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It’s All a Miracle . . . And the Journey Begins

I have already confessed that I began my life work naïvely believing that God was sending Ruth and me around the world on a great adventure to tell lost people about Jesus and to teach them how the Bible applied to their lives. I now realize that God allowed me to go out into the world so that I could find out who Jesus really was and how the Bible is to be applied to my life. He wanted me to learn that lesson from people who knew Him far better than I did, people who were already living out His teachings on a daily basis.

Many of the people who I have encountered on this journey have not only become my personal mentors and friends in faith, they have also become spiritual heroes whose life examples humble and inspire me. No other part of Christ’s Body in any other country has humbled, inspired, and taught me more than the house-church believers I met in China.

The rural house-church movement was so sheltered and so isolated that some of their leaders asked me whether or not word of Jesus had gotten beyond China yet. They wondered if people in other countries knew and worshiped Him.

There was a little more to that exchange that I didn’t share earlier.

I informed the Chinese believers that they had hundreds of millions of fellow believers around the world. I told them that there were believers in almost every country on earth. When they heard that, they broke into applause and they shouted in praise.

Then they asked about my country. I told them that in the United States there were tens of millions of committed Christians who gathered to worship in tens of thousands of congregations large and small, in every city, town and village across our land. Hearing that, the house-church leaders actually cheered and wept with joy in celebration of the grace that God had bestowed on their American brothers and sisters. Then they excitedly peppered me with other questions: How did people learn about Jesus in my country? Did we have Bibles in America? What was worship like? Where did the pastors get their training? The questions seemed to be endless.

I attempted to describe for them the practice of Christianity in the culture of my homeland. They marveled at what I was telling them.

For a while. . .

Then the celebratory mood slowly, subtly started to shift. I noticed first one person who was very quiet and then began to cry. These were not joyful tears. He seemed sad and even anguished. Then others reacted in the same way.

I feared that I had said something that was culturally offensive. I asked what was wrong.

A visibly distressed Chinese pastor explained, “We are just wondering: why is it that God loves you believers in America so much that He blesses you more than He does us? Why would God do so many amazing things for you?”

I was stunned, distraught, and horrified at the question.

I immediately reminded my new friends of the many miraculous stories that Chinese believers had shared with me of God’s grace in their lives. They had already told me about His loving provision of strength and courage in prison. They had talked about His repeated protection from authorities. They had shared many inspiring stories of answered prayers. There was also the supernatural way that God had led them through dreams and visions. I cited the historically unprecedented explosion of faith through the house-church movement that had brought at least one hundred million Chinese to Christ despite fifty years of oppression under communism.

I reminded them too of the incredible stories of healing that I had heard from them. I told them how much I wished that I was able to see someone raised from the dead. I insisted to my new Chinese friends that all these things were undeniable and miraculous proof of God’s presence and power. I said that these things were incontrovertible evidence of His amazing grace and His abundant love for China and its people.

My friends heard my words and my explanation. And, then, they became my teachers. This is what they said:

“You see how we are meeting with you here in secret, Dr. Ripken. We have told you how our house churches move from farm to farm, house to house, often at night. Yet you tell us that pastors can preach the gospel publicly in your country and that believers in America are free to worship wherever and whenever they want.”

“You have watched our leaders rip apart a Bible and divide up the pages, so that every house-church pastor can take home at least a portion of Scripture to share with his people. Yet you tell us that you personally have seven different versions of the Bible on a shelf in your office. And that you also own many Christian books and regularly read Christian magazines and newspapers.”

“None of us has ever owned our own hymnbook or chorus book to sing from. Yet you tell us that your churches have hymnbooks for everyone, that you can purchase them in bookstores or order them by the case from publishers. And you tell us that Christian music is on many radio and television stations.”

“You have described how everyone in your country, even those who are not believers, celebrates the birth of Jesus with a national holiday. And you tell us that some churches actually re-enact the nativity scene to attract and entertain the public.”

“We have explained how so many of our leaders have been arrested that prisons have become the place where our pastors gain their most important theological education. But you tell us that in America you have special training schools just for Christian students.”

“Yes, you have heard us tell about praying for sick people and how many of them have been miraculously healed. Yet maybe only one in a thousand of those who are healed will give any credit to God or will ever find Jesus as a result. However, you tell us that believers in your country can actually choose to go to Christian doctors and even Christian hospitals if they wish.”

“So tell us, Dr. Ripken, which of these things do you think are the greatest miracles?”

