Drs. Craig and Médine Keener: Impossible Love

Overview

Drs. Craig and Médine Keener join the podcast today. Médine holds a Ph.D. from University of Paris 7 and is Community Formation and Pastoral Care Coordinator at Asbury Seminary. Craig is the F.M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies, also at the Seminary. He has authored more than 30 books, several of which have won awards and altogether have sold more than one million copies. Craig and Médine co-authored Impossible Love: The True Story of an African Civil War and Hope Against All Odds. The book talks about how Médine lived as a refugee in the Congo for 18 months while Craig waited, not knowing if she were dead or alive.

In today’s conversation, they share about her war experience, romance and how God provided healing and wholeness.

Let’s listen!

*The views expressed in this podcast don’t necessarily reflect the views of Asbury Seminary.

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Transcript

Heidi Wilcox:
Hey everyone. Welcome to this week’s episode of The Thrive with Asbury Seminary Podcast. I’m your host, Heidi E. Wilcox, bringing you conversations with authors, thought leaders and people just like you, who are looking to connect where your passion meets the world’s deep need.

Heidi Wilcox:
Doctors Craig and Médine Keener join the podcast today. Médine holds a PhD from University Of Paris 7, and is community formation and pastoral care coordinator at Asbury Seminary. Craig is the F.M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies, also at the Seminary. He has authored more than 30 books, several of which have won awards and altogether have sold more than 1 million copies.

Heidi Wilcox:
One of their books that Craig and Médine coauthored, Impossible Love: The True Story Of An African Civil War, Miracles And Hope Against All Odds. The book talks about how Médine lived as a refugee in the Congo for 18 months, while Craig waited, not knowing if she was dead or alive. In today’s conversation, they share about her war experience, romance and how God provided healing and wholeness. Let’s listen.

Heidi Wilcox:
Craig, Médine, it is such a delight to have you on The Thrive with Asbury Seminary Podcast today. I know you, but I want to give you the opportunity to introduce yourself and then tell us a little bit about what you do at the Seminary. So we can start with whichever one you want.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Okay.

Heidi Wilcox:
All right.

Dr. Médine Keener:
So I am Médine Keener and I work in the office of community formation. I’m married to Craig Keener and what else? I have two children, one daughter-in-law and one granddaughter.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. Wow.

Dr. Craig Keener:
I’m Craig. I’m married to Médine who works in community formation and I have two children, one daughter-in-law, one granddaughter. But also I write books and I teach in the School of Biblical Interpretation.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay. Well, we’re glad to have you both here. Thank you both so much. So I was reading your book, Impossible Love, and that’s what I wanted to talk about with you today. I want to hear you tell your story. Your book is beautiful. It’s beautiful in hindsight, as we were talking about it before [crosstalk 00:02:39].

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yes.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yes.

Heidi Wilcox:
Before we started recording, because there were a lot of hard things that led to this season that you’re in now. So how did you both meet?

Dr. Médine Keener:
Well, that’s a good question.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes.

Dr. Médine Keener:
So if I remember well, I went to a InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. One evening, it was a young man who was speaking and I got into the … actually I talked with you before I got into the room. Right. Did I know you were the speaker? Did you tell me you were the speaker?

Dr. Craig Keener:
It wasn’t exactly a speaker. It was like a Bible study. Each of us in a [crosstalk 00:03:20]

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah, a bible study.

Dr. Craig Keener:
It was the Graduate University of Fellowship at Duke University. Each of us was taking turns leading on a subject we were interested in.

Dr. Médine Keener:
And that was your day to-

Dr. Craig Keener:
And of course, my subject is Bible, which could be all sorts of things. So I wanted to pick a topic that would be something stimulating, the people wouldn’t have talked about that much before. So that’s what I was doing. But Médine, when I found out she was from Congo, I said, “Oh, I know somebody who was in Congo.” But it was the wrong Congo, but it was the best shot I had of trying to get a conversation started. So I said, “Have you heard of Jacques Vernaud?

Dr. Médine Keener:
And it happened that Jacques Vernaud, when he was in my Congo, was my father’s friend.

Heidi Wilcox:
No way.

Dr. Médine Keener:
He was a missionary and he actually laid hands upon my dad and prayed for him to receive the gift of healing. And my dad had the gift of healing and both of them were named Jacques and they kept in touch.

Heidi Wilcox:
Uh-huh (affirmative).

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Out of so many people in Congo and so many missionaries who passed by, to have the same person.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.

Dr. Médine Keener:
That’s interesting.

Heidi Wilcox:
So what happened? You tried to strike up this conversation. How did that go for you?

Dr. Craig Keener:
She looked only mildly interested.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yeah. Well, I was kind of sensitive, you know? And then during the Bible study, she challenged me. She was disagreeing with me. Everybody else seemed interested. I didn’t think Médine was interested.

Heidi Wilcox:
So what topic were you speaking about?

Dr. Craig Keener:
Oh, you really want to know? I was talking about speaking in tongues.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Because I figured that’d be interesting, because I was Pentecostal. I’m actually ordained in a different denomination, but I was in the Pentecostal Church at the time and that was a gift I really enjoyed, because two days after my conversion from atheism, I’d never heard of speaking in tongues or anything like that, but it just happened to me. So later, of course, I knew it was in the Bible. And so we talked about that and Médine came from a different background in terms of speaking in tongues.

Dr. Médine Keener:
But I did not argue with you actually.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Oh.

Dr. Médine Keener:
I just said that, not everyone spoke in tongues, because in my own family, well three of my siblings, actually, they speak in tongues.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yeah. But people had tried to pressure her to speak in tongues.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Craig Keener:
So, I thought it was offering some insight and she thought I was giving a pressure, I think.

Heidi Wilcox:
Uh-huh (affirmative).

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, that makes sense. So you guys, you were over at Duke University for a year.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah, I was there as an exchange student.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
And then you returned to …

Dr. Médine Keener:
I went back to France.

Heidi Wilcox:
Paris. Okay.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yes, to finish with my PhD. I was doing a PhD there on African American History.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay. So did you all date during that time, the year that you were there?

Dr. Médine Keener:
We didn’t date.

Dr. Craig Keener:
No. We were friends. I don’t think we ever met it alone. We were always with other friends.

Dr. Médine Keener:
No, we were always With other friends, yes. We were invited to some of the same things like food or Church, but yeah. No, we didn’t officially date.

Dr. Craig Keener:
No, we didn’t even … I mean.

Dr. Médine Keener:
We didn’t even talk about it.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yeah. I mean-

Dr. Médine Keener:
I like you. I don’t like you.

