“I need God with me in every situation.”

Fadi spent a few years in the village of Zeleved. Her life there was typical of the lives of thousands of people trying to survive in these border areas: during the day they work in and around their houses and farms. But before sunset, they climb the surrounding mountains to spend the night there, for fear of yet another Boko Haram attack.

“We had to pass the night in the mountains. In the morning we would come back to our houses and work on our farms. But at nightfall, we go to the forest to sleep there.”

Living like this was simply not sustainable. After yet another violent attack, Fadi and her family had had enough. They packed their few belongings and fled yet again, this time to the town of Koza.

But the displacement was not the end of the hardships. That year, Fadi’s sister was kidnapped.

“Her name was Vusa, she was 14 years when they kidnapped her. She went to the farm with her friends. She did not return back with them. Some people say they have killed her, they did not leave her alive. Some people say they can’t kill a young lady like that. They will just marry her like their wife. We don’t know what to say.”

“When my mother heard this information, she did not know how to deal with it. After two weeks she died. Because she was brooding too much about how we left our village. And she witnessed, many of our neighbours, they killed them. She saw them, their blood on the ground. And then they kidnapped her daughter. So, she got hypertension and she died.”

Fadi is not unscathed. “Even when I want to sleep, I can’t. Many things come like a vision or dreams. And every time I am crying because I am an orphan. My father has died, and the BH (Boko Haram) kidnapped my sister, and my mother also died. I am the only one.”

In 2021 Open Doors delivered relief aid to 449 Christian families like Fadi in Koza in Far North Cameroon. Receiving the emergency aid was one of a few happy moments for Fadi these days. It had been a long time since she and other displaced people received help.

“I got rice, fish and a bucket, and soap and corn, a mat, and wrapper and vegetable oil. If you are not in your village, first thing, living in the village of other people is very difficult. We don’t have farming to do there, to get something to eat… All these things, I am surprised for getting it in my life today. I am very, very happy. Especially this wrapper. It is two years today, since I have not gotten a new wrapper like this. But you gave it to us today. I am very, very happy.”

Fadi could ask for many things, instead she asks: “I need that God stays with me in every situation, to do His wonderful power in my life. For me to see His face at the end of the day.”

During the first seven months of 2021 Open Doors distributed emergency aid to more than 3,000 Christians in Cameroon. This aid helps Christian leaders who are supporting church members to deal with persecution and its realities.