The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith Resurrected

by Nik Ripken

I learned that life is hard work and that happiness is being with family and friends.

How is it, I wondered, that so many people are willing to die for financial or humanitarian reasons while many Christian groups insist on waiting until it is safe to obey Jesus’ command to “Go” into all the world?

But when people are forced to deal with a daily barrage of human suffering and inhumane violence, the emotional response is never predictable. Sometimes, it is possible to remain calm and relatively detached. At other times, sometimes without warning, the dam breaks and there is emotional turmoil. The trigger for these emotional floods is not always dramatic. It might be something as simple as seeing yet another orphaned baby. At other times, it is the cumulative result of countless microscopic nicks and cracks caused by the constant reminders of brokenness all around. Sometimes we would be moved most by small deeds of kindness or tenderness.

It was an overwhelming responsibility. Our projects were affecting thousands of people. There was always a latent temptation to lose perspective and think about the power that we held in our hands. But we worked hard to remember—and to remind one another—that only our Creator God has ultimate power over life and death. We knew that such authority was never ours to assume.

No matter how consumed I was with the incredible opportunities and overwhelming demands in Somalia, it was that essential connection with Ruth and the boys that helped keep me grounded. The way they welcomed me home every time I landed in Nairobi reminded me that my God-given roles as husband and father were essential to my ministry too.

When we lived in a Somali area of Nairobi early on, four times a week Ruth made a ten-mile round trip by car to purchase enough drinkable water to fill four twenty-gallon plastic tanks that she then transported back home for our family. While she could fill the tanks right in the car with a hose, she could not lift the twenty-gallon water tanks out of the car when she got home. So she would siphon the water into smaller containers that she could carry and store in the house. Securing water was just one of many logistical challenges that had to be dealt with day after day. Our home was more than a household. It was eventually an operational hub and international headquarters for a multi-national company engaged in

corporate business activities conducted in four different countries. Ruth kept it all running smoothly by acting as lead encourager and mentor for those who came to function as our company’s CEO, COO, CFO, Personnel Director, Chief Communications Officer, Senior IT Manager, Executive Secretary, Corporate Travel Agent, and Head Maintenance Department Engineer. (In the early days, she performed all of those jobs herself.) The most important role she played for me was that of a wise and trusted counselor, a personal therapist who offered spiritual support, encouragement, a listening ear, and much more of what some organizations now lump together and call member care.

Then she would drive me to the airport and put me on a plane heading into a war zone once again—knowing that all she could do was pray and trust God with my care for however long it would be before I returned home again.

The Jesus who I encountered in Scripture taught His followers to provide food for the hungry, water for the thirsty, healing for the sick and wounded, and care for the suffering and persecuted. That was our explicit purpose in Somalia, and I felt that we had done those things well.

At the same time, Jesus also instructed His followers to go into all the world and make disciples. We had done well with the “going into all the world” part of His assignment. But when it came to the “making disciples” part of our purpose, we had failed.

Yet, often, it seemed impossible to overcome the barriers that stood in our way.

If sharing with a friend could lead to my friend’s death—will I share my faith anyway? And am I willing to live with what might happen next? These questions were profoundly disturbing, and we fought with them night and day.

that moment, Ruth and I felt free to dream about finding, or if necessary, developing discipleship materials and practical guidelines for people like us—people who were living and working in some of the world’s most difficult places—people who were desperately wanting to share God’s love in those places. On the one hand, there were no easy answers. On the other hand, we were thrilled to have the opportunity to try to find some of our own.

By the time we finished several fourteen-hour-days of interviews, I was amazed that any believers had maintained their faith in the former USSR. The opposition was relentless. The fact that so many had both survived and remained strong and faithful moved me deeply.

The stronger the persecution, the more significant the spiritual vitality of the believers.

Surprisingly, all too often, persecutors sense the activity of God before the believing participants even realize the significance of what is happening!

