Day 1: Nairobi

I had a one-day layover between my flight from Atlanta to Africa and my trip to Darfur.  It was spent alone, in a hotel room in Nairobi.  It was also one of the most difficult days of my life.  In the chaos of the weeks preceding my trip to Darfur I was so consumed with travel arrangements, school arrangements, housing arrangements, financial arrangements, etc. that I did really have time to consider what I was doing.  Don't get me wrong, I've done some crazy things in my life.  Riding off on horseback with a strange Mongolian man in the middle of no-where Mongolia was one.  Living in the dump (literally) of, Mexico "guarding" $2,000 worth of building materials with nothing more than a guitar to protect our stuff was other.  But I have never so knowingly or willingly put myself in extreme Juarez bodily danger.  (I would like to think I was blissfully naive of the dangers the first two examples presented.)  But as I sat in my hotel room in Nairobi I was wracked with questions and doubts for the first time.  What was I thinking, smuggling myself into a war-zone at 24 years old?  Why would I do something like this?  Was this really God's plan for my life?  The reality of death slammed into my otherwise happy-go-lucky life and I was for the first time truly shaken.

Now, there is something to be said for a fear of the unknown.  It's natural.  Anytime you enter into a situation that is unfamiliar there will be a certain amount of fear.  In this instance, however, the fear had taken on a whole new dimension.   I had so much to do in my life, was this really all I would ok be with accomplishing?  A healthy fear of death has always been a part of my life, but I spent that whole day praying, writing, pleading and ultimately resting in the knowledge that the God who had led me for

 three years to study and advocate for these people in Darfur that I had never met would faithfully complete His work in my life.  Just as He had opened the door for me to go into Darfur, He would fulfill His purpose in my following.  

While it is true that God has absolute control over my life no matter where I am or what I am doing, there is a big difference between words and actions.  I had said He was in control since I had given my life to following Christ, but when it came to possibly dying while following his call I wasn't so sure this is what I had signed up for.  Death loomed so clearly, and I understood with greater clarity the reality of my salvation, wrestled with accepting that my life belonged to Christ, and ultimately I was able to rest with greater sweetness than I ever had before in the power and purpose of my Lord.  I really like Jim Elliot's quote that "he is no fool to give up what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose."