Like many Americans, I remember the terrorist group “Boko Haram” because of their kidnapping of 276 Nigerian school girls in 2014. The world recoiled in horror, but eventually the news cycle moved on.
So I was shocked anew when friends in Fairbanks, Alaska, reported early this month that a priest friend had been kidnapped in Nigeria by the still-active extremist organization.
My friend Chris posted a picture on Facebook, she and her husband standing with the tall, handsome African man, Father Alphonsus Afina, who served parishes in the Diocese of Fairbanks from 2017 to 2024. She asked for prayers.
“He had the most amazing smile,” Chris’ husband Jim told me. “He and Chris hit it off really well. We had a daughter about his age, and he was amazed that she, a girl from Alaska, had once spent a semester abroad in Africa.”
“I could be your mother,” Chris told the priest jokingly, and calling her “mom” became his laughing response as he became close to the family.
While in Fairbanks, Father Afina served in many rural Alaskan villages. But he also obtained a degree in counseling, intending to return to help trauma victims in Nigeria’s Diocese of Maiduguri, a Boko Haram stronghold.
He himself became a kidnapping victim of Boko Haram on June 1. According to OSV News, the Bishop of Maiduguri spoke to him briefly after his abduction, but as of late June, the priest had not been heard from.
The story is a reminder of how interconnected we are in this broken world.
Interconnected in the world
I worked in the Diocese of Fairbanks decades ago as a Jesuit Volunteer. Chris and Jim, who later married, became my friends as they were volunteer teachers at the same Jesuit boarding school.
Most of our students were Yup’ik speakers, with English as their second language. Their Eskimo villages had no high schools then, and no roads joined those rural towns. Most students grew up without indoor plumbing and “honey buckets” were the euphemistic alternative.
I, too, met my life partner among the Jesuit Volunteers at the mission school. We had no TV or telephones and modern amenities were few. Yet we were gifted by the remarkable students we met and essentially had a third-world experience in a U.S. state.
Today, the Diocese of Fairbanks has changed, but is still a mission diocese, with far too few priests to serve the many small, isolated Alaska Native villages. The Jesuits who once served the diocese in large numbers are mostly gone, and ironically, several priests from Africa, once thought of as “the missions,” have become missionaries there themselves.
Vatican News reports 20% of the world’s Catholics live in Africa, with 35 million Catholics in Nigeria, challenging our Euro-American image of church.
Praying for a safe return
Chris said when Father Afina arrived in Fairbanks, it was 30 degrees, a balmy day for spring in the far North. The priest was freezing, Chris said, and was amazed to see folks walking around in shorts and sandals.
“And he didn’t care for the food,” Chris added, “but as one of the African priests said jokingly, ‘at least no one is shooting at us.'”
That humor has taken on a darker edge now.
The Associated Press reported on June 9 that the priest’s convoy was ambushed by armed men while waiting for clearance at a military checkpoint. Several people were abducted and it wasn’t clear if the priest was the target.
Bishop Steven J. Maekawa of Fairbanks called for prayer and sacrifice for Father Afina’s safe return. “The bishop told us there is great power in intercessory prayer,” Jim said hopefully.
So, spread the word. Let’s pray for this good man.