Dr. Craig Keener:
No. I called her on the phone once, hoping maybe, to see if there was anything there. And she said, “Oh, I have to go brother. I got to finish my studies.” [crosstalk 00:07:12]

Heidi Wilcox:
Uh-huh (affirmative) She had some priority.

Dr. Craig Keener:
I figured, “Okay, that’s not going anywhere.” So eventually, I decided, “Okay, no, I’m not going to date anyway. I’m just going to wait for God to show me my future wife or her friends.” But, in one of those friendships may develop, the Lord may lead, but I want to, I want to hear from him before my feelings get involved anyway.

Heidi Wilcox:
How would you know when you heard from God?

Dr. Craig Keener:
Well, that was an issue. I was thinking, “If I get a vision and then she gets a vision at the same time, I figured that would work.”

Heidi Wilcox:
That would be very clear, right?

Dr. Craig Keener:
Which isn’t what happened. Yeah, but I was like … I just want it to be absolutely sure. I had a broken relationship that really was painful and I didn’t want to …

Heidi Wilcox:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Craig Keener:
I wanted to wait on God and not … Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, definitely, definitely. So after returning to France, you all kept in touch.

Dr. Médine Keener:
We kept in touch [crosstalk 00:08:15]

Heidi Wilcox:
Through letters.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yes, through letters. Oh, I wrote a lot of letters to a lot of people, but yes, Craig and I, we kept in touch a lot. We talked about so many things, just life in general, asking one another, asking for prayers and yeah, sharing our hearts a little bit. Maybe it was a distance dating or something like that [crosstalk 00:08:39]

Dr. Craig Keener:
Médine. You wrote a lot of people and so did I, but … And then, she asked me for help on her dissertation too.

Dr. Médine Keener:
I did.

Dr. Craig Keener:
She said, “I didn’t get all the info …” Because it was in African-American history. So she needed some data. She was back in France. And so she … [crosstalk 00:09:00] it wasn’t dating. It was data.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, it was data.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah, it was [crosstalk 00:09:03]. It was good though. It was good.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. So after you graduated, you returned to the Congo.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
And then, tell me your story from there and then we’ll get Craig, what you were doing at the same time as well.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Well, after I graduated, actually there was war going on in the Congo.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay, while you were in school.

Dr. Médine Keener:
While I was finishing up in France. And Craig, I think you asked me if I would come and teach at, what was it?

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yeah, I’d figured I could find you a position in the US.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah, but I didn’t want to come, because especially, I mean, being close to Craig, even though Craig didn’t know my feelings for him, I was like, “That would be hard if I come to the US and then I’m teaching there and Craig will get married or is already married, who knows?” And so I just said, no.

Dr. Médine Keener:
So I went back. Congo has been in war and there was a kind of lull. That’s when I went back. I went back in a country that was experiencing civil unrest. And I mean, when I got there, you could see evidences of war, broken walls and houses destroyed, but also just a mistrust, anger, bitterness and the fact that …

Dr. Médine Keener:
I remember when I got to Congo, I contacted someone who was … He was the father of one of our friends in France, but during the civil war that happened, his part of the country was at war with my part of the country. A lot of people were killed and so on. And so when he came to see me, he was coming almost into enemy territory.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh no.

Dr. Médine Keener:
He Was afraid. And for me, that was new, to see the fear, to see people looking at him and saying, “What is he doing here?” And so on. That was really new, so I was learning about the things that happened. Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Your brother nearly got killed, Eme?

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah, I was not in Congo yet.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Right.

Dr. Médine Keener:
I mean, I was still a student during the first time.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Médine Keener:
So that’s the environment I find myself in.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. Why did you go back?

Dr. Médine Keener:
I went back, I guess I wanted to be with my family.

Heidi Wilcox:
Of course.

Dr. Médine Keener:
When I heard about the war in Congo, I almost developed a stomach ulcer because my parents didn’t have a phone. I didn’t know if they were doing okay, what was happening, were they alive. And the fear and the anxiety of waiting until someone who has a phone will contact me and say, “Hey, I saw Papa Jacques and oh, they’re doing okay or they’re hiding here.” That was too much for me to take.

Dr. Médine Keener:
And I was like, staying in France, I told the Lord, “I would like to stay in France or go to the US, over to wherever you want to send me, but I didn’t want to stay as somebody who will go underground and dishonor the Lord. I wanted to be somewhere where I will be there officially.” So my prayer was, “Okay Lord, if you want me to come back or to do something in the West, then you will make the way.” And I remember, to tie it after war, when … I’m jumping if you …

Dr. Médine Keener:
When I was, I was looking for a job. I was abandoned. I had my child in my back and I was walking and I saw someone, a friend, okay? He was a pastor in a Church. And he said, “Look at you. I don’t know why you came back. You disobeyed the Lord and left friends instead of staying there and now you are here. You’ve been abandoned, went through war. This is God’s punishment on you.” And when he was done talking to me, I just burst out crying.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes.

Dr. Médine Keener:
And I cried, as I was walking home, I was crying. I said, “Lord, come on here. Something is not right. I came home because I didn’t want to dishonor you. I don’t think this is your punishment.” But my brother Emanuel, when he heard that, he was so upset. He said, “Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” But it just shows the kind of struggle. Sometimes, you do the right thing between your heart and the Lord, but it doesn’t mean that what’s going to come will be completely just rosies and so on. Difficult things might come.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right.

Dr. Médine Keener:
God still has us in His hands.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. That’s a very good word because I think a lot of times, we think or we’re taught, maybe not even intentionally that, “Oh, you follow the Lord. Your life will not have any hardship, any difficulty. And if you get a bad diagnosis or a war breaks out in your country or something, then you must have done something wrong,” and that’s not always the case.

Dr. Médine Keener:
That’s not always the case.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yeah, just like the Lord showed Joseph that his brothers would bow down to him in Genesis 37. And from then on, everything was smooth sailing.

Heidi Wilcox:
Everything was great for him. I do often wonder at his intelligence level at sharing that vision with his brothers. I’m like, “Things might’ve got a little better, had you kept it to yourself for a little bit.”

Dr. Craig Keener:
Well, he was 17 and they’re all been picking on him. I think We need to give him a break.

Heidi Wilcox:
I think so too. So, you were back in Congo then.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Heidi Wilcox:
Dr. Keener, what was happening for you during that time?

Dr. Craig Keener:
I had been through a lot of my struggles already. Actually, the wilder part of my life was all before this because I was converted from atheism, off the street. So I started sharing Christ with people on the street and a lot of people came to faith in Christ and some people beat me up or threatened to kill me.

