Trusting Jesus When Suffering Doesn’t Make Sense

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Welcome to Grace at the Fray, a podcast that explores the many dimensions of God’s grace that we find at the frayed edges of life. Come explore how God’s grace works to renew your life and send you on mission in His kingdom.

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0:00:22.4 Jim Lovelady: Hello, beloved. I’m doing a series, three episodes, about the suffering of life. In the last episode, we talked about the book of Job and where God is in our suffering. And if you haven’t already, you need to go listen to that one first, because this episode builds off of that discussion. This one today is about when suffering just doesn’t make sense. And I have to be honest with you, I went back and forth about whether or not to release this episode due to the betrayal of violence and the graphic nature of this story that these two missionaries are about to share. It was a solemn privilege that I had in getting to sit down with George and Susan Watts as they share their story. And it is with great fear and trepidation that I, with their permission, share this story with you. This conversation is a real-life example of the suffering of Job. George and Susan have been long-time missionaries in numerous African countries, and while serving in Burundi, they experienced a deeply traumatic event that to this day remains unresolved, and to this day is still confusing, and to this day is extraordinarily sad. So I want to want to give you fair warning. This episode may be one that you need to skip over if you find descriptions of violence triggering. So this is as far as you get in this episode. I want you to know the main takeaway right now, and it’s this. When our suffering doesn’t make sense, the deeply mysterious presence of Jesus is our greatest and only consolation. Jesus’ death and resurrection holds together these two mysteries. God is sovereign and God is good. George and Susan Watts are truly remarkable people who have jumped into the raw places of life and have experienced the highest joys and the lowest sorrows, and their story causes me to wrestle with some big questions. If you had nothing but Jesus, would that be enough? If the Lord starts taking things away, what do I have that, if taken away, would ruin me? What do I do when I don’t see evidence that God is powerful, just, and good? And what if the absence of God is just too overwhelming? I want all of these questions to be swirling around in your head as you listen to this episode, but I want it to be in the context of Psalm 27. There are many psalms for the occasion of suffering, but this one just seems fitting. Psalm 27 goes like this. “The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and my foes, it is they who stumble and fall. Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war arise against me, yet will I be confident. One thing I have asked of the Lord, and that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble, and he will conceal me under the cover of his tent, and he will lift me high upon a rock, and now my head will be lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy, and I will sing and make melody to the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud. Be gracious to me and answer me. You have said, Seek my face, and my heart says to you, Your face, Lord, do I seek. Hide not your face from me. Turn not your servant away in anger. O you who have been my help, cast me not off. Forsake me not, O God, of my salvation. For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in. Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies. Give me not up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me, and they breathe out violence. I’m sure that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong, and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord.”

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0:04:39.0 Jim Lovelady: George, Susan, welcome to Grace of the Fray. Welcome to Kijabe. Welcome to the guest house.

[laughter]

0:04:44.2 George Watts: Thank you.

0:04:44.9 Susan Watts: Thank you.

0:04:45.2 Jim Lovelady: I keep saying welcome to people, but I’m in their place.

0:04:49.8 George Watts: Yeah.

0:04:50.3 Jim Lovelady: Kijabe’s been beautiful, and I’m really glad that we got to, this is our final stop. I’m really glad that we got a few days here. So thanks for hanging out. I was reading through your bio, and I was like, okay, this is how I have to start, because it’s dizzying what y’all have been up to over the years, where y’all have been. And so I’m just going to read this, and then I’m going to say like, tell me about all this, because it’s pretty spectacular. Before moving to Africa, y’all spent eight years in France. Bonjour. And a year of short-term mission work in Kazakhstan. Okay. So far during your time in East Africa, Susan, you’ve worked with a malnutrition program, a needy patient fund, and you taught at a missionary kid school. And at various points, George, you helped with the administration of a hospital, managed finances for capital projects, helped organize construction, taught and directed the MBA program at Hope Africa University, and was the director of an impact-driven business consulting organization. And then previously, you worked as a professor of business, management consultant, and a high-tech product manager. Now you guys are the dorm parents, and teaching at RVA, the dorm parents for the 7th and 8th grade girls.

0:06:11.9 George Watts: Yep, we have 8th grade girls this year.

0:06:15.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, and the dorm is attached, literally attached.

0:06:19.4 George Watts: It sure is.

0:06:21.5 Jim Lovelady: To your…

0:06:22.4 George Watts: Lives.

0:06:22.8 Jim Lovelady: To your lives, that’s right. Okay. So tell me a story about God’s grace. When this overview feels like lots of fray. Fray after fray after fray. So tell me a story about God’s grace in the middle of all that. Ready, set, go.

0:06:39.8 George Watts: We moved up to Kibuye in the middle of the country, and it was kind of like we had no idea what was going on. We didn’t know where we were going to go next. Serge team leadership decided Bujumbura was not a place for a family to be, so we had to go somewhere. So we were kind of like, we just uprooted and moved to Africa. We got to Bujumbura and it all fell apart. But then staying there, being part of that team, like that became our home. We lived there for the next six years or so, and it was incredible. Like it was, the team became our extended family.

