July 19, 2024 · 48:53

Paul Hastings, host of “Compelled,” steps into “The Corner.”

Culture & Media

Show notes

0:00 - 15:00. 2 Corinthians 5:1-9. Where does pleasing God rank on your priority list? 15:00 - 31:00. Paul Hastings, host of “Compelled,” steps into “The Corner.” 31:00 - 48:00. God is still in the transformation business.

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Full transcript Auto-generated · 8,234 words

Transcribed with OpenAI Whisper (base.en). Timestamps are approximate. Lightly cleaned for readability; quotations from on-air callers may include filler words. Use the audio player above for the authoritative recording.

0:00Darkness is not an affirmative force.
0:02It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.
0:06This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
0:10It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite.
0:15Delivery people out of the bondage of mainstream media.
0:18And the philosophies of this world.
0:20God has called you and me to be his ambassador.
0:24Even in this dark moment.
0:26Let's not miss our moment.
0:28And now, the Hamilton Corner.
0:31Good evening everyone.
0:33Welcome to the Hamilton Corner here on American Family Radio.
0:36What a week it has been.
0:39What a week.
0:41Goodness gracious.
0:42Thank you for tuning in to the program.
0:44So much is happening in the world.
0:47So many options are available to you
0:49as to what you would like to consume,
0:51how you would like to receive information.
0:55But you've made the decision to hang out here in the corner.
0:57we are grateful for you making that decision at this very moment.
1:01Many of you, if not most of you are making your transitions from your part-time jobs,
1:05where you generate an income to your full-time jobs, where you cultivate an outcome.
1:10And as you do so, I want to remind you that what goes on in your house is far more
1:15important than what goes on in the White House.
1:18I cannot stress that enough.
1:21You know, I've just been gripped by the reality that the Lord has revealed to us in
1:26is word that he's planted us here. He's planted us in this world to be in it, but not of it.
1:33The Lord didn't put his body, his believers, his remnant in the world to be subsumed by the world
1:40to where the believer is for all practical purposes indistinguishable from the world around us.
1:49The objective here is not for us to just be, I forgot, there was a show that the girl just said,
1:55opposite opposite all the time, just to be opposite.
2:00We don't take stock of what's happening in the world
2:04and just look to be contrary.
2:06It's not to be contrarians, but it's because we've been captured, man.
2:11Being the Lord's peculiar people, being set apart is distinct from, separated from,
2:19because we are separated unto.
2:23The call to be the agioish, the holy people of God.
2:27And I use this analogy often.
2:29My children in my home know that I'm a tea drinker.
2:32I like to drink tea.
2:33I drink coffee right now and again,
2:35but between the two I prefer tea,
2:38I have a particular tumbler that I like to use.
2:40Now we store my tumbler with all of the mugs and the cups,
2:47but the children and my wife, my whole household,
2:50understands that there's one particular tumbler
2:53that is separate from the rest of the cups in the house.
2:58and it's dedicated, specified, separated unto a particularized usage.
3:03That's Daddy's tumbler.
3:07My tumbler is set apart from the rest of the cups in the home.
3:13I just describe that to give you a picture of what it means to be the holy people of God.
3:19The distinction doesn't come because we're just trying to be opposite, opposite.
3:23The distinction comes because we are separated from
3:26because of the commands that the Lord has given us,
3:28the way He's required us to live,
3:30And most importantly, because we are dedicated, separated unto him for his causes, for his cause,
3:39and for his purposes, and his purpose.
3:42And I'm saying that that we intentionally, his primary objective, which has downstream imperatives,
3:49that is who we are to be.
3:52And I'm gravely concerned that a host of issues, not least among them, is the political climate
3:59in our country has and continues to entice some professing believers really to ascribe
4:09to the features of worldliness.
4:13It's not only the political climate, sometimes I believe it's because of what we've grown
4:19to enjoy in this country.
4:21Many have unfortunately been manipulated by our freedoms and our abundance and our prosperity.
4:31All of those things are wonderful that are gifts from God, but He doesn't give them to
4:35us for us to be consumed by them and to be manipulated by them.
4:40He gives them to us so that we can utilize them for His glory.
4:46Use the abundant resources that we have and the freedoms that we have historically.
4:51Our nation has sent the most missionaries into the world that the world has ever seen.
4:59But as a Nigerian pastor, I had the privilege of learning from, as I was growing up, it would
5:04come to visit our church in New Orleans, that the nation that has historically sent the most
5:10missionaries into the world has now become the mission field. We have to cultivate a proper
5:19understanding and approach starting right in our homes. The call for the believers to be
5:24salt and light, not for us to be lightly salted. So as you make your move, get into your home,
5:32My prayer for you is that today will be a day
5:36where the glory of God is made evident in your home.