When they asked me that question, it was my turn to weep. In that moment, I began to realize how much I take for granted. I suddenly saw all the things that I have allowed to become common, things that would be considered miracles in the eyes of millions of believers in persecution.

The truth is, these things that we take for granted are all miracles!

Chinese house-church believers taught me that. Their remedial lessons gave me new eyes to see and appreciate the miraculous power of God still present and at work in our world today. In the course of my long journey, my Chinese brothers and sisters, and other believers in persecution from all over the world, gave me back my church, my worship, my Bible, my faith, and so much more.

Now. . .

I never celebrate the Lord’s Supper without thinking of that last communion in Mogadishu with my four Somali friends who would soon be martyred. I never partake of the bread and the cup without an awareness that I am doing so not just for myself, but on behalf of brothers and sisters around the world who do not have, and may never again have, access to the body and blood of our Lord in a service of Holy Communion.

Every time I open a hymnbook I think of Tavian, that old singing saint, sitting in his prison cell writing and composing over six hundred praise and worship songs that are now sung every week in churches all over his country.

When I worship on Sunday mornings with American congregations and we stand to lift our voices and spirits together in congregational singing, I am reminded of one of the most hostile countries on earth. Believers in that country secretly meet in groups of three or four or five, at different times each week to share, worship, and “sing” their favorite praise songs by silently mouthing the words together to keep neighbors from turning them in to the secret police.

On occasions, when my heart is moved by some piece of special music—an offertory solo or an uplifting choir anthem—I think of Aisha’s courageous voice rising from the dark dungeon beneath her city’s police station or I think of that great choir of fifteen hundred inmates standing at attention, arms outstretched, facing east as they sang Dmitri’s heart-song back to him.

When I reach for one of the Bibles on the book shelf in my study and have to stop to decide which version might be best for the passage and purpose that I have in mind, I think of those Chinese house-church pastors, each one going home from the clandestine conference clutching a handful of torn-out pages. They will preach from those few pages until they receive another portion of Scripture.

I also think of that youth conference in Moscow fifty years ago where the young Russian believers recreated the entirety of the four Gospels by memory.

I think of the hundreds of believers who I have interviewed who could quickly cite and recite for me “their verse” or Bible passage that provided them the comfort and strength to survive and to keep their faith alive and vibrant through long years of suffering and persecution.

The Ripkens left Somalia beaten down, discouraged and defeated. After Tim died in Nairobi, we packed up and headed home to America with our tails between our legs. We had nothing but a handful of suitcases, a small shipping container filled with all of our earthly possessions, and a boatload of emotional hurt and spiritual questions to show for a decade and a half living and working overseas.

Looking back fifteen years later, I feel certain that if Ruth and I had just stayed in Kentucky—with our old college community, our friends and our family—we might have found healing and restored hope, eventually. We might have. I honestly suspect that it would have been a lesser hope and a healing without depth. It turned out very differently, though. The people we met on our long pilgrimage among believers in persecution have not only given us a new and greater understanding of what we were called to do. They have taught us who we are called to be.

And the examples that they have lived—and the stories that they have told—have not only restored our hope and healed our wounds, they have also transformed our world perspective, redirected our careers, resurrected our faith and changed our lives. Forever.

Samira is one of the strongest, most courageous Christian believers out of Islam that Ruth and I have ever known. Young, single, and well-educated, Samira gave her life to Jesus after a series of dreams and visions. Miraculously, she had found a Bible and she had started reading it on her own. She had been discussing her questions and faith issues with a conservative imam. Through that God-guided pilgrimage, Samira gave her heart to Jesus.

When I met Samira, she had already been forced to flee her home country. She was working for the United Nations as a women’s advocate in refugee camps on the border between two central Asian countries. She first surprised me by walking into the interview room covered from head to-toe in the most conservative Sharia-chic fashion. I was in for an even bigger surprise when she closed the door behind her and immediately began to shed her traditional Muslim garb. She first removed the hijab that covered her head and face. Then she removed the dark, flowing burka that enveloped and covered the rest of her. Moments later, she sat down on the other side of the table from me, smiling warmly and looking the part of an attractive, modern, western young woman in the casual outfit—colorful-yet-modest blouse over a pair of American blue jeans. She had been wearing this clothing beneath the burka.

Her transformation had been so sudden, so complete, so stunning that the best way, maybe the only way, I can describe it is to say: it was like watching a beautiful butterfly emerge from a cocoon.

