I travel very often! For the past three (3) years, as director of the Center for Healing and
Resilience for Discipleship Ministries, and The Upper Room, I was on a plane at least twice
monthly headed to a meeting or a conference. Nairobi, Kenya remains my favorite place
visited, so far. Eboni was working there with a nonprofit providing care for orphaned girls,
and I was a speaker at a leadership conference organized by the regional presiding bishop,
John Mugo.
One morning Bishop Mugo explained that we would be ministering in Samburu County at
an orphanage in a village outside Nairobi and offered to drive Eboni and I, while everyone
else rode the church van. Early that next morning, Eboni and I loaded into Bishop Mugo’s
off-white coupe, a rusty 1976 Honda Civic Hatchback while the team slept in and waited
for the church van. We set out on an adventure! Eboni was in the back seat; I was in the
passenger seat next to Bishop Mugo. Off we went. For the first two hours, we drove on
paved roads with multiple military checkpoints. Along the way, we saw herds of zebras on
the roadside and monkeys darted in and out of our path. It was a beautiful, serene yet
bumpy drive. During the third hour, things changed. Bishop Mugo drove us around to the
back of a shopping center, pointed in the direction of an open field, and then stated to us,
“let us proceed, yes?”
For the next two hours, he drove us through fields, creeks, wooded areas, and an entirely
forested terrain. At one point a young guy on a motorcycle showed up to guide him through
a particular path and then drove off in a different direction. We encountered elephants,
giraffes and fortunately – missed a lion. After a while, a clearing appeared, and we pulled up
to an abandoned school transformed into a beautiful orphanage. We were immediately
surrounded by at least two hundred excited and screaming kids running toward us and
celebrating our arrival. On the way back to Nairobi that evening, I confided in Bishop Mugo
that there was a point earlier when I thought we had lost our way. He laughed and said,
“when you drive, if you trust God, the path will present itself.” That is faith!
In Genesis, Chapter 12, God gives Abraham a conditional blessing for himself and his
descendants. To receive the blessing, God instructs Abraham that he must first go! In fact,
Genesis 12:1 says that Abraham is to “go” and then while he is ‘going’, God will reveal the
destination. Again, that is faith! Faith is trusting that even though we do not understand it
all — if we just trust God and begin to move, God will reveal the path as we go. So, in the
words of Bishop Mugo “let us proceed, yes?”
Dr. Ron Bell
