Author(s): Nik Ripken

True Stories

The Insanity of God is the personal and lifelong journey of an ordinary couple from rural Kentucky who thought they were going on just your ordinary missionary pilgrimage, but discovered it would be anything but. After spending over six hard years doing relief work in Somalia, and experiencing life where it looked like God had turned away completely and He was clueless about the tragedies of life, the couple had a crisis of faith and left Africa asking God, "Does the gospel work anywhere when it is really a hard place? It sure didn't work in Somalia.

Nik recalls that, “God had always been so real to me, to Ruth, and to our boys. But was He enough, for the utter weariness of soul I experienced at that time, in that place, under those circumstances?” It is a question that many have asked and one that, if answered, can lead us to a whole new world of faith.

How does faith survive, let alone flourish in a place like the Middle East? How can Good truly overcome such evil? How do you maintain hope when all is darkness around you? How can we say “greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world” when it may not be visibly true in that place at that time? How does anyone live an abundant, victorious Christian life in our world's toughest places? Can Christianity even work outside of Western, dressed-up, ordered nations? If so, how?

The Insanity of God tells a story—a remarkable and unique story to be sure, yet at heart a very human story—of the Ripkens' own spiritual and emotional odyssey. The gripping, narrative account of a personal pilgrimage into some of the toughest places on earth, combined with sobering and insightful stories of the remarkable people of faith Nik and Ruth encountered on their journeys, will serve as a powerful course of revelation, growth, and challenge for anyone who wants to know whether God truly is enough.

How far would your faith take you? Would it take you to another continent to help desperate people? Would you still be able to serve them after the sudden death of your child?
For Nik and Ruth Ripken the answer to all these questions is yes. For years the Ripken family has ministered in the Muslim world, primarily in the Middle East and North Africa. The Insanity of God tells the story of their remarkable journey. They've seen unspeakable evil in Somalia when four of their best friends and Christian converts were killed by radical Muslims, and when their sixteen-year-old son Timothy died suddenly from a severe asthma attack in Kenya. Despite these heartbreaking circumstances, their faith has survived as they learned from the persecuted people they came to serve.
The Insanity of God asks many difficult questions. Questions that are especially difficult for the average American to come to terms with. Yet the Ripken family, along with millions of other persecuted Christians around the world have decided to follow Christ regardless of the personal danger, because they know who Jesus was and is. And that makes all the difference.