This was not the kind of inspirational testimony that we love to celebrate; this was raw, biblical faith. This was the story of one man who refused to let go of Jesus and refused to stop telling the Good News to his family and neighbors. As if that was not enough, the rest of Dmitri’s story would be one of the most remarkable and life-changing testimonies I have ever heard . . .

For us, persecution is like the sun coming up in the east. It happens all the time. It’s the way things are. There is nothing unusual or unexpected about it. Persecution for our faith has always been—and probably always will be—a normal part of life.”

I had always assumed that persecution was abnormal, exceptional, unusual, out of the ordinary. In my mind, persecution was something to avoid. It was a problem, a setback, a barrier. I was captivated by the thought: what if persecution is the normal, expected situation for a believer? And what if the persecution is, in fact, soil in which faith can grow? What if persecution can be, in fact, good soil?

One question came to my mind often: How did so many Russians and Ukrainians keep their faith strong over

decades of communist oppression of believers? The professional researcher in me wanted to discover simple, practical, measurable, and objective answers to that question. But I wasn’t only a professional researcher. I was also a still-grieving father. I was a wounded would-be healer. I was a failed relief worker who had so helplessly watched thousands of starving people die. My objectivity was hard to maintain. Often, in interviews, I would simply blurt out: “How did you (or your family, or your church, or your people) learn to live like this? How did you learn to die like that?” One of the first

men I said that to answered me by telling me this story: “I remember the day like it was yesterday, Nik. My father put his arms around me and my sister and my brother and guided us into the kitchen to sit around the table where he co...

was wrong. Papa didn’t look at her because he was talking directly to us. He said, ‘Children, you know that I am the pastor of our church. That’s what God has called me to do—to tell others about Him. I have learned that the communist authorities will come tomorrow to arrest me. They will put me in prison because they want me to stop preaching about Jesus. But I cannot stop doing that becau...

“He hugged each one of us. Then he said: ‘All around this part of the country, the authorities are rounding up followers of Jesus and demanding that they deny their faith. Sometimes, when they refuse, the authorities will line up whole families and hang them by the ne...

am praying that once they put me in prison, they will leave you and your mother alone.’” “‘However,’ and here he paused and made eye contact with us, ‘If I am in prison and I hear that my wife and my children have been hung to death rather...

Almost immediately, though, I caught myself and I thought of some biblical examples of that very thing. I guess that is part of our story, I silently concluded. But it’s a part of the story that we have kept very hidden.

“I remember when my parents gathered our family together and my father said, ‘Children, all over this district the communist authorities are slowly starving to death believers who refuse to deny their faith. If our family has to starve for Jesus, then let us do so with joy.’”

How did so many Russian and Ukrainian believers remain strong in their faith through almost a century of communist persecution? How did they learn to live and die like they did? Time and time again, I heard the same words: “We learned it from our mothers, our grandmothers, and our great-grandmothers. We learned it from our fathers, our grandfathers and our great-grandfathers.”

I was with yet another group of believers listening to their stories of prison, persecution, and God’s provision for His people. Once again I was struck by the power of the testimonies and stories that I was hearing. As we came to the end of our time together, I asked: “I just don’t understand why you haven’t collected these stories in a book? Believers around the world ought to hear what you have been telling me here today. Your stories are amazing! These are inspiring testimonies! I have never heard anything like them!” An older pastor reached out and took my shoulder. He clamped his other hand tightly onto my arm, and looked

me right in the eye. He said, “Son, when did you stop reading your Bible? All of our stories are in the Bible. God has already written them down. Why would we bother writing books to tell our stories when God has already told His story. If you would just read the Bible, you would see that our stories are there.” He paused and then he asked me again, “When did you stop reading your Bible?” Without waiting for me to answer, he turned and walked away. There was no friendly smile, no encouraging pat on the back, and no kiss on the cheek. His convicting question still echoes in my mind.

He was convinced that people flocked to Christ in greater numbers during difficult days of persecution because that’s when they could recognize how God sustains and strengthens His followers through times of trouble.

He said that he had learned that family is the believer’s greatest reservoir of faith and resistance in the face of persecution.

