Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E284: The Deadliest Place on Earth: Unmasking The Genocide of Nigerian Christians | Lila Rose Show

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E284: The Deadliest Place on Earth: Unmasking The Genocide of Nigerian Christians | Lila Rose Show · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  What does it mean when we're talking about Christian
• 0:02
  persecution in Nigeria? There's a pastor who was
• 0:05
  standing at a mass grave of Christians that had just been
• 0:08
  slaughtered. By jihadists.
• 0:09
  That by jihadists, you would think Nigeria is at war.
• 0:11
  There's no war in Nigeria. These are people just being
• 0:13
  slain. The Nigerian government is
• 0:14
  saying there is no persecution taking place.
• 0:16
  That's religiously motivated. Everyone in Nigeria is aware of
• 0:20
  what's happening. Next thing you know what, Trump
• 0:22
  enters the chat and that is the last thing I expected do.
• 0:24
  You think that helped that the Trump administration did that
• 0:26
  airstrike? What's your hope long term for
• 0:29
  Nigeria? Oh gosh.
• 0:34
  If you follow the show or my social media, you know that
• 0:36
  Christian persecution is a topic that I'm deeply passionate about
• 0:41
  and one that most media won't touch.
• 0:44
  On today's episode, I have the privilege of sitting down with
• 0:47
  the lovely Muji Kaiser, who was born in Nigeria and whose close
• 0:51
  family still lives there. She shares an insider's view on
• 0:55
  what is happening on the ground there that I think everyone
• 0:58
  should know. Recently, the Trump
• 1:01
  administration did airstrikes on ISIS camps in Nigeria.
• 1:05
  And in this new year, tragically, the problem of
• 1:09
  religious persecution is not going away.
• 1:12
  Welcome back to the Lila Roche Show.
• 1:14
  The easiest way to support more of these crucial conversations
• 1:17
  is by liking this video and ensuring that you are
• 1:20
  subscribed. So hit that subscribe button if
• 1:22
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• 1:25
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• 1:30
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• 1:33
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• 1:38
  Thanks so much for all your support, Muji Kaiser.
• 1:41
  Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for having me.
• 1:43
  I'm so glad you're here. Happy to be here.
• 1:45
  And I heard you were at the Women's Summit.
• 1:46
  Yeah, that was wonderful. Thank you.
• 1:48
  That was a great. It was an awesome day.
• 1:50
  You are very active. You and baby marry who's four
• 1:53
  months old. You just got back from Nigeria.
• 1:55
  That's amazing. Yeah, I go once a year.
• 1:58
  So I went twice this year. My actually my brother got
• 2:01
  married. But congratulations, it was a
• 2:02
  great chance. Thank you.
• 2:03
  It was a great chance to go there and see what's going on
• 2:06
  and visit the orphanage and it was wonderful.
• 2:11
  I think Mary might make an appearance at some point.
• 2:13
  We I heard she might fall asleep too.
• 2:14
  But she's incredibly cute. So I hope you get to see her.
• 2:18
  Guys. We always love babies on the
• 2:19
  show. Congratulations on your
• 2:21
  foundation. Thank you.
• 2:22
  I'm excited to learn more about it and there's been so much news
• 2:26
  in Nigeria right now and I think a lot of people are captivated
• 2:31
  by what's happening because our Christian brothers and sisters
• 2:34
  are under attack and a lot of confusion about why it's
• 2:37
  happening. Media have had some headlines
• 2:39
  and then people on the ground have their stories and I think
• 2:42
  having your perspective is going to be so important.
• 2:44
  Thank you. I'm happy to speak on it because
• 2:46
  it's been frustrating for me, quite frankly, hearing the way
• 2:50
  that's being covered by the mainstream media.
• 2:52
  And I would kind of caution anyone to take what they're
• 2:56
  reading with a grain of salt because there's a lot of, yeah,
• 2:59
  there's a lot of lies being told.
• 3:02
  So I'm glad that I'm I can least speak to what I know and what
• 3:06
  the people in Nigeria are saying.
• 3:07
  Lies being told about what's happening in Nigeria?
• 3:09
  Yes. Tell me about your background
• 3:12
  and your connection with Nigeria.
• 3:14
  So I was born in Nigeria and when I was three, I felt I felt
• 3:19
  suddenly ill by so let's say we don't really know quite what it
• 3:23
  was, but I wasn't able to walk. So my grandfather at the time
• 3:26
  was a diplomat and he was able to pull some strings.
• 3:30
  My mom and I came to America because I was basically at the
• 3:33
  brink of death and the doctors in Nigeria weren't able to
• 3:35
  figure out what the problem was. So my mom and I went to New York
• 3:39
  where they diagnosed me with osteomyelitis, a bone disease.
• 3:43
  They told me that I would never walk again and I was lived.
• 3:46
  I lived in the hospital for a year and at the end of that
• 3:48
  year, I took my first steps again and I was OK.
• 3:53
  But we knew that Nigeria is no, wasn't no longer a place that
• 3:57
  we'd be able to live because I needed to come so frequently
• 4:00
  for, for care. So America became our home at
• 4:03
  that point. But my mom had to leave my
• 4:06
  brothers and my father. I have three brothers.
• 4:09
  So she had to leave them behind because she was only able to get
• 4:13
  visas for, you know, the two of us.
• 4:16
  So sorry. Hi, Mary.
• 4:20
  Hi everyone. Hi sweet girl, welcome to the
• 4:23
  show. Mary might take a walk.
• 4:28
  Mary, are you gonna go take a walk?
• 4:29
  Yeah. You were so good on the plane to
• 4:31
  Nigeria though. So America became our home.
• 4:35
  And it was difficult for my mom because she left everything, you
• 4:40
  know, that she knew behind not just her family, but her career.
• 4:44
  And she, this is the story of many immigrants, right?
• 4:47
  She started off like cleaning homes, kind of working menial
• 4:53
  jobs, but whatever she needed to do to to, you know, build
• 4:58
  ourselves a life here. And we lived in Ohio.
• 5:02
  My brothers ended up coming many years later.
• 5:05
  So for a long time it was just my mother and I.
• 5:07
  And just really quick, your dad and your brothers were still in
• 5:11
  Nigeria. My dad and my brothers were
• 5:12
  still in Nigeria. Really.
• 5:13
  Hard for your mom. Yeah, as a mother now I can, I
• 5:16
  can imagine. How old were the brothers?
• 5:19
  So they're, when I left, I was 3, so they would have been
• 5:22
  between 6:00 and little. Yeah, they're very.
• 5:25
  Little what a woman she was a strong woman all to to save your
• 5:29
  life all. To save my life.
• 5:32
  So she started from she started over, she went to school, she
• 5:36
  got her degree and her master's in special education.
• 5:40
  She worked in the inner city in Cleveland, which is notoriously
• 5:43
  like a really poor district That's the kids don't have any
• 5:48
  strong presence, you know, adult presence in their life.
• 5:52
  The moms are often doing their best and are working.
• 5:55
  The fathers may or may not be there.
• 5:57
  So my mom was a really beautiful teacher and like, role model for
• 6:00
  them. So that was that was our story.
• 6:04
  We were, you know, immigrants, but we came to this country and
• 6:08
  through her hard work, we were able to kind of build a life in
• 6:12
  Ohio. My brothers came a bit later.
• 6:14
  How old? Were they when they came?
• 6:16
  The youngest was 14, the oldest would have been 18.
• 6:20
  So it's kind of interesting because I came here when I was
• 6:23
  really little. So it was just kind of like a
• 6:25
  natural assimilation where for them, they're a bit older.
• 6:28
  And I think it's kind of challenging coming to a new
• 6:31
  country, you know, when when you're a little bit older.
• 6:34
  But they quickly adjusted. I was really impressed with
• 6:37
  them. And, you know, they got their
• 6:39
  degrees and, and they flourished.
• 6:41
  My brother actually entered the military and bought in
• 6:43
  Afghanistan. And that's whose wedding I
• 6:46
  actually went to Nigeria for earlier this month.
• 6:48
  So yeah, that was that was what happened in my, you know, I'm so
• 6:56
  thankful to America. When I was in Nigeria a couple
• 6:59
  years ago at my cousin's wedding, I was telling the story
• 7:04
  actually. And I at one point, I shared how
• 7:07
  my grandfather, who was ambassador to Germany back in
• 7:11
  the day, was able to pull these strings for us.
• 7:13
  And my cousin was listening to my speech.
• 7:16
  And the person, like, someone next to him who's a local, kind
• 7:19
  of like, muttered under his breath, must be nice.
• 7:23
  And my cousin got kind of upset and was like, no, they really
• 7:27
  went through it. Like, she almost died.
• 7:28
  Yeah. Like it's not.
• 7:29
  And you're separated from your dad.
• 7:31
  I mean, your parents stayed married.
• 7:33
  They stayed married for over, yeah, for a very long time
• 7:37
  across oceans. Are they together now or
• 7:39
  they're? So they've both passed.
• 7:41
  I'm sorry, but I understood where this person was coming
• 7:46
  from because so many people are suffering in Nigeria and they
• 7:51
  don't have, you know, ambassador grandfather to bring them over
• 7:55
  to a different country to save their lives, right?
• 7:57
  Like they they'll just end up dying there.
• 8:00
  Like if it was, if it was me, what I went through, if it was
• 8:04
  anyone else that went through that situation, I would have
• 8:07
  died, you know? So it's a blessing.
• 8:10
  And I always think about that and the work that I'm doing now
• 8:14
  with my foundation. And basically I went to college
• 8:19
  and I got my degree in journalism and psychology and my
• 8:24
  husband and I ended up meeting through Catholic Match.
• 8:31
  So if there any single people out there it does work but.
• 8:34
  And Sacred Spark guys. Hey, okay.
• 8:36
  Oh my goodness, that's right, Emily.
• 8:37
  She spoke at your conference. She's incredible.
• 8:40
  Yes. That online dating can work.
• 8:42
  Yeah, it's true, especially. If you like at you.
• 8:45
  Yeah, I didn't have a lot of Catholic young people in my
• 8:47
  community. Wow.
• 8:49
  So I needed. How many kids do you have now?