5:40As you set your heart and set your course to worship Him,
5:43to where you normalize and standardize the exaltation
5:46of the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords
5:48right in your home that your family will be known
5:51as a family that worships the Lord,
5:52because this is your consistent practice.
5:55And if this is new to you, let it start today.
5:59And if this is something that you've been engaged
6:00for quite some time, I know there are many of you
6:03who are listening to me, your veterans, at leading your family in worship, having family
6:08times of discipleship.
6:10My brother who leads his family, my sister who comes along, side her husband to aid, don't
6:16get weary and well doing.
6:17I know there's something that will listen to me that you suffer different evidences of
6:21brokenness.
6:22You may be a single, in a single parent home.
6:24Don't get, don't become weary in well doing of you.
6:27A single father or your single mother, don't become weary and well doing.
6:32But as we see the wickedness, metastasized in our culture, let us ever the more be resolute
6:40and living with Joshua proclaimed as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
6:48To the Word of God we go.
6:51Second Corinthians chapter 5 verses 1 through 9 is a very simple and direct communication
6:58that I want to present this evening. Second Corinthians chapter 5 verses 1 through 9.
7:07The Apostle Paul is writing here to the church at Corinth and he writes this for, if, sorry,
7:12for we know, for we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down,
7:19We have a building from God, a house not made with hands. Mm. Eternal in the heavens.
7:32For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling
7:39from heaven. In as much as we having put it on will not be found naked. For indeed
7:47while we are in this tent, our temporal bodies, we've grown being burdened because we do not want
7:54to be unclothed but to be clothed. So that with his mortal will be swallowed up by life for some
8:04translations they are saying immortality. That what is mortal may be swallowed up by what is immortal.
8:11Verse 5, Now he who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave us his spirit as a
8:24pledge, therefore being always of good courage and knowing that while we are at home in the
8:31body, we are absent from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.
8:36We are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be
8:43at home with the Lord.
8:45Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
8:59The Word of God gives us great comfort, great encouragement.
9:08one in this passage. So we know this is something that we as believers, we know we are confident
9:16of, we can rest in this fact. But we know that if it's earthly tent, our physical bodies,
9:27our physical life, our natural life circumstances, our immediate life context, we know that if
9:35This earthly tent, which is our house, is torn down.
9:39We have a building from God,
9:44a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.
9:50I often ponder if we really believe this,
9:59what our lives look like.
10:03If we really believed that no matter what happens here,
10:07no matter what happens even to our own physical bodies,
10:10we know that we have a building from God.
10:12We know we have an eternal level.
10:14We know we have an eternal dwelling place.
10:17Would we be as fearful, as tepid, as, you know,
10:29skulking about like, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo.
10:32Whispering in corners, yeah, you know we love the Lord.
10:38I think one of the major things that is plaguing
10:39professing believers today simply put is the fear of man
10:43and to be frank love for this world.
10:49That we love the world so much so
10:53that we try to curate our lives to be persecution avoidant,
11:02which result in the lifestyle
11:04of what I described as a practical atheism
11:08or at best a practical agnosticism.
11:11But we won't deny, well say it this way,
11:14the practical atheism is that we live
11:15as if there is no God.
11:17The practical agnosticism,
11:18yeah, we might give an acknowledgement to God's existence,
11:21but we live as if he has no true bearing
11:25on how we go about living our daily lives.
11:30The Apostle Paul goes on to say that the down payment,
11:35the down payment that we have on the eternal hope
11:38that we have in Christ is the Spirit of God.
11:41He's given us the Spirit as a down payment.
11:46As the pledge or as Paul told to the Galatians,
11:52the earnest of our inheritance.
11:54It's like earnest money that you pay on a home transaction.
12:00But we are a good courage.
12:02We are always of good courage
12:05Because we know that while we're here, at home in our body,
12:08absent from the Lord, but we walk by faith and not by sight.
12:10It's amazing every time I see that portion of scripture.
12:14Those who doesn't say that we don't walk.
12:17Or we walk, we live, but our lifestyle is not dependent upon
12:23nor dictated to us by what we see.
12:29It's not that we're blind, we have optical lenses
12:32that operate by God's divine providence.
12:34Thank you, Lord.
12:35the greatest camera, an optical invention the world has ever seen.
12:46But that doesn't govern how we live
12:48because we live according to the truth,
12:50according to the truth that transcends what we see.
12:55And yes, I'd much rather be in a tangible presence
12:58of the Lord right now, but I am here now
13:02by his divine ordinance.
13:03Therefore, verse nine comes into full view.
13:08This is our ambition.
13:10This is our life's prerogative.
13:13This is when you ask,
13:15what are you seeking to accomplish in your life?
13:18Abe, what is your foremost ambition in your life?
13:22This is it.
13:24Whether at home, in my physical body now,
13:29or absent from my physical body now,
13:32my ambition is to be pleasing to him.
13:38My ambition is to be pleasing to him.