0:07:10.2 Jim Lovelady: So where did you end up staying? 

0:07:11.5 George Watts: In Kibuye.

0:07:12.6 Jim Lovelady: You did stay in Kibuye? 

0:07:13.7 George Watts: Yes.

0:07:13.8 Jim Lovelady: Okay.

0:07:14.0 George Watts: Yeah, so we were only in Bujumbura for literally less than a year, and then went up to Kibuye and stayed there. And it was just, I mean, our kids… Like that’s where our kids grew up, and that’s really what they consider home. And yeah. I mean, it was an incredible place to live and to work, and a great team.

0:07:34.8 Susan Watts: But it was not at all what we came to do.

0:07:36.8 George Watts: Not at all.

0:07:38.9 Jim Lovelady: So what does that mean? 

0:07:40.2 Susan Watts: I mean, we came to live in the capital for George to be teaching at a university, and then we found ourselves in this tiny little village.

0:07:50.2 George Watts: In a rural mission hospital.

0:07:51.0 Susan Watts: Where all the rest of our team were medical doctors. Yeah. So we had to kind of figure out our place there.

0:08:00.5 George Watts: Yeah, and so that’s where I kind of was doing you know whatever, I worked administration at the hospital for a while, and then I was like you know fake construction manager when our engineer was gone, and I was kind of just filling in for different things. But I ended up doing some teaching in the medical school, teaching hospital management to medical students. And, you know, Susan got really involved in, I mean, what started as just started working at this malnutrition program. She basically turned into like a social worker like working with widows and orphans, and doing home visits all the time out in the middle of nowhere. And the thing about living in Kibuye is that it felt so raw and so real. Like everything was so real.

You know, it’s the kind of place where every day it felt like you’d see a plain wooden coffin coming out of the hospital on the back of a bicycle. And like kids starving and like horrific things happening. But also so much joy, like some of our Burundian friends and our co-workers and stuff. Like you could find so much joy. Or when those like horrific things are avoided, it just felt like, you know, like when kids are abandoned in a field and they end up being adopted into a family or something. Like it just felt so real. Like the highs were really high and the lows were really low. Like it was very raw.

0:09:35.3 Jim Lovelady: Help guide me through the emotions of that paradox.

0:09:39.3 George Watts: Being amazed at the faith of our Burundian neighbors and colleagues. You know some of them have lived through the most horrific things possible. And they have, from the outside, it looks like pretty bad prospects going forward. Like, their ability to say, I think God will take care of me. Like sometimes I’d wrestle with like, hmm I think you’re being you know foolish, or I think you’re being you know, naive. It’s like…

0:10:08.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:10:09.5 George Watts: But they’re saying, I trust God will take care of me. And it’s like, that’s powerful. Like, they, like when you have nothing else to lean on and you’re just like, we’re just praying that this is going to happen because we have no other resources. We have no influence. We have no power. We have nothing else that we can use. And so I think they are more aware of the fact that they don’t have control over their lives. They’re more aware of the fact that they actually do rely on God. Whereas we have so many other levers we can pull. Like, I’ll talk to someone or I’ll spend some money or I’ll get something. I’ll do something. I’ll get some education or whatever it is. And I think for a lot of people, yeah, when you have so little, I think you’re more aware of the fact that, no, this world is really not under my control. And…

0:11:00.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:11:00.8 George Watts: I can admit it because it’s, you know blatantly obvious to me.

0:11:03.6 Jim Lovelady: I have a, like handful of things where I’m like, well, at least I got that, right? You know, and as you’re talking, I’m like, no, I have way more than five things to lean on. And it’s not until all of those things are gone that faith actually becomes very real. It’s the best word that I can come up with. But if I have not, if I really do have nothing, and that’s one of the questions that we ask in Sonship. If you had nothing but Jesus, would that be enough? You know, I mean, all of us, we answer that question. Like, of course, all I need is Jesus. But man, I’ve got these five things…

0:11:37.5 George Watts: It’s hard to imagine when you’re so far from nothing but Jesus, you know? Like, I think it’s hard for us to imagine it because we have, like, I think for us, even in Burundi, when things got as bad as they ever did, we always knew, all right, I carry a Canadian passport, I can evacuate. But worse comes to worse, we can leave the country. Like, we’ll be pulled out and we’ll have to leave. Whereas our Burundian neighbors. Like that’s sort of like our last straw. Like, the last thread was we can get pulled out. But like they’re here forever and they’re like going to face whatever happens. And so I think even when almost everything was taken from us, we always had that sort of like, you know, the worst medical emergency, we can get evacuated. Or, you know, if political violence gets too bad, we get taken out.