• 8:51
  We have 6. Beautiful and this little 1 Mary
• 8:54
  is the is the newest. Addition yes, she's four months.
• 8:57
  Our eldest is actually 8 so our kids are very.
• 8:59
  Way to go. We're very close together, but
• 9:01
  it's it's wonderful. But yeah, God has just been so
• 9:05
  good in our our lives here and life that, you know, America is
• 9:10
  my home. It's basically the only home
• 9:12
  that that I've known. I often will go back to Nigeria,
• 9:14
  but you know, I'm, we became citizens, my brothers and, and I
• 9:19
  and you know, we just are cutting our blessings everyday
• 9:22
  and are proud to be Americans. And yeah, God, it's all been
• 9:27
  very providential, just watching the way everything has happened
• 9:31
  like in our lives. So for example, after I got my
• 9:35
  degree, I actually moved to LA and I worked for an agency out
• 9:38
  in Los Angeles and entertainment agency.
• 9:40
  And it was, it was a great job, but it was pretty secular.
• 9:45
  So I think a lot of people who aren't Catholic, also by
• 9:49
  culture, might understand this because you don't necessarily
• 9:56
  understand why you're Catholic, if that makes sense.
• 10:00
  I often will say that I was not catechized very well, but it was
• 10:04
  just like part of our culture and a faith that I always knew.
• 10:07
  But when it came time to be for me to be out on my own, it's
• 10:11
  like, OK, like, I have to practice this now, right?
• 10:13
  Like my family, we're all Catholic.
• 10:15
  We've been Catholic for for our entire lives as my grandparents
• 10:18
  and my great grandparents. So that was a really beautiful
• 10:21
  period where I was like, I'm kind of just here by myself.
• 10:24
  And, you know, it's LA and people are tough and this is
• 10:28
  really difficult and lonely. But be having that isolation, I
• 10:34
  think sometimes what we need, you know, to grow and to
• 10:38
  discover our true relationship with God, you know, So that was
• 10:43
  my experience. And but I was pretty unhappy out
• 10:46
  there. My mom called me and told me
• 10:49
  that she'd be having back surgery.
• 10:51
  And my mom fell out of a mango tree when she was a teenager.
• 10:55
  So she'd always had back problems, pretty debilitating.
• 10:58
  So at this point the doctors were like, OK, like this is gone
• 11:01
  as far as it can go. Like you're going to have the
• 11:02
  surgery. So at that point, I moved back
• 11:04
  to Ohio. I said, OK, like I think I've
• 11:07
  grown in the way that God wanted me to grow through this
• 11:09
  experience in LA. I'm going to go back to Ohio to
• 11:12
  help her. And Nick and I, actually, my
• 11:15
  husband and I just started chatting on Catholic Match, and
• 11:20
  my mom was being reeled in for her surgery.
• 11:23
  And you know, sometimes the Holy Spirit tugs on us, right?
• 11:27
  And I sat there and I looked at her and I thought, what if this
• 11:30
  man is my husband? And what if something happened
• 11:33
  to my mom like in the surgery and she never knew of him, you
• 11:37
  know? So I kind of sat there like
• 11:39
  wrestling with it for a bit. I'm like, Oh my gosh, she's
• 11:40
  going to get so overly excited. We haven't even met in person
• 11:44
  yet. Like this is just someone that
• 11:45
  I'm chatting with. But you know, I kind of felt
• 11:47
  that this could be something. So I told her about him and she
• 11:51
  was like, oh, I'm like, he's praying a rosary for you.
• 11:54
  She's like, really, really calm down.
• 11:56
  And I thank God that I did because ended up being the
• 12:01
  surgery that took her life. And even though my husband and I
• 12:05
  had not met in person, like that was the first person that I
• 12:08
  called. God is amazing and putting
• 12:10
  people in your path exactly when they need to be there, right?
• 12:15
  And my dad was never in the US with us.
• 12:18
  He was always in Nigeria. And he was, you know, he had a
• 12:23
  good job there. And just, I think sometimes with
• 12:24
  older people, it's harder to, you know, leave what they know.
• 12:29
  So my mom did apply for him before her surgery.
• 12:33
  And so we're really excited and looking forward to, you know,
• 12:37
  being a family, a gun and getting him out here and the
• 12:40
  process, you know, for filing and stuff kind of takes a while.
• 12:42
  So he he got approved. So it was just such wonderful
• 12:45
  news. But my mom died before.
• 12:47
  Were you, were you completely shocked?
• 12:49
  Was it very unexpected that she would die during that back?
• 12:52
  Surgery. It actually wasn't actually the,
• 12:54
  IT wasn't the surgery. After the surgery concluded, it
• 12:58
  was successful and she went to a rehabilitation facility and
• 13:02
  she'd been there for a couple days and I'm sitting there, you
• 13:06
  know, I was getting my masters and I'm texting like this guy
• 13:09
  that I just met online and sitting at her bedside.
• 13:13
  And it was just completely unexpected.
• 13:15
  She had been on blood thinners for years, and they took her off
• 13:19
  at the blood thinners when she had the surgery and the doctors
• 13:23
  forgot to put her back on. So she ended up having a
• 13:26
  pulmonary embolism when I was there with her.
• 13:28
  And I thank God that I was there with her, Right?
• 13:31
  Like, that was a gift in itself to be able to be by her, by her
• 13:38
  side and hold her hand and, you know, to say those prayers that
• 13:41
  she taught me as a kid, you know, it's a gift that I'll
• 13:46
  always, always be thankful for, right?
• 13:48
  She did so much for me, left everything she knew for me and
• 13:53
  for my brothers so they could have a better life too, right?
• 13:56
  And they're all very successful and they're doing great now.
• 13:58
  But so to be able to be there with her, like in her final
• 14:02
  moments is something that I'll always be grateful for.
• 14:06
  So after she passed, my dad came a couple months later and he was
• 14:13
  diagnosed with cancer. So we think that he did know.
• 14:18
  He did know we he just didn't share it with us.
• 14:21
  So my dad, my mom passed away in June and then my dad ended up
• 14:24
  passing away in November. I'm so sorry.
• 14:28
  Yeah, it was. I mean, it was definitely
• 14:32
  difficult. You know, you don't plan, you
• 14:34
  don't expect these things to happen.
• 14:36
  I never even, I never knew anyone close to me that had
• 14:38
  passed away. And then to have both of those
• 14:41
  people with my parents pass away that close together was really
• 14:44
  difficult for my brothers and I. But it's just to, just to give
• 14:48
  God the glory because, you know, my, if my dad had passed away in
• 14:53
  Nigeria, like none of us were there, you know, So it was a
• 14:56
  grace that he was in America, like surrounded by his children,
• 15:03
  comfortable, right? Like cancer, anyone that knows
• 15:06
  people that are suffering from cancer, how painful it is.
• 15:08
  But because he was in the US and he was able to like get very
• 15:12
  wonderful treatment through Hospice, he was very
• 15:15
  comfortable. If he was in Nigeria, it would
• 15:18
  have been a really painful, lonely death, right?
• 15:21
  So I think even with life is going, things are going to
• 15:23
  happen in life. But I think if we're really
• 15:26
  look, we see how there's God is still just really protecting us
• 15:31
  and giving a lot of grace, right?
• 15:35
  So yeah, that's, that's what happened.
• 15:39
  And but he'd already handed me over to someone else.
• 15:44
  My dad gave my husband his blessing to marry me before he
• 15:50
  passed away. So Nick didn't meet my mom, but
• 15:52
  he didn't meet my dad. And not long after my dad died,
• 15:57
  we actually got engaged and I moved back out from Ohio, back
• 16:00
  here to California. And we live in Ventura County.
• 16:03
  And we're just part of this really amazing community, like
• 16:09
  people that are really living their faith.
• 16:12
  I've never seen that before. The only other time that I'd
• 16:16
  really seen that is in Nigeria, you know, I would often go back
• 16:21
  when I was a child, and it was just so nourishing for me to see
• 16:26
  people practice their faith in that way.
• 16:29
  Like, yeah, the country is split between Muslims, Christians and
• 16:34
  of Christians. There's a big Catholic
• 16:36
  population. But on Sundays, like versus, you
• 16:41
  know, here on Sundays, like everyone is worshiping, you
• 16:44
  know, whether you're Protestant or Catholic or Muslim, like
• 16:47
  everyone is worshiping. And that was always beautiful
• 16:51
  for me to see. Because coming back here, I feel
• 16:52
  like I didn't get as much of that, mostly because of where I
• 16:59
  was in that community that I was, I thought maybe it didn't
• 17:01
  exist in America, right? Depending on on where you live,
• 17:04
  you have different, different experiences.
• 17:06
  But once I moved out here and it's such like a big, vibrant
• 17:10
  Catholic Christian community and that I was just so blessed to be
• 17:13
  a part of. And people that I know were
• 17:15
  praying for me as I was going through all that with my
• 17:17
  parents, because I see how they're praying for for people
• 17:21
  now. But it's, it's just a blessing.
• 17:24
  It's blessing to have God design things in that way.
• 17:29
  Amen. And place me now in the
• 17:32
  community and with a husband and to now have a family of my own.
• 17:37
  And to now, I'll be doing the work that I'm doing, which I'm
• 17:39
  happy to, to speak a little bit about that because it'll kind of
• 17:42
  segue into what's going on in Nigeria.
• 17:44
  Amazing. Your story's amazing, Muji.
• 17:46
  Thank you. It's amazing.
• 17:47
  God has God has been good. Nigeria has been in the news a
• 17:51
  lot lately and there has been congressional hearings about
• 17:55
  what's happening to Nigerian Christians.
• 17:58
  There have been news headlines about the kidnappings of
• 18:03
  Nigerian schoolchildren from boarding school by Islamic
• 18:07
  militants. Apparently there was even a
• 18:09
  strike done by the US on a Nigerian town or area where they
• 18:14
  said there was ISIS who was terrorizing Christians and other
• 18:18
  Nigerians. And so a strike was done on
• 18:20
  them. And there's also this, so I
• 18:22
  think a incongruity between the media headlines about what's
• 18:26
  happening and then the stories of people on the ground and
• 18:30
  their experiences in Nigeria. So I want to show you a couple
• 18:32
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• 18:35
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  So this is a headline recently, it says fear and confusion in
• 20:22
  Nigerian village hit in US strike as locals say no history
• 20:26
  of ISIS in the area. Yeah, I can't speak to The Who
• 20:31
  the locals that they interviewed are.
