In this fresh and exciting new series Jesus the Game Changer; well-known Christian communicator Karl Faase takes an intellectual look at the evidence for Jesus' existence and His impact on the world.
#Religion;Series
#Love
#War
#Missionary
#Persecution
#Sickness
#Marriage
#Author
#Testimony
#Craig Keener
#Medine Keener
#Karl Faase
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Jesus the Game Changer | Season 3 | Episode 7 | Impossible Love: The Story of Craig and Medine Keener | May 16, 2021
- Every day I would go to the mailbox waiting for a letter,
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- hoping for a letter from Medine.
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- But that day I saw a letter in
- 00:00:07.347 --> 00:00:11.818
- familiar handwriting and I ripped it open.
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- 'I'm alive. I, Medine Moussounga, am alive'.
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- This was after 18 months of desperate prayer.
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- She said she didn't know if she was going to live or die.
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- Her cousin had just been shot dead,
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- her father and brother had nearly been shot dead.
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- By the time the letter reached me,
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- her town had already been burned to the ground.
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- So I didn't know for the next year and a half
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- if my friend was alive or dead.
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- Welcome to Jesus the Game Changer One Life at a Time.
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- During the filming of seasons one and two,
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- we interviewed many inspirational people
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- and it's a privilege to bring their
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- powerful stories to you in this season.
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- In One Life at a Time, you will meet
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- men and women of remarkable courage,
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- selfless commitment and kingdom influence.
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- They are people who are game changers
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- in their communities and across the globe.
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- We met Craig and Medine Keener.
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- at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky,
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- filming Jesus the Game Changer Two, and they told us
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- about their remarkable story of falling in love.
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- One of the most delightful moments in life is
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- falling in love, meeting the person you want to spend
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- your life with, those precious moments of
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- courtship and growing in your relationship.
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- Imagine trying to do this across the globe,
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- across a cultural divide, and in the midst
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- of a civil war and violent unrest.
- 00:02:09.369 --> 00:02:13.339
- Craig and Medine Keener met in college in the US.
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- They established a caring friendship.
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- Medine went on from the US to study
- 00:02:19.979 --> 00:02:22.282
- in Paris before returning to Africa,
- 00:02:22.282 --> 00:02:24.684
- where she found herself in the middle
- 00:02:24.684 --> 00:02:27.220
- of a civil war and running for her life.
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- Medine, what country did you grow up in?
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- I grew up in Congo Brazzaville.
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- Because there are two Congos in Africa.
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- There's the Democratic Republic of Congo,
- 00:02:45.471 --> 00:02:47.974
- which is a very massive country.
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- And then our small Congo is Congo Brazzaville.
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- What was your family like?
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- Was Christian faith a part of your family?
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- When I was born, Christian faith was a part of my family.
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- But before that my parents were part of what we call animism.
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- They did not, they believed in a being, but it was not God.
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- Until the missionaries came and they found God.
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- Do you remember the missionaries coming?
- 00:03:16.135 --> 00:03:17.770
- No, I don't. But I saw missionaries in Congo.
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- I don't remember when they came.
- 00:03:21.207 --> 00:03:23.142
- But my father got converted reading the Bible.
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- A friend of his gave him the Bible and
- 00:03:27.180 --> 00:03:28.948
- he read it and he came to Christ.
- 00:03:28.948 --> 00:03:30.683
- How much after that did you come to Christ?
- 00:03:30.683 --> 00:03:33.453
- I came to Christ, I cannot put a time limit to that
- 00:03:33.453 --> 00:03:40.526
- because I grew up in a Christian home
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- and I was healed as a child.
- 00:03:42.695 --> 00:03:47.834
- I experienced God's power in our lives.
- 00:03:47.834 --> 00:03:52.338
- But there came a time, I was about 15 when I realized
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- that I cannot continue to rely on my parents' faith.
- 00:03:55.908 --> 00:03:59.979
- That God was calling me to have my faith
- 00:03:59.979 --> 00:04:02.415
- or not have it. I needed to make a decision.
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- And so at age 15, that's when I decided, yes,
- 00:04:05.084 --> 00:04:08.655
- I really, really want Jesus as my personal Savior
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- and I got baptized and everything.