13:41The question I want to ask us this evening is this,
13:48where does pleasing God rank on your priority list?
13:54Where does pleasing God rank on my priority list?
14:00The answer to that question truly determines the scope,
14:07the breath, the width, the height, the height
14:12and the trajectory of our lives.
14:17Where does pleasing God rank on your priority list?
14:25My desire is for pleasing God to be my foremost priority.
14:33And if that is not your priority,
14:37today is a day for recalibration.
14:41You're listening to the Hamilton Corner.
14:43This is a special program today
14:44because when it do something
14:46that we've never done before,
14:47but you don't wanna miss it, stay with us.
14:49We'll be back right after this break.
14:51Pleaseing God!
14:53What is it, Rank, on your priority list?
15:00You've heard a lot about saving babies on this show.
15:03That's because it's important to me personally.
15:05And let me just be frank with you.
15:06We need to save them.
15:08That's why we've partnered with Preborn, the nation's leader, in introducing mothers with
15:12unplanned pregnancies to their babies.
15:15And once she hears that heartbeat and sees that precious life growing inside of her,
15:19she is twice as likely to choose life.
15:22Now that's a miracle.
15:23But quite honestly, if we don't save them, who will?
15:27Preborn receives no government funding, so their work is completely dependent on us.
15:32Preborn has rescued over 280,000 babies.
15:35And that's not all.
15:36They provide love, support, and counseling for up to two years, for free, saving lives
15:42and souls.
15:43One ultrasound is just $28, or $140 helps to rescue five babies' lives.
15:49Abortion doesn't stop, so we can't.
15:52Together, you and I can save lives.
15:55Just dial pound250 on your cell and say the keyword baby.
15:59That's 250 baby.
16:01Or go to preborn.com.
16:03That's preborn.com.
16:04Shining light into the darkness.
16:13This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
16:17Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to the Hamilton Corner.
16:19I am elated to have on the program with me a brother in Christ who I have had.
16:27known from afar through his work and through an interview he had with my dear friends,
16:31William Gaddison, on their program. And then I had the privilege of meeting him in person
16:37when we were in Virginia. I am talking about Paul Hastings was first and foremost a brother in Christ.
16:44He is a husband. He and his wife have four children. He is an award-winning podcaster,
16:51filmmaker, filmmaker, speaker, and entrepreneur.
16:54He is the host of Compelled, a podcast sharing unique stories about God transforming Christians
17:03around the world.
17:04And I have to tell you, his podcast is phenomenal.
17:07The production quality, the content, the Christ's centrality, it is fantastic.
17:13It's one that the entire family can enjoy it, enjoy it together.
17:17His work has been featured by Dr. James Dobson's family talk, World Magazine, the Gospel Coalition,
17:23Christianity Today, the Christian Post, and many, many more.
17:28Paul Hastings, thank you for joining me here on The Hamilton Corner.
17:31Oh, Abraham, it's my joy.
17:33Man, I should bring you anytime I talk anywhere.
17:36I just should have you always give that introduction.
17:37That makes you sound great.
17:39Wow.
17:40Yes, you should.
17:41You should bring me everywhere you go.
17:42Yes, yes, yes.
17:43That's what you should do.
17:44I'm just kidding.
17:45Well, I am excited among first and foremost you being on my program, what an honor it is
17:51to have you on the show on the show.
17:53But also because we have the privilege of debuting a brand new episode of the Compel podcast here
18:00today, season eight, episode one, the Rwandan genocide survivor.
18:06Would you want to just say something briefly about it before we get right into it?
18:10Sure, sure.
18:11And so the story you're about to hear, this is an extended preview.
18:15We're going to drop the whole episode next Monday, so in a couple of days from now.
18:19But this story is about Alex, and he was just a five-year-old boy in Rwanda when the genocide
18:24happened back in the 1990s.
18:26He tells his story of how Christ met him in his greatest hour of need.
18:38I'm Paul Hastings, and thanks to our friends at American Family Radio, you're listening
18:42to the exclusive season eight premiere preview of the compiled podcast, where we use gripping
18:49immersive storytelling to bring the life Christian testimonies from the Kingdom of God, told by
18:55the people compelled to live for him. Today our guest is Alex Sinjamada, who grew up in Rwanda,
19:02an African country about the size of Massachusetts, landlocked in the very center of Africa.
19:08As a child in the 1990s, Alex was surrounded by racial tension and anger that eventually boiled
19:14over into full-scale violence, now known as the Rwandan genocide.
19:20But after being exposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ, Alex was challenged to do the unthinkable,
19:27to forgive the unforgivable.
19:30So gather round, lean and join us for another compelling story from the Kingdom of God.
19:48My earliest memories that I can remember is me as a little boy running around with my
19:55brother in the village playing soccer or climbing mango trees and avocado trees and fighting
20:04all the time.
20:06We were kids, yeah.
20:08It became a time when my mother started to get sick so, so bad.