0:12:28.0 Jim Lovelady: One half of the equation is you leave Western culture, but you were built in Western culture, so you’re bringing Western culture with you. When you left, all the benefits or whatever, the comforts, the creaturely comforts, whatever, of Western culture, you left those behind. This place of poverty and brokenness and very raw conditions is a place of really beautiful faith. How could someone like me, who’s about to go back to… I’m going to fly to London. And then I’m going to head back to my Western culture.

0:13:08.2 George Watts: If you only, you know, you know go to church and work and live with and talk to people in the same socioeconomic class as you, where you never have any interaction with any other kinds of people, I think it’s harder to… Then you just get a sense of that is the world. You know? 

0:13:23.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:13:24.7 George Watts: Because everyone I talk to is upper-middle class, you know educated Western people. I assume that’s the whole world. And so I think being intentional about making sure that’s not your whole world, making sure you are at least being aware of what else is out there. Like…

0:13:39.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, that’s really good.

0:13:40.0 George Watts: Yeah, I mean, I think it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle because there are… I mean, it is hard, I think, in some ways to have wealth and to still have that kind of authentic faith because there are so many things you can lean on first, before you have to lean on God.

0:14:00.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. The Greek word for rich, young ruler, isn’t like that he has a lot of money. That’s the definition of rich, that he has a lot of money. It’s very ambiguous. It actually means one who has a lot of things. Just if you have a lot, you know, I was telling my children, I think one of my children asked, Daddy, are we rich? And, you know, I’m a missionary. I’m not rich. It’s not true? 

0:14:27.6 George Watts: Mm-hmm.

0:14:28.7 Jim Lovelady: You know, Daddy, are we rich? I was like, yeah, we have a lot. We have a lot. We are very rich, you know. And meanwhile, we live in a culture that’s like, you know, there’s this immediately as I’m telling my son that we are rich. There’s this voice floating in my head that’s like, dude, you don’t have near enough. And we live in a culture that just speaks that constantly. You don’t have enough. You don’t have enough.

0:14:54.5 Susan Watts: Yeah, and I think… Like before we came onto the field, like I remember so many people would say to us, like, we could never do that. Like, how can you do that? We could never do that. And I just feel like I don’t think a day has gone by in our years in Africa that we haven’t felt anything but privileged to be here. ‘Cause I think being kind of stripped away of so many safety nets or comforts has forced us to become more reliant on our father and be just closer with him. And so I think it’s such a gift for us to be able to have experienced this kind of just different living kind of in a… Yeah, it’s been more raw. And yeah, it’s been really good for us.

0:15:50.2 George Watts: Yeah.

0:15:51.2 Susan Watts: We feel really blessed.

0:15:53.7 George Watts: Yeah, and I think too when people would say that, oh, I could never do that. It always really rubbed me the wrong way. Because ’cause I’m like, by saying that, you’re making it seem like there’s something special about us. I’m like, yeah, you could. Like, it’s not like there’s something special about us. Like, what do you mean you could like never do that? I’m like if we can do it, you can do it.

0:16:12.8 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:16:14.1 George Watts: Yeah.

0:16:14.2 Susan Watts: Yes and at the time before we came to Africa, we felt the same way. We felt like, yeah, we don’t know if…

0:16:19.5 George Watts: Yeah. We don’t know if we can do it either.

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0:16:23.6 Susan Watts: We’re just…

0:16:23.7 George Watts: We’re going to give it a whirl.

0:16:25.5 Jim Lovelady: I love that because ultimately it’s, I just found myself here. Here we are. Seems like the Lord called us here. And I’m even open-handed with that. And at any moment, this may go away and we may go somewhere else or whatever. And that’s kind of been y’all’s story as it’s like, this is all the things you’ve done. So how did you guys get here? Tell me that story.

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0:16:53.2 George Watts: So we came here from Rwanda. So that’s where I was working at this impact-driven consulting firm. And it was a tough move because really we got to Rwanda and we lived there like literally 12 months. But like the whole time we were there, like almost every day, I used to come home and be like, this is my dream job. Like this is what God made me to do is what we’re doing in Rwanda. It was like, we had a bunch of young Rwandan and some other East African, really sharp, young college-educated people working for us that we were like training and mentoring and working with. I had this incredible, there was this American guy who had founded this firm like 13 years earlier and had done incredible work in Rwanda. And I stepped in and was working alongside him as co-director and COVID just killed it. The lockdowns in Rwanda were very severe. And one of the first things people stopped doing in their businesses is paying for outside advice. And that was hard because we had gone through so many, like felt like start-overs in Burundi, like my job had changed so many times. And it also felt like I’d been moving farther and farther away from what I was trained to do. And then all of a sudden it felt like I came back and I’m like, I am playing in my sweet spot now. This is what God made me to do. And then it was just gone. Like I mean, we moved to Rwanda and thought we were going to be there. I mean, we thought like we might retire there. Like we were there for good. It also felt like decision fatigue, like we just spent so much time deciding to go to Rwanda. That kind of felt like, oh, we can’t do this again. Like we can’t, I don’t know if I can do this again is to think about and figure out where we’re going to go and start over all over again.

