Mile 1: Eyewitnesses to Hope

Beloved People of God,

Back in 1999, I found myself in hot water. As a high school junior, I was living in Cameroon, going to school in Yaoundé. For most of my schooling years I’d benefited from the meticulous care and attention of a much larger academy in Kenya. That year, however, I attended a much smaller school, closer to home. Everything seemed fine until I went to fly home for break. That was when I discovered, much to my surprise, my visa was long expired! Where the other school worked to keep all the student visas in order, this smaller academy did not. I found myself detained, penniless, and wondering how I was going to talk myself out of the country! 

There was a Cessna on the airfield waiting for me, a flight plan scheduled to leave, but I was being held in a back office, presented with a fine I couldn’t possibly pay and threatened with worse. My hope of a school break began to fade from view. I barely had enough for the taxi to the airport! Seriously, where was I supposed to get the kind of money they were demanding?

I did everything I could. I went through all the mental gymnastics I could, looking for ways to appease their justifiable frustration. At the end of the day though, the decision didn’t rest with me. It wasn’t in my apology. It wasn’t in my efforts. It ultimately wasn’t what I said or did that would determine my fate; that decision rested with the man behind the desk listening. After a few hours, he did something unexpected. He gave me mercy. He forgave my debt. He forgave my expired visa. He didn’t even hold it against my re-entry a few weeks later to finish the school year.

I learned several things that day. One is that some of the best learning doesn’t happen in the classroom or in a books. It happens in the friction of life that calls forth everything we know and exposes the things we don’t. Sometimes the best classroom is a dusty road where we wrestle out our biggest questions with a friend. It’s together in the unexpected journey we can become eyewitnesses to hope.

For His Name’s Sake,

Brett