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- How did you meet Craig?
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- Craig was a very interesting person.
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- So, I came to the US as an exchange student.
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- I was an exchange student at Duke University
- 00:04:24.370 --> 00:04:27.874
- and I think it was the first meeting of
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- Intervarsity Christian Fellowship,
- 00:04:32.645 --> 00:04:35.281
- the Graduate Intervarsity Christian Fellowship.
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- And Craig was speaking. And he was handsome and everything,
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- and he spoke on the use of tongues in the Bible.
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- Do you remember meeting Medine?
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- Certainly. In my journal the first time I met her,
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- the one thing I wrote down was,
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- 'She's very pretty'. But then the second time
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- was the meeting that she describes.
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- And we were talking on the way to the meeting
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- and I didn't really know anybody from her Congo,
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- but I knew somebody whose father had been
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- a missionary in the other Congo, the bigger Congo.
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- So just to try to have conversation, I said,
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- 'Have you ever heard of Jaques Vernot?'.
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- And she said, 'Oh yeah, he's friends with my father'.
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- And there were other kinds of connections.
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- So, you were there for an exchange program? For how long?
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- For nine months.
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- OK, where did you go then?
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- Before I came to the US, I was a student in France.
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- So after I was done with my program as an exchange student,
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- I went back to France to finish with my studies.
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- And what did you finish?
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- I finished my PhD. I was doing a PhD on
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- African-American history, so I went back and finished it.
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- Fantastic. You went back home?
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- Yes. After I was done, I had two possibilities, well three.
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- The first one was an opportunity, Craig said
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- you can come to the US and find a teaching position
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- because there was a war in Congo.
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- The second one was, people told me,
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- 'Medine, you can just go underground. It's OK'.
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- I did not feel comfortable with both of those,
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- going underground before the Lord, for me,
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- that was not something I could do.
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- I was like, Lord, if you want me to get
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- French papers, you have to give it to me.
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- If not, I'm going home.
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- So I went home in a war torn country.
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- Medine returned to her home country, Congo Brazzaville.
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- But the timing was terrible.
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- It was the start of a bloody civil war.
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- This war would cost tens of thousands of lives
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- and make refugees of hundreds of thousands of people.
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- Among the refugees, those fleeing for their lives,
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- was Medine, her family and her father being
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- carried in a wheelbarrow.
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- It was a dangerous and desperate situation
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- A summary of where you ended up was, part of your story,
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- where you had your disabled dad in a wheelbarrow,
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- running for your lives. What was that like?
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- Well, after I came to Brazzaville, actually,
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- I was able to work. I was able to teach, what I like to.
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- But the country was still going through tension
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- and that second part of the war came.
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- And then I found myself where my parents were.
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- It was humbling and almost like degrading to see my father,
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- a wonderful man, because he had a stroke, he couldn't walk.
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- We had to push him on a wheelbarrow to take
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- him to a place where he could be safe.
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- Knowing that we didn't have any medication,
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- we might not be able to eat.
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- I mean, it was a lot of anxiety, a lot of
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- questioning and a lot of humility at the same time.
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- So you're essentially with your dad in
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- a wheelbarrow running for your lives?
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- Yes, that's what we did.
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- And where did you end up?
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- The last stop for us was my dad's village.
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- But before we got there, we just ran.
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- Like people were doing, I mean, through villages and forests.
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- And as we were running, when we would see a village
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- in whatever road we were taking, we would stop.
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- Actually, it's amazing. It's really, it's ironic
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- because it was so beautiful.
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- I mean, like being in the mountains, I was like,
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- 'I've never been here. This is so beautiful'.
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- At the same time I was hungry
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- and running for my life and sick.
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- So sometimes I would stop and just look around
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- and say, 'Oh, I wish I had my camera'.
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- And then I would think and I say,
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- 'Oh, if I had my camera, I would be dead.
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- Someone would kill me for that'.
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- But anyway, it was ironic.
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- So, people were trying to kill you?
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- Well people were not trying to kill me personally.
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- People were trying to kill those who were from the wrong tribe.