0:18:53.1 Jim Lovelady: Over and over again.

0:18:53.8 George Watts: Because yeah…

0:18:55.3 Susan Watts: It was a really hard really hard decision to leave Burundi for us. That’s definitely where we had felt called to. We knew we wanted to stay in East Africa.

0:19:07.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, you were in Burundi doing jack-of-all-trades kind of stuff. And the word all was just kind of becoming more and more robust. As you’re like I guess I’ll do this. I guess I’ll build that. I guess I’ll help out over here. 

0:19:25.0 Jim Lovelady: I want to pause this conversation and invite you to join us in prayer for the Serge field workers that we, at the headquarters here in Philadelphia, are praying for each week. We meet Tuesdays and Friday mornings to pray, and this week we’re praying for our missionaries who are raising support to go on the field, as well as the members of Serge’s board of directors. Would you pray with me? Lord, we pray that you would bless these folks, give them joy in their work in your kingdom, and the pleasure of your joy as they follow you. Give them wisdom and let your grace abound in their relationships with one another, with family members and children, and with the people they serve. Heal all sicknesses, liberate the enslaved, protect them from the powers and the principalities of darkness, and restore to them the joy of your salvation, and let your kingdom come and your will be done in these places, just as it is in heaven. We pray this in your name. Amen. Now, back to the conversation. 

0:20:27.0 Jim Lovelady: So, what was hard about leaving Burundi, and what was that decision like? 

0:20:33.8 Susan Watts: Well, I think, like George said, it had become really home for us and our teammates are definitely our family. We loved living in community. We loved the vision of the work there. Even though we weren’t medical, we loved joining with that team and really loved their vision and work that was happening there. And we loved our work there, too. Well, I think we didn’t realize it at the time, too, but I think we also just really needed a break. It is a really intense, hard place to live, or can be, and we’d had some really hard things happen, and so I think it was, yeah, we felt like we needed… We didn’t realize it, I think, at the time, that we needed to kind of get away and have a break, but after we left, we can look back and kind of see, yeah.

0:21:38.3 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, it takes a toll that it is only after, once you leave, that you realize just what the toll is. So would you all tell me the story of the attack in Burundi? 

0:21:51.0 George Watts: Yeah. Yeah, in some ways, it feels weird to always be talking about it because we don’t want to be the attack people, but also it’s such a big part of our story. In some ways, it almost feels like, at least in my mind, it almost feels like there’s our life up to the attack and our life after it, which is actually really lopsided because it was like 46 years before it and only three after, but it does feel like it’s a significant marker. So, I mean, yeah, we had this violent armed attack in our house in Kibuye, and it was targeted. So because I was the finance guy and because everything we did was with cash, there was a wrong assumption that there was like a huge stash of money in our house. And so basically, yeah, there was people had arranged, they had hired basically like thugs from the city to come up. So there was like 12 guys who came up in a couple of cars. So they had a couple of getaway cars and four guys broke into our house and they, yeah, it was right after dinner and I was up just getting tea and stuff on and they just burst through the door and with knives and machine guns and hammers and machetes and all kinds of stuff. And yeah, it got very violent, very fast. Like Susan and the kids were tied up in the living room and they just sort of dragged me around the house demanding money and I think once they, at first they thought I wasn’t giving them the money that we had, so they’re getting really angry. And then I think when they realized that there was no money, then I think they got really angry. And then I think also I became expendable because like I had no value, like there was no reason to keep me alive if I couldn’t show them where the money was. And so like I, between the sort of the physical abuse I took, I was knocked out twice and sort of, so all my recollections are kind of spotty and pieced together. But one of the most beautiful things about it is sort of, I remember coming to the second time on the floor of our girls’ room and there was just, there was screaming and yelling and then a lot of commotion and the guys left, all the attackers left. What we didn’t fully understand until like later that night and then really the next day and several days later was one of our Burundian friends and colleagues had heard that something was going on at our house and so he came down from the village just like a hundred, couple hundred meters away and he started screaming and yelling and pounding on the windows and scared these guys away. And so these guys had machine guns and like serious weapons and he’s this skinny little, like he’s probably 80 pounds soaking wet guy and he had a stick in his hand and when they left our house, he started chasing them. So he’s like this little, like barefoot with a stick in his hand chasing these guys with weapons and they get into a car and take off and he flagged down like our ambulance driver and they jumped in the car and chased them again and he’s calling ahead and telling people to put rocks and trees on the road to stop them so he could like corner them. But the thing that was so amazing is that when he first got to our house and he looked through the bedroom window into our girl’s room, I was being choked. There was a guy in front of me with a machine gun and I was being choked from behind and he was watching them beat me with a gun and then he saw my body drop and he thought I was dead. So he thought he had just seen them kill me. And so, but so in his mind, they had just killed someone, they had all these weapons and yet he chased them down like by himself, barefoot with a stick. Like that kind of courage, that kind of bravery, that kind of like self-sacrifice. Like he was clearly willing to put his life on the line to get these people out of our house. Like he thought he had just seen me be murdered and he was willing to chase after them. And I mean, one of the most beautiful parts of the story is that his name is Dieudonné.