20:13Our mother had HIV AIDS.
20:15She was in and out of the hospital.
20:18So the best way to be consistent was to stay with our grandmother in the village.
20:23So our grandmother and our two uncles in that house, we had two uncles living with us as well.
20:27And I loved my uncles and even though we had a little misunderstanding sometimes disagreement
20:32as a rookie, we're being kids, they were being adults as well and they always really pointed
20:38us the right way.
20:39They loved us and no deep inside they loved us.
20:42And so our mother getting sick all the time and then one day I remember very specifically
20:47being rushed out me and my brother to the hospital in a capital city because she had passed out
20:54and they thought she was dead.
20:56She was in a coma.
20:58So they brought us when she got back from the coma.
21:01They came and brought us out to see her and it wasn't too long that after we did that
21:07she passed away.
21:08So one of the last memories that I remember of my mom is us playing her to rest.
21:19We lived outside of the capital city and so the village surrounded by farms, hills after
21:25hills, men, a lot of the men are making bricks for a living.
21:31The mothers, the women are doing a lot of the planting crops and the kids, if we're not
21:38in school, we were playing soccer literally in the streets because there was not a lot
21:42of cars at that time.
21:45And part of our village was well.
21:48So we would go and get our jerry cans to fetch water.
21:52No running water dirt flows.
21:54Our house with our grandmother was a house made of mud.
22:00They would make hollow sticks around.
22:03And then in between the hollow sticks, it would be mud in there to hold it.
22:08Or it would be an adobe bricks.
22:10And then on the side after that to make sure it's all lined up and it's all smooth.
22:17Then they would put a dobby mud mixed with cow dung.
22:21The roof was made of iron sheets they call them.
22:25So when it rained, if there was a light rain, it would be so soothing.
22:29But it would be a heavy rain.
22:31It would be miserable because it would be so loud.
22:34And of course there were dirt flows.
22:36And as a little kid, I remember very specifically, could not afford a mattress.
22:41So to get, we grew bananas.
22:43My grandmother made a living on making banana beer.
22:47When the banana leaves, the big banana leaves are dried up, get a bunch of them, and put
22:53them in a specific place, and then put a bed sheet on top, and that becomes the bed.
22:58So that was our bed.
22:59And that was our house.
23:01My grandmother loved to go to church, to the Catholic church.
23:06So we went with our grandmother.
23:09Whenever she went on Sunday, we went with her.
23:11It was kind of interesting because on another Saturday,
23:15she went down the street to a seventh day
23:17at the Vantage Church on a Saturday.
23:20So we didn't know what kind of faith that she had.
23:23So we knew of God because of our grandmother,
23:26but my relationship personally with God
23:29was my grandmother's, with exactly what I saw my grandmother do.
23:32And then when we would go to the Catholic Church,
23:36I was always, always very jealous towards the altar boys.
23:41I wanted to be an altar boy.
23:43And I remember specifically thinking,
23:44how come do they get to hold the book and I don't?
23:49What makes them so special that they get to hold the book
23:52and I don't?
23:53Or they wear the gown and I don't?
23:57And then I saw the priest and I was thinking,
24:01How come he gets to share what he's sharing to do that?
24:05And I can't wait, can't I be that?
24:08Little did I know in that moment
24:10actual God was planning a seed in my life.
24:13I'm maybe four or five.
24:15I'm thinking I wanna be a priest when I grow up.
24:18I was always curious about faith,
24:20but I didn't know why.
24:24Now, while Alex had a relatively happy childhood,
24:27there was a dark undercurrent surrounding him.
24:30At the time, Rwanda was comprised of two main ethnic groups, the Hutus and Tutsis.
24:36The large majority of the population, about 85%, was Hutu, while just 14% were the Tutsi
24:43minority.
24:44A tremendous amount of racial unease that existed for decades in the country, and many
24:49Tutsis faced routine discrimination and harassment.
24:53Some Tutsis eventually fled Rwanda and were living in nearby nations, but other Tutsis,
24:58Alex's family had remained. Local militias, mainly composed of Hutu extremists, began springing up
25:05all over Rwanda. Of course, Alex didn't fully understand all of this, but by April 1994,
25:11even as a five and a half year old boy, he could tell that something was off.
25:17So the first time I understood about what was happening is the matching of the political parties
25:26in our village. And as a little kid I remember seeing people being trained. Young men and some
25:32women being taught how to carry a weapon. They had made guns, they had made weapons out of wood,
25:40and so they would do this matching young men with no shirts running around and singing songs.
25:46So I would see this happen in our village, in the soccer field, in our village. And so our
25:52Our grandmother knew that something was happening, but we didn't know what it was.
25:58So as a little kid for me, I'm seeing all this and I'm trying to put a mind to it.
26:01But we are kind of oblivious.
26:04We see it happen, but we don't know what's going on.