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- And so to answer your question, yes, in a sense.
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- In that period of time you wrote to Craig, what did you write?
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- Before the war, well, when we had tension
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- in the place where we were,
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- in the town where we were staying,
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- I sent a letter to Craig.
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- Craig was my best friend outside of the family.
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- And so he knew what I was experiencing.
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- I sent him a letter saying,
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- 'Craig, I don't know if I'm going to live or die,
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- but this is what's happening in the Congo.
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- Right now, they're killing intellectuals
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- and war is coming'.
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- And in summary, 'Pray for us'. So that's what I wrote.
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- What was it like to receive that letter?
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- I was always so excited to get
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- letters from Medine, until this one.
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- I'd been praying for her a lot.
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- But I opened this letter and I was just devastated.
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- She said she didn't know if she was going to live or die.
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- Her cousin had just been shot dead,
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- her father and brother had nearly been shot dead
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- and there were troops outside her city ready to close in.
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- By the time the letter reached me,
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- her town had already been burned to the ground.
- 00:10:26.032 --> 00:10:28.668
- So I didn't know for the next year and a half
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- if my friend was alive or dead.
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- Eighteen months, that's a long time.
- 00:10:35.074 --> 00:10:37.810
- Did you think about the fact that you were in Paris
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- at one stage studying for a PhD
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- and now you're running for your life?
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- Oh yes, I had a lot of flashbacks coming into my life.
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- When we got to the last village,
- 00:10:51.657 --> 00:10:54.293
- some of the people will make fun of us.
- 00:10:54.293 --> 00:10:56.128
- They would say, 'Look at you.
- 00:10:56.128 --> 00:10:57.263
- Apparently you are doctors. Where are we now?'
- 00:10:57.263 --> 00:11:00.199
- It was like a saying, you would walk in the street,
- 00:11:00.199 --> 00:11:03.069
- people would say, 'Where are we?'
- 00:11:03.069 --> 00:11:04.537
- And in those moments, I would have flashbacks of my life
- 00:11:04.537 --> 00:11:08.474
- and I would just say, 'Lord, I don't understand.
- 00:11:08.474 --> 00:11:13.379
- Why do innocent people suffer
- 00:11:13.379 --> 00:11:15.715
- for something that they didn't do?'.
- 00:11:15.715 --> 00:11:17.650
- But it was also a good reminder
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- to me to help my nephew and my niece.
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- Because for my niece, for example, the soldiers would
- 00:11:22.722 --> 00:11:26.158
- bring things that we didn't have, sardines, cans or bread.
- 00:11:26.158 --> 00:11:30.296
- And you receive that from them, you have to
- 00:11:30.296 --> 00:11:35.301
- give something back. So they will use you sexually.
- 00:11:35.301 --> 00:11:38.871
- So I used to take them, make them sit down
- 00:11:38.871 --> 00:11:41.273
- nd say, 'OK, remember what we used to eat.
- 00:11:41.273 --> 00:11:43.342
- We used to have this and this and this.
- 00:11:43.342 --> 00:11:45.945
- We don't have it now. One day it will come back.
- 00:11:45.945 --> 00:11:49.815
- So protect yourself'. I would take the food and
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- take it back to the soldiers and say we don't need it.
- 00:11:52.084 --> 00:11:54.620
- They didn't understand. But later on they
- 00:11:54.620 --> 00:11:57.590
- understood that it was to protect them,
- 00:11:57.590 --> 00:11:59.492
- so that they will not be taken away
- 00:11:59.492 --> 00:12:01.560
- without having anything to react to.
- 00:12:01.560 --> 00:12:05.164
- In those conditions sickness must have been
- 00:12:05.164 --> 00:12:07.399
- a part of your life and your family's life.
- 00:12:07.399 --> 00:12:09.502
- Sickness was a constant part of our lives.
- 00:12:09.502 --> 00:12:13.105
- We were sick a lot with malaria, typhoid, dysentery.
- 00:12:13.105 --> 00:12:17.877
- I remember when the Doctors Without Borders came and
- 00:12:17.877 --> 00:12:22.581
- they were cleaning the wells and things like that.
