I was half-listening to an NPR segment a couple of days ago and heard a woman talking about her international work in prisons, including quite a bit about Rwanda and the aftermath of the genocide. The story reminded of me of the book my cousin wrote about his own experiences as a Christian missionary there during that horrible, tragic time. I was sure that I had written a review of it for this blog, but a search under every possible term has yielded nothing. So here it is, a thoughtful, well-written book by a godly, sincere man who is still working faithfully in that country; I just got the most recent edition of his newsletter a few days ago. He has indeed had his faith tried in the fire, and it has come forth as gold.
If you think that such a book must be kind of depressing, I would encourage you to read it and have your preconceived ideas overturned. Gary is quite a character and his personality comes through even though his brother Randy was the actual
Gary grew up on a farm in Minnesota with five siblings. His dad was gone a lot as he was a long-distance trucker; his mother, my dad’s youngest sister, kept things together at home. We’d take a family trip to Minnesota every summer and one of my favorite parts of those vacations was to get to spend the night at the Bennett farm with Carol, the only girl with all those rampaging brothers. Gary was, at the time, to put it bluntly, a pill. He would tease us unmercifully. And look how he’s turned out!
You won’t find this book at the library, so I’d encourage you to go online and order a copy. If you’re so inclined it would be great if you’d follow the link above to go to Amazon through this post; I have an affiliate association with Amazon and will get a small commission at no cost to you if you do so. No pressure! The book is also available used through several outlets, but the author gets no royalties from re-sales. (Nor will I get a commission, to be clear, but that’s a very small matter.) FTF didn’t get nearly the attention it deserved when it came out; the tragedy in Rwanda had receded from the public’s memory by then. Maybe you, my readers, can start a small resurgence? Can’t hurt to try!