Prologue . . . Ready or Not

First, a confession.

My real name is not Nik Ripken. My reason for writing under a pseudonym will become apparent soon enough. Rest assured, my story and the people who appear in it are very real. Many of these people are, to this day, in real danger. It is their identities that I want to protect. For this story, I have changed my name and I have changed their names too.

This is my own, true account of a long and personal journey. I share this story not as a great heroic adventure; in fact, much of the time this pilgrimage has felt to me like an endless bumbling, stumbling, wandering, feeling-my-way-in-the-dark ordeal. This is a story with a clear beginning—and an uncertain ending. Or maybe it’s better to say that this story starts with one beginning—and ends with another one.

When I first encountered God’s grace as a young man, I received it eagerly. My trust in God was innocent and childlike. The story that I was told about God’s love and about His gift of salvation took hold of my heart. When I read in the Bible that God loved the world, I understood that I was part of that world. When I was told about God’s gift of salvation, I knew that I wanted that gift. When I heard about God’s desire to reach the entire world with His grace, I quickly saw that I had a personal responsibility to fulfill that mission. And when I opened the book of Acts and encountered God’s desire to reach the nations, I concluded quite simply that God intended for me to play a part in that.

Early in my life, it was so matter of fact: this is what God offers His people; this is what God intends for His people; this is what God expects of His people—and His people, obviously, will respond with obedience and trust. I am not suggesting that I always got it right, because I did not. But, still, the way to be obedient and trusting seemed so clear. And the need to be obedient was beyond question.

I am not sure if I ever heard it said out loud, but I also picked up the idea that obedience to God’s call would result in a life of safety and security. Obedience, it was implied, would lead to effective ministry and measurable results and even success. “The safest place to be,” I was told more than once, “is right in the center of God’s will.” And that sounded both true and reassuring.

I admit, however, my surprise when, many years later, I found myself living a life that was neither safe nor secure. I was stunned when, despite what I considered to be a life of sacrificial obedience, I could point to very little in my ministry that was “effective.” There were simply no results to measure. And success was a word that I would have never used to describe what I had done.

It might, in fact, be safe to be in the center of God’s will—but we would be wise to stop and think about what it means to be safe. I felt that I had lived a life in response to the call of God. Instead of effective ministry, measurable results, and what might pass for success, I felt mostly loss and heartache and failure.

What kind of God would allow this to happen?

That question drove me to a place very close to despair. I was forced to question much of what I believed—much of what I had been taught. The spiritual struggle was intense. Despair was something that I had never known before.

I was familiar with discouragement. In fact, I had been told as a young believer that discouragement would probably surface in my life with Jesus from time to time. But this was something different—something that I had never faced before. And I discovered that I had no tools for dealing with it. Nothing in my background had equipped me to handle despair. I didn’t even have a vocabulary to describe it. Like Job in the Old Testament, “I knew that my Redeemer lived”—but I couldn’t figure out why He was being so painfully silent. I was desperate for answers, but my questions simply hung in the air.

Does God, in fact, promise His children safety?

Do things always work out for those who are obedient?

Does God really ask us to sacrifice—and to sacrifice everything?

What happens when our best intentions and most creative ideas are not enough?

Is God at work in the hard places? And does He expect us to join Him in those hard places?

Isn’t it possible to love God and to pretty much keep living the life I already have?

What does it really mean for God to tell us that His ways are not our ways?

Would He really allow people who love Him dearly to fail? And, if so, is this a God who can use even holy failure for His purposes?

Clearly, I was in a crisis of faith. Eventually, I saw the choice that I held in my hands. Would I choose to trust this God who I could not control? Would I be willing to walk with this God whose ways are so different? Would I, once again, lean on this God who makes impossible demands and promises only His presence?

This is the story of my journey.

Please hear this well: I do not have answers to all of my questions. In fact, I am still not exactly sure where this journey might lead. But I am certain that the questions are worth asking—and I am certain that God is a patient, though sometimes demanding, teacher.

I am not completely sure about the ending of the story. But the beginning, I believe, was a plane trip to hell . . .

Of course, I was unaware of our destination at the time. No one had written “Hell” on our official flight plan.

In fact, there was an awful lot I didn’t know when I walked out onto the tarmac and climbed aboard a twin-engine Red Cross plane at Nairobi’s Wilson Airport on a bright February morning in 1992. I had made my “reservations” all of ten minutes before when I had walked up to the Westerner wearing an official-looking Red Cross jumpsuit—(I assumed he was the pilot)—and asked, “Where are you going?”

He told me that he would be delivering medical supplies to Somaliland. I nodded at the small stack of boxes sitting beside the aircraft and asked, “Need some help?”

“Always glad for any assistance,” he replied. As we stowed the boxes into the cargo area in the back of the six-seat cabin, I introduced myself and explained why his flights in and out of Somaliland interested me. I told him what I was hoping to do. Finally I asked, “So, could I hitch a ride with you?”

He shrugged and nodded a bit hesitantly: “I can take you in, no problem. I just can’t promise when we might be able to get you out.” His plans had to be tentative and flexible—dictated by weather conditions and the ongoing conflict in Somaliland. “I might be able to get back in there next week,” he told me. “Or it could be two or three weeks, maybe even a month. Things get crazy sometimes. We don’t make definite plans.”