- 00:12:22.581 --> 00:12:25.184
- I was like, I want to go and see what's
- 00:12:25.184 --> 00:12:28.487
- in that well because we've been sick,
- 00:12:28.487 --> 00:12:30.055
- this is the water we've been drinking and it's
- 00:12:30.055 --> 00:12:32.691
- the water that was used by missionaries and so on.
- 00:12:32.691 --> 00:12:35.861
- So I went there. I should not.
- 00:12:35.861 --> 00:12:38.864
- When I got there, inside the well there was
- 00:12:38.864 --> 00:12:42.268
- a lot of filth, like children's diapers, women's pads.
- 00:12:42.268 --> 00:12:46.405
- And it was just horrible. And I decided
- 00:12:46.405 --> 00:12:50.409
- I'm not going to drink that water anymore.
- 00:12:50.409 --> 00:12:52.011
- I'm going to the river. But the water we drank
- 00:12:52.011 --> 00:12:54.480
- in the river, you can see filth passing by.
- 00:12:54.480 --> 00:12:56.849
- You can see dead animals. And so, yes, we were sick
- 00:12:56.849 --> 00:13:01.787
- a lot and we didn't have a lot of medication.
- 00:13:01.787 --> 00:13:03.889
- And your feet?
- 00:13:03.889 --> 00:13:04.957
- My feet, well, our feet. That was another story.
- 00:13:05.891 --> 00:13:10.996
- My feet were all bloody because we wore
- 00:13:10.996 --> 00:13:14.200
- flip flops and we walked a lot.
- 00:13:14.200 --> 00:13:17.536
- We would walk maybe three or four kilometers to go
- 00:13:17.536 --> 00:13:20.940
- to the place where we can get some food.
- 00:13:20.940 --> 00:13:23.409
- And they had fleas that would get into your feet.
- 00:13:23.409 --> 00:13:27.413
- So our feet were always bleeding.
- 00:13:27.413 --> 00:13:29.381
- What we used to do is put some,
- 00:13:29.381 --> 00:13:32.952
- well we didn't have salt a lot, that was a luxury.
- 00:13:32.952 --> 00:13:36.055
- When we could have it, we put it in hot water.
- 00:13:36.055 --> 00:13:38.123
- If not, we'll just take the feet and put them
- 00:13:38.123 --> 00:13:40.426
- in hot water every evening to kind of soothe the
- 00:13:40.426 --> 00:13:45.397
- wounds and everything that was festering in there.
- 00:13:45.397 --> 00:13:48.300
- Where did you get to where you felt
- 00:13:48.300 --> 00:13:50.302
- you were safe, or you were safe?
- 00:13:50.302 --> 00:13:52.705
- My father's village, we were a little safe.
- 00:13:53.873 --> 00:13:59.011
- Because there was no shooting or bombing or anything.
- 00:13:59.011 --> 00:14:03.415
- But then there were villages. I remember the day
- 00:14:03.415 --> 00:14:06.485
- when the soldiers, our soldiers, they left the place,
- 00:14:06.485 --> 00:14:09.822
- they said, 'OK, we're going and we're going to fight'.
- 00:14:09.822 --> 00:14:12.958
- And everybody was behind them and saying,
- 00:14:12.958 --> 00:14:15.160
- 'OK, you go and fight and bring us the victory'.
- 00:14:15.160 --> 00:14:18.397
- But they went to the neighboring village, which was not far.
- 00:14:18.397 --> 00:14:22.368
- They raped the women and took the food and came back.
- 00:14:22.368 --> 00:14:26.272
- When we found out I was so disappointed in them.
- 00:14:26.272 --> 00:14:29.341
- I was like, these are people who are supposed to protect us.
- 00:14:29.341 --> 00:14:32.011
- If they can do it to our neighbors,
- 00:14:32.011 --> 00:14:34.346
- the neighboring village, they can do it here.
- 00:14:34.346 --> 00:14:36.215
- So I didn't really feel safe,
- 00:14:36.215 --> 00:14:38.517
- except knowing that God was watching over us.
- 00:14:38.517 --> 00:14:41.353
- The decision for Craig to take more serious
- 00:14:49.128 --> 00:14:51.730
- steps in his relationship with Medine was difficult.