Heidi Wilcox:
I read that in your book.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yeah. But also I started learning to hear the Lord’s voice in prayer and also just immersing myself in Scripture because I had to catch up with little kids in Sunday School. If you read 40 chapters of the Bible a day, you can get through the Bible once a month, through the New Testament every week. So, I was trying to catch up with the kids, but as I was doing that, I began to realize, “Well, I need more background, more of what was going on back then.” And some of the stuff I’d already studied because I’d really been into Greek and Roman historiography and so on before my conversion. But when I started that, and then …

Dr. Craig Keener:
By the time I finished my doctorate, I was like, “Okay, there’s no reason for somebody else to have to spend 10 years getting all this background. Why don’t I … If nobody else has written this book, by the time I finished my doctorate, why don’t I write a background commentary that will just put this in people’s fingertips?” Because all I wanted to do was go out and preach. I felt God called me to, but this was a way of making it available to a lot of other people, so they could go out preach or whatever.

Dr. Craig Keener:
So, assuming that they’re reading the Bible a lot, like I was, and at that time there weren’t any other background commentaries. So I proposed that to the university. Well, the Lord had provided for me a year after year. I mean, the day before I was going to call Duke and tell them I couldn’t come, because I just had a dollar, the Lord had provided for me to go-

Heidi Wilcox:
You literally just had $1.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Well, technically that was a week before. I was down to a dollar, but anyway, but the Lord provided for me the day before I was going to call them and tell them I couldn’t come. And so, he provided each year, but I didn’t have a teaching position when I finished. I couldn’t understand, “Lord what’s going on?”

Dr. Craig Keener:
There was one day, it was a Sunday. I’ve been praying for months for a teaching position. I had been looking diligently. And that night, I just figured out how much money I was going to need to live on, so that I and my research files wouldn’t be out in the street, because back then you couldn’t fit all your research in a flash drive, you know? It was [crosstalk 00:17:55]

Heidi Wilcox:
Right.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Big files, and then I was just like, “Oh Lord, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” And the next day, University Press called me back and offered me in advance in the Background Commentary, that was to the dollar, what I decided the night before I needed to live on that year. And so somebody had prophesied to me, that I had been through some really hard things that aren’t necessary to the story. I mean, they would take a long detour, but where it looked like my ministry route was completely over and I was just completely shattered and felt …

Dr. Craig Keener:
I mean, God was still there, but I just felt so broken and somebody had prophesied to me, “Okay, well now God is going to begin to exalt you.” And the Background Commentary was part of that. The next year I had a teaching position and things were really beginning to flow in terms of God’s calling in my life. A few years before it felt like nobody’s ever going to listen to me, and now, I think already there were like a 100,000 copies of my books in printing. But I’m corresponding with Médine, and she’s going through these hard things and my heart is just going out to her.

Heidi Wilcox:
Before we jump to her story, Dr. Keener, you mentioned you had a broken relationship. You had your own healing to do. Can you talk a little bit about the role that the African-American Church played in your healing?

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yeah. If we go back there, I may as well tell the whole story. I got married to a college classmate from Bible College and we were together about three and a half years. When one place we both were feeling like I was going to go do my PhD, turned me down and she said, “I’m thinking of backsliding. I’m thinking of turning my back on God.” That just blew my mind.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.

Dr. Craig Keener:
When she deliberately set her mind to do that, she had her best friend’s husband who had had affairs before, started an affair and within a few months, she moved out and he left his wife and children and they moved in together. She filed for divorce. He divorced his wife. She filed for divorce. I fought the divorce for a couple of years, hoping she’d come back, and so I was totally broken.

Dr. Craig Keener:
I’ve been praying like two hours a day before it happened, but after, after it happened, all I could do was just utter the name of Jesus. I just needed to be around people to feel the strength of their presence, because my own heart was just a void.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.

Dr. Craig Keener:
So, when I got to Durham, North Carolina, where I was starting my PhD, it was actually … I moved into an African-American neighborhood, didn’t know you weren’t supposed to do that.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Craig Keener:
I mean, there wasn’t a law against it, but some of the people in the neighborhood wondered if I was a drug dealer, “What’s this white guy doing?”

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay, yeah.

Dr. Craig Keener:
But there was an African-American family who kind of took me in and took me to Church with them and I found that the black Church had a resilience. They knew how to deal with pain in a way that my white Evangelical Church tradition didn’t know. I mean, it had all sorts of gifts, that could be great gifts for that part of the black Church, but the black Church really knew how to deal with pain. They’d have a few centuries of experience with that.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes.

Dr. Craig Keener:
And they helped nurse me back to wholeness. That was a major turning point in my life, because from then on, I felt like I really owed my life to the black Church.

Heidi Wilcox:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), to help you on your own healing journey.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. So Médine, you’re still in the Congo.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Heidi Wilcox:
What was it like when you knew that war was coming and then later broke out?

Dr. Médine Keener:
It was very emotional because actually when I went back to Congo, I couldn’t have Craig.

Heidi Wilcox:
Well, you weren’t dating.

Dr. Médine Keener:
I couldn’t have Craig. I couldn’t tell Craig how I really felt. So-

Heidi Wilcox:
Was there a reason you couldn’t tell him how you felt?

Dr. Médine Keener:
Well, at that time, traditional African women really don’t talk about matters of heart. It’s supposed to come from the young man and so on. And also I tried, I did tell Craig how I felt when I was in France, but he felt like, in Craig’s typical … You know, this is Craig, “Do you do …” He was wanting to know if I was involved in ministry.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Médine Keener:
And that’s understandable because of what he went through. And so, for me ministry was like being a Pastor or Missionary or an Evangelist. I said, “No, I’m not a minister. I’m not involved in ministry at all. So you see, I think maybe we should just be friends.” So we were friends. And when I got to Congo, I asked him to pray for me. I was so tired. People thought I was cursed because you know, “At 25, she’s not married. Something is wrong with you.” And in my family actually, no one was married. Even some of our friends were saying, “What is wrong with you guys?”

Dr. Médine Keener:
Mind you, somebody came to marry me a long time ago when I was a student at the university in Congo, in Brazzaville, I was an undergrad. Okay? So this is just [crosstalk 00:23:41].

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh yes. Yes please.

Dr. Médine Keener:
The traditional way, someone came in. So my parents and it was like … Actually, it was so funny because one afternoon, I saw a bunch of people coming into our house and there was a young man with them and there was an aunt. And she’s like, “Okay, this is somebody who wants to marry Médine.” I’m like, “Wait. I’m going to school.” No one came to me and asked me, but I couldn’t talk. So I had to wait the way it’s done. They talked to my parents and so on. My father said, “I’m going to ask Médine what she thinks.” So he came to me saying-

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, that’s good.

