HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) - Gerald and Lois Neher are watching events in northeast Nigeria, where nearly 300 girls were abducted from an elite boarding school April 14, with keen interest.
It’s been decades since the McPherson couple taught at the Chibok school where the kidnappings occurred, but they suspect grandchildren - or perhaps even great-grandchildren - of some of those they instructed are among students taken by a radical Islamic group opposed to girls being in school.
“When we were there the school was grades 1 to 4 and it was only for young boys,” said Gerald Neher, 83. “There weren’t any girls until later. My wife was teaching in the school and I was doing agricultural work.”
They arrived in 1954 as missionaries for the Church of the Brethren.
Their students, mostly from Chibok or the neighboring community, ranged in age from 6 to 18, Neher said. But all, regardless of age, started in the first grade. Pencil-and-paper was rare, so students used sticks to write in the sandy soil.
“When we first got there we were supposed to teach in a secondary school, but they asked if we’d mind going to Chibok,” Neher recalled. “We had no idea where it was, so we said sure, we’d go.”
It was a remote place with few roads, Neher said, where the “rainy season” confined them for nearly half the year and only they and two villagers spoke English.
The Nehers spent four and a half years in Chibok, helping expand the school over time to teach more children. They had more than 70 when they left. Then they moved to Kwarhi, about 8 miles from Mubi, where they lived another six years before returning to Kansas.
Three of their four children were born there, including their daughter, Connie Weesner, now a teacher in South Hutchinson.
Gerald Neher called the villagers “peace-loving people” who got along with the few Muslims in the area when they were there. “There wasn’t any bitterness.”
The gunmen, part of an extremist group called Boko Haram, ordered the students out of the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School and set it on fire before driving the girls away in pickup trucks. Weeks later, 276 girls are still missing.
Neher blamed the troubles on soldiers coming from outside the region, and the country.
“These people are completely outsiders,” he said. “Some are from other parts of Nigeria, but mostly they’re from over the border.”
They don’t keep in direct contact with anyone they knew in the village, but have received updates from their church, which still has a presence in the country, Neher said.
They’ve been paying attention to goings-on in the country since an incident months ago, when extremists killed nearly two dozen people in a church there, Neher said.
“We’ve had some email messages, and things like that, but we haven’t directly corresponded with anyone there in some time,” Neher said.
“We feel really bad about the whole thing, as most of this country does,” said Lois Neher, 85. “We wish we could do something about it, but it’s rather difficult for any one of us to do so. We’re glad our government is finally becoming involved and we hope they can do something about the situation.”
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