In a news article of The Associated Press printed in the August 12, 2002, edition of The Clarion Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi), appeared a report of "hundreds" of Yoruba in Nigeria gathered at the Osbun river to make "offerings to the river goddess people here believe shields them from disease, hunger and war." The article further identifies many of these people as Muslims and Christians who say "one cannot pray to enough gods in a country overwhelmed by grinding poverty, rampant ethnic violence and the ravages of AIDS and malaria." This report is an apparent example of people making use of severqal religious expressions simultaneously without necessarily placing the deities in a hierarchy or attempting to syncretize the various religions and their rituals. The worship of `Asherah at Halif (and elsewhere in ancient Judah) likely mirrors this approach to the world of the sacred.