0:26:42.1 Jim Lovelady: Dieudonné

0:26:43.5 George Watts: Like gift of God, God’s gift.

0:26:43.5 Jim Lovelady: Really? 

0:26:44.9 George Watts: He’s the guy who came down and like chased these guys out of our house.

0:26:48.7 Jim Lovelady: Dieudonné.

0:26:49.1 George Watts: Yeah.

0:26:49.7 Jim Lovelady: God’s gift.

0:26:50.6 George Watts: Yeah.

0:26:51.5 Jim Lovelady: It’s a good name.

0:26:52.1 George Watts: Yeah.

0:26:57.2 Susan Watts: Just always has reminded me of like, he’s our David in our David and Goliath story ’cause he, God chose just this tiny, he’s the tiniest little guy. He’s so small. This tiny little man with a stick. And that’s what scared all of these men out of our house.

0:27:15.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:27:16.5 George Watts: And we had said like Kibuye was such a, it was like this idyllic place it felt to raise our kids. And part of it was, we just felt so safe all the time. The kids just know, sun goes down, you come home, it’s dinner time. Other than that, they’re just out playing. And so like that, having that sort of just shattered like, oh, this isn’t perfectly safe. In fact, like this, like the most dangerous threatening thing ever happened right in our own house.

0:27:49.6 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:27:51.4 George Watts: Was just sort of, I mean, it was very jarring.

0:27:55.7 Susan Watts: It was a lot of stuff for us to work through over the next couple of years too, because it wasn’t, like George said, it wasn’t just like a random attack on our house. As we found out more afterwards that it had been a very thought out, planned attack. And involved like there was betrayal to that story. Like it involved people that we trusted and even loved. Kind of.

0:28:23.1 George Watts: For like people we had, like a guy we had known for years like since the week we moved to Bujumbura.

0:28:29.5 Susan Watts: Yeah.

0:28:30.2 George Watts: And he was in on it. Like he was the one who told them, I’ll make sure the door is unlocked when you come.

0:28:38.0 Jim Lovelady: Wow.

0:28:38.8 Susan Watts: Yeah, those things were really hard for us to figure out.

0:28:45.2 George Watts: Yeah.

0:28:45.6 Susan Watts: Yeah.

0:28:46.0 George Watts: That kind of betrayal. I feel like it never made me angry. It just, I was just so confused. Like why, like why would you do that? Like genuinely, like I, that was my question. Like not like an angry, how could you, but like an honest, like how could you do that? Like why, like, I don’t know. Like maybe they found out who he was and they threatened his own family and said, look, we’ll take care of your family if you don’t help us out here. Or maybe they offered him more money than would take care of him and his family for the next rest of their lives. Or maybe he just hated me.

0:29:28.6 Jim Lovelady: You just don’t know.

0:29:29.5 George Watts: I have no idea. And so, yeah, that’s a, there were a lot of questions that went unanswered, which is hard because I think we’re so used to getting answers. And I think that was probably my biggest, that was probably the thing God taught me more than anything, was that when something like that happens, there’s a sense of like, again, not an angry, but like, God, how could you let this happen? Or why did this happen? Or like, let me see the lesson. Let me see the good that comes out of it. Like I need to understand the why. And there’s just this sense of, it’s like at the end of Job where he’s like where he’s questioning God and God is basically like, look, did you make the world? Did you, can you do this? No, like this is above your pay grade. You don’t get to demand the answer. And I felt like that was what I learned. Like there are things that will happen to me in my life that I don’t have the right to demand an answer to.

0:30:43.4 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:30:44.8 George Watts: Like, I don’t, maybe someday my experience will allow me to minister to people in a similar situation and I’ll be able to say like, ah, now it all makes sense. Like, this is why that happened to me because, but maybe not. Like maybe I’ll never get to that place, this side of heaven where I, where it’s like, oh, that’s why that happened. It’s like, no, like I don’t get to demand that answer. God doesn’t owe me answers on why things happen. And I think that was, that was probably my biggest lesson because I think so many times in life, even the hard things, we can turn around later and be like, oh, this happened because of this.

0:31:27.0 Jim Lovelady: We’re longing for those.

0:31:29.9 George Watts: We really want to see like some sort of justification, like, well, that was horrible, but it allowed this to happen or it enabled you to do this or it stopped something else from happening. But it’s like this thing, like, no, like.

0:31:44.1 Susan Watts: It’s just messy.

0:31:46.8 George Watts: Yeah.

0:31:46.9 Susan Watts: Yeah. People were imprisoned. People were killed. We’ve seen long-term effects like in our kids and we would like it to be all neatly tied up with explanation at the end of it all, which we just, we haven’t experienced. And I don’t think we will. There is no like, well, at least. It’s like, no, there’s no well at least. There’s a…

0:32:12.7 Jim Lovelady: As if that could really…

0:32:13.8 George Watts: Right.