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  I can say that all it takes is like a quick search on social
• 20:38
  media, right? We have access now to these
• 20:41
  villages. We have footage from people that
• 20:44
  are being attacked, people that are pleading for help, people
• 20:47
  that are asking the US to get involved, people that are so
• 20:51
  happy that they finally did get involved, right?
• 20:54
  So when I went there earlier this month, this is the same
• 20:57
  time when Trump had his representatives in Nigeria at a
• 21:01
  displacement camp, learning more about what was going on.
• 21:04
  And I was at the airport and watching the news and they were
• 21:07
  taking comments from Nigerians. And one of the comments was from
• 21:11
  someone who just could not believe that people from America
• 21:15
  came all the way to Nigeria to see what was going on and to see
• 21:20
  what they can do to help when the Nigerian government
• 21:22
  themselves are not doing anything.
• 21:24
  He was like, he's like, he felt like he was in the twilight
• 21:27
  zone, you know, and was really grateful.
• 21:30
  And that's a sentiment that most Nigerians have.
• 21:32
  So I don't know who they're interviewing.
• 21:36
  I will just say it's been frustrating for me because I've
• 21:41
  known and many of us have known what's been going on in Nigeria.
• 21:45
  These these killings have been happening for a really long time
• 21:48
  and people have not been covering it.
• 21:49
  The. Killings of Christians by
• 21:51
  specifically militant Islamists. So we.
• 21:55
  As a as a different dynamic. Sure.
• 21:57
  Well, we can say without a doubt, it's undisputed that
• 22:00
  these are jihadists committing these killings, right?
• 22:03
  Like, no one is disputing that. We can say without a doubt that
• 22:08
  they are the ones that are doing these murders.
• 22:11
  And where there seems to be confusion about is whether it's
• 22:16
  religiously motivated, right? Like, so when you read these
• 22:18
  stories on the news and the mainstream media obviously does
• 22:24
  not like to portray Trump in a very positive light.
• 22:29
  So when you read it on the news, they're saying the Nigerian
• 22:33
  government is saying there's no persecution taking place.
• 22:36
  That's religiously motivated. There are conflicts that are
• 22:39
  obviously taking place here, but there's no religious motivation
• 22:43
  behind it. And that's what is being picked
• 22:46
  up. But everyone in Nigeria is aware
• 22:53
  of what's happening. You have priests, you have
• 22:56
  pastors. There's one viral video that
• 22:58
  went out and this stuff is not easy to watch, but these are the
• 23:02
  links that people there feel like they have to go to now to
• 23:04
  get people to believe what's happening.
• 23:07
  There's a pastor who is standing at a mass grave of Christians
• 23:11
  that had just been slaughtered by by, by, I'm not sure which
• 23:16
  jihadist by jihadist. And he was like, see, there's no
• 23:21
  Muslim here. These are Christians that were
• 23:24
  all killed, and I will say that they're not just killing
• 23:28
  Christians, they are killing Muslims.
• 23:30
  But the Muslims that they're killing are ones that are viewed
• 23:33
  as traitors because they're not extreme.
• 23:37
  But it's. Moderate Muslims.
• 23:38
  So it's undisputed that these killings are happening.
• 23:44
  It's Muslims. These are the jihadist groups
• 23:47
  that are the perpetrators. And you have over 1,000,000
• 23:51
  people in displacement camps because either their towns have
• 23:54
  been burned down or they're in an area that's not safe to go
• 23:58
  back to. Like these are all, these are
• 24:00
  all just facts. So people are.
• 24:02
  It's frustrating for me because people are so caught up on
• 24:06
  whether this is religiously motivated.
• 24:09
  But we know that Christians are being killed.
• 24:12
  The number will be difficult to ascertain, obviously, because
• 24:17
  I'm not sure how well these physics are being kept in
• 24:19
  Nigeria. But Christians are being killed,
• 24:23
  Muslims are being killed by these extremist groups.
• 24:26
  So someone needs to help, someone needs to do something.
• 24:29
  Is that not the point? Should that not be the focus?
• 24:31
  We know that it's happening and the government is not doing
• 24:34
  anything about it. And the jihadists who are
• 24:36
  killing people, it's not like they're killing.
• 24:39
  They're not targeting each other in terms of for faith reasons.
• 24:43
  They're targeting people that are not that are, that are
• 24:46
  Christians who are infidel or they're Muslims who are not
• 24:49
  practicing the way that they want them to.
• 24:52
  What is the status of the kidnappings?
• 24:56
  We were talking earlier and you were saying, well, there's just
• 24:59
  crime in Nigeria. And sometimes kidnappings just
• 25:01
  happen for ransom or for other reasons.
• 25:04
  And so, you know, there's that reality.
• 25:06
  And that's in a lot of countries.
• 25:07
  You know, you go to Mexico, parts of Mexico, and there's
• 25:09
  fear of kidnapping. I mean, kidnapping even happens
• 25:11
  in the US, but it's more prevalent in countries that have
• 25:14
  less control and more crime. Then there's kidnappings that
• 25:17
  seem very religiously motivated. The kidnappings of over 100
• 25:21
  school children in Nigeria and northern Nigeria who were at a
• 25:25
  Catholic boarding school. Thank God most of them have been
• 25:28
  released. But there's still, I think, some
• 25:30
  of these people connected with the school in captivity.
• 25:33
  I'm not sure if there's children still in captivity.
• 25:35
  I'm not sure if it's clear. But the fact is, this is like a
• 25:37
  mass kidnapping. It's often it's, it's become
• 25:41
  commonplace, quite frankly, and it's scary.
• 25:44
  So when I was there earlier this month, I spoke to a priest who
• 25:48
  who shared a story with me and he gave me permission to share
• 25:51
  this with you guys. And not far from where I often
• 25:56
  go, about 45 minutes from there, there earlier this month, there
• 26:02
  was there were two armed Fulani gunmen that were spotted like in
• 26:07
  the Bush. Fulani.
• 26:09
  Fulani. So just to clarify, the Fulani
• 26:12
  are a tribe in Nigeria and Nigeria has many tribes and
• 26:16
  they're a Muslim tribe and they're nomads.
• 26:19
  So they're herders. So they'll often travel, you
• 26:23
  know, throughout the country with their with their cows and
• 26:28
  like a lot of cows. So they've become kind of a
• 26:31
  pestilence because they will just take over, right?
• 26:34
  Their, their cows are grazing on in areas that they shouldn't
• 26:39
  necessarily be in. So just to create that
• 26:43
  distinction that they're Fulani that are just Muslim people that
• 26:46
  are not extremists, but you have Fulani extremists too that are
• 26:49
  killing a lot of people. So that area was used to seeing
• 26:54
  Fulani people. So they know how to identify
• 26:56
  them and they're just a part, they're just Nigerian just like
• 27:01
  them. But these two gunmen were found,
• 27:04
  they were armed with like heavy rifles, automatic rifles.
• 27:08
  They were vested and no one had seen anything like that in the
• 27:13
  area. So there was instant alarm.
• 27:16
  People started to yell. Villagers came out with guns if
• 27:20
  they happen to have it. You know, not everyone has guns,
• 27:23
  I guess in general. But, yeah, out there, some
• 27:25
  people had guns. I mean, and the video was
• 27:27
  online. People came out with machetes,
• 27:29
  arming with themselves with whatever they could.
• 27:32
  And it was particularly scary because the area that were these
• 27:35
  gunmen were, was nearby a school.
• 27:39
  So people were like, what, what are they doing there?
• 27:41
  Are they scouting out the school?
• 27:42
  What's going on? So once the alarm was raised and
• 27:45
  people started coming out, the two jihadists ran away into
• 27:51
  like, you know, a Bush like an area.
• 27:53
  And they were never they were never seen again.
• 27:56
  So he shared with me, the priest of the diocese was contacted and
• 28:02
  he came out right away. The video that went viral is him
• 28:06
  shortly after this happened with villagers who saw what happened.
• 28:10
  And the villagers were sharing like the first, you know, first
• 28:14
  hand eyewitness account of this. Later on, the priest received a
• 28:19
  call from a friend of his who was who was in governance, like
• 28:24
  local governance there. And this politician basically
• 28:29
  told the priest that he would be sending army like they had two
• 28:34
  trucks that were videoed coming out, but not to protect the
• 28:40
  villagers, to protect the Fulani.
• 28:44
  And I called him yesterday because I really wanted to make
• 28:46
  sure I understood. I understood this.
• 28:49
  And what he said was, and this is this happened.
• 28:52
  It was him. And he basically said that there
• 28:56
  was fear. There was fear that if the
• 28:58
  villagers attacked any of the Fulani people or if they're
• 29:04
  cows, apparently if someone touches like a Fulani cow,
• 29:09
  they're huge reprisals. So the government official sent
• 29:13
  the army in to make sure that none of the villagers attacked
• 29:17
  the Fulani people, which is kind of bizarre, right?
• 29:22
  Shouldn't it be that? And the Fulani have a record of
• 29:24
  attacking. There have been Fulani militants
• 29:27
  who have attacked and killed Christians.
• 29:30
  Yes, very, very. It's a frequent thing.
• 29:32
  Yes, it's it's a known, it's a known thing.
• 29:34
  It's never happened in that area.
• 29:36
  So it was very scary for the for everyone that was there.
• 29:38
  And in the end, like nothing ended up happening.
• 29:41
  They never came back. But the schools were shut down.
• 29:44
  That school where they were by, Yeah.
• 29:45
  They don't want to send their kids knowing that they might get
• 29:47
  kidnapped or killed. The school was shut down.
• 29:50
  Mass, he said. Mass that Sunday with guns, you
• 29:54
  know, throughout the church or people didn't come out and
• 29:57
  worship at all, right? Because they were just too
• 30:00
  afraid. And that's often what happens.
• 30:02
  And do the people when there's when there is Nigerian
• 30:05
  government military in the town and there were these militant
• 30:10
  Islamic, you know, jihadists who were had been there, but then
• 30:13
  they didn't do anything. But then they saw everyone
• 30:15
  coming out and they kind of left.
