Normally I delete without reading any ‘phishing‘ or 419 scam emails I get, which include the Nigerian banking schemes along with their close relatives the Hong Kong banking scheme, the UK banking scheme, the Amsterdam lottery scheme, the China import/export scheme, along with notices ‘from’ every major bank that my account with them has been closed – most of which appeared in my inbox in the past week.

I just received one yesterday, though, that is so unintentionally hilarious that I have to share the highlights below the fold (emphasis in the letter will be mine):

Dear Brothers/sisters in christ.

I am very happy to write you this
letter as I pray and hope you will answer my writing for the holy bibles
for myself and the christian lepers that are with me.”
I want to brief.
you little about myself. i was born to the family of a chief priest
– a well known idol worshipping family, and married to the daughter of
another such family. we had four children, and lived their idol
worshipping life happily. Then everything changed.)My wife came back
from the city where he had gone to buy goats for our annual festival. He
came back to inform me of his encounter with a man of GOD that told him
about Jesus Christ and it was the first time He was hearing of that
name. He also told me the man of GOD said we should accept Jesus Christ
as our only lord and personal saviour.
We never really understand what
it means to accept Jesus Christ as our only lord and personal saviour
until two months later, April 25, when my wife encountered this man
of GOD again and he accompany my wife back to the village, that he
now taught us what it means to accept Christ as our lord and saviour. On
the 10th of May, 1994, we were baptized and started our home fellowship.
It was then that the trouble started.
The villagers including my
wife dad abducted my wife and sacrificed her to their gods, and
that same night they came to our house in the middle of the night and
set our house ablaze, and I lost my 2 sons and daughter to the inferno.

It was only a miracle that I managed to escape that night with my only
surviving son, but by the time the villagers got to know about why we
were running from our village, they too planned to use us for rituals,
and they believed we are accursed for believing in Jesus Christ. But God
had a purpose for me in life, and made one of the elders in the village
to have compassion on us and let us escape before the day we were to be
used as sacrifices to their gods.
We eventually settled in O. Leprosy
Centre where we were received with open arms. We were free from all the
disturbance as the lepers are rejected people in our society back here.
I was afraid to preach the gospel again as I was afraid of death. But on
October 27, 1999, God spoke to me in my dream that I should not be
afraid of death, for death is the gateway to eternity in Heaven for we
the believers… that HE preserved me and allowed all those persecutions
to happen to me so I can serve him… by the next day when I woke up I
realise for the 4 years I have been with the orphans, none of them have
ever heard of the gospel, and none of them knew anything about our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ. So I started to preach the gospel of Jesus to
them.

…
It has be my concern and prayers to get bibles for
my people. I choose to write you after i was told that bibles are easy
to come by in your country, i prayerfully write and i believe that the
lord God we reveal to you more of our needs.

…

We all
at the Lepers bible church have all heaved a sigh of relief since we got
your email address and we contributed money to send somebody to the city
which is about 45 miles from where we live, to type and send you this
request as we pray earnestly that you grant us our request and making
our dream of having bibles a reality.
May God Bless you For the work
you do for the cause of the kingdom
In Christ.
loveth okundia

There are so many things that are hilarious about this letter.  I especially like the use of ‘God’ in all caps through many parts of the letter, as if the author is shouting the name at us.  I also like the fact that the author constantly refers to his wife as a ‘he’ (maybe it’s not the Christianity that’s got your local townsfolk most upset, sir).

Presumably this scam is an attempt to tug at the heartstrings of gullible Christians.