0:32:14.5 Jim Lovelady: As if that could really satisfy.

0:32:15.0 George Watts: Yeah.

0:32:16.7 Jim Lovelady: I read Brothers Karamazov. I don’t know if you’ve read that book, but there’s the whole argument of one of the brothers, Ivan. He’s like, look, is all of this worth the pain of one child suffering? And he’s kind of demanding an answer from God. And he’s like, that’s why I don’t play this game. Like, I believe that there’s a God, but I just don’t believe that he’s good. That kind of thing. And it’s this demanding of can you make sense of this? There’s no making sense of this. Even if you can say, well, at least that child’s death or whatever.

0:32:58.0 George Watts: Right. Yeah.

0:32:58.7 Jim Lovelady: Worked out for this. And he’s like, no, there’s nothing worth and it is the greatest argument against God. That Dostoevsky and the beauty of it is as he’s telling this story to his other brother. There’s no answer, but he walks up to his brother and he kisses him. And that’s the only response. And it’s a response of love. Love is the only answer. Love is the only thing that can respond to that kind of thing.

0:33:31.5 George Watts: Yeah. Because then there is nothing else except God’s promise of being powerful, just, and good. Like if that’s not true, but I, but it feels like, but there’s no evidence of it.

0:33:47.9 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:33:49.8 George Watts: Like in this situation like.

0:33:52.6 Susan Watts: But I feel like God does give us these little glimpses or these little threads of hope.

0:34:00.0 George Watts: Oh yeah, absolutely.

0:34:00.1 Susan Watts: Like the story of Dieudonné.

0:34:02.8 George Watts: Yeah that’s…

0:34:03.9 Susan Watts: Those are things that we can really clearly see God’s goodness in this horrific situation. And I think we can hold on to those things. I think those things that are evidence of God’s goodness have been gifts to us.

0:34:19.3 Jim Lovelady: That He was there. That He loves you.

0:34:20.3 George Watts: Oh yeah. It’s so clear that God intervened like through the actions of Dieudonné and other people and other things that happened. But yeah, there’s not a neat tied up with a bow kind of ending. Like for me, like I have this permanent vocal cord damage. One of the things is, so I’ve lost the range of my voice, the pitch and the volume. And so I can’t sing anymore. So like every Sunday in church, I’m sort of reminded of our attack. Like I stand there and mouth the word to a song because I can’t sing anymore. And it’s like, that was taken away from me for nothing. It feels like, like this horrific thing stole that away from me. And now every time we sing songs of praise, I don’t get to take part for the rest of my life. And yeah, I really, it really feels like I wish there was like a well at least.

0:35:27.8 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:35:28.2 George Watts: But there isn’t. Looking back at what God has done in our lives through this is sort of like, I mean, it’s nothing short of miraculous. Like the fact that I’m still alive or the whole bunch of things. It’s like, I mean, how can you not see the hand of God through all of this? And so it’s sort of like, this is coming face to face with sin and evil in a way I’d never had to before in my life. But also seeing redemption and grace and love in a way I never experienced in my life.

0:36:01.4 Jim Lovelady: I’m struck by the power of betrayal and how confusing it is. Just floating in my mind is Jesus betrayed with a kiss? And the confusion. I think about Jesus and it’s like, well, he wasn’t confused. And so it’s like, well, I don’t know. Being betrayed is a pretty confusing thing. So I’m not going to like pretend to read Jesus’ mind. But 2000 years of history has been confused about Judas. Betrayal is a powerful thing.

0:36:36.3 Susan Watts: The betrayal was really hard, is the hardest thing to like to get over and to forgive and to, ’cause it’s so confusing. When you love someone, when you trust someone, and yeah, I mean, we were able to move past like the physical wounds and things like that. But that personal deep betrayal, it’s really hard. Really, we both really struggled with that.

0:37:06.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, say a little bit more about some of your he’s done most of the talking. I want to hear some of your perspective on all of this.

0:37:13.2 Susan Watts: I mean, I don’t think we’re, I’m to the, I just recently listened to a podcast where a missionary was in prison in Turkey for two years. And he says on the podcast, I am like, I’m, I wouldn’t trade this for anything. I’m so glad this happened to me. I’m not there. I’m like what George said, like, we can’t really see that there was any kind of purpose or anything good actually even come out of that. And so I feel like I’m not to that point where I can just say, like, thank you, God, for that putting me through that, even though it was hard. And I think the hardest thing is to see, like, especially like long term effects on our kids. Like, that’s hard. Like, it’s one thing for us to be put through it, but that our kids were involved. That’s hard. That’s a really, yeah. And just being able to see like long term impact on their life, things that they’re scared about or sounds that frighten them or some different anxiety issues that they struggle with. Relating back to that. I think that’s really hard because God called us into ministry and called us to live in Burundi. But our kids they didn’t have that choice. They didn’t ask for this. They didn’t ask for that. Yeah, so I think there’s a lot of emotions that’s wrapped up into tough things or hard things that happen on the field and involve your kids, a lot of guilt on our part and things like that, so yeah, it’s definite… It’s been really hard for us to move past and to try to heal from, and it’s… I think we had no real experience with any kind of trauma in our lives before, and so the impact that it’s had on our life and the time that’s been required to get…