• 30:17
  Are the townspeople actually with they have so much fear that
• 30:20
  they think, oh, the government, if there was an attack, the
• 30:22
  government wouldn't protect me. So if you're in Nigeria, you
• 30:27
  don't count on the government to protect you.
• 30:29
  No. That's so scary.
• 30:33
  Like, you call the cops, there's no cops that come.
• 30:36
  Well, a lot of these attacks that are happening in the north,
• 30:38
  they're happening in towns that are pretty isolated, right?
• 30:41
  Like there's no 911, there's no one, there's no one that's going
• 30:44
  to come to help. So often times, like they're
• 30:47
  vulnerable because they are so secluded.
• 30:50
  So they'll just decimate these these types of towns because
• 30:54
  there's no one for miles to hear the screams.
• 30:58
  And you said earlier there's 1,000,000 people that are
• 31:00
  displaced that were in these smaller world rural villages and
• 31:04
  they're now in displacement camps.
• 31:05
  There's hundreds of displacement camps in Nigeria, so Trump's
• 31:08
  representatives went to one of the biggest ones in Fenway
• 31:10
  State. And they left because they had
• 31:14
  to leave their town because I think their.
• 31:15
  Stories vary, but they either were attacked, their towns were
• 31:18
  attacked, or they're in locations where they could never
• 31:21
  imagine staying there because they know that they're
• 31:22
  vulnerable for attack. And it's not just Fulani, right?
• 31:26
  You mentioned to me earlier before we started taping,
• 31:27
  there's a couple other militant jihadist groups that are also
• 31:31
  dangerous too. There's ISIS, Trump's recent
• 31:35
  attack was in an ISIS camp and then there Boko Haram, who some
• 31:40
  years ago, if you remember that, bring back our girls.
• 31:43
  That was a huge hashtag. That was a huge that was the
• 31:46
  first time that people really were paying attention to what
• 31:49
  was happening with an. Invisible Children, right?
• 31:51
  They were. They were kidnapping Christian
• 31:53
  kids and trying to turn them into child soldiers.
• 31:56
  Or marrying them or. Marrying them.
• 31:59
  So the world was paying attention for a period, and then
• 32:01
  they seemed like they just forgot a gun.
• 32:03
  I think we're so into fads in America, like the news fads, and
• 32:08
  then we just sort of the attention of goldfish and then
• 32:10
  we are interested in the news fad and then it passes and then
• 32:13
  we move on to the next crazy headline.
• 32:15
  Yeah. I think it's a bit of that and I
• 32:17
  think it's also sometimes it's just so much.
• 32:20
  Yes, it's like we have access to so much on social media now that
• 32:25
  it's kind of it's I think it's just too much for people to
• 32:29
  process or to like if you're feeling the full degree of what
• 32:33
  these people are experiencing, that would be too much for human
• 32:36
  person to like want to watch. So I think it's me.
• 32:40
  I I don't know, I think it's a natural reaction to just kind of
• 32:42
  like want to create some separation there you.
• 32:46
  Know to. Kind of to as a survival or
• 32:49
  something like that. But the reality is, if they are
• 32:53
  going through that and if they're living that, we can at
• 32:55
  least watch, right? And try to help.
• 32:58
  Try to help, don't look away. It's difficult, but look and
• 33:03
  pray, right? I think part of the reason I
• 33:05
  really wanted to talk about this is because like in my personal
• 33:08
  life, I felt the power of prayer, right?
• 33:12
  And even everything that happened, bring back our girls.
• 33:16
  That was a huge campaign. It went dead silent for a while.
• 33:20
  In terms of the world paying attention.
• 33:23
  The killings were still happening.
• 33:25
  You know, women, children, babies.
• 33:28
  I've heard some of the most horrific stories, right?
• 33:30
  It's really demonic. And no one was paying attention,
• 33:33
  but it was still happening. And then it seemed like some
• 33:36
  months ago, like, the Internet, like, went ablaze at least maybe
• 33:41
  more like Christian conservative circles.
• 33:43
  Everyone was sharing it, right? People were talking about it.
• 33:46
  And I was like, Oh my goodness, Like it says, I've never seen
• 33:49
  this before. What's happening?
• 33:51
  This is great. People care.
• 33:52
  People care like you were asking for prayers, right?
• 33:55
  People were praying. I know people were praying
• 33:57
  because next thing you know, like Trump enters the chat and
• 34:03
  it's like, and that is the last thing I expected do.
• 34:06
  You think that helped, but the Trump administration did that
• 34:10
  air strike on that village where ISIS had a had a encampment and
• 34:14
  where it's. Kind of, yeah.
• 34:15
  I'm hearing different things. I'm hearing that it's
• 34:18
  successful. Some people are saying it wasn't
• 34:23
  in Nigeria. People are saying that it was
• 34:24
  successful on Trump. That seems to be what counts
• 34:27
  what the what the people on the ground think of the American
• 34:30
  media is like, completely. Checked out Sisarita.
• 34:32
  I called the priest that I was I was just talking about and
• 34:36
  people are thrilled. People have hope.
• 34:38
  It seems like it's maybe putting the fear of God a little bit
• 34:40
  into the militants in Nigeria, that maybe the Nigerian
• 34:43
  government is not going to intervene, but President Trump's
• 34:46
  U.S. Military might drop a bomb on
• 34:49
  you if you're going to be savaging and kidnapping and
• 34:52
  murdering a bunch of helpless Christians in these more remote
• 34:55
  villages. People had just gotten used to
• 34:57
  it happening there, right? And I think if nothing else,
• 35:01
  it's created a lot of hope. And you know what people are
• 35:04
  saying now in Nigeria, they're like, don't stop.
• 35:06
  Like President Trump, don't. Thank you.
• 35:10
  They want him to keep bombing. Yeah, like, don't let it.
• 35:12
  Don't let this be something that you're just doing for your base
• 35:15
  just to look good. You know, Please, like, continue
• 35:20
  to help us. They're filled with so much hope
• 35:22
  and appreciation, but no one is sharing those stories.
• 35:26
  You can hear it from the voice of like the people.
• 35:28
  And they're on social media, They're sharing their videos.
• 35:32
  You know, they're filled with hope finally that things could
• 35:35
  be better. This has gone on for so long.
• 35:37
  And finally, like, the world is paying attention and the most
• 35:41
  powerful country in the world is actually, like, interested in
• 35:44
  helping. So I felt like it was such an
• 35:48
  answer to prayers, You know, all of a sudden, like the world is
• 35:53
  paying attention again, everyone is praying and then Trump
• 35:58
  intervenes. So I'm here to ask people to
• 36:01
  keep praying. It's not this is far from over.
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  This is so far from over. But I think the prayers odd is
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  When you said there have been, you have heard the worst
• 37:38
  stories. These are stories of jihadists.
• 37:43
  These are stories of people being killed by jihadists and I
• 37:49
  don't know, I don't want to. I don't think we need to do gory
• 37:52
  details, but I think people need to know what it looks like
• 37:55
  because you can hear the word murder or kill and that sounds
• 37:58
  bad. But I think we're desensitized
• 38:00
  and we just think, well, people kill people.
• 38:03
  Happens even here in the US. But what is what does it mean
• 38:06
  when we are talking about Christian persecution in
• 38:10
  Nigeria? We're talking about men, women,
• 38:14
  children, pregnant women, pregnant women.
• 38:19
  Like, not just, you know, there's war and people you know,
• 38:23
  might will die in a war, but this is so much more like
• 38:28
  there's a hatred, there's a strong hatred.
• 38:31
  This is, these are not just land disputes like they are often
• 38:34
  times trying to say like on the media, like the way in which
• 38:38
  people are being killed is brutal, is quite frankly just
• 38:44
  seems so demonic to me to RIP over open a pregnant woman's
• 38:51
  stomach. That's not just war.
• 38:54
  There is, there is no war. You would think Nigeria is at
• 38:56
  war. There's no war in Nigeria.
• 38:59
  These are people just being slain.
• 39:01
  It's one sided. Why would 1,000,000 people be
• 39:04
  displaced? That looks like a country that's
• 39:07
  gone through war. And you've heard of that
• 39:10
  happening. Pregnant women targeted in that
• 39:13
  most torturous way. All the stories are there, the
• 39:16
  people that are experiencing it. All you have to do is go on
• 39:19
  social media. So it's, it's, it's sad to me
• 39:22
  that this is not what's being covered.
• 39:24
  It's sad to me that they're so focused on, you know, they're
• 39:30
  what I view is just disdain for Trump, that they're willing to
• 39:33
  just look away from what's happening.
• 39:39
  The focus should be on the people, the people that are
• 39:41
  suffering. Well, I think it's about Trump.
• 39:43
  I think it's also a fear of inflaming Muslim, Christian
• 39:47
  tension, I think, And there's some good motivation there
• 39:51
  because we shouldn't try to go to war with people of another
• 39:54
  faith, of course. We should try to live in peace
• 39:56
  with people of other faiths and, and any country or civilization
• 40:00
  is going to want there to be peace between different
• 40:02
  religions. You want religious liberty, you
• 40:03
  want people to have the opportunity to practice
• 40:05
  different religions. But when you have a religion
• 40:08
  that is prone again and again and again to domination and to
• 40:13
  violence and to jihad, then you have an existential question,
• 40:19
  right, That comes up again and again.
• 40:21
  Can we continue to do this and I think in Nigeria?
• 40:25
  That questions being answered, no, you can't continue to do it
• 40:28
  because jihad is not living at PMP.
• 40:31
  You know, there's no jihad living in peace.
• 40:33
  You have moderate Muslims who live in peace, of course, but
• 40:36
  when you have these jihadis, you cannot live in peace next to the
• 40:39
  jihadis. So much so that they'll kill
• 40:41
  their own because they don't think that they're extreme
• 40:42
  enough, right? When I was in Nigeria last this
• 40:48
  month and last April, one of the things that I was really taken
• 40:51
  by was how boldly they live their faith.
• 40:53
  So they're quite a lot of Muslims in Abuja, which is the
• 40:56
  capital, which is where I often fly into.