- 00:14:51.730 --> 00:14:54.333
- The problem was not around ethnicity or distance,
- 00:14:54.333 --> 00:14:59.071
- but his own dark times.
- 00:14:59.071 --> 00:15:01.173
- Craig had a painful relationship in the past
- 00:15:01.173 --> 00:15:03.709
- and that haunted him.
- 00:15:03.709 --> 00:15:04.977
- There were difficult questions like,
- 00:15:04.977 --> 00:15:07.246
- what if I'm hurt and disappointed again?
- 00:15:07.246 --> 00:15:09.114
- What if this doesn't work out?
- 00:15:09.114 --> 00:15:11.250
- What if she's not the right person?
- 00:15:11.250 --> 00:15:14.119
- If you've ever been hurt, you'll know
- 00:15:14.119 --> 00:15:16.255
- what Craig had to wrestle with.
- 00:15:16.255 --> 00:15:17.990
- It was not an easy choice.
- 00:15:17.990 --> 00:15:20.659
- So, how would Craig and Medine overcome this painful impasse?
- 00:15:20.659 --> 00:15:25.597
- How did you then get in contact with Craig again?
- 00:15:26.632 --> 00:15:29.301
- After the war, I wanted to let some
- 00:15:29.301 --> 00:15:32.604
- of my friends know that I was alive.
- 00:15:32.604 --> 00:15:36.108
- I lost everything, including my address book.
- 00:15:36.108 --> 00:15:41.146
- So I asked my brother to try to find
- 00:15:41.146 --> 00:15:45.050
- out the Craig Keener who wrote books.
- 00:15:45.050 --> 00:15:47.286
- I didn't know there were two Craig Keener's who wrote books.
- 00:15:47.286 --> 00:15:50.823
- Thank God, I found the right one.
- 00:15:50.823 --> 00:15:52.558
- She could be married to the wrong one!
- 00:15:52.558 --> 00:15:54.326
- So my brother talked to his friend in France who, I mean,
- 00:15:54.326 --> 00:15:58.163
- it was like a channel, who contacted the Craig Keener.
- 00:15:58.163 --> 00:16:01.700
- And that's how I got the address to write back
- 00:16:01.700 --> 00:16:05.037
- and say, 'OK, I am alive. I'm not dead'.
- 00:16:05.037 --> 00:16:07.606
- Do you remember the letter?
- 00:16:07.606 --> 00:16:09.241
- You have it.
- 00:16:09.241 --> 00:16:10.709
- Do you remember, what was it like getting that?
- 00:16:10.709 --> 00:16:11.910
- Every day I would go to the mailbox waiting
- 00:16:11.910 --> 00:16:15.914
- for a letter, hoping for a letter from Medine.
- 00:16:15.914 --> 00:16:19.785
- I had even thought maybe
- 00:16:19.785 --> 00:16:22.054
- I should go to Congo and look for her,
- 00:16:22.054 --> 00:16:23.956
- and my Francophone African friends said, 'That's stupid.
- 00:16:23.956 --> 00:16:28.861
- You can't speak the local languages and
- 00:16:28.861 --> 00:16:31.630
- your French isn't really that good either'.
- 00:16:31.630 --> 00:16:34.400
- But that day I saw a letter in
- 00:16:36.702 --> 00:16:40.506
- familiar handwriting and I ripped it open.
- 00:16:40.506 --> 00:16:44.743
- 'I'm alive. I, Medine Moussounga am alive'.
- 00:16:44.743 --> 00:16:49.048
- This was after 18 months of desperate prayer,
- 00:16:49.048 --> 00:16:53.118
- and I was just so grateful to God.
- 00:16:53.118 --> 00:16:55.754
- How did you get in contact in person?
- 00:16:56.455 --> 00:17:00.059
- We wrote letters and then I discovered
- 00:17:00.059 --> 00:17:04.663
- that there is something that's called Internet.
- 00:17:04.663 --> 00:17:07.866
- All the time that I'd been in war,
- 00:17:07.866 --> 00:17:09.435
- I didn't know Internet existed.