0:39:24.9 Jim Lovelady: To lean into that…

0:39:25.4 Susan Watts: Yeah. That’s been hard. I remember thinking, laying in bed, like a couple of weeks after our attack, thinking like, This is it, I’m never going to be normal again. This has ruined me. I’m never going to feel safe again. I’m never going to… And God does heal and it’s just been… It’s been a much longer process and a bigger process than I think what we’ve expected or anticipated, yeah.

0:40:01.5 George Watts: Yeah, I was working with a trauma counselor most of the time, every single week for a couple of years to get past… Like I had a startle response, so every noise would make me jump for a couple of years, and so there were a lot of times during those years where I’m like, Is this going to be my life? 

0:40:29.8 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:40:30.9 George Watts: Every time a pen rolls off a desk, I’d jump. It’s just like… It’s exhausting. It’s just exhausting. And once you’ve gone like two years of trauma counseling, you’re like, When is this going to end? And that’s, I think too, when you’d be like, All of this for nothing. Like, No one gained anything.

0:40:55.8 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:40:56.3 George Watts: They didn’t get the money. They were killed. We got this. No one won. Like why are we paying the price for…

0:41:06.3 Jim Lovelady: This is so dumb.

0:41:06.4 George Watts: Yeah, exactly. It’s just like, it’s like, Oh yeah, that’s what a broken world is.

0:41:11.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:41:12.9 George Watts: It’s broken. It’s sinful. There are things that happen that just suck and there’s no good. You can’t put a spin on it, and it’s like…

0:41:24.1 Susan Watts: And I think for a while we wanted to kinda leave it behind when…

0:41:27.4 Jim Lovelady: Let’s just forget about this.

0:41:28.9 Susan Watts: Yeah, when we moved to Kenya, it kind of felt like we were fresh starting. No one here knew of our situation or our story, or like a couple of years had passed, and so it felt kind of nice, we were finally to a point where we were not doing regular counseling. And so it just kind of felt like, Oh, let’s move on and get past this and… Yeah, it just felt kind of good to be looked at as like George and Susan Watts again, not like, Oh you guys were the people that…

0:42:01.3 George Watts: Oh, those people.

0:42:05.2 Susan Watts: So we lived in Kenya for almost a year before we kinda shared our story, and I think… I definitely think we’re to a place where we can, even though we can’t see the purpose in it, we can really clearly see God’s goodness in it, and we can see God’s faithfulness for sure. Never has there been a time where I have felt more heard by my Father or loved or seen, so I think we’re definitely to a point where we can see God’s goodness and faithfulness through what happened to us that terrible night in our house. And so I think being able to share it, to encourage people that way is… I feel like we’re ready for that, yeah.

0:43:04.6 Jim Lovelady: I appreciate you sharing that. This conversation has reminded me of the book of Ecclesiastes. In English, it’s normally vanity. Vanity of vanities, right? And it’s not the best word. My professor in seminary, my Old Testament professor said it’s better… A better translation is, the Greek word is hevel. Hevel. Hevel. I can’t remember which one. I stank at Hebrew. He’s like, The best translation for this is stupid. This is stupid. This is just stupid. And you have to say it with that tone because that’s… You translate it with that tone. This is absolutely just stupid, meaningless. And then at the very end of Ecclesiastes, it’s like, well, the final word is… In the midst of a whole book, which I love the fact that the Book of Ecclesiastes is in the Bible, because it’s this voice that’s like, Oh hey, by the way, there’s some really stupid stuff in life that there’s no explanation, and that’s basically Ecclesiastes, and then tagged on at the end is, So just love God and keep his commandments.

0:44:26.6 Susan Watts: Yeah.

0:44:29.0 Jim Lovelady: And So I feel like that’s… You guys are an embodiment of that. Well, we’re just going to love God and keep his commandments, and we’re going to be vigilant, and I love how it’s this vigilance to see the goodness of God, just… I’m ready for it. And then to have that vigilance means that he’s going to show up and you’re marking that. I’ve experienced the love of the Father. Mark that goodness in your vigilance to be on the look out for it. It means that he shows up in ways that only you and him, only you and He know. And get to celebrate, so.

0:45:14.7 George Watts: Yeah, I think for me it’s sort of like with Job where he… Everything has fallen apart, and God just says, Hey, look, I’m God, you’re not. And I think it’s easy to look at Job and be like, Oh, and then he got all his children back and he got more sheep and whatever. But that was after. The first thing God said it was just basically, Look, you don’t get to demand the answer, I’m God, you’re not. Like I got this. And that’s, I feel like, yeah, so maybe later, something will come back, they’ll be like, Oh, that’s what God was teaching us or using us or something, but sort of like for now, the… And in some ways, that’s the beautiful part is just like, God didn’t give us anything else to be like, Oh well, at least we learned this, it’s like, No, God pulled us through that to teach us, Look, I’m God, you’re not. I got this, trust me, and it’s like, and that’s it. Just trust me because I’m God, and I feel like in some ways, like that in itself is the gift, right? Like just, Look I saved you. Why that had to happen? You don’t get to know.