In proficient English, Samira explained that her current job for the United Nations was to represent women who had been raped by Taliban militia. The leaders of the militia wanted to kill Samira because of her faith in Christ and because of her attempts to hold them accountable in a United Nations court of law. She had personally led more than thirty women to Christ, baptized them, and was now discipling them. She had done all of this in an environment nearly devoid of male believers who might be able to lend her protection.

I listened in amazement as she shared the story of her own spiritual pilgrimage. The Lord was obviously using her in a powerful way.

By the time she and I met, Samira’s superiors were already seeking to extradite Samira to the United States—for her own protection. I begged her to stay among her own people because I couldn’t see how God could replace this young woman of faith in such a dark and difficult place.

However, the slow-grinding, irreversible gears of international diplomacy had already been set in motion. Samira was whisked out of Central Asia and flown immediately to the American Midwest where she began to make a new life.

When I arrived home from my trip, I told Ruth all about this remarkable young woman. We arranged to fly her from her new home to Kentucky for a visit.

She spent a week in our home. We took Samira to a moderate-sized church in central Kentucky for Sunday morning worship. It just so happened that there was a baptism service scheduled for that morning; an entire family—mother, father, and two children—were to be baptized.

As their baptism progressed—with this young lady believer from a Muslim background sitting in the pew between Ruth and me—I noticed Samira beginning to fidget, twisting, turning, and rocking backward and forward. It was as if she was having an anxiety attack. In a quiet whisper, I asked her if there was something wrong.

Samira tugged on the sleeve of my jacket. She whispered forcefully in my ear: “I cannot believe this! I cannot believe that I have lived long enough to see people being baptized in public. An entire family together! No one is shooting at them, no one is threatening them, no one will go to prison, no one will be tortured, and no one will be killed. And they are being openly and freely baptized as a family! I never dreamed that God could do such things! I never believed that I would live to see a miracle like this.”

I couldn’t help smiling as I turned my eyes back toward the baptismal at the front of the church. A few seconds later, I noticed Samira glancing around the congregation, looking confused and little troubled. When she caught my eye she leaned toward me. “Why aren’t all the people standing?” she wanted to know.

“What do you mean?” I whispered back.

“Why aren’t all these people standing and cheering and clapping at such a miracle from God? I think that I am going to burst with joy! I think that I am going to shout!”

I nearly laughed out loud: “Go ahead, Sister! If you want to shout, I’ll shout with you!”

For a minute or so, she looked like she might. But she didn’t. And neither did I.

Ruth and I, however, spent the rest of that service with tears running down our own faces as we divided our attention between the family being baptized and the rapturous countenance of our friend Samira, this Muslim-background believer from one of the toughest places on the planet who had called us to take notice of the miracle of the moment.

Indeed, it is all a miracle!

Fellow believers around the world in countries of persecution have themselves discovered and reminded me: There is no one like Jesus! And nothing can match the power of our resurrection faith!

Traveling the world on this long pilgrimage through persecution, Ruth and I have been privileged to sit at the feet of many faithful followers of Christ. We have sat at the feet of Samira, Tavian, Dmitri, Stoyan, Aisha, Pramana, old Pastor Chang, and so many more. We have listened to their amazing stories. It is as if our Bible has been blown open, and the characters have exploded out of its pages.

Now I find myself humbly asking God a very different question from the one I wanted to answer at the beginning of the journey.

My question now is this:

What do I do with this now, Lord? You seemed a lot tamer—and my faith felt a lot more comfortable—when I studied your ancient Scriptures and simply left you in the past. Allowing you, your resurrection power, your glory, and your Word into the present changes everything! It makes the good news of the gospel great news for the world today!

So what am I supposed to do about this resurrection faith? Where do you expect me to go from here?

For the Ripkens, the adventure continues . . .

Do you care to join us? Do you want to know where to start?

Begin by following the instruction that the voice of the Holy Spirit gave to Pramana in his midnight vision: “Find Jesus. Find the gospel.”

As you do that, know what countless believers from every religious background in the world have reminded us: “There is no one like Jesus. No one else offers a faith like His!”

Don’t fear the cost or worry about the risk. Remember what the toughest man I ever met told me: “Jesus is worth it!” He is worth it all!

Begin a spiritual journey of your own. Discover for yourself the incredible peace and power that you too can experience when you live by faith resurrected. It will change your life and it will turn your world upside down.

I know this all sounds crazy. But I assure you that it’s not.

It’s just . . .

THE INSANITY OF GOD