26:07As kids, for us, we never really understand the deep part of how it all started.
26:12We just knew that we're part of the Tutsi tribe and the political radies would happen and
26:17we see them happen in the schools that do remember some people calling.
26:21Like, oh, the Hutu stand up, or the Tutsi stand up.
26:24The language in the newspapers, in the television would say,
26:29a time will come when we will crush all the cockroaches.
26:33This was specifically printed in the newspaper.
26:36A time is going to come, those are cockroaches, we're going to crush them someday.
26:41Those are tortures, a day is going to come when we're going to cut the trees down.
26:45Satan came and built a nest in Rwanda.
26:49It was so brutal, hatred was so
26:51ingrained in people's lives that
26:54a neighbor didn't never saw a neighbor anymore
26:56as a human being.
26:57And the dehumanization that went on for years and years,
27:01people actually believed in that dehumanization.
27:04So for me, as a little boy, we wake up on April 7th
27:09and we hear noise.
27:11And I remember hearing, boom, boom, boom.
27:16And wondering what is that?
27:18I counted and I remember specifically getting up to 21.
27:22All of a sudden our neighbor rushed out to the house.
27:25We were about to get ready, put our stuff together.
27:28We're about to go with our grandmother to the garden
27:31to attend to our crops.
27:33Our neighbor said, hey, the president was killed last night.
27:37They're malicious everywhere.
27:39They have started to kill all the tutis, so do not leave.
27:42You're not gonna make it to the garden.
27:44Was the garden away from your house?
27:46Yeah, it was about the garden was about maybe maybe 30 to 40 minute walk from our from our house
27:52And there's no way we would have made it back
27:54So my grandmother always sat and had had this horrific face because she knew this was not going to be an easy time
28:02And so she told us immediate to go and hide
28:04So we walked up into the hills and hid in our coffee
28:07Plantations and who hid for that morning all of us me and my brother and my sister and actually a one of our uncles was with us
28:16And it was late afternoon we came back to our house because we didn't hear any
28:20commotion in our village we thought oh there's nothing happening so we came back
28:24to our house got into the house closed the door and all of a sudden we had
28:30footsteps by our house people surrounding our house and we had a knock on the door
28:36we didn't go to the door right away and all of a sudden we had someone just
28:41kind of kicked the door off.
28:43And so when they kicked the door, they yelled at us and said,
28:46all of you, get outside, go and lie down.
28:49And we thought, my goodness, this is it.
28:51So we go, we all lie down, we did what they wanted.
28:55And then they said, you kids go back inside the house.
28:59So we went back inside the house and we were watching through the window.
29:03It was the toughest day.
29:06It was rough because these people were not our strangers.
29:10these were our neighbours.
29:12And it wasn't a gun,
29:17it was just literally beating our grandmother to death,
29:21which sticks.
29:25We were in such a shark that nothing could even come out of our mouth.
29:31And all of a sudden, they left.
29:35One of our uncles, who was known to be kind of the troublemaker in a village,
29:39they never thought that he was a tootsie,
29:42even he kind of left him alone.
29:44He's the one who actually came and took grandmother away.
29:48It was quite a rough day.
29:51We were all in tears later on after the shock was off.
29:56But it was one of those that couldn't really process.
30:00Our uncle who was known to be the head of the family
30:02would be hiding in the house with us.
30:05But our other uncle would go out and sometimes bring food for us.
30:10and sometimes we would just go to bed without food
30:13because we couldn't leave the house.
30:15We didn't know where to go, that would be safe.
30:19It wasn't too long that a hundred men came looking
30:22for our uncle.
30:24I remember very specifically, they're yelling at us
30:26and where's your uncle, where's your uncle?
30:28So we don't know where he is,
30:29which is a huge risk for us.
30:31And they're searching all over the house,
30:33they couldn't find him.
30:34When our uncle had them come,
30:36he pulled himself on the springs of the bed,
30:38so he was hanging.
30:40So they were taking their long spears
30:42and they were shuffling under the bed
30:44to see if there's someone in there.
30:46And so as they throw the spear under the bed,
30:49he's hanging on the springs, so they couldn't get to him.
30:52They couldn't find him, but he was still there.
30:54So they eventually left.
30:57So then, couple days later, about three days later,
30:59three men returned to the house with guns.
31:03And they said, he is under the bed, let him get out.
31:06We want him, let him get out.
31:08And of course, who couldn't lie to them,
31:10they knew exactly what they called it out.
31:12And he hesitated because he didn't know
31:14whether they were bluffing or not.
31:16So he hesitated for a little bit
31:18and we are looking at them and they take a grenade
31:21and they're about to open a grenade
31:23to throw into the house, to destroy the house.
31:26And the last words I remember specifically him saying
31:30was please don't destroy the house
31:32because my kids need a place to leave.
31:36So he comes outside, he's wearing his favorite shirt
31:39and they asked for his identity card.