Dr. Médine Keener:
“Médine, somebody who comes and brings in TVs and all the material things is not really somebody who is serving the Lord.” I said, “Yes sir.” Anyway, so I told him no, and it didn’t happen. But then after that I was not married. I went, I had a PhD, came back. And so finally, when somebody came wanting to marry me, I said, yes,

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Médine Keener:
I asked Craig to pray for me, but it turned out that the person was already married traditionally. He had children. [crosstalk 00:24:55].

Heidi Wilcox:
And you didn’t know any of this.

Dr. Médine Keener:
I didn’t know.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Médine Keener:
And a lot of things happen. Anyway, there was a young woman who would witness all the things that he said and how he will drink. And then after he was done drinking, he will use chewing gum to kind of … No, he would chew garlic to remove away the smell of wine and then chewing gum, so that he said, “This is Médine’s money I’m using and if you say anything, my nephew or my cousin is not going to marry …”

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Something like that. And so I got married to this person and a few months in the marriage, I was pregnant. I was abused and the person is like, “Oh, you don’t know what pain is. You will know that I’ve hurt you when you find yourself in a hospital with a leg missing.”

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh my.

Dr. Médine Keener:
So when war came, I know war was horrible, but in a sense, it opened my eyes and I was like, “What am I doing here?? Because we all ran. I went to my parents’ small town. I gave birth there. Life was very, very difficult for us, but the family, our family was really tight knit and because of Jesus, we all helped. My father helped, my brother helped, everybody took care of everybody else and then war came there again.

Dr. Médine Keener:
So my whole family, we found ourselves running and I had a toddler, who would not be kept quiet [crosstalk 00:26:33] by whatever.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Who would talk and thank God that he was happy when the shooting will come, instead of being shh, he would go like yay. And people are like, “Quiet him. Do you want us to die. What’s wrong with you?” Anyway, so it started a journey about 18 months running for our lives, from one village to another, some of the villages in the forest. We experienced a lot of … Everything that people experienced. I mean, you saw people die. We were hungry. We were thirsty. We got sick. We had questions.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Like, why are we in this mess when we didn’t do anything? Why do good people hurt for things that they didn’t do? So it was really a very difficult time of testing, but in the midst of that too, we saw the Lord just come, sometimes miraculous healing. I got so sick with malaria that I didn’t know. I mean, I was just in a delirious state. I was not doing well and when I started to get better, somebody came and said, “Oh Papa Jacques.” That’s my dad.

Heidi Wilcox:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Médine Keener:
I saw your daughter in a dream. Your daughter Médine, she was sick? My father is like, “How do you know?” It’s like, “Yeah, I had a dream. Somebody say, pray for Médine. How is she doing? We’ve been praying for her.” And sometimes, we would just walk in the forest. We’re running for our lives and we are so hungry. There was nothing. And suddenly you feel like a breeze and some fruits. We’re like, “Oh, we didn’t even know there was a fruit tree here, falling for us to eat.”

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
So in hindsight, you’re telling me this story and we’re smiling. We’re rejoicing in how God is providing, but it was still very hard, more than hard. I don’t even have a word right now to describe. Can you describe for me, for those of us listening, who would probably never experienced anything like this, what it was like?

Dr. Médine Keener:
It took me years to tell the story and laugh. When I used to tell the story, I will cry, because I guess the pain was so, so much there. It’s still there. So I guess the telling of the story was healing. How to start? I mean, the fact that you don’t have a room or a bedroom or a house, or just a kitchen to cook. And so everything was improvised or you had to depend on people to help you.

Dr. Médine Keener:
We came in villages where people didn’t even care. They said, “We don’t want you here. We don’t want you to touch anything.” And so on. And then we came in villages where people would say, “Oh, come on, let’s take you to our garden and let’s help you.” Hunger was a constant companion. It was very hard because I had a toddler and it was very hard when David was sick with malaria and there was no medication.

Dr. Médine Keener:
It was very hard. One day, he was so sick that he started convulsing and I didn’t realize because I was doing things. He was very active and talkative child, and he would talk and he was calling my name and saying things and I just tuned him out of me. I went into my zone where I was wondering what’s going to happen and so on, just thinking. And then when I came back to reality, his voice was so raspy. He was convulsing, so he was losing the movement. I just grabbed him. I went to see my brother Emanuel.

Dr. Médine Keener:
“Emanuel, what do we do? What do we do?” He said, “Okay, first of all, we’re going to pray. So he went and took … Our only medicine was palm oil that we prayed over and that was the medicine, trusting the Lord to do something. So he took it and my father was sitting there. He said, “Why are you taking the oil?” We used to call it God’s oil. “Who’s sick? What’s going on?” Because when somebody would touch that oil, we know something is going on.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right.

Dr. Médine Keener:
And Emanuel was like, “No, everything is fine.” My dad had had a stroke, so he didn’t want him to worry and fret.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Médine Keener:
So he tried to massage David, and then I put David on my back and he said, “Okay, where do we go? If we go to the only, “Hospital,” the first thing they ask you is money. We didn’t have anything, not even a cent. And so he said, “Let’s go and see my friend. Maybe my friend …” He had a friend who went to a medical school and opened a small, we called it, clinic. And so we started to run.

Dr. Médine Keener:
I didn’t know how to pray. I just called Jesus. I was just calling. And the night before, a few days, I don’t know, somebody’s child had died of malaria. And I was like, “Jesus, please, please.” So, I was just praying Jesus name and Emanuel was just calling my son. He said, “David.” He said, “If he goes to sleep, it’s not good. We have to make him talk.”

Heidi Wilcox:
Right.

Dr. Médine Keener:
And so he was making him talk. “David,” and that child never stopped responding. Praise God. And so, as we were running and crying and praying and talking, we got to the place and the young man looked at us and said, “You guys are really lucky, no one has come this morning. I was getting ready to go home. And you’re also lucky because there is only one injection left for malaria.”

Heidi Wilcox:
Only God can do that.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Only God can do that. And he did, he gave David the injection. When I heard him cry, oh God, I was so grateful.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.

Dr. Médine Keener:
I was so grateful. So we got sick. So many people died of sickness. So many people died of not being taken care of. One was Buna, was a young woman who came, she was pregnant and she went to the same hospital. Everybody was trying to collect some money so we can help her. They admitted her. She had a very difficult birthing, gave birth to twins and the first baby died and that was hard. And then we were going to the hospital, everyone just praying out to God, Buna’s belly started to swell and a few hours after that she died.

Dr. Médine Keener:
I’ve never felt so helpless, and to see that girl died and her children die when she could have been saved. Or just hearing the cries of a young woman who was being gang raped by soldiers and feeling helpless, not knowing, not being able to help because they’re standing there with guns. Yeah, it was hard.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.

Dr. Médine Keener:
It was very hard.