- 00:17:09.435 --> 00:17:11.537
- And by the way, I typed my PhD on a typewriter,
- 00:17:11.537 --> 00:17:15.140
- so I didn't even know how to use a computer.
- 00:17:15.140 --> 00:17:17.976
- But I found out about Internet and Craig had an email address.
- 00:17:17.976 --> 00:17:22.347
- I used to go to a cyber cafe where
- 00:17:22.347 --> 00:17:27.519
- there were women who worked there,
- 00:17:27.519 --> 00:17:29.555
- and they would read all the emails that were coming in.
- 00:17:29.555 --> 00:17:31.356
- The would print it and then you pay.
- 00:17:31.356 --> 00:17:32.891
- They couldn't read mine. It was in English.
- 00:17:32.891 --> 00:17:34.960
- But then, yeah, Internet made it easier to communicate.
- 00:17:36.728 --> 00:17:40.165
- So how did you decide to get married?
- 00:17:40.165 --> 00:17:43.335
- Craig was very, very, how would I say that,
- 00:17:44.770 --> 00:17:47.940
- hesitant, stubborn. I sent Craig a letter.
- 00:17:50.209 --> 00:17:56.381
- We don't usually do that, but my brother was like,
- 00:17:56.381 --> 00:18:00.686
- 'Medine, you really like this guy and he likes you.
- 00:18:00.686 --> 00:18:03.489
- You guys are playing a game.
- 00:18:03.489 --> 00:18:05.390
- So why don't you just go ahead and let him know how you feel'.
- 00:18:05.390 --> 00:18:08.627
- I was like, 'Emmanuel, that's not done. Come on'.
- 00:18:08.627 --> 00:18:12.331
- He's like, 'Well, it's done in other countries.
- 00:18:12.331 --> 00:18:14.867
- You've traveled, so why not?' So I did.
- 00:18:14.867 --> 00:18:18.270
- I sent him a letter and said, 'OK, this is what I feel'.
- 00:18:18.270 --> 00:18:21.874
- And I also resolved that if he doesn't respond
- 00:18:21.874 --> 00:18:24.776
- or if he says we're going to wait on the Lord
- 00:18:24.776 --> 00:18:26.945
- or something like that, I'm just going to disappear
- 00:18:26.945 --> 00:18:30.816
- and I will not communicate with him anymore.
- 00:18:30.816 --> 00:18:34.153
- So, tell me your process of receiving that.
- 00:18:34.153 --> 00:18:36.355
- Well, I really liked Medine, but I'd
- 00:18:37.890 --> 00:18:43.996
- also been through some tragic circumstances in my
- 00:18:43.996 --> 00:18:49.001
- last relationship years earlier, many years earlier.
- 00:18:49.001 --> 00:18:53.272
- And I was really hesitant, as she says.
- 00:18:53.272 --> 00:18:56.942
- I wanted to be absolutely sure it was God's will
- 00:18:56.942 --> 00:19:00.879
- before proceeding and I wasn't sure how I'd be sure of that.
- 00:19:00.879 --> 00:19:05.384
- And I was also so busy. I mean, I was writing books,
- 00:19:05.384 --> 00:19:10.322
- I was teaching full time at this point.
- 00:19:10.322 --> 00:19:14.726
- And so when her letter came, I was like,
- 00:19:14.726 --> 00:19:19.198
- 'Oh, this is so sweet, but I don't want to get her hopes up'.
- 00:19:19.198 --> 00:19:22.701
- See, that's what I'm telling you.
- 00:19:22.701 --> 00:19:25.604
- 'So, I'll tell her not to get her hopes up'.
- 00:19:27.239 --> 00:19:31.543
- And then I was just going to wait.
- 00:19:32.377 --> 00:19:33.979
- And if God told me something directly,
- 00:19:33.979 --> 00:19:37.382
- a vision or something, then I would proceed.
- 00:19:37.382 --> 00:19:40.552
- Otherwise I would just keep in my current state.
- 00:19:40.552 --> 00:19:43.589
- But the letter didn't come at a normal time.