• 40:58
  And we're driving down the highway and you could just see
• 41:02
  Muslims that just parked in the middle of the highway, gotten
• 41:05
  out of their car. I'm just worshipping.
• 41:07
  They were praying. It's time for prayer.
• 41:09
  Stop wherever you are, right? The like entrances are being
• 41:12
  blocked. Traffic is building up like
• 41:15
  wherever they are and they don't care, like where they are, who's
• 41:19
  being inconvenienced. But it's just become the norm.
• 41:22
  So it was so bizarre to me because yeah, I'm Nigerian, but
• 41:24
  I'm American, you know, like I, I come there and I see certain
• 41:27
  things and I'm like, this is so crazy.
• 41:30
  Like, oh, it's just, it's just the norm.
• 41:32
  No one is, no one would dare tell them to move, right?
• 41:36
  Like. Would they tell Christians to
• 41:39
  move of Christians with that, do you think?
• 41:40
  Yeah, of course. So, so you're saying the dynamic
• 41:43
  is the Christians are kind of like the second class citizen in
• 41:47
  Nigeria? The president and vice president
• 41:50
  of Nigeria, both Muslim, but I think that I think it's just a
• 41:57
  religion. They have a their approach is
• 42:00
  much more, what's the word forceful, right?
• 42:06
  And I like there's a weird part of me that's kind of envious of
• 42:12
  their devotion to their faith. Like could you imagine if we
• 42:14
  have Christians live that boldly, worshipping the one true
• 42:19
  God, having him on our side, you know, Can you imagine like the
• 42:25
  mountains, we could move? There are some Christians who
• 42:27
  live like that, but there needs to be more of us there.
• 42:29
  Needs to be more of us. But, but then the difference, of
• 42:32
  course, is that the practice I, I mean, I think if you, if you
• 42:37
  live to be a really good Muslim, like a truly good a Muslim, then
• 42:41
  I think you will eventually, if you're open, find Jesus.
• 42:45
  But if you are living by the exact letter of the law of
• 42:49
  Islam, then you're going to very easily fall into extremism.
• 42:54
  I did hear that there are a high rate of Muslims being converted
• 42:57
  in Nigeria. It's amazing.
• 42:59
  I think part of that is a prayer too, right?
• 43:01
  Yes, prayer does count. I want to take a look right here
• 43:04
  at the at those congressional hearing that happened recently
• 43:08
  about the persecution happening in Nigeria.
• 43:11
  So this is at a congressional hearing last month, and this is
• 43:16
  a representative John James talking about what's happening
• 43:19
  in Nigeria. He's being introduced by
• 43:20
  Representative Chris Smith, who's an amazing guy.
• 43:23
  I know him. He's been a fantastic proponent
• 43:26
  of pro-life as well as religious liberty, the persecuted church.
• 43:29
  So let's take a quick listen. We are joined by the former
• 43:32
  chairman of the Africa Subcommittee, who is now over at
• 43:36
  the Energy and Commerce Committee, John James.
• 43:38
  And I want to thank him February of 2024.
• 43:40
  He had a very important hearing on Nigeria and other advocacy
• 43:43
  throughout that time. So floor is yours.
• 43:45
  Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for your personal invitation,
• 43:48
  for your leadership and for your friendship.
• 43:50
  I'm honored to be back. Psalms 9614 asks who will rise
• 43:57
  up for me against the wicked? Who?
• 43:59
  Will take a. Stand for me against evil doers,
• 44:02
  Nigeria. Is.
• 44:03
  Facing one of the gravest religious freedom crises in the
• 44:06
  world, as the former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs
• 44:10
  Committee on Africa, I have visited and have seen first hand
• 44:13
  the direness of the conditions in what is now the deadliest
• 44:16
  place on earth to be a Christian.
• 44:18
  They are targeted, displaced and killed simply for their faith.
• 44:23
  The ancient plea is there no help for the widow's son still
• 44:27
  echoes today. Since 2019, nearly 17,000
• 44:31
  Christians have been killed. In the first seven months of
• 44:34
  this year alone, hundreds more were murdered.
• 44:37
  On June 13th, during the Yellow Water Massacre, more than 280
• 44:41
  Christians were slaughtered in a single day.
• 44:43
  These are not isolated tragedies, but a sustained
• 44:47
  pattern of religiously motivated violence, often ignored or even
• 44:51
  enabled by the Nigerian government.
• 44:53
  Extremist groups like Boko Haram, Fulani militia militants
• 44:58
  and ISIS West Africa attack often without any meaningful
• 45:01
  intervention from authorities. The lack of response has created
• 45:05
  an atmosphere of impunity where Christians lives or Christians
• 45:09
  continue to live in constant threat and fear.
• 45:12
  Does it give people in Nigeria hope when they know that there's
• 45:15
  congressional hearings happening about this now?
• 45:17
  Absolutely everything he said is correct.
• 45:19
  This is a video clip that you were referencing earlier about
• 45:23
  the well, not just the video clip, but the story about the
• 45:26
  Catholic priest who saw the was in the village where the Fulani
• 45:29
  militants approached. Well, we are live here at Jibo.
• 45:35
  As you can see where the Jibo, there's a lot of pandemonia here
• 45:39
  because the Fulani men were seen this morning very close to our
• 45:43
  primary school. You can see the primary school.
• 45:45
  This is the place, the little Bush behind here that they were
• 45:48
  caught with guns, heavy armed Fulani men.
• 45:52
  This is an eyewitness one of my church leader the leader of the
• 45:56
  charismatic. Can you say something to the
• 45:58
  camera? What did you really see?
• 46:00
  We saw flan heavily vested we we bullet we are in loaded.
• 46:05
  We heavy heavy guns, heavy, heavy guns and you saw them
• 46:09
  camping there camping guns. Yeah a very close Bush to the
• 46:12
  primary school. So when we raised alarm as I've
• 46:14
  been to rob tour this passing through this appliance school
• 46:17
  site in between the sequel cell. Apparently they ran to this
• 46:19
  place and they begin to run just this morning on the first day of
• 46:25
  December. Is the school back in session?
• 46:29
  Are they scared? I would imagine, I mean,
• 46:33
  thankfully time has gone by and nothing has happened.
• 46:35
  So they're probably, but it's just like, why, Why are it's,
• 46:38
  why were they there? What were they doing, you know?
• 46:44
  So this was a new story that I saw that we were all
• 46:47
  celebrating. This was a few days ago.
• 46:49
  Nigeria says 130 kidnapped Catholic school children were
• 46:53
  freed. So this was in, again, northern
• 46:56
  Nigeria where it is more dangerous.
• 46:59
  It's Saint Mary's Catholic School in Papyri Aguara, and
• 47:03
  this is an image of the classroom that's empty because
• 47:06
  they've been kidnapped. It says Nigerian authorities
• 47:09
  have secured the release of 130 kidnapped school children taken
• 47:12
  by gunmen from a Catholic school in November.
• 47:14
  Just last month, of another 130 abducted Niger state pupils were
• 47:18
  released. None are left in captivity, they
• 47:20
  announced. So it looks to me, I mean,
• 47:23
  obviously with this was thrilling news because people
• 47:25
  thought these kids are going to get murdered, they're going to
• 47:26
  be enslaved. What's going to happen to these
• 47:28
  children? I mean, this is like Boko Haram
• 47:30
  kidnapping. The, it was over 200 Catholic
• 47:33
  schoolgirls or, or schoolgirls A decade or so ago.
• 47:37
  Do you think that this is there's a fact that the
• 47:41
  government helped negotiate the release somehow kind of kicked
• 47:45
  into action? Could this be connected to EU s
• 47:47
  s pressure campaign? I will say that they're feeling
• 47:51
  a lot more pressure. The world's eyes are on them.
• 47:58
  I guess the hope is that because of, if nothing else, because of
• 48:00
  that, you know, that they'll do more because they certainly
• 48:03
  weren't before. So I imagine that a lot of what
• 48:09
  we're going to be seeing, if we're seeing things being done
• 48:12
  by the government is because there's more pressure now,
• 48:15
  right? So the So the media coverage in
• 48:18
  the US, the prayers. Trump's willingness to like,
• 48:21
  intervene the. Political action, it matters.
• 48:25
  Tell us, Muji, about the work that you're doing more in
• 48:28
  southern Nigeria, but work to help those that are really the
• 48:32
  poorest of the poor in Nigeria. So my background was in
• 48:35
  nonprofit fundraising and when I was pregnant with my our first
• 48:41
  child, Maggie, who I named after my mom, I knew that I kind of
• 48:46
  wanted to be at home as much as possible, but I really enjoyed
• 48:49
  doing the nonprofit work. Providentially, my aunt reached
• 48:53
  out to me, who's a religious sister with the handmaids of the
• 48:55
  holy child Jesus, and she has an orphanage in Nigeria that has
• 49:00
  over 50 kids and they were in danger of closing.
• 49:04
  So the Nigerian government, Speaking of had taken back their
• 49:07
  funding, kind of just left them without any, without any kind of
• 49:12
  like funding to keep the children that they already had
• 49:16
  fed and, you know, able to raise them.
• 49:19
  So I used it felt like the timing was perfect.
• 49:22
  This is work that I knew how to do.
• 49:24
  I had the experience working alongside like CE OS and
• 49:27
  nonprofits. So I was pretty close to the end
• 49:30
  of my pregnancy. So I quit my job.
• 49:32
  I did the five O 1C3 paperwork so that we could be tax exempt
• 49:36
  and I founded the Okaja Foundation after my mom, who is
• 49:40
  Maggie Okaja. And it was in her memory.
• 49:44
  My mom was always a very generous person.
• 49:46
  She even after I moved here, she never forgot, you know, our
• 49:52
  family and friends and the less fortunate in Nigeria.
• 49:54
  So like I always tell the story of whenever we travel, you know,
• 49:57
  we're allotted to suitcases, but like half of 1 was mine and the
• 50:01
  rest of it was just things my mom was taking for people to go.
• 50:04
  So we started the foundation in her memory.
• 50:07
  And initially, we were just trying to keep their doors open,
• 50:09
  right? Like, we didn't want these kids
• 50:11
  to be homeless. And the sisters really were
• 50:12
  doing their best. But what happened is over time,
• 50:15
  like, it grew. We responded to, like, their
• 50:18
  basic needs, like, OK, like they're in the dark.
