Life Happens When You Are Busy Making Plans

My African journey has begun I came with a well thought out plan. I checked and double-checked my itinerary. All my contacts were ready to host me, take me from one destination to the next, provide places for me to visit and people for me to love. To my American mind everything seemed perfect. In fact I was inwardly congratulating myself for a job well done. However somewhere between Amsterdam and Nairobi, God designed a different plan for me.

When I arrived in Nairobi, I was exhausted, but excited. I couldn’t wait to step out into the warm night air and hear the sound of Swahili being shouted out in the bus park. As I walked out of the crowded airport, I took a deep breath and enjoyed the warm night air. I looked and looked for the Daystar sign signaling my airport pick up. I wandered through the crowd and saw no such sign, so I decided to stay put. I parked myself in front of the airport baggage claim and waited and waited and waited.

After an hour and a half, I began to get a little nervous. These best laid plans were beginning to unravel. I called a missionary couple who live here in Nairobi to get some advice. It was getting close to 10pm, dark and I was the only blond lady in sight. He told me to get a taxi and to give them the address for Daystar, but to definitely not wait around. In times of stress I often cry, maybe because I am a girl or maybe out of habit. However, I held all my tears in walked over to the taxi service ordered my taxi and was on my way. I wondered what happened to the ride that I had so carefully planned out. As I rode in that taxi I heard a small whisper tell me to trust. I told Jesus that I needed him and he said, ‘I am already here.”

When I got to Daystar, the guard graciously let me in and let me sit on the ground by the security office and wait under a street lamp. It took about 20 minutes but I was found to be legitimate and shown to the guesthouse. A few minutes later the woman who was supposed to pick me up at the airport arrived at the house. When she saw me she looked surprised and said, “You are Kari?” I assured her I was. She thought she was picking up Kari Krankala and had searched the airport for her while I was searching for her.

Little did I know that this little hiccup was not the last of God’s newly designed plan. I spent a few days at the Athi River Daystar campus encouraging the students my church supports. It was a glorious time. These orphaned students are graduating and planning to use their talents to serve other orphans. I came back on Thursday filled with incredible awe at what God had done in the lives of these students and ready move to the next phase of my plan. However, upon arriving back in Nairobi I discovered that my ride to Kiisi where my friend James was waiting for me could not come and pick me up due to a sudden death in the family. In an instant my world changed. As it stands now I will not be leaving until the end of this week—a full week after I originally had planned to leave.

What I am learning is that God knows so much better than I do where I should be and what I should be doing. In the days that I have been here in Nairobi, I have prayed with a woman who is being beaten by her husband. I have cried and held a widow who is longing for God to rescue her from her poverty. I have met a Masai warrior who first loved Jesus due to an old Billy Graham book left in his village. He then told his whole clan about Jesus and now they are evangelizing the Masai community. I prayed with a Sudanese man who is studying here at Daystar and will the minister of Education in southern Sudan. He told me how he ran on foot from those that would kill him hiding as a boy deep in the bush. Jesus came to him one night under an Acasia tree and told him that he would be protected and kept from harm. He now has spent the rest of his life serving the God who protected him from the rebels who sought to kill him. I have spent more time with Debora. Encouraging her to keep loving Jesus and trusting that the one who holds her in the palm of his hand will one day fulfill her longing for education.

As it stands now, I will be leaving Nairobi on Friday for James’ village of Ogembo. Originally, I was going there to catalog all the 20’ container of books that we sent over for Masifew Academy. However those books are tied up in customs for two more weeks, so God must have another reason for me to be there. Perhaps it will be to comfort James’ family who just lost their nephew or to love orphans. I really don’t know, but I don’t feel like crying about it. I am learning to really trust that God’ s plan is better.

I get up each morning, get dressed and wonder what God’s a plan will hold for me today. I welcome interruptions. I stop what I’m doing every time someone stops by and am present in that moment. I don’t know what I will be doing tomorrow, next week or even when I finish writing this piece, but I do know that God will be here just in front of me helping me take the next step.

PS. The picture is of the Sudanese man I mentioned.