- 00:19:45.490 --> 00:19:49.962
- The letter didn't come at the kind of
- 00:19:49.962 --> 00:19:51.697
- time when I was just so busy.
- 00:19:51.697 --> 00:19:54.366
- The letter came after I had been
- 00:19:54.366 --> 00:19:57.069
- trying to keep up with my book writing,
- 00:19:57.069 --> 00:19:59.671
- trying to keep up with my research, my teaching.
- 00:19:59.671 --> 00:20:03.208
- I found out that I could function
- 00:20:05.677 --> 00:20:08.380
- on three hours of sleep a night.
- 00:20:08.380 --> 00:20:10.115
- What I didn't know was I couldn't do that very long.
- 00:20:11.516 --> 00:20:15.087
- And so I ended up in the hospital.
- 00:20:15.087 --> 00:20:18.757
- And at the time her letter came,
- 00:20:18.757 --> 00:20:20.359
- I was pretty much flat on my back.
- 00:20:20.359 --> 00:20:22.894
- So I could do nothing other than pray.
- 00:20:22.894 --> 00:20:27.899
- I could do a little bit more.
- 00:20:29.167 --> 00:20:30.769
- I went back through our correspondence,
- 00:20:30.769 --> 00:20:33.905
- arranged it all chronologically. I had mine from my computer,
- 00:20:33.905 --> 00:20:37.476
- I had her letters that were sent to me
- 00:20:37.476 --> 00:20:40.679
- and my journal that I could go back through
- 00:20:40.679 --> 00:20:43.649
- and see different things I had felt like the Lord
- 00:20:43.649 --> 00:20:45.651
- had said to me over the years, about my future wife.
- 00:20:45.651 --> 00:20:48.086
- Anyway, as I'm reading through it,
- 00:20:48.086 --> 00:20:50.656
- one day I fall out of my chair,
- 00:20:50.656 --> 00:20:52.090
- I say, 'Oh my goodness, I think Medine is my future wife'.
- 00:20:52.090 --> 00:20:59.464
- So, you emailed?
- 00:21:01.867 --> 00:21:03.769
- Yes.
- 00:21:03.769 --> 00:21:05.304
- How was that, Medine?
- 00:21:05.304 --> 00:21:06.571
- That was one of the most beautiful days.
- 00:21:06.571 --> 00:21:08.740
- I was walking to the cyber cafe
- 00:21:08.740 --> 00:21:11.643
- to just find out what's going on.
- 00:21:11.643 --> 00:21:13.445
- And I came there, the ladies were like,
- 00:21:13.445 --> 00:21:16.581
- 'Oh, your American brother has sent you an email'.
- 00:21:16.581 --> 00:21:19.217
- I said, 'Sure, that's great'.
- 00:21:19.217 --> 00:21:21.053
- So I paid, I took the email and he said, 'Yes'.
- 00:21:21.053 --> 00:21:24.723
- I just, I was so happy. Now, I was very, very skinny.
- 00:21:26.124 --> 00:21:30.796
- People who experience war, you can tell.
- 00:21:30.796 --> 00:21:34.633
- We were malnourished and so on, so we were very skinny.
- 00:21:34.633 --> 00:21:37.402
- And here I'm walking and going through a market
- 00:21:37.402 --> 00:21:40.739
- just reading and saying, 'Oh, God, I'm so happy'.
- 00:21:40.739 --> 00:21:43.108
- People were looking at me saying,
- 00:21:43.108 --> 00:21:44.676
- 'Oh, her mind is completely not good.
- 00:21:44.676 --> 00:21:47.746
- This is what war does to people'.
- 00:21:47.746 --> 00:21:50.215
- They couldn't understand how happy I was.
- 00:21:50.215 --> 00:21:52.384
- Yeah, I was very happy.
- 00:21:52.384 --> 00:21:53.652
- Where did you get married then?
- 00:21:53.652 --> 00:21:55.287
- Here in Philadelphia. It's a long journey.
- 00:21:55.287 --> 00:22:00.525
- Because after the letter, I had to get the visa.
- 00:22:00.525 --> 00:22:05.330
- I didn't have any passport, so I had to go
- 00:22:05.330 --> 00:22:07.866
- through all of that. Went to Cameroon.