• 50:20
  Like it's been a year since they had electricity, really at the
• 50:23
  orphanage. At the orphanage.
• 50:24
  This is it's common this. Is your did you say your aunt
• 50:27
  my. Aunt, my late dad's sister,
• 50:29
  who's. Can I just ask another question
• 50:30
  about the orphanage and just what the plight of orphans is in
• 50:33
  Nigeria? You said 50 kids in this one
• 50:35
  particular orphanage that your aunt is just lovingly keeping
• 50:39
  afloat. What is the orphan situation
• 50:42
  like as far as you know it? And then where are these orphans
• 50:45
  from? What's their what's their story?
• 50:47
  I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of different stories, but what
• 50:49
  generally is the story? Sure.
• 50:50
  Yeah, it's true. Their stories varying.
• 50:52
  Some of them are truly orphaned and their parents have both
• 50:54
  passed away. We also see a lot of just
• 50:58
  children that are so poor that their parents had they kept
• 51:02
  them, they probably would have passed away just out of like
• 51:06
  they don't even have the money to feed them.
• 51:08
  We've taken in some kids that were so emaciated when they
• 51:10
  arrived that it was basically like a life or death decision.
• 51:15
  Whenever kids are brought in, they will never turn a child
• 51:19
  away. That has a true need.
• 51:21
  I think it's they always are working with like the police,
• 51:24
  off the police just to make sure that this is a situation where
• 51:29
  it's appropriate to take that child.
• 51:30
  We don't. They don't want to sell separate
• 51:31
  families. Some children have mentally ill
• 51:35
  parents to their stories. They vary a bit, but there is
• 51:42
  such poverty in Nigeria. It's it's frustrating because
• 51:45
  people have such a hunger for education, right?
• 51:49
  Like people have college degrees, but they can't find
• 51:53
  jobs. There's an area in particular
• 51:56
  where my aunt is where her orphanage is, like, there's just
• 51:59
  such such extreme poverty that these children that are actually
• 52:06
  her orphanage often times are weirdly, like, better taken care
• 52:10
  of than they would be if they were with their parents.
• 52:13
  It's a strange trade off when you think about it, right?
• 52:17
  And it's really sad. But the orphanage is beautiful
• 52:20
  in that they're raising these kids up in the faith.
• 52:24
  And now that's more important than ever and in the country
• 52:28
  where Christians are being persecuted.
• 52:30
  And if those kids weren't there like they're so they would be so
• 52:33
  vulnerable. You know who there are a few
• 52:38
  instances where children were taken because there is child
• 52:41
  trafficking. So they can't be, God forbid
• 52:44
  like they a child should never be on the street in the 1st
• 52:46
  place but. Is that a big problem in
• 52:48
  Nigeria? Child trafficking.
• 52:50
  It happens. It happens.
• 52:52
  And the kids at the orphanage, are they all ages?
• 52:54
  Yeah. So from infancy up until 18, so
• 52:59
  my foundation, we cover all the homes expenses, medical
• 53:04
  expenses. Some of them have HIV, others
• 53:08
  have come in because there are so malnourished during the
• 53:12
  during like their infancy that there are complications as a
• 53:15
  result of it. So we cover their medical
• 53:18
  expenses, their school fees after they reach the age we pay
• 53:22
  for them to go to university. So all the kids will either go
• 53:25
  to university or we have a few that are in the seminary.
• 53:29
  We have one that entered the she's just starting vocation,
• 53:33
  being a sister. Amazing.
• 53:35
  So the sisters are doing good work.
• 53:37
  Like we're just kind of here. And when I say we, it's like the
• 53:40
  community of the faithful, right?
• 53:43
  I feel like I'm in such a privileged position to unite our
• 53:47
  two communities because we are one.
• 53:49
  You know, we have that shared faith.
• 53:52
  We're often praying for one another.
• 53:54
  Like the children attended daily Mass and are praying for
• 53:57
  intentions for their friends and family, for their friends in
• 54:00
  America. And I'll often, you know, have
• 54:03
  them praying for the children that are in the orphanage.
• 54:06
  And it's really beautiful to be like this uniter because it does
• 54:10
  seem like this is the reason I came to the US, right?
• 54:16
  Like I was that little child that was helpless.
• 54:18
  Thankfully, I had someone that was able to bring me to the US
• 54:22
  and then now I'm, I guess I'm an orphan myself now and my aunt
• 54:26
  has become my mother and she's also become like these
• 54:29
  children's mother. They call her grandma.
• 54:31
  It's really cute. And it's just so interesting
• 54:33
  because these are sisters that are running the orphanage, but
• 54:37
  they have caretakers and stuff. But it's interesting.
• 54:40
  I don't know, I can think about it.
• 54:41
  Like they will never have children of their own.
• 54:43
  Like they've devoted their life to Christ, but they are such
• 54:46
  mothers to these to these kids, you know, like they're clinging
• 54:50
  to them like, like their mothers, they're caring for
• 54:52
  them. It's, it's beautiful and yeah,
• 54:55
  it's just been a, it's been beautiful to do this with other
• 54:59
  people that are looking for something good and true to give
• 55:03
  to. And I guess the plus side is I'm
• 55:06
  doing this myself. So like there's like no
• 55:08
  overhead. You know, the money just really
• 55:10
  just does go there. And we've been able to do some
• 55:12
  really amazing things like last year they're close to reaching
• 55:16
  capacity and we have our yearly gala.
• 55:19
  We had ours in December earlier this year but we raised the
• 55:23
  money to build a new buildings like 3000 square foot building
• 55:27
  and it took like a year and like $30,000 like. $30,000 for a 3000
• 55:33
  square foot building. And it's $1.00 to about 1500
• 55:35
  naira. Sounds like a great deal.
• 55:38
  Yeah, it is. And how many kids can be served
• 55:41
  and lived there? Oh, gosh, yeah.
• 55:43
  There are many rooms. So as the orphanage grows, as
• 55:45
  more kids are brought in, they'll never, they won't have
• 55:48
  to worry for a long time about space.
• 55:49
  We've actually extended our mission a bit because we
• 55:52
  realized like, things are so insecure in Nigeria.
• 55:55
  There was a huge protest recently, but there was a cash
• 56:01
  shortage, shortage and food shortage and the cost of food
• 56:04
  just continues to like inflate. So we realized like, it's great
• 56:07
  that we're helping them, but like we kind of need to like
• 56:09
  help them help themselves, right?
• 56:11
  If this is going to be like something that's sustainable for
• 56:13
  the long term. So we actually had this huge
• 56:15
  prod project that last year's gala funded where we also
• 56:21
  providentially, they happen to be gifted land, gifted a huge
• 56:24
  deal of land by the Bishop, and we turned that into a farm.
• 56:27
  Amazing. So it's new, but it's starting
• 56:29
  to flourish. It's feeding the home.
• 56:31
  They're using it to feed their community.
• 56:34
  That's amazing. What?
• 56:37
  What are you making on the farm? Or what are they not like?
• 56:39
  They have like fruits and vegetables, yams like these huge
• 56:42
  like potatoes they've planted palm trees.
• 56:46
  Like Sister Rita is amazing because God is just speaking to
• 56:50
  her in such a way. I don't even understand how she
• 56:52
  remembers half of what she remembers.
• 56:53
  She's almost 90, but she felt like the whole thing was
• 56:57
  divinely inspired and that this is something that, no, they, the
• 57:01
  people have never seen a farm like this before.
• 57:03
  That's we're importing things from Ghana, things that will
• 57:06
  thrive in Nigeria but don't, aren't actually like native to
• 57:09
  that place. So they're all these and they
• 57:13
  have animals. So we have chickens and goats.
• 57:15
  And our hope is just really to be able to set them up because
• 57:19
  it really doesn't cost that much, just set them up in this
• 57:21
  way. But after they've been set up,
• 57:23
  they'll be able to, you know, have their own revenues so that
• 57:26
  they can keep this home sustainable for.
• 57:28
  It's amazing for. A long time, and that's what
• 57:30
  we're starting to do with the second orphanage now.
• 57:34
  So people donate, they can help with future orphanages and maybe
• 57:37
  more farms. Is that down the line?
• 57:41
  I. Think that I just I never plan
• 57:45
  on growing. What often happens is I take a
• 57:49
  trip out there and IA need just become so glaringly obvious.
• 57:54
  So what ended up happening with the second orphanage is whenever
• 57:59
  I travel, I go with the photographer and a videographer
• 58:02
  and the one that I worked with recently, she said I know of an
• 58:06
  orphanage. They just lost their founder.
• 58:11
  Her husband, his, her widower doesn't have experience in this,
• 58:15
  but he's really doing his best to take care of them.
• 58:18
  Can you help? And I was like, I don't, I don't
• 58:22
  know, like we're just kind of doing what we can for, for this
• 58:25
  orphanage here. I don't know if I don't want to
• 58:27
  take anything away from them. I want to make sure we can care
• 58:30
  for them as best as we can. The next day, I heard back from
• 58:35
  this really that generous donor that helped actually fund the
• 58:38
  building that we put up and in response to an appeal.
• 58:41
  And he's like, you know, Mooji, like you're doing a really good
• 58:44
  job with Divine Providence Home. I think they're in good hands
• 58:47
  with you. I kind of want to help in
• 58:48
  orphanage. It doesn't have a lot of
• 58:49
  support. And I was like, wow, sometimes
• 58:53
  God makes things like really like clear to us.
• 58:57
  So Long story short, I ended up connecting them and he think he
• 59:02
  donated like $4000. He paid for solar panels because
• 59:05
  they were also in the dark, paid for their solar panels.
• 59:08
  I paid for them to restart their chicken business that the
• 59:10
  government had shut down because they said it was too close to
• 59:12
  the children's sleeping quarters.
• 59:14
  So they were trying, they were trying to generate their own
• 59:17
  revenue. How many kids?
• 59:18
  They have 25 kids. And what are the ages?
• 59:21
  Also infancy to like 18. And who are the caretakers
• 59:25
  there? It's the.
• 59:25
  It's the and it's the widower, and then he has some people that
• 59:28
  are living there to kind of help out.
