized her from childhood. He offered to spare her and her children if she married him. She agreed, and later led him to Christ.
On the way to church one day, fear overtook him. He renounced Jesus and divorced Mercy on the spot.
She was on her own again, and Boko Haram captured her. They beat her, shot her leg, and nailed her feet to a board. They placed her child in her lap. A bomb hit the building where she was held and the blast killed her child in her arms.
Mercy escaped and hid in the bush with her surviving children until a woman found her and pointed her toward Christians in a nearby village. They took her in and cared for her until illness put her in the hospital. Her family took her remaining children and would not let her see them.
When she left the hospital, Mercy found a baby who had been abandoned in the trash by another mother. She rescued him. She is raising him now as her own son.
Mercy joined the DTS to learn a trade that can support her and her son, and to be trained in Scripture so she can make Jesus known in her state.
Grace and Mercy aren't unusual at this DTS. They're representative of all of the women who came here with boldness and joy. Every one of the 150 women here carries a story like this, and we heard countless stories over our time in Nigeria.
That's why we don't just call them the persecuted church, they are Women of Honor. They have found the pearl of great price. They've lost everything the world says matters, and they'd give it up again for the sake of knowing Christ.
200 Feet, 25 Years
Our final night at the base was a Friday worship service. It ended with our team kneeling to wash the feet of 150 women, their children, and the base staff. Over 200 people in all.
Earlier in the week, the base founder pulled our team aside. She told us: "We have never seen another missions organization, in our 25 years here, come to serve alongside us and join in on the calling God has given us. There have been churches and individuals, but never another missions organization. That shows the humility and love of God in you."
Twenty-five years, and we were the first missions organization to kneel down instead of standing at a distance to help. That's the model we want to keep building on.
What's Next?
This DTS exists to send these women home equipped. They're learning a trade that can support them and their children financially. They're also being trained to preach the Gospel with boldness in the same villages that rejected or nearly killed them.
Light A Candle isn't treating this as a one-time visit. Our long-term vision is to stay connected to this base, sending regular short-term teams to teach at the DTS, build relationships with the women, and bring resources they need.
Right now, that need is practical. We're raising support to gift the base with mosquito nets, cups, spoons, cooking pots, sheets, blankets, and fans, the basic supplies that make daily life on the base possible.
When you give, choose "Where It's Needed Most" and put "Nigeria" in the memo. We will allocate every dollar you give to the supplies needed in Nigeria.
From January 28 to February 8, our team returns to Port Harcourt to serve the next class of 150+ women of honor.
Ten spots are available for this team, open to singles, couples, families with children, and seniors. You don't need missions experience. You need a willingness to kneel down and stay a while.
If you can't go yet, you can still be part of what's next. Give toward the supplies this base needs right now, or share Grace and Mercy's stories with someone who's felt the pull to help the persecuted church and hasn't known where to start.
What is a DTS?
A Discipleship Training School. At this base, it pairs Scripture training with a practical trade so graduates can support themselves and their families when they return home.
Who are the women in this program?
Widows and survivors of religious violence, called Women of Honor, from Nigeria's northern states, where Boko Haram and Fulani militant attacks have targeted Christian communities.
Do I need missions experience to join the January trip?
No. The trip is open to singles, couples, families with children, and seniors. What matters most is a willingness to serve and learn from the women there.
How is Light A Candle staying involved after this trip?
We're committed to sending regular short-term teams to this base, continuing relationships with the women, and providing resources like medical and practical supplies.
I can't travel right now. How else can I help?
You can give toward the base's current needs (mosquito nets, cooking supplies, bedding, fans) or share these stories with someone who's been looking for a way to support the persecuted church.
Grace and Mercy have lost more than most of us will ever have to give. Husbands. Children. Homes. Communities that should have protected them and didn't.
And they would do it again. Not because suffering is good, but because Jesus is worth it. That's the pearl of great price: something so valuable that losing everything else to have it isn't really a loss at all.
Our team went to Port Harcourt to teach. We came home changed by women who showed us what it looks like to hold grief and joy in the same hand.
Ten spots remain for the January trip back to this base. If you've felt the pull to serve the persecuted church and haven't known where to start, this is where to start.
Join us in January, or give toward the base's current needs, to be part of what God is doing in Port Harcourt.
