Walking out of the Nairobi backpacker’s hostel and climbing into the car that was taking me to the airport at 5:30 in the morning on May 1 was probably one of the scariest things I’ve ever done.
Why?
Because I was going alone.
Not only this, but I had had a total of one phone conversation with the man I hoped was picking me up at the airport, and I had no idea what he looked like.
Not only this, but I then had two entire weeks - fourteen days! - to spend in Uganda without the first clue how I was going to be spending them.
Not only this, but I was leaving behind an amazing team and unlimited ministry opportunities in Kenya for . . . what purpose, again?
I had a driver to drive me up to Lira in northern Uganda (a good six-hour drive), but no one to bring me back to Kampala to catch my flight back to the States two weeks later. I had a place to stay in Lira but no plans for what to do with my time. I had been promised breakfast, but I wasn’t sure how I would be getting lunch and dinner. I had no driver in Lira. I had no schedule. I had no extra money. I had no phone.
How would you have felt, stepping onto the airplane with all that . . . unknown-ness in front of you?
I did know one thing.
Revelation chapter 3, verse 8. The voice of the Lord saying, “See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.” I kept repeating it to myself over and over again when I started thinking about the very pitiful list of things I did know, the overwhelming list that I had no clue about. God opened the door. God opened the door. I don’t need to know everything that’s on the other side. Just this one step through the door is all I need, cause God opened it.
I wasn’t being very brave about it. Joshua’s “Be strong and very courageous” got lost somewhere between the front porch of the hostel and the passenger door of the airport car. But God knew. And He saw. And in the two weeks that followed that lonely ride to the airport, He blew open more doors than I could ever have imagined.
But it all started with that one terrifying step out into the unknown.