• 59:30
  So now we're working with them. It's just amazing how far $4000
• 59:35
  can go. It's it's kind of the beautiful.
• 59:37
  Yeah. It's, it's, I imagine Nigerians
• 59:39
  don't love how weak their currency is.
• 59:42
  But in terms of like, wanting to help out there, it makes it
• 59:44
  easier for, you know, for Americans to do so.
• 59:45
  And I think that's why a lot of people are able to help and like
• 59:48
  to help. It's been really, it's been
• 59:51
  really beautiful. So I visited them earlier this
• 59:54
  month and they didn't know that I was coming this other
• 59:56
  orphanage for store just destiny.
• 59:59
  And so it was like, I was like, oh, let's do a little video
• 1:00:01
  chat. And they're like, Oh, we're just
• 1:00:03
  chatting from the from America. And then I walked in through
• 1:00:06
  like their front gate while they're chatting with me, just
• 1:00:08
  like lost it. And they were so happy.
• 1:00:10
  And so that they didn't know the news that we were sharing
• 1:00:12
  because they're renting their property and the property owners
• 1:00:16
  told them that they wanted the land back for their family.
• 1:00:20
  So the only reason that they hadn't been kicked out yet is
• 1:00:21
  because the founders died. So they kind of felt bad for
• 1:00:24
  them, but they've been living on borrowed time for a while now.
• 1:00:28
  So when I went there, I shared some good news.
• 1:00:30
  Like, OK, we had our gala. We raised, people are very
• 1:00:32
  generous and raised quite a bit of money.
• 1:00:35
  We want to we want to use it to bless you guys.
• 1:00:37
  So we're going to pay for your school fees for a year.
• 1:00:39
  We're to pay for your rent for a year.
• 1:00:42
  Their couches, I mean, they were living in squalor and so we're
• 1:00:45
  going to pay for like new beds and couches and at this point it
• 1:00:47
  was over. Like they totally lost it and
• 1:00:49
  we're so happy and I'm like the. Kids were exciting.
• 1:00:51
  Yes, we haven't even told you the best part yet, and we're
• 1:00:53
  going to use a portion of this to buy you guys land so that you
• 1:00:56
  can have your own permanent home.
• 1:00:59
  And they're singing and rejoicing and it's all in video.
• 1:01:04
  I'll share them at some. Point.
• 1:01:05
  Do you have it? I'll send it to you.
• 1:01:07
  OK, it would be so fun to. Oh my gosh, that's.
• 1:01:09
  Beautiful. We include in the edit Harris.
• 1:01:30
  It is so beautiful. I mean, and they're not a
• 1:01:32
  Catholic orphanage, but they're strong Christians.
• 1:01:34
  And I could just see the, I mean, Lyle, when I was there the
• 1:01:38
  first time I was pregnant and they prayed over me like this is
• 1:01:43
  just like a teenage boy and an orphan, an orphan.
• 1:01:47
  And it's just like your baby. You will not die in the name of
• 1:01:51
  Jesus. Like like the lady saved?
• 1:01:53
  No. Just in case.
• 1:01:55
  Just in case. Oh, such a sweet can.
• 1:01:57
  Travel well then he like he was just praying over me with such
• 1:02:01
  strength and conviction. I've never seen anything like
• 1:02:04
  that before. And I was like, oh, Goddess, no
• 1:02:08
  wonder, No wonder like that. These people were brought to us.
• 1:02:11
  These children are just praying so fervently that God is
• 1:02:15
  answering their prayers, you know?
• 1:02:17
  And it's just been beautiful how each and in every way we happen
• 1:02:21
  to grow. It's just been so clearly
• 1:02:24
  divinely inspired. So yeah.
• 1:02:27
  How many orphanages would you say?
• 1:02:29
  Is there any sense of how many orphanages even exist in
• 1:02:33
  Nigeria? I don't know.
• 1:02:35
  Because it sounds like the state, the government doesn't
• 1:02:38
  have like a foster care program or what's the, what are the,
• 1:02:41
  what is the government safety net like, if any, in Nigeria?
• 1:02:46
  It's a good question. I don't know, but it's not
• 1:02:50
  comforting to know that they would stop funding an orphanage
• 1:02:54
  just run by religious, you know, like they did at some point.
• 1:02:58
  And then I just stopped. Like you can't, you can't do
• 1:03:00
  that. And they're taking care of kids
• 1:03:01
  already. They already have the kids.
• 1:03:03
  Like what are they going to do now?
• 1:03:03
  They can't send them onto the street.
• 1:03:05
  So that was the initial reason. But so we just projects to kind
• 1:03:10
  of just meet the basic needs were initially.
• 1:03:12
  And then now we've gotten to the point where we want to see
• 1:03:16
  whomever we help, we want to make it as sustainable as
• 1:03:19
  possible. We want to give them the tools
• 1:03:21
  to be able to like, raise their own money, right?
• 1:03:24
  It's beautiful. So that they can actually have
• 1:03:26
  longevity, because I think that's the way to go.
• 1:03:28
  Yes. What's your hope long term for
• 1:03:30
  Nigeria? Oh, gosh, that people will be
• 1:03:35
  safe, That people no longer have to flee their homes and live in
• 1:03:40
  fear of being killed because of their faith or because some
• 1:03:47
  people feel like they're not practicing their faith enough.
• 1:03:49
  Right? Because I feel for those Muslims
• 1:03:52
  that are viewed as moderate, like they're apparently they're
• 1:03:55
  just as much of a problem. I pray that the people are safe.
• 1:04:00
  I pray. I mean, if we're really praying
• 1:04:02
  here, I pray that people, the people that are, so they just
• 1:04:08
  want to be able to take care of themselves, right?
• 1:04:11
  And take care of their families. You go to school for such a long
• 1:04:15
  period of time and it's so long because there's constant
• 1:04:18
  strikes. So a degree that should be 4
• 1:04:20
  years might take like 8 years, but they stick it out.
• 1:04:24
  They know it's the norm. They know like, oh, we're on
• 1:04:25
  strike again for X. And on strike because?
• 1:04:28
  Because the teachers, there's like labor disputes, like the
• 1:04:31
  teachers are striking because the government's not paying them
• 1:04:33
  enough and they're making like, nothing.
• 1:04:35
  But it's a, you know, the students are the ones that are
• 1:04:37
  just kind of have to just wait it out until they're back on.
• 1:04:40
  So then they graduate with degrees, but then there's no
• 1:04:42
  jobs. So my prayer is that a
• 1:04:44
  government can fix all these things, right, is to have a
• 1:04:48
  government Nigeria run by government officials that truly
• 1:04:52
  care about the people, right, that truly care about the people
• 1:04:57
  that want to make the country better, to uplift Nigeria
• 1:05:00
  because it's such a beautiful country.
• 1:05:02
  It's such a beautiful country. I think of the Nigeria that I
• 1:05:05
  knew as a child, the Nigeria that I would visit, that filled
• 1:05:08
  me with such hope because I could see Christ everywhere.
• 1:05:11
  Like I saw the way the people worshipped, the kindness to
• 1:05:15
  goodness of Nigerian people, and that's all still there.
• 1:05:18
  But there's such fear. There's fear from mothers and
• 1:05:23
  fathers who don't know how they'll be able to feed their
• 1:05:25
  children. Their fear.
• 1:05:27
  There's fear in people that are being targeted and living in
• 1:05:29
  these areas of north. They're Christians that are
• 1:05:31
  still practicing on the way here.
• 1:05:34
  My friend was like, why do you think these Christians haven't
• 1:05:36
  left yet? Some of them, they'll speak
• 1:05:38
  about it if you look on social media.
• 1:05:39
  They're like, this is our home. We're not going to leave, we're
• 1:05:43
  going to stay here and we're going to worship.
• 1:05:45
  There's some videos that are shared of like and I I'll share
• 1:05:48
  it with you of people that are maybe you actually maybe I saw.
• 1:05:51
  You let's watch it. Yeah, I was so inspired when I
• 1:05:54
  saw this video and people were really inspired to the one.
• 1:05:59
  This is one of them. I'm I'm sure there's others like
• 1:06:01
  it, but this is in Nigeria. They're brave, they're brave and
• 1:06:44
  they're praying. They're praying and they're
• 1:06:46
  asking for our prayers. It's amazing, and it's amazing
• 1:06:49
  how the prayers matter, the awareness does make an impact,
• 1:06:54
  the public policy matters. All of it matters.
• 1:06:56
  And then I just love what you're doing.
• 1:06:58
  I love what your foundation is doing.
• 1:06:59
  How can people support you and your foundation?
• 1:07:03
  Well, you can go to our website, theokajafoundation.org.
• 1:07:06
  We have a lot of beautiful footage of the children.
• 1:07:08
  They're also cute and of the sisters.
• 1:07:11
  And you know, our different initiatives, one of the most
• 1:07:14
  recent ones. This actually just came from a
• 1:07:16
  trip that I had in April. The community, I just want to
• 1:07:21
  acknowledge all of those that are in my computer in Ventura
• 1:07:25
  County, but also just like the faithful throughout the country.
• 1:07:28
  Now that I kind of partnered with us and helping with our
• 1:07:31
  mission. So we have like a little local
• 1:07:34
  vitamin drive because these mothers that are pregnant, they
• 1:07:37
  can't afford prenatals. So often time like times these
• 1:07:40
  children are born with conditions that very well easily
• 1:07:43
  could have been a avoided had they had prenatal vitamins.
• 1:07:47
  Like you're a mother too. Like yes, my doctor was always
• 1:07:49
  on me. Are you taking your?
• 1:07:50
  Prenatals are always taking your.
• 1:07:51
  Prenatals and just malnutrition problem.
• 1:07:52
  Malnutrition as well. So we have the vitamin drive to
• 1:07:55
  least help, you know, in that regard.
• 1:07:58
  And since I went to the hospital in the Catholic maternity
• 1:08:01
  hospital across the street where a lot of the kids of the orphans
• 1:08:03
  were born and I was handling hand delivering these vitamins
• 1:08:06
  in April. And while I was there, I just
• 1:08:11
  finished doing that and I was walking out and the priest that
• 1:08:14
  was giving me the tour mentioned that one of the young ladies had
• 1:08:19
  just had a baby, but the baby died.