31:42And his identity card said specifically what trouble he was.
31:46Every person who was 18 and older,
31:48you had to have an identity card.
31:50And that identity card said what trouble you were.
31:52And of course, he was a Tutsi.
31:55We're right there closing our ears.
31:58They shot him, went through the ribs.
32:01And he said, you know, I'll just go ahead
32:03and shoot me again so I don't feel the pain.
32:06And of course, he was still gasping for air.
32:09And that's when they finished him off
32:11pretty much doing exactly what they did to our grandmother.
32:15They literally beat him to death
32:17with their sticks that they had.
32:20And I can only imagine the sheer pain
32:23that he was experiencing because of that.
32:27And so for us as a little kid standing there,
32:30watching that, that was doing a lot of destroying
32:34a lot, me and my brother, my sister very deeply.
32:39and years later would rip the consequences of those traumas.
32:45When the killers were done,
32:47they left the body of the children's uncle on the ground,
32:50looted the house, and never looked back.
32:53We'll hear more of Alex's story right after this break.
32:57Stay with us, you don't wanna miss the rest of this.
33:01It's compelled for a reason.
33:10A Hamilton Quarter podcast and one-minute commentaries
33:13are available at afr.net.
33:16back to the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
33:20Welcome back, we are going to continue now
33:23with the remaining portions of the season eight episode one,
33:28compelled podcast premiere,
33:31and we'll continue that right now.
33:37Welcome back to the Compel Podcast.
33:39Thanks to our friends at the Hamilton Corner
33:41on American Family Radio,
33:43you're listening to the exclusive
33:44season eight premiere preview of Compel.
33:48Alex Singemana and his two siblings were in total shock.
33:52First their grandmother and now their uncle had been brutally murdered before their very
33:56eyes.
33:57And they were just kids, ages 10, 5, and 4.
34:01What they had witnessed was so horrific that their emotions couldn't even keep up.
34:06When their second uncle returned home that evening he found the children's shell shocked
34:10and silently carried his brother into the forest to bury him.
34:15But all across Rwanda, this same scenario was playing out on a massive scale.
34:20Lawlessness had erupted across the countryside, and thousands of tutsis were being killed every
34:24day, and there was no sign of it stopping.
34:27A few days later, the children's surviving uncle told them that he could no longer protect
34:32them, and that they must flee to the capital city of Kigali, where their ant lived, and
34:36where there was still some semblance of order.
34:40The three children fled on foot.
34:42It normally would have been a 90 minute walk took an entire day with the children trying
34:46to avoid roving militias, hiding in the grass and being stopped at roadblocks and checkpoints.
34:51On more than one occasion, they feared for their lives, but miraculously, they arrived
34:56at their aunt's home.
34:58We stayed with our aunt, but our aunt and her family were sheltering about 19 people in
35:05a small little area.
35:06All of us family members from the villages had come to the city to stay with our aunt.
35:12Now they wanted to figure out what can we do to provide for these people.
35:17How can we feed everyone?
35:19So they decided to sell a local beer in our living room.
35:23So these malicious, these people in the city would come and we'd get a drink and they're
35:28supposed to leave the house.
35:30But one day, one of the men managed to sneak into the backyard where all of us were.
35:37And he's looking at us and he's getting at us to lie down.
35:41And he went to load his gun.
35:43In the process of loading his gun, the magazine fell out of the gun and his bullets fell to
35:48the ground.
35:49And just, I mean, everywhere, bullets were all over the ground.
35:52And he bends over to pick up his bullets to reload his magazine.
35:57In the process of doing so, my aunt's husband sees what's happening and so he asked the guy,
36:02what are you trying to do with my family?
36:04And the guy said, I was just joking with him.
36:06I was just playing with him.
36:08He was not there to joke around.
36:10He was not there to play with us because if his weapon would be loaded instantly, I would
36:16not be doing this interview with you.
36:19It was such a scary moment that we had in that city.
36:23Countless miracles were happening.
36:25That was one of them.
36:27Another time I remember very specifically me and my brother are playing with mobos.
36:32We are sitting on the floor and have our legs crossed together and we're playing mobos between
36:36our legs.
36:38But all of a sudden we had an explosion somewhere for us to hide away from the noise.
36:44We went to put our heads together in the middle to kind of shelter.
36:48In the process of doing that, a shrapnel from, it was a bomb that just landed very close by.
36:54A shrapnel from the bomb just landed, made it through our heads before in the little gap
37:02that was left and it landed in front of us.
37:07a huge miracle because that thing was so red that it would literally just go through
37:13us call if we landed on our head and we saw it we were scared so we ran. In the
37:20middle of the night we would sleep under the bed so that we can have an extra cushion
37:24just in case situations like that happen where a bomb goes off, shrapnel has come
37:29through the roof. It was obvious that staying at the home was no longer safe.