Heidi Wilcox:
Thank you for sharing that. I’m guessing even this many years removed, it’s still not an easy story to tell.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah, it is not an easy story to tell. Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Thank you. I noticed in each of your stories, you came to a point where all you can say was, you could only call on the name of Jesus.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
So I have a question for each of you. What did you learn about God during that time? Because they were different experiences, but you both got to the same place.

Dr. Médine Keener:
You go ahead.

Dr. Craig Keener:
I guess, because he’d been an atheist before, I really tried to have faith, but when I was shattered and I couldn’t work up any faith, I’d always wondered what would happen then. But when I couldn’t work up any faith in the midst of the darkness, God was still there. I mean, in a way I felt abandoned. I felt … But I had no doubt that God was there and he sustained me when I didn’t have any strength to sustain myself.

Dr. Craig Keener:
I know at one point the guy who had run off with my wife, he had been my friend. When I was a Pastor, he almost became the assistant Pastor. We’d gone to the same Bible College. He abandoned his wife and kids, one of those kids recently died. It’s so sad. After he left his wife and kids, this, this daughter asked me, she was really young. She said, “Are you going to be our daddy now?” Because she thought you trade.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right.

Dr. Craig Keener:
And we explained, “No it doesn’t work like that.: But she recently died of drug …

Heidi Wilcox:
Well, that’s so sad.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Results of drug and alcohol. It’s just so sad what it does to people. But anyway, so I had been, I had been numb for a couple of months and just able to see the name of Jesus, but the Bible says to pray for those who persecute you. I was praying for him, all right. I was praying to God to kill him and then the Holy Spirit convicted me. And I’m like, “Wait a minute God, that’s not fair.”

Heidi Wilcox:
Right.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Because in the denomination that I was in at that point, if your marriage broke up, it didn’t matter who was at fault, didn’t matter what the circumstances were, you were done.

Heidi Wilcox:
With everything.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Everything. Your ministry was over, and so the only two things that had mattered to me, that I’d really prayed hard about more than anything else was having a family and having the Ministry that God called me to. I was like, “God, that’s not fair. I mean, this man has taken from me everything that really matters to me and you’re telling me, I can’t even hate him. I have to love my enemies. What? Where’d that come from?”

Dr. Craig Keener:
I’d been so numb, it’d been hard to hear God’s voice for some time, but at that point I felt like God spoke again. And he said, “My child, Elijah was a man of like passions as you. When he nailed down under the Juniper tree and said, “God, just let me die. I’m not better than my ancestors.” David was just like you, when he was ready to go in and kill them all and every male is his family when Saul was persecuting him. Jeremiah was just like you, when he said, “Cursed would be the day that it was born. Cursed would be the man that brought my father the news, saying a child is born.” My child, you’re a man of God, not because of what you’re made out of. You’re a man of God because I called you and my grace is sufficient for you.”

Dr. Craig Keener:
I’d already seen in the Bible that everybody that God called, went through some sort of testing, if the Bible gives us enough detail about them. And I’d always wondered what my test would be. Abraham and Sarah having to wait so many years for a kid. Or David being chased around by Saul. Or Joseph as a slave and then in prison. Well, I found out what my trial would be, and I was like, “God, if this is my test, I can’t do this. I can just tell you right now, I’m not going to pass it. So, if this is my test, please send my wife back tomorrow and give my calling to somebody else.” I mean, it doesn’t work like that, but …

Heidi Wilcox:
Right, but that’s how you felt.

Dr. Craig Keener:
That’s how I felt, and that’s when God spoke that to me. I mean, everything looked hopeless, but I just kept serving the Lord with what I had. It was like, if all I can do is just disciple people one-on-one and share Christ with people one-on-one, that’s what I’m going to do. All I can do anyway is make a dent in this world for Jesus and I want to make the biggest dent that I can make and humble myself beneath his hand. I felt like it was a twig in his hand being bent and ready to snap.

Dr. Craig Keener:
I mean, I know God didn’t tell her to leave me or something, but I also believed that he knew all this from the beginning and he would work it for good to those who love him. The only question was, “Yeah, Lord I need to keep loving you.” But I felt, “I just humble myself beneath your mighty hand and if you will, you will exalt me.” And the time came that he did. But even after that, the Bible, doesn’t just say, “Don’t sleep with anybody you’re not married to.” It also says, “Don’t lust.”

Dr. Craig Keener:
So eventually, I was spending a day every week fasting just to keep my heart pure before the Lord. And toward the end of the week, it was like, “Maybe I need to fast more than one day a week, but it’s all I can handle.” By the way, when Médine said about the thing about ministry, part of it was a question of definition too. I mean, we …

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. I was going to come back to that.

Dr. Craig Keener:
I mean, she was doing open air Evangelism. She was doing door to door Evangelism in Muslim neighborhoods. She was counseling drug addicts to get out of drugs. I mean, she was doing all sorts of ministry, stuff that I definitely considered ministry, but we had different definitions. So there was miscommunication, misunderstanding that …

Heidi Wilcox:
That lasted about seven years? Am I right on my number?

Dr. Craig Keener:
Something.

Heidi Wilcox:
Something like that?

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yeah, it was like ’93, when the question came up. ’93 or’94 and it was 2002 when we got married.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay. So I’m going to come back Médine to what you learned when all you can say, was the name of Jesus, because in your book, Impossible Love, you said you wrote in your journal, that life is hard, but Jesus is everything to me.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah. Yeah. I guess I realized that God’s real. He’s not some mythical person up there and that when we call on his name, he hears us. So I know that, in the midst of just calling on the name of Jesus and not being able to pray, I was actually praying because I was saying everything. There were no words that I can say that he didn’t know. So when the Bible says that the Holy Spirit takes what’s in, what’s in our heart and brings it to the Lord, I guess that’s what the Lord was doing for me.

Dr. Médine Keener:
To put two stories together, I think a couple of weeks ago or so, I was just working in Centennial Park in the morning, sometimes I walk there and I’ll pray. And because they’re not a lot of people, it’s easy to pray out loud, and I was just praying, talking. I said, “Lord, you know me.” And the Lord said, “Oh yeah, I know you.” I busted out laughing. I said, “Oh yeah, that’s true. Wait, you know me.” But I guess calling him the name of Jesus, during that time during war was for me, not only prayer, I don’t know how to explain this, but it was like, I knew God knew.