0:46:29.1 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:46:30.8 George Watts: But just trust me, yeah.

0:46:32.6 Jim Lovelady: Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.

0:46:37.3 George Watts: And so it’s a hard lesson but it’s a good lesson.

0:46:41.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Amen.

0:46:44.0 George Watts: Yeah.

0:46:45.5 Jim Lovelady: Well, thanks for sharing. It’s humbling. At the end of our trip, you’re giving me some more food for thought for the flight home. Not like, What am I to make of all of this, you know. And it’s been super helpful for me, so thank you.

0:47:00.2 Susan Watts: No, thank you.

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0:47:08.8 Jim Lovelady: This conversation felt like I was in the Book of Job, like I was sitting with two friends on the ash heap trying to make sense of it all, fumbling over my words, dumbfounded. I mean, George can’t sing in church anymore, I’m a worship pastor and that breaks me. Now you tell me, how was God sovereign in this? How was He good? This is where you, the listener, have to contend with the Lord as you hear a story like this or any story of suffering, whether it’s your personal story or that of the people close to you, what do you do when your suffering just doesn’t make sense, when the pain brings so much confusion, and you’re overwhelmed by the discouragement, we think what we need is a good explanation for our suffering, that’s what Job wanted, anything that will make our suffering worthwhile. That it would just make sense. But I think what we really want is to know that God is with us. To experience the presence of God, to know that we’re not alone. And you know, even experiencing the absence of God is telling, because truly, our soul wants nothing else. Nothing else would do. That I would dwell in the house of the Lord and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. In John 11, after the death of Lazarus, Mary and Martha come to Jesus with the same accusation/expression of sorrow. If you had only been here, you could have done something about this. This is where we see the mystery of God’s sovereignty and his goodness collide in human history. This is where Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life. And this is where he weeps. Nicholas Wolterstorff in his book, Lament for a Son, says this, “the one who does not see God’s suffering does not see his love.” God is suffering love. So suffering is down at the center of all things deep down, where the meaning is, suffering is the meaning of our world, for love is the meaning and love suffers, the tears of God are the meaning of history. I’m a bit overwhelmed by this episode because I don’t know you, and I can’t be your pastor in the midst of your suffering, and I’m just a voice on the radio encouraging you to not give up, urging you to lean into the reality that you’re not alone, you are not ruined. The Lord is with you. The one who is the resurrection and the life weeps with you and calls you into his love, and since love suffers, since love goes to those places, the love of Christ compels us to be present in those places of suffering, to bring his grace at the frayed edges of life, but does the suffering of this world make you want to just stay home? I know it’s overwhelming. But one thing I love about the Watts’ story, as George clings to the sovereignty of God and Susan declares the goodness of God, is that they have experienced the goodness of the Lord time after time. So when he moves like the pillar of cloud by day and the fire by night, they want to move too. It’s a fierce determination to follow the way of love, if you’re discouraged and can’t really see God working in your life in the midst of this suffering, I want you to pick up this book, Promises in the Dark by Eric McLaughlin.

He’s a Serge missionary, he’s still serving with his wife Rachel at the hospital in Kibuye where the Watts were, and this book is a perfect accompaniment to this episode because it documents the high highs and the low lows of kingdom work that George was talking about, the rawness of life in high definition. And it’s a generous, generous companion for all who long to see the light of the gospel shine into the dark places of this world. If there’s a book that says that you are not alone, it’s this one, I’ll have a link forward in the show notes as well as a couple of blog posts about the fantastic work that Serge is still doing in Kibuye. And as I close this episode, I want to read Psalm 27 one more time. Sit with this as your prayer and find hope in Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life, the king of love, who weeps with those who weep and calls us into his suffering love. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear. The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers assail me to eat up my flesh, my adversaries and foes, it is they who stumble and fall. Though an army encamp around me, my heart shall not fear. The war arise against me. Yet will I be confident. And one thing I’ve asked of the Lord and I will seek after that I would dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble. He will conceal me under the cover of his tent. He will lift me high upon a rock, and now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy. And one day, one day I will sing and make melody to the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me, you’ve said, Seek my face and my heart says, Your face, Lord, do I seek. Hide not your face from me. Turn not your servant away in anger. O you who have been my help, cast me not off, forsake me not, O God of my salvation, for my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in. Teach me your way O Lord and lead me on a level path because of my enemies. Give me not up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me and they breathe out violence, but I am sure I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong. Let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to smile down on you, may the Lord be gracious to you, and turn his bright eyes to you and give you his peace in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God, life everlasting. Amen.

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