Randall E. Bennett's Blog
April 22, 2013
Why there is so much emphasis on faith in Faith Through Fire
I have been receiving some great feedback regarding Faith Through Fire: Rwanda and Me. People tell me that it is well-written. They like the character development. They really like the love story between Gary and Melanie. They are shocked by the atrocities of the Genocide.
So far the story has been purchased or downloaded via Kindle over 1900 times. From what I have read this is good for a first time author! For those of you who have purchased the book- a thousand times thank you!
A comment that I often receive from readers is that the book needs to get out to a larger audience. I am trying to figure the best way to do this. This blog is part of my ongoing effort to get the word out regarding this wonderful story.
I believe that this book will appeal to readers who have a faith and those who do not. For this reason I have been encouraging my not particularly spiritually focused friends and/or those with no faith background to read the book. The feedback from them has proven quite interesting.
They tell me that they liked the story, love the love story, and felt inspired by Gary's love of the people in Rwanda and his persistence in returning time after time. They just wonder why there had to be so much about his faith in the book. They asked if I could have written the story without this emphasis on faith.
My answer is that it would have been impossible to write this story without having this emphasis on the main characters faith! I wanted to stay true to what really happened. This is a true story after all. It was written with the intent to capture what really happened, and to give a peek into their mindset as they made the decisions that they did.
It was their faith which allowed them to do the heroic things they did. They would say that without their faith they could have done nothing. Without their faith there is no story. That is why the emphasis on faith in the book and why faith is mentioned in the title.
The book of James states that, “Faith without works is dead.” Clearly the people in this book did not have a dead faith. Their works exemplify a living vibrant faith. A person can disagree with tenants of their faith. However, we cannot argue with the results of their faith.
So far the story has been purchased or downloaded via Kindle over 1900 times. From what I have read this is good for a first time author! For those of you who have purchased the book- a thousand times thank you!
A comment that I often receive from readers is that the book needs to get out to a larger audience. I am trying to figure the best way to do this. This blog is part of my ongoing effort to get the word out regarding this wonderful story.
I believe that this book will appeal to readers who have a faith and those who do not. For this reason I have been encouraging my not particularly spiritually focused friends and/or those with no faith background to read the book. The feedback from them has proven quite interesting.
They tell me that they liked the story, love the love story, and felt inspired by Gary's love of the people in Rwanda and his persistence in returning time after time. They just wonder why there had to be so much about his faith in the book. They asked if I could have written the story without this emphasis on faith.
My answer is that it would have been impossible to write this story without having this emphasis on the main characters faith! I wanted to stay true to what really happened. This is a true story after all. It was written with the intent to capture what really happened, and to give a peek into their mindset as they made the decisions that they did.
It was their faith which allowed them to do the heroic things they did. They would say that without their faith they could have done nothing. Without their faith there is no story. That is why the emphasis on faith in the book and why faith is mentioned in the title.
The book of James states that, “Faith without works is dead.” Clearly the people in this book did not have a dead faith. Their works exemplify a living vibrant faith. A person can disagree with tenants of their faith. However, we cannot argue with the results of their faith.
April 15, 2013
Faith, Hope, Love
Faith Through Fire: Rwanda and Me has been a labor love. Something I was compelled to do. I started this project in 2007. I was in Rwanda visiting my brother Gary, and providing workshops on Post- Traumatic Stress to his church association. My brother had lived there since 1979. I had visited him in 1986. I had also seen the movie, Hotel Rwanda and was trying to do my little part to bring healing to the country. As we drove around the capitol city of Kigali, he began to speak of what he had experienced during those dark and dreadful days before and during the first stages of the horrific 1994 Genocide.
I had never heard much of what he told me. I knew things had been bad, but not that bad! He and Melanie had always minimized the horrific side of the story and focused on the positive. They would speak of what a miracle it was that Mugenzi had survived or how a building had survived unscathed etc. So when he started pointing out locations and telling me of seeing things such as a man with a serious machete wound to his head and his dilemna of whether to stop and defend the man from the mob, or the spot where he had witnessed a neighbor murdered, I paid attention and began to write the stories down. I wrote passages as well as chapter outlines and potential chapter titles. I asked him more and more questions. I interviewed other missionaries who had been present during that dreadful time.
What emerged was a story of not only man's depravity but a story of hope and of redemption. A story that made me laugh and too often made me cry. What quickly became evident was an inspirational tale of perservering, and gritty determination during the absolute darkest days that life might hand a person.
What also emerged was a classic love story. A love story set against the backdrop of what has been called one the most horrific killing campaigns in the history of the world. The wondrous, sweet, and beautiful love story of Gary and Melanie. Yet, something more, more than just a love story between a man and a woman, a love story between a man and a country, and between a man and God.
Faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love!
I had never heard much of what he told me. I knew things had been bad, but not that bad! He and Melanie had always minimized the horrific side of the story and focused on the positive. They would speak of what a miracle it was that Mugenzi had survived or how a building had survived unscathed etc. So when he started pointing out locations and telling me of seeing things such as a man with a serious machete wound to his head and his dilemna of whether to stop and defend the man from the mob, or the spot where he had witnessed a neighbor murdered, I paid attention and began to write the stories down. I wrote passages as well as chapter outlines and potential chapter titles. I asked him more and more questions. I interviewed other missionaries who had been present during that dreadful time.
What emerged was a story of not only man's depravity but a story of hope and of redemption. A story that made me laugh and too often made me cry. What quickly became evident was an inspirational tale of perservering, and gritty determination during the absolute darkest days that life might hand a person.
What also emerged was a classic love story. A love story set against the backdrop of what has been called one the most horrific killing campaigns in the history of the world. The wondrous, sweet, and beautiful love story of Gary and Melanie. Yet, something more, more than just a love story between a man and a woman, a love story between a man and a country, and between a man and God.
Faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love!