Dr. Médine Keener:
He knew not only me. He knew the times I was experiencing. He knew what was going on in my heart. He knew the panic and anxiety and so on. And I had to hold on, even if I didn’t feel anything going on right, when I was, but I have to hold to him. Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, yeah. For sure.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Well, I felt like God said that, even here in the US and everywhere, but here included, the time will come when God will strip us of the things we value, so we can learn to value what really matters. And it’s when you’re stripped of those other things, you realize what really matters in life, is the one thing they can’t take away from you. Even if they take your life, they can’t take Jesus.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right, right. It’s different hearing both of you say that, having been through the things that you’ve been through. Thank you for sharing that. How did you know when it was okay for you two to be together? Because you kept communicating … We’re jumping ahead of your story.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah. No, no. That’s good.

Heidi Wilcox:
But …

Dr. Médine Keener:
I’m correct though.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay, but how did you know, because you kept communicating while you were in the Congo, as well as you could, and trying to keep in touch and asked for prayer, let him know what was going on. How did you go from letter writing, to being-

Dr. Médine Keener:
Email writing.

Heidi Wilcox:
Email writing.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yeah. Yeah, back when all this started, this was in the days before email, before cell phones.

Heidi Wilcox:
I remember days before email and cell phones. Yeah.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Wow, you’re an old person too. Not really, sorry.

Heidi Wilcox:
No, it’s fine. It’s fine. [crosstalk 00:45:44].

Dr. Médine Keener:
You don’t say that to a young lady.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Sorry, sorry. You were probably very young, but anyway. Yeah, it’s like, we joke about … Interracial marriage wasn’t legal in all of the US until 1967, but we were too young to get married then anyway. When I got a letter from Médine saying that her husband had left her, and of course she didn’t know yet about the other details that he wasn’t actually … It wasn’t even a legal marriage because he was married to somebody else and plus, he was sleeping with other women, plus he’d strangled her and all these other things, but she knew that part. But I got this letter from her. I was just so broken hearted and just praying for my sister that God would help her, because each of us had prayed that God would give the other one a good spouse.

Dr. Craig Keener:
So I was praying for her, but then one day I got this letter and I was so excited to get another letter from Médine because I was very fond of her. I liked her a lot, but I was fond of a number of people.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Oh come on. Don’t say that.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yeah. Really, I just wouldn’t let my heart go towards anybody just totally, unless I was sure it was God. Everything had to be kept in check. But I got this letter from her saying that her cousin had just been shot dead. Her brother and father had nearly been shot dead. Troops were closing in, on her town with orders to kill the educated people first and she didn’t know if she was going to live or die. The letter had been taken out of the country and mailed from somewhere else, so it was getting to me like a month later. By the time her letter reached me, her town had been burned down and I didn’t know for the next 18 months, if she was alive or dead and that’s-

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, so you didn’t hear from her.

Dr. Craig Keener:
No, there was no way. And plus, there-

Heidi Wilcox:
Well, of course not, I don’t know what I was thinking, as you could still send letters.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yeah, there was no mail going in and plus her address book was in the house. It had been burned, so she didn’t have my address. I was just praying frantically for her. That was my biggest prayer request over those next 18 months, and learning to pray for some things that I hadn’t really thought about praying that way for before, in terms of safety for her and to her parents and child and siblings. And meanwhile, at any given time, one of them was close to death from malaria or typhoid, they would be making their way … She would be for a lot of the time walking, I forget, six miles a day or something, through snake infested swamps and fields of army ants, having to pick the ants off her body after she got through just to get food for the family.

Dr. Craig Keener:
I mean, for the family’s sake, it was good that she was there, but it was just really hard. My students can testify, when we would do prayer in class, I would ask prayer for my friend Médine. My Church can testify. And then, I was an associate Minister at Lord’s African American Church in Philadelphia at that time. And finally, after 18 months, one day I saw a letter in familiar handwriting in my box. She had asked somebody to go find the Craig Keener who writes books.

Dr. Craig Keener:
There’s actually another Craig Keener, another Craig S. Keener who writes books on Native American archeology. I don’t mind being confused with him. He’s a good guy. He writes good books, but I hope it doesn’t bother him to be confused with me. But anyway-

Heidi Wilcox:
And you’re glad Médine’s letter got to the right Craig S. Keener.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yeah. I still joke with her, “You could have married the wrong one.” But anyway, so I tore the envelope open. I was so happy. The first words are, “I’m alive. I, Médine Moussounga, am alive.” And Christiane Frederick Smoot, who was our Dean of Student Formation at that seminary at the time, can testify that she came by just as I was opening the letter and I was dancing in the hallway.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Imagine that, walking and dancing. Wow.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Well, I didn’t say, it was really coordinated but anyway … So our correspondence started up again and oh my heart was towards Médine and I didn’t want her to get in another war and us to lose touch again. So, time went on but I ended up … I don’t like to say no to people, but I have to say no. At the time, I was learning to say no. I was saying no a lot, but I guess it wasn’t saying no enough. And so I just spent like 30 hours in the previous week, grading midterms and essay exams and … Sorry, midterms and papers plus teaching full-time, plus trying to write 40 hours a week, trying to do all of that, plus I was traveling to speak certain places. And so-

Heidi Wilcox:
You had buried yourself in your work.

Dr. Craig Keener:
I buried myself in my work and sometimes I was just getting three hours of sleep a night and this was a morning class. I’m a night person, so that was another reason I wasn’t getting enough sleep. Thank God, Asbury is very merciful to me. No morning classes for me.

Heidi Wilcox:
Afternoon classes for you.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Afternoon or evening yeah. So, I ended up collapsing.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh no.

Dr. Craig Keener:
And they sent me to the hospital. I collapsed in the middle of class. They sent me to the hospital, against my protests. Then they put me on this medicine that knocked me out. So, for like a month, I was flat on my back.

Heidi Wilcox:
After you found out she was alive.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Oh yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Craig Keener:
This is like maybe almost a year after I found out she was alive. [crosstalk 00:52:04]

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay, okay. So you’ve been communicating.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yeah, yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Craig Keener:
I let her, and then when I was flat on my back, I got a letter from her. Now, any other time, I would’ve said, “Okay, well Lord, you can show me, but until then, I’m just going the way I’m going. I’m going to keep working. And unless I directly hear from you, I’m just going to keep working and I’ll just tell the person, “Well okay, maybe the Lord will say something, but until then let’s not get our hopes up. Let’s not get into it.”

Heidi Wilcox:
Poor Médine.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Poor Médine indeed.

Dr. Craig Keener:
But-

Dr. Médine Keener:
Second letter.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Her letter came at the right time when I was flat on my back and couldn’t do anything except pray. And there were things that I felt the Lord had spoken to me about my future life over the years and I was able to go back through all my correspondence with Médine. And sure enough, wow, she actually fits. Wow, I haven’t been paying attention to this. Whoa, look at this.

Heidi Wilcox:
How did you figure out where the miscommunication had happened?