37:34life. The Rwandan military itself was assisting in the genocide and moderate Hutu leaders who
37:39didn't agree with the murders were summarily killed by the extremists while gangs were now
37:44roving the city looking for men to kill and women to violate. At the same time, a rebel
37:50army led by Tutsis who had lived in exile outside of Rwanda for many years and now materialized
37:56and was now fighting for control of the government in the northern part of the country, which in
38:00In turn, drove the Hutu militias up there down south, right into the capital city of
38:06Kigali where Alex and his family were.
38:09As more and more militias entered the city, the situation developed into chaos.
38:14And in the midst of gunfire, rockets and grenades, the remaining Tutsi population in the city
38:19panicked and began to flee in mass.
38:25So the refugees who had come to stop the genocide were chasing out the militias along the way
38:31as they chase out the militias, militias are going against killing people around.
38:36And so all of us are packing up and leaving because there's really gunshots everywhere.
38:41It's getting worse. So we pack up and we're ready. I mean we started to run.
38:45And Rwanda is known as the land of a thousand hills. So we're coming through hills after hills.
38:51Now there's this mountain range called Mount Kigali. The city of Kigali downtown sits on a hill
38:57where maybe 10 to 15 minute drive from downtown.
39:01So where we lived, it was kind of right before the mountain range started.
39:06So we run through the valley and then we start to climb the hill.
39:10When we climb this Mount Kigali,
39:13poor militias are all over here and they're looking at this
39:16hill with thousands of people going crossing over.
39:20So immediately when our family just made it into the valley,
39:25We hear people screaming and wondering what's going on.
39:28These militias on this hill had just sent rockets on the hill.
39:33A lot of people lost their lives on that hill.
39:37Now we get into this valley, we're running everywhere just from all directions.
39:42And you're with your whole family?
39:43We're whole family, the 19 people.
39:45Yeah, we're all running all together.
39:47And as we ran, we're hiding the bush, we're hiding an abundant school with thousands of other people.
39:53and we would stay there and rest for a few minutes, maybe a night or two. Then
39:58all of a sudden it would get worse again and it would run, run, run, run. Just
40:02running away from the noise, away from the guns, away from the bombs and as we
40:07ran I got to separate from my family for a little bit, me and my brother and then
40:13I heard this noise. This noise was so loud. All I could hear was a high-pitched noise
40:19It's just coming. It was getting louder and it was getting closer and closer and all of a sudden.
40:35Wow. Now you know why this podcast is called Compelled. Compelling stories like this,
40:48Paul, in your team, you all do an amazing and amazing job. And I guess the first thing I want to
40:56ask you now, Paul, is what led you to use your gifts and talents to create a podcast like this,
41:07to create compelled? Yeah, great question. So I'll set up this way. When I was a kid, I would fall
41:16asleep during church all the time, just constantly, which is kind of embarrassing. And that not only
41:23just as a kid, but also as a teenager. And then as a young adult, you could imagine when I was
41:28trying to date my wife and like I would attend her church and I'd fall asleep during the sermon
41:32even though I was trying to I was just very embarrassing and kind of humiliating actually
41:37but that was just kind of my I'm not exactly sure why I always did that and it wasn't because
41:42I was disengaged with the certain I actually enjoyed what I was learning and wanted to learn
41:46more about the Lord and was always wanting to engage but I was always falling asleep but
41:51But the weird thing happened that I realized that at any time a pastor began to tell a story
41:59in the sermon, it could be any story.
42:01It could be a story from the Bible that I knew by heart already.
42:04It could be a sermon illustration about the pastor and his lawnmower the prior week.
42:09It could be anything, but I would wake up and listen intently to the story.
42:15And then as soon as he was done with that and went back to the teaching where I'd fall
42:18back and sleep again and struggled with that.
42:21And that went on for many decades, actually.
42:25And so you could say that I was kind of hardwired for storytelling.
42:28And so the stories have just played a huge part of my life.
42:32I've always loved hearing testimonies from like, you know, brother Andrew and God Smuggler
42:36or Corey Timboum in the hiding place or the cross and the switchblade.
42:40So many great testimonies that I've read as a kid.
42:43And so about six years ago, my wife and I, we were at a transition point in my career.
42:49We began asking ourselves and praying, asking ourselves, were there other things that God
42:52would want us to do besides the current career path I had at the moment?
42:56And God, I guess, maybe put on our hearts this idea like, hey, maybe we should just tell
43:00stories.
43:01And so we began scouring the internet and talking to friends and getting recommendations from other
43:07people.
43:08And here we are six years later.
43:09And one of the things that I enjoy about your podcast, in addition to the amazing production
43:17quality. And as I mentioned earlier, this is something that the entire family can enjoy
43:21together. I know you have some episodes where you give warnings at the advance, I'm thinking
43:28about one with a former drug dealer. But your stories tend to highlight the amazing journeys
43:36that people have gone through. And they kind of build to a crescendo that exalt Christ
43:41in his transforming power. So how did you come to the place to where you combined your personal
43:47inclination towards storytelling and affinity for it to then connecting it to the transform
43:52power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
43:54That's a really great question.