- 00:22:07.866 --> 00:22:10.769
- We met there and then after a long process
- 00:22:10.769 --> 00:22:15.774
- I came to the US. So I came on a fiancee visa.
- 00:22:15.774 --> 00:22:19.678
- Craig, as you look back over that story,
- 00:22:22.681 --> 00:22:25.050
- how do you see God's hand leading in all of that?
- 00:22:25.050 --> 00:22:29.955
- God was really faithful to us and I'd been praying every day
- 00:22:30.622 --> 00:22:37.396
- for Medine's safety, the safety of her family there.
- 00:22:37.396 --> 00:22:41.533
- And I'm grateful she married the right Craig Keener.
- 00:22:41.533 --> 00:22:45.937
- Me too.
- 00:22:46.405 --> 00:22:48.039
- The other Craig Keener, he writes on
- 00:22:48.039 --> 00:22:49.374
- Native American archaeology,
- 00:22:49.374 --> 00:22:51.076
- he seems to do a great job on that.
- 00:22:51.076 --> 00:22:53.078
- But it was a special time. And actually, somebody who
- 00:22:54.546 --> 00:23:01.953
- didn't know what was going on because I kept it pretty secret,
- 00:23:01.953 --> 00:23:05.690
- but somebody who didn't know what was going on came up
- 00:23:05.690 --> 00:23:08.927
- to me after we first got kind of secretly engaged
- 00:23:08.927 --> 00:23:13.198
- and said, 'You have now met your future wife and don't
- 00:23:13.198 --> 00:23:20.739
- worry about it being different cultures or things like that'.
- 00:23:20.739 --> 00:23:25.410
- Certain periods in my life, the Lord seems to
- 00:23:25.410 --> 00:23:27.412
- do those things more than in other periods.
- 00:23:27.412 --> 00:23:32.417
- About the day before I was going to call Duke and tell them
- 00:23:32.417 --> 00:23:36.988
- I couldn't come to do a PhD because I had like a dollar,
- 00:23:36.988 --> 00:23:41.793
- the Lord provided the way. And most of those times
- 00:23:41.793 --> 00:23:47.199
- I say to my shame were not due to my great faith.
- 00:23:47.199 --> 00:23:51.870
- Sometimes God has blessed me in response to faith,
- 00:23:51.870 --> 00:23:55.941
- but most of those key times I was like,
- 00:23:55.941 --> 00:23:58.577
- 'Oh, Lord, I'm at my wit's end'.
- 00:23:58.577 --> 00:24:01.246
- And God did it to protect His calling
- 00:24:01.246 --> 00:24:06.151
- and because He's a gracious Father.
- 00:24:06.151 --> 00:24:08.253
- Isn't that an incredible story of love?
- 00:24:11.656 --> 00:24:14.659
- Craig and Medine wrote a book about their story,
- 00:24:14.659 --> 00:24:17.262
- it's called Impossible Love.
- 00:24:17.262 --> 00:24:19.664
- Love is a popular emotion.
- 00:24:19.664 --> 00:24:21.399
- Have you noticed, everybody loves love.
- 00:24:21.399 --> 00:24:23.935
- It's as if merely mentioning the word love makes everything OK.
- 00:24:23.935 --> 00:24:29.074
- But this is not just a story about love, it's so much more.
- 00:24:29.074 --> 00:24:33.211
- It's about God's faithfulness. It's about God's protection.
- 00:24:33.211 --> 00:24:37.282
- It's about hope and trust.
- 00:24:37.282 --> 00:24:39.351
- It's about a fresh start for both Craig and Medine.
- 00:24:39.351 --> 00:24:43.021
- It's about grace extended to both Craig and Medine.
- 00:24:43.021 --> 00:24:47.425
- Don't fall for slogans.
- 00:24:47.425 --> 00:24:50.128
- Trust and believe in the God who reaches
- 00:24:50.128 --> 00:24:52.964
- into our lives and lifts us, one life at a time,
- 00:24:52.964 --> 00:24:56.468
- out of the mire and puts us on solid ground.
- 00:24:56.468 --> 00:25:00.839