“Don’t ever give up in freedom what we would

never have given up in persecution! That is our witness to the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ!”

the psychological aspects of persecution often cause deeper wounds and leave greater scars than physical mistreatment.

Somehow, they had survived unbroken, in large part due to the shared strength of their bond of friendship. Before

When our workers found it impossible to see and respond to humor, it was clear that they were in serious need of emotional relief and healing. When that happened, it was time to retreat and recover.

Their lives were evidence to the strength that can be found in community and fellowship and faith.

So many personal adjustments had to be made—and the need for adjustment seemed so constant—that each day seemed to last forever. The physical toll was immense. At the same time, I was so overwhelmed and excited by what I was seeing and hearing that each day I went back and forth between emotional/spiritual exhilaration and physical exhaustion. Some days I survived on pure adrenalin. By evening, I often felt like my internal engine had drained its gas tank and I was barely chugging on fumes.

“You know that I don’t know a word of Chinese,” I told him. “What do you mean ‘just listen’”? Again he insisted, “Just be quiet, Nik!” Before I could protest again, he took me by the arm and began to walk me among these people who were crying and screaming. Because I was now silent, I actually began to hear and recognize the names of the two Muslim countries that I had told them about the night before. The names of those two countries were being repeated again and again in passionate and anguished prayer. When David stopped and turned to look at me, there were tears streaming down his face. He said, “They were so moved by what you shared last night about believers who were truly persecuted, that they have vowed before God that they will get up an hour earlier every morning to pray for those Muslim-background believers that you told them about

____________ (and he named the two nations*) until Jesus is known throughout their countries.” In that instant, I could see why the number of Chinese believers had gone from a few hundred thousand to perhaps hundreds of millions!

The growth of the church during fifty years of communist rule in China was even greater than the growth experienced in the church over the first few centuries after Christ.

“When those leaders are away, other people begin to lead. Sometimes, those leaders are taken to prison too. Every time, though, others rise up to take their place. We simply do what we have been trained to do; we take God’s Word and we share it. When people receive the message, new churches are started. That seems to be the way that God grows His church.” I was astounded by the clarity and simplicity of the strategy—and

It was obvious to me, by now, that believers in different settings view persecution very differently. For example, the way American believers see persecution is starkly different from the way that believers in Chinese house-church settings see persecution. The suggestion that imprisonment for the faith is equivalent to seminary training, for example, is a startling thought for most American believers. But that startling view is based on a crucial truth. Chinese believers had learned something that Jesus plainly taught: that persecution can actually change a person’s faith. Before persecution, a person’s faith might look a certain way. After persecution and suffering, however, that faith might look very different. In fact, after persecution, the believer might not even look like the same person. And, interestingly, the change might be cause for celebration.

At one point, they are a fearful, quivering group ready to run and hide. At Pentecost, though, we find a very different group. Suddenly, they are filled with courage, willing to take a public stand, and eager to suffer for the sake of His name. The turning point between that crippling fear and this new-found courageous freedom is the resurrection of Jesus. In one sense, the change happened very quickly. In a short time, these early followers of Jesus became completely different people.

Gradually, as my pilgrimage through persecution progressed, I began to understand that God is not helpless without us.

also came to understand that our all-knowing God is completely aware of all that is happening in His world—even in places where evil seems to be running rampant.

Once we find out what God is already doing to show Himself, all we have to do is point others to Him. For me, that was a hope-renewing thought. And I was beginning to wonder if it was time for me to start to sing again.

When Ruth and I first departed for Africa with our boys almost thirty years ago, I was a young, naïve Kentucky farm-boy who believed that God was sending us around the world on a great adventure to tell people who Jesus was and to explain what the Bible was all about. Today, I realize that God allowed us to go out into the world so we could find out who Jesus was from people who really knew Him and actually lived the Word of God.

Think about the implications of this truth . . . For decades the western church has been taught to pray and work for an end to the persecution of fellow believers around the world. We enlist our congregations, our denominations, and even our governments to speak out and pressure oppressive regimes in hostile nations to end discrimination. Sometimes we even demand that the persecutors be punished.