Dr. Craig Keener:
It was in the very letter in which she had told me she was interested, but the next one, she said she wasn’t called to ministry, earlier in the letter, she described the kind of ministry she was doing, but-

Dr. Médine Keener:
I was just saying, these are the things that I do. I don’t do ministry.

Heidi Wilcox:
Uh-huh (affirmative)

Dr. Médine Keener:
You know. I’m not a Pastor or [crosstalk 00:53:31].

Heidi Wilcox:
How you define that.

Dr. Craig Keener:
And I had been so busy with my work, I’d been so hurried, I’d missed it.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Years earlier.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh, so you missed them the middle part of the letter.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Can you believe that?

Dr. Craig Keener:
Sorry.

Dr. Médine Keener:
No, it’s okay.

Dr. Craig Keener:
I couldn’t keep up with the correspondence then and you know I can’t keep up with it now. And now with email, oh boy.

Heidi Wilcox:
You can’t keep up?

Dr. Craig Keener:
I’m a few thousand emails behind.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh man. Oh man. Well, I’m glad that you read the middle part of that letter.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Me too.

Heidi Wilcox:
So then, after you did-

Dr. Craig Keener:
Well, we should back up and let her tell about her letter to me.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh yes.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Well, it was so funny because after the war, I went to another town to look for a job. And when my brother came to visit, he brought all these letter, all the mail that came during and before war. And so most of the letters came from Craig Keener.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Her house had been burned, but the post office there-

Dr. Médine Keener:
The post office was not burned.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay, so they held all the mail.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Well, they tried to sort out whatever they can get.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes, yes.

Dr. Médine Keener:
And it was so funny because Emanuel was like, “Wow, this Craig Keener. Look at all these letters.” And he’s always saying, “I love you and Jesus,” or something like that. I said, “Lord, I am really tired.” So I decided, I said, “I don’t know what to do.” Emanuel said, “Well, write to him.” I said, “Wait a minute. First of all, I sent a letter. It didn’t go well. And second, you don’t do that in Congo.” He said, “What do you mean? You have a PhD, you can do whatever you want. Write him.”

Dr. Craig Keener:
Now at Duke, I was kind of afraid to express interest in anybody because the idea of sexual harassment. So you express interest in somebody and they’re not interested, they may think you’re hitting on them and you shouldn’t be or whatever. So just was kind of … So, I thought, “Let the woman go first.”

Dr. Médine Keener:
That was waiting for me.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh my goodness. So you were waiting on him. He was waiting on you.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Anyway, it was so weird for me. When I heard that, I was like, “What?” So Emanuel was like, “No, you should do it.” Another friend was like, “Médine you should, yeah. Why don’t you just write?” So I decided, I said, “Okay, I’m good to send the last letter. Whatever I hear, if I hear no, let’s wait on the Lord, I disappear, change my address, do not communicate and so on.” So I wrote a letter. I didn’t send an email, even though we were sending emails back and forth.

Heidi Wilcox:
Okay.

Dr. Craig Keener:
No, no. We hadn’t sent emails yet.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Oh, we hadn’t sent emails yet.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Well, I don’t think so.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Because you respond to [crosstalk 00:56:24].

Dr. Craig Keener:
Oh no, no. Sorry, sorry, no you’re right. You’re right, yeah. This is over 20 years ago.

Dr. Médine Keener:
So I sent a letter. I sent a letter Instead of sending it as an email, even though I knew people would not know what I’m saying, because it was in English still, I didn’t want people to read my email because I didn’t have a computer. You have to go to a cyber cafe and write your email there. So I sent that and I waited. I waited anxiously [crosstalk 00:56:51].

Heidi Wilcox:
Of course.

Dr. Médine Keener:
I said, “Okay Lord, what’s going to happen? Is this the end?” Okay. Sometimes I would dream I was in America. Sometimes it’s like … But finally, one day I went to check my emails. I went to the place where I usually get emails and said, “Hey, do you have an email for me.” And they say, “Oh yeah, your brother from America, he sent an email.” I say, “Sure.” So I looked at the email. Craig was like, “Yes.”

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh yay.

Dr. Médine Keener:
I was like, “Yes.” They were like, “Did you get good news from your brother in America?” I said, “Oh yes, I got the best news.” I came out of the cyber cafe, laughing, crying, just speaking out loud. People were looking at me, and say … because the thing is, Pointe-Noire is the second biggest city in Congo. And when you’ve been through war, people see. I mean, I was emaciated, I was … They see that this person, no, she has not been living in Pointe-Noire for a while. Also because we were sick and we didn’t have good clothes, a lot of people were mentally [crosstalk 00:58:08] affected and so on. So here I am, walking in the street and laughing and saying, “Oh Lord, thank you.” Singing in English. People are looking at me saying, “Look at this war refugee. Another one who was going kaput. Anyway, it was a great day that day.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And then in time, you were able to get out of the country. Well, Dr. Craig came to you-

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah, we met in Cameroon, yes.

Heidi Wilcox:
You met in Cameroon, and then you were able to come to the US.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Although there were a lot of …

Dr. Médine Keener:
Obstacles.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Governments don’t cooperate necessarily with romance as quickly as one would like.

Heidi Wilcox:
No.

Dr. Craig Keener:
There were plenty of other obstacles, but we can leave it as a cliffhanger, so that nobody actually knows. Do they get married? Do they survive all the things that are coming?

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes, and I would strongly encourage people if they haven’t, to definitely pick up a copy of your book. It was an enjoyable read in hindsight, to see how God had kept you both safe and brought you to, at least to Cameroon.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yes.

Dr. Craig Keener:
And we just both happened to be working in Asbury now.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah, and the book is called, Impossible Love.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Which is a quote from her, when she decided that, well it’s just an impossible love. It’s not going to happen.

Dr. Médine Keener:
I said, it was not going to happen.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, it didn’t seem like it was going to happen for a long time.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yes.

Heidi Wilcox:
One of the things that you journaled as we talk about the season that you’re in now, and I believe the book left off about 20-ish years ago, is that right?

Dr. Craig Keener:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Heidi Wilcox:
So you’re in a new season. I understand, the season 19 years ago, isn’t the season today. But you journaled Médine that, “I’m learning how to live in poverty, trusting God. I hope that one day when I have enough to eat, I won’t forget what I’ve learned.” As you’re both in different seasons now, what does that season look like for you as you remember yet go forward?

Dr. Médine Keener:
First of all, let me say that journaling actually saved me in a sense during war, because to put in writing what was going on in my life was like a prayer, was like trying to find relief. So I thank God wherever they are, the people who gave me a piece of book here, or a piece of paper here so I could write, that was great. When I look back and when I see the season today, I thank God for provision. I can have something to eat and so on. It always takes me back, when I hear about people in war, people being kidnapped. Some of the first questions that come to mind is, do they have something to eat? Are they getting some water to drink? Good water and things like that.

