To Save One Life (Part 2)

Still crying he returned to his room feeling like something was coming out of his body…

From that day forward Antoine no longer had an appetite for drugs and alcohol. His spiritual appetite grew for God and he saw how God was using his story to help others. Despite this, still in the back of his mind was the loss of his mother and how she would never see how much his life had turned around. He wasn’t sure what to do with the hurts, guilt and sadness that lingered over his mother and the anger he still had towards his father. He felt he couldn’t be angry with God.

His older sister had attended a Discipleship Training School (DTS) with YWAM and encouraged him to do one. Wanting to do things his way, he went to University and got a diploma. Life for Antoine remained unclear and that’s when he decided to do the five-month school (three month lecture phase and two month outreach). This was the beginning of 2011. For the first time he was introduced to teachings on the Nature and Character of God. It was time to face his brokenness and only the Father heart of God could heal his pain. He realized it wasn’t about covering the issues of his heart, but bringing them into the light for the heavenly Father to heal. Antoine received healing in his heart and he knows there will be deeper levels God wants to take him to. 

He is grateful for the doors that God has opened for him to attend a secondary school with YWAM in the UK called the School of Community Development and now the School of Biblical Studies in his home city and nation. I asked him why he wanted to do such a school and he said, “I don’t have or know enough of God. I want to know Him more. I’m thirsty and hungry. I want to be transformed more, changed more. I want more.”

Antoine has truly seen how God saved his life from physical death and spiritual death. He knows that as he continues to pursue God’s heart and ways that God can use him to help save the lives of others. After meeting and listening to Antoine’s story that quote in the Genocide memorial took on a whole new meaning. Yes, it’s true, “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.”  

     

To Save One Life (Part 1)

For some reason the quote engraved on the glass panel caught my attention, “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.” It seemed ironic to see such a quote when photos of slaughtered genocide victims were plastered all over the surrounding walls. I was in the Genocide memorial in Kigali, Rwanda. This was my second visit to this city and to the memorial. I suppose on this occasion I had more time to read the background and absorb the magnitude of what happened on those streets 20 years previous.

It’s one thing to read about and view the photos of people who experienced such atrocities, and quite another to meet and speak with those who survived them. My friend Laurie and I had been invited to teach at our Youth With A Mission (YWAM) base on the School of Biblical Studies in Kigali. Four students from Rwanda, Burundi and the US were attending this three-month school, along with  

four staff members. Antoine was one of the students from Rwanda. I was curious about his story and how he came to be part of such a school so I asked him to share it with me. 

Antoine was born in Kigali 31 years ago. He was raised with his father and mother, one sister and two brothers. His Dad was addicted to alcohol so his home environment was not pleasant. Because of this, when he was seven or eight years old he would spend a lot of time away from home. Hanging around bad company led to the forming of many bad habits. In 1993, overwhelmed with the situation at home, his Mum left the family with the two youngest children. That was the last time Antoine saw them as they were massacred along with 800,000 other Tutsis during the genocide. He and his sister remained with their father where they lived under the constant fear of being discovered as Tutsis, and killed. Even though at one point people knew they were Tutsis, the genocide ended before anything happened to them. 

Eight years after the genocide was a very hopeless time for Antoine. He spent three and half years on the streets trying to do what he thought would bring him happiness – drugs, alcohol, etc. When he was in high school his aunt took him into her home. Despite this act of kindness he was still “living to die.”

Antoine had heard of Jesus when he was a child. At 19 years of age, he questioned life and its purpose. His prayer at that time, “God, I hope You can change my life. If You can’t, maybe it’s better I die.” Whenever he did attend church he felt guilty and condemned – believing it was impossible to change. He did well at school and his relatives didn’t know that he still had a drug problem. While at boarding school he would go out at night to use drugs and then return to his dorm and sleep. Around 2am, he would wake up to study. On one particular night, upon his return, there was no electricity. Afraid of failing because he couldn’t see to study, he asked God to turn the electricity back on and then found himself saying that if God would change his life, he would serve Him. There was no electricity for a week. Antoine continued his routine of going out at night to use drugs. As he was returning on one evening he met a fellow student who said the electricity had come back on. He remembered his original prayer and started to cry thinking of how meaningless his life was up until this point. A Christian Student Association meeting was going on as he was passing by. He walked in crying and shaking. When they gave the altar call, he went to the front and received Jesus into his life.

Still crying he returned to his room feeling like something was coming out of his body…

Is anyone out there listening to me? (Part 2)

“There is a satisfaction we don’t want to come to until we come to it in God… [Disappointments] serve to remind us every day that we cannot make life work the way we want… If we’ll let it, the disappointment can be God’s way of continually drawing us back to Himself.” (John Eldredge)

Life is full of disappointments, no doubt about it. When ourselves, others or God don’t measure up to our expectations we get disappointed. Like the above quote so aptly says, “Disappointments serve to remind us every day that we cannot make life work the way we want…” I’m re-reading a book I read after a major disappointment seven years ago called “Disappointment with God” by Philip Yancey. I had believed God for something I thought He was giving back to me after years of praying and dying to my original vision. Because it didn’t turn out the way I wanted and hoped for, I was left in despair. Anger at God and other people involved, grief, hurt, betrayal, and hopelessness were all emotions that gripped me. At the time, my cry was, “Is anyone out there listening to me?” All I wanted was for someone to understand my heartache. Perhaps that’s why I bought such a book – in hopes of finding others, to whom I could relate – to know I wasn’t alone in my disappointment. As the author took me through the Bible, I found myself keeping company with the major and minor prophets, kings, judges, people of low and high estate - all of them thoroughly disappointed with God. Life hadn’t turned out, for any of them, what they had expected. For some, it was consequential of their sin, but for others, it was a repercussion of the poor choices of others. I definitely remember reading it from a “me” perspective and found solace knowing I wasn’t the only one disappointed with God. 

Since then I have had huge letdowns that I’ve had to push my heart through. The second half of the above quote says, “…If we’ll let it, the disappointment can be God’s way of continually drawing us back to Himself” and this is what I have found to be true. Another disappointment has recently knocked at my door. Thankfully, I only entertained it for a brief time, not like seven years ago! I recently made a trip to my parents’ home in Canada where I had left the book “Disappointment with God” on my bookshelf. I returned to Cape Town with it thinking I would have it as a resource to help someone on his or her journey. When this recent disappointment came, I looked at the book and sensed God wanted me to read it again. In many ways I believe it’s been God’s way of showing me how far He has brought my heart in these past seven years. Instead of reading it from a “Is anyone out there listening to me?” perspective, I read it from a “Is anyone out there listening to Me?” perspective. I now think it should be retitled, “The disappointment of God!” God has allowed plenty of disappointments to come knocking at my door and because I’m finally cooperating with His purposes and His perspective, I am letting them draw me back to Himself. 

It’s becoming less and less how grieved, hurt, betrayed and disappointed I feel and more and more about how grieved, hurt, betrayed and disappointed God feels. And He does feel. How can we, who have been made in His image feel, if He doesn’t? Our continued misuse and abuse of our spirits, souls and bodies grieves and hurts Him. The more we tune into the cry of His heart, “Is anyone out there listening to Me?” the more, I believe, we will do as the apostle Peter exhorts us to do…      

“So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy.” You call out to God for help and he helps – he’s a good Father that way. But don’t forget, he’s also a responsible Father, and won’t let you get by with sloppy living. Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God…”