He’s an East African researcher for Open Doors. The work has counterintuitively affected his faith.
Nearly two decades ago, Fikiru joined a prayer and Bible study group in his hometown in East Africa, an experience that led him to accept Christ as his personal savior. But Fikiru soon found that other Christians in the area vehemently opposed his and the rest of his community’s conversions. Over a period of months, these Christians accused the others of blasphemy, forced their spouses to divorce them and their families to cut them off, and in some cases beat and killed them.
One Sunday, in the aftermath of this persecution, several staff members of the global Christian persecution advocacy group Open Doors stopped by.
“We’d never met them,” said Fikiru. “We’d never heard of them.”
But Open Doors had heard of his church and how it was suffering. They had a simple message for Fikiru: You are not alone.
Within a couple of years, Fikiru (CT is using his pseudonym for security reasons) took a job at Open Doors.
“I’m trying to pay back for the love and concern that was shown to me while I was a persecuted believer,” said the research analyst for East Africa, an area that runs from Eritrea to Mozambique. “I do this role with passion and spirit.”
Fikiru recently spoke with global managing editor Morgan Lee about how he fact-checks persecution claims, the surprising impact this work has had on his faith, and how he cares for staff members who are worn down from this work.
How do you help staff who get burned out or secondarily traumatized hearing so many stories of devastation, destruction, and violence?
Prayer. One of our core values emphasizes that we are people of prayer. We know that we are serving the Lord, and these people are suffering for their faith. They are …
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