• 1:08:22
  So I gave my condolences and was leaving.
• 1:08:26
  And the thought just occurred to me to like, like kind of ask a
• 1:08:29
  couple more questions. And I asked, well, what
• 1:08:32
  happened? And I think thanks be to God for
• 1:08:36
  the Holy Spirit. And like, even like, they're
• 1:08:37
  really gentle nudges, right, that we get sometimes.
• 1:08:39
  Because had I not asked, had I not asked that question, I would
• 1:08:42
  never have known what was going on.
• 1:08:44
  Her baby had died at childbirth. It was AC section, but the baby
• 1:08:49
  didn't survive. And she had been detained for an
• 1:08:54
  inability to pay her medical bill.
• 1:08:57
  So at that point she'd been there for almost two months.
• 1:08:59
  At the hospital At the hospital after her baby had died.
• 1:09:02
  After her baby had died. By herself.
• 1:09:05
  Her mother, so the day that we were there, then her mother was
• 1:09:07
  there. And I think often times you
• 1:09:09
  might have family members that'll.
• 1:09:10
  Come and just in a little room like where, where is she?
• 1:09:12
  That's an even. Yeah, it's terrible because
• 1:09:15
  they're in the room with other mothers with their babies,
• 1:09:17
  right? So she had lost her child at
• 1:09:20
  childbirth, and she's sharing this room with other mothers who
• 1:09:23
  had successfully given birth. So she's like, is she tied to a
• 1:09:27
  hospital bed or she can walk? She just can't leave the
• 1:09:30
  premises. And I don't know to what ends,
• 1:09:32
  you know, they go to to make sure people don't leave.
• 1:09:35
  I've never I've never heard about that.
• 1:09:37
  But it's it's kind of a bizarre thing because often times in
• 1:09:41
  Nigeria, they won't necessarily treat you unless you have the
• 1:09:44
  money up front. So the fact that this hospital
• 1:09:48
  was even treating patients before paying is rare and in a
• 1:09:53
  strange for charity, right. So obviously I'd never heard of
• 1:10:00
  anything like this before. And it was really and I was
• 1:10:02
  pregnant right at the time and it was like, wow.
• 1:10:07
  So we paid for her release, obviously, because it's like,
• 1:10:09
  that's crazy, like. How much was it to get her
• 1:10:12
  release? It was. $400.00 for her SO.
• 1:10:14
  $400.00 just to pay the bill for the C-section.
• 1:10:17
  That was the reason she was detained for two months at this
• 1:10:19
  hospital and not allowed to leave because she hadn't paid.
• 1:10:22
  To give some perspective like these women are make something
• 1:10:25
  like $25.00 a month. 25 bucks a month is what she makes or what
• 1:10:30
  most women make. And then one naira is about
• 1:10:32
  1500, sorry, $1.00 is about 1500 naira.
• 1:10:35
  So it's a lot of money in Nigeria, like $400.00 doesn't
• 1:10:39
  seem like much for us, but in Nigeria, especially for someone
• 1:10:42
  who makes like nothing, that's a, that's a she.
• 1:10:44
  Would never. Yeah.
• 1:10:46
  She would never be able to raise.
• 1:10:48
  So in communities come together and and try to do what they can
• 1:10:52
  for the women. That's whomever is stuck there.
• 1:10:54
  It's not just women, but we are helping specifically in this way
• 1:10:59
  because our mission is geared towards children.
• 1:11:01
  So these are mothers that have just given birth and yeah, maybe
• 1:11:04
  her childhood passed away, but she is still just giving birth.
• 1:11:07
  Some of the other mothers, most of them will survive the
• 1:11:09
  children and they're detained there with, with their baby, but
• 1:11:14
  with her, with her, especially as a mother and as a woman.
• 1:11:18
  I was like, she is there in that room having to watch like all
• 1:11:21
  these other women nurture and and like love on their babies.
• 1:11:26
  And she's just lost hers. So we started the Saint Gerard
• 1:11:29
  Fund for maternity fund for women who are stuck there.
• 1:11:34
  And St. Gerard is a patron St. of
• 1:11:36
  children and expectant mothers. So I, we named the fund after
• 1:11:40
  him and we asked for his intercession as we're doing
• 1:11:42
  this. But it's, I mean, just this
• 1:11:46
  morning I was telling you like I got a text from the sister.
• 1:11:50
  So the way that we do it is there's a sister and sister
• 1:11:52
  reaches order with the handmaids of the holy child Jesus, who
• 1:11:55
  works at the hospital and will contact us if there's a mother
• 1:11:59
  that seems like will not be able to pay the entirety of their
• 1:12:03
  bill. So they give them a little bit
• 1:12:05
  of time just to see if they're able to.
• 1:12:07
  And then once it reaches a point where like, OK, they're that
• 1:12:12
  they can't contribute anymore, the sister will reach out to me
• 1:12:17
  and just let me know and I'll we'll send the money donations
• 1:12:21
  are made into the fund and we just pull from that fund to pay
• 1:12:23
  for the release. So this month alone, that was
• 1:12:25
  the 6th mother that we released the 6th mother, the 6th mother.
• 1:12:28
  And when I talk about like providential growth, that sister
• 1:12:34
  that I initially started working with got transferred and I was
• 1:12:38
  like, Oh my goodness, like we just started going with this
• 1:12:40
  thing and we had like a good relationship.
• 1:12:42
  Like why? Why is that happening?
• 1:12:44
  Well, Lila, she got transferred to a hospital that my
• 1:12:47
  grandfather founded, like some miles away.
• 1:12:52
  So it's not, it's no longer operated by my family.
• 1:12:55
  It's not operated by the Sisters of the Hammonds of the Holy
• 1:12:58
  Child, Jesus, her order. But I was like.
• 1:13:01
  That so now you're doing 2 hospitals.
• 1:13:03
  So now we're doing 2 hospitals and, and I mean, but this is
• 1:13:08
  happening, this is happening all the.
• 1:13:10
  Major a lot of work for you and by extension us people
• 1:13:13
  listening. What a blessing.
• 1:13:15
  What a blessing for people to be have the opportunity to support
• 1:13:19
  and help. And it's, it is a blessing to
• 1:13:21
  me. Like it's, I, I feel so
• 1:13:24
  privileged to be able to do this and just to see like the miracle
• 1:13:30
  that the miracles that God is working by connecting the
• 1:13:33
  faithful, you know, like we are, we are one.
• 1:13:36
  Like we're separated by oceans and, you know, we're living very
• 1:13:40
  different lives. But like we all are praying to
• 1:13:45
  our Lord and Savior and have such a love for Christ.
• 1:13:47
  And it's, it's, yeah. I don't know.
• 1:13:50
  It's beautiful to be able to do this.
• 1:13:52
  And I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm just here to
• 1:13:56
  respond to whatever the need, the need happens to be.
• 1:13:58
  But the reality is like, the more support we get, the more
• 1:14:01
  that we're able to do, you know? You're amazing, especially for
• 1:14:07
  eight under 8 or 8 under 9. Excuse me, sorry.
• 1:14:10
  Might as well be 9 like you're. Going to be there eventually,
• 1:14:13
  right? But six under 86, under 8 and
• 1:14:16
  you go to Nigeria once or twice a year and you're pregnant or
• 1:14:20
  with a baby every time. Thank you, Muji, you're
• 1:14:25
  inspiring to me and I know people listening.
• 1:14:27
  I can't wait to check out the foundation.
• 1:14:30
  Give us the URL once again. It's the Okaja foundation.org
• 1:14:33
  and that's OK AJAJA Foundation dot.
• 1:14:36
  Org amazing. Thank you so much.
• 1:14:38
  Thank you, Lila, honestly, because Nigeria needs your
• 1:14:41
  voice. A lot of the mothers that we've
• 1:14:46
  released are single mothers. I'm finding as this is going on,
• 1:14:52
  the culture seems to be shifting a bit and they're more single
• 1:14:57
  mothers than they were few generations ago.
• 1:15:00
  And I think that Nigeria needs like your pro-life voice.
• 1:15:04
  I think that they need, they need someone to show how
• 1:15:12
  children should be valued because they're also Paul,
• 1:15:16
  there's also policy that's changing in Nigeria.
• 1:15:18
  So earlier this year, abortions have always been illegal in
• 1:15:22
  Nigeria, but that recently changed and it's now allowed in
• 1:15:28
  instances of rape or incest. So I was looking this up and I'm
• 1:15:34
  just reading about it over the weekend.
• 1:15:37
  So that's very new. That's never been the case
• 1:15:39
  before like. Like if the baby's conceived in
• 1:15:42
  a bad way, in a horrible way, then it's OK to kill the baby.
• 1:15:46
  And then it just starts opening like the pressures.
• 1:15:49
  And it's like if you've made the deal with the devil and now you
• 1:15:52
  start to deal more. And it's like, it's not being
• 1:15:54
  concealed. I'm reading the articles and
• 1:15:57
  they're like, great, this is a great stepping stone.
• 1:15:58
  This is a great first step. I'm like, Oh my goodness, like,
• 1:16:04
  And their abortions that are taking place, like in clinics,
• 1:16:08
  people, you know, these young mothers are going to clinics
• 1:16:11
  that are not reputable. So they're dying or they're
• 1:16:17
  experiencing complications. It's happening, it's happening
• 1:16:22
  there and it's happening more and more.
• 1:16:24
  And I think that it's important that as a culture seems to shift
• 1:16:28
  in the direction that's bad. We advocate for life, you know,
• 1:16:33
  in Nigeria and yeah, it's, it's important.
• 1:16:39
  Well, as we work on expanding at live action, I feel like we're
• 1:16:42
  always drinking from a firehose here in the US because of just
• 1:16:46
  the constant need. But I've always wanted we do
• 1:16:49
  some international work. I used to travel more
• 1:16:50
  internationally before my kids and family.
• 1:16:53
  Now I have more travel within the US, but we would love to do
• 1:16:57
  more so maybe we can find some ways to work together that.
• 1:17:00
  'D be wonderful. For Nigeria, thank you so much
• 1:17:03
  Muji. Thank you, Lila.
• 1:17:05
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• 1:17:07
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• 1:17:15
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