Dr. Médine Keener:
It also taught me … I mean, I guess I’ve mellowed a little bit. I was very, very strict in … My kids, “You finish your food. There are people who don’t have food to eat. Please eat your food, finish your food, take the time.” So finally, I have to loosen up and then come out to with the idea that, okay, everybody in my house, you have one food that, okay absolutely, absolutely you can’t eat, because I don’t want you to gag or something like that. They did gag. My kids would tell their stories, but anyway, just appreciate God’s goodness and not waste what he has given us.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Now, this was in a situation, much harder than mine and Médine’s was also, but what Corrie ten Boom said that her sister Betsie shared with them, what they learned at Ravensbrück was to be able to say, “There’s no pit so deep that God is not deeper still. That we can have faith in the one who was faithful, trust in the one who’s trustworthy.” God is faithful and no matter what, and his calling is his promise. We do our best to fulfill that calling, but I’m where I am, not because I deserve to be here. I’m here because God called me and God made the way, because there were times when … Well, I wouldn’t have a PhD, if God hadn’t acted like the day before I was going to call and say, I couldn’t come.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Not to say everybody needs to do a PhD, but whatever God has called you to do. I mean, it wasn’t my faith that caused that to happen. There was a child in India that I was supporting before my first wife left and she took all the money when she left. So, that’s why I had a dollar, but initially I’d had like $10 in my wallet when she left. And so, the next week I bought groceries and then I had a dollar left, but then I was like, “Lord, what am I going to do?” Because I was supposed to get paid, but it was later. And now it was time to send the money for the child in India. Back then it was just $15 a month and I didn’t know where I was going to get the $15 or buy groceries for that matter.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right, right.

Dr. Craig Keener:
And that night there was a knock on the door and somebody just felt led to give me $25. He didn’t know what it was about. And so, I sent the $15 off to the child in India and I had $11 for groceries. And the Lord kept providing, but it wasn’t … I mean, I tried to have faith, but it wasn’t my faith. It was my father’s faithfulness, and where am now the books that I’m able to write all these things, it’s God’s Grace. It’s not my doing. I mean, there are stories in the book.

Dr. Craig Keener:
I mean, her sister was, as far as anybody could tell, dead for three hours and was raised, no brain damage. There are things like that, but I mean, that’s just God’s provision, God fulfilling the things, often in ways that seem ordinary from the outside, but … I’ve got 33 books now. I’ve got over a million books in circulation, but all of that goes back to what God has done and our ministering together. When we talk about ethnic reconciliation and stuff like that, it’s because it’s just what God has done in our lives.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah and it’s beautiful. Before we wrap up the interview, we have one question that we ask everybody who comes on the podcast. But before we do that, is there anything else that you’d like to talk about that I didn’t know to ask?

Dr. Médine Keener:
Not really.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Ask her, her middle name.

Dr. Médine Keener:
I don’t have a middle name.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Oh.

Heidi Wilcox:
All right. So the one question that we ask everyone, because the show is called The Thrive with Asbury Seminary Podcast, what is one practice that is helping you thrive in your life right now?

Dr. Médine Keener:
I walk, walking and praying in the morning. It’s just something that I do and it’s a joy. Sometimes I just say, “Okay, Jesus, we need to go for a walk,” because that’s what it is. When I start my day like that, it’s like yeah, the Lord is with me. He gives me strength. Now, if there is a day where I can’t walk, I will still pray. God is everywhere I am, but I really, really enjoy those times when I can walk and pray early in the morning, talk out loud and just enjoy the beauty.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, definitely. Craig, what about you?

Dr. Craig Keener:
It’s hard to narrow it down, but-

Heidi Wilcox:
We’re open to more than one. I say one, not to put pressure on people, but if there’s more than one …

Dr. Craig Keener:
No, different times in my life have been different things. I mean, like I said, there was a time when I was reading 40 chapters of the Bible a day. That’s not what I’m doing now. And there was actually for a lot of my time here at Asbury, I would read the Bible in Hebrew before bed, which was good for my Hebrew, but it also, it made me pay attention to the text. I’d be learning lessons from it, besides my prayer time. But I guess right now especially, the best prayer is when it’s conversation, when I’m hearing from God and just conversing with him. But I’m ADHD, my mind wanders a lot, so when I’m not doing that, the ways I try to discipline, I do have a prayer list where I pray through certain things, but also I’ve been praying through the Psalms and kind of using them as a launching pad. I’ll go off in a different way, where it’s, “Kill my enemy.” So I usually adjust the wording [crosstalk 01:07:40]

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, you learned that lesson.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yeah, but the best is conversation just when I hear what God is saying, or when I’ll ask him something and he’ll answer sometimes by reminding me of things in scripture and sometimes just by, yeah just my speaking and I think we all have that. Sometimes we underestimate that because, I mean, Paul says that God’s Spirit bears witness with our spirit, that we’re God’s children. He also says in Romans 5: 5-9 that, “God’s love is poured out in our hearts by the holy Spirit. God demonstrated that love through the cross.” So in other words, the spirit comes into our hearts, pointing to the cross and saying, “See, that’s how much I love you.”

Dr. Craig Keener:
So when we hear those assurances from God, that’s God speaking to us. And sometimes or even the often, it can be more articulate, sometimes through the gift of prophecy. I mentioned that praying in tongues, sometimes I’ll interpret the tongues, since tongues is praying with the spirit, it’s more the affective dimension than the cognitive dimension. Even the wandering mind, you can still be praying in tongues, but yeah, it all comes from him and the discipline is just trying to pay attention.

Heidi Wilcox:
I think that’s a lifetime thing to learn, to pay attention.

Dr. Craig Keener:
Yeah, especially if you’re ADHD, but yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes, yes. Thank you both so very much for being part of the podcast today, for your authenticity and your vulnerability and sharing a story that is difficult and beautiful at the same time, because of God. Thank you so very much.

Dr. Médine Keener:
Oh thank you.

Dr. Craig Keener:
The most beautiful part of the cover is her picture.

Heidi Wilcox:
Hey everyone, thank you so much for joining me for today’s conversation with Craig and Médine. Just so grateful for both of them and their willingness to share a story that has spilled with such hardship so that we can see how God brings beauty and wholeness, even when things seem hopeless. Just so grateful for them and for their authenticity and willingness to share what God has and is doing in their lives.

Heidi Wilcox:
As always, you can follow us in all the places on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at @Asburyseminary. Until next time, I hope you’ll go do something that helps you thrive.