Benin is a small country bordering western Nigeria. It is the birthplace of voodoo, and Christianity is viewed by many in the north as a threat to their traditional beliefs. Christianity is considered a foreign religion that steals a community’s youth and prevents them from being properly initiated into the local tribes. Persecution is prevalent in the north. New converts to Christianity are beaten and sometimes killed, while church buildings are routinely destroyed.
Marc, aged 21, battled a chronic illness and could not find a cure. He visited doctors and voodoo practitioners, but nothing seemed to help. Then a friend urged him to come to church. When Marc heard the gospel, he became a follower of Christ and was physically healed, later deciding to receive baptism.
When he returned home from the baptismal service, his voodooist father had hired people to beat him. His father was upset that Marc, his oldest son, would forsake his duties to the family’s voodoo rituals and told him to leave. Marc stayed at a relative’s house, but some family members locked him in a room and tried to force him to return to pagan practices. Eventually he escaped through a window.
Today, he lives with a pastor’s family, is trying to find a job, and hopes someday to preach the gospel. He said, “What made me to have courage is Jesus says in the Bible, ‘I will never abandon you.’”
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