43:57You know, I would say it's probably somewhat in relation to the church that we attend actually.
44:03We've been at a particular church for the last nine years.
44:06We've really enjoyed their teaching and just the emphasis and reminder that when we read
44:11the Bible, sometimes there can be this subtle idea like, oh, I'm trying to figure out,
44:16who am I? Which character am I in the Bible? Who am I? Like, what's the takeaway for me for me?
44:22And really, the Bible should be read as like, no, this is actually an exposition of the power of God.
44:28And let us glorify him for how powerful he is. And you know, and so maybe that was one of the
44:35takeaways that we've had and carried with us into our podcast as well. So every story that
44:40you're going to hear on Compel, it's not necessarily like, Oh, you know, do you identify as the drug
44:44You identify as Alex.
44:46I mean, maybe you can.
44:48Maybe you can, but maybe not, right?
44:50And so what really is the takeaway for every listener, though, is this is the power of God.
44:56It does not matter if you were a drug dealer or not.
44:58It doesn't matter if you were in the Rwandan genocide or not.
45:00What does matter, though, is we all serve the exact same God who is so crazy powerful
45:06that he can possess somebody to forgive the unforgivable.
45:11And that's really the second half of Alex's story.
45:13story. Man, that is so powerful and so true. So in light of that, would you mind just sharing
45:19with our audience here? Because I love for our audience to get to know the people that we bring on,
45:23just how you came to saving faith in Christ Jesus. Oh, great question. So when I was a kid,
45:29I grew up in a household of believers. My parents were, they were both Christians. My mom
45:34had grown up to Buddhist, but she became a Christian in college. And then by the time my
45:38parents got married and I was born, I had two other siblings. My grandparents also lived
45:44next door and they were sold out Christians as well.
45:47So I'm surrounded by Christians my whole life.
45:49We went to a church faithfully.
45:51I was active in a Wanna Bible clubs.
45:54At around age six or so, I made a profession of faith.
45:58It was mainly rooted in the fear of hell though,
46:00and it being separated from my parents.
46:03It was not motivated by a love of God at all.
46:06But then when I was about 12 or 13,
46:09I went to a Bible camp, like a church camp.
46:13first time I'd ever been separated from my family overnight.
46:17I loved it.
46:18It was six nights away from my family.
46:20I was just my own person.
46:21I could eat all the junk food I wanted to eat, do whatever I felt like.
46:24And I just felt so free.
46:26But that was also where I began to realize like, you know, we're having Bible study
46:29every morning and every evening and morning chapel, evening chapel.
46:32And I'm realizing that was the faith that I prescribed was that was that my faith?
46:37Or was that my parents faith?
46:38And so that's when faith really became real for me.
46:40It was probably around 12.
46:41So whether I saved at six or 12, only the Lord knows,
46:44but I know where I'm headed today.
46:46And eager to share that saving faith
46:49with other Christians and non-Christians today as well.
46:52Praise God.
46:54I also know that you, similar to myself,
46:57you are a homeschooled dad.
47:00How did you come to the place to where that was the course
47:03that the Lord directed you and your wife on
47:06as how you wanted to raise and disciple your children?
47:10Yeah, it was a pretty illogical conclusion for us.
47:12we'd seen kind of the state of education in America Day.
47:16I had been homeschooled, my wife had been homeschooled,
47:19we had many friends who were homeschooled as well,
47:21and we'd seen good examples and bad examples.
47:23But we just felt really led by the Lord
47:26that we wanted to make sure that we were investing spiritually
47:29in our kids, and it seemed as though homeschooling
47:30was the best mechanism to do that.
47:34Well, I certainly understand that.
47:36Agree with that, I did the file with that,
47:38and I'm grateful for your opportunities.
47:41Did that have any contribution to you developing your creative capacities?
47:47It certainly did.
47:48It taught me the idea of having to learn on your own and also how to learn when there's
47:54no particular instruction book in front of you and just how to be creative on your own.
47:58So that's definitely played a big role in the Compelled Podcast.
48:02Where can Hamilton Corner listeners find compelled?
48:06They could go to CompelledPodcast.com or they can open up their podcast app like Apple Podcasts
48:11or Spotify and search for Compelled, and they can hear the full story of Alex and Jamana and
48:17the ending of a story right there. We're going to release that this coming Monday, three days
48:24from now.
48:25Three days from now. Well, folks, you heard it here first. Compelled podcast. I highly, highly,
48:33highly recommended to you and your family. Paul, thank you so much for joining me here today.
48:38We have got to have you back on the program.
48:41Thanks, Abraham.
48:45The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American
48:50Family Association or American Family Radio.

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