Extraordinary Experience

Today I sat on the streetcar next to a nice-looking young woman, and pulled out my Yearbook to start reading. She immediately noticed and asked if I was a witness and said she just moved here from France and has restarted her bible study with someone in a French congregation here. She was waiting to get her own yearbook and wanted to read in mine the section about Rwanda.
That is where she was born but she moved to France just after the genocide. She began to tell me about her father's friend who had become a witness and was hiding a family in his house. When they were discovered, he was ordered to kill them. When he refused, they threatened to kill his own family instead. He still refused and they killed his children and then his wife in front of him and even the family he was hiding. His faith had been so strong in that terrible trial.
The woman's own father had been killed in Rwanda, and she told me she had been so dejected before studying, and she never smiled. As I spoke with her though, she was joyful to now have solid answers about God, and smiled all the time. She plans to get baptized soon and return to Rwanda to share the good news with her friends and relatives who survive.
I was really moved by her story, but especially her glowing attitude and joy. She encouraged me so much! And her situation helps me to value the ministry even more, since there are many people who have dealt with so much pain and need the good news.