Undaunted

Chapter 10 – Facing Giants

Christine arrives in Greece, and receives a call from her husband in the busy airport. Her
husband Nick revealed the opposition he had met from the experts who were supposed to help
him and Christine to start an international nongovernmental organization to combat human
trafficking focusing on Eastern Europe, nicknamed A21.

The factors working against them were corruption, the absence of strict laws to protect the rights
of victims, reluctance of the victims themselves to testify against their abductors, and the
criminal networks that have penetrated all areas of society, the legality of prostitution, and the
lack of awareness of human trafficking, and finally the sky high costs of the actual operation.

It is safe to say that that list does not end there. Even beyond the difficulties that the author had
mentioned, it is easy to imagine the other challenges that they would have to face. They were
taking upon a virtuous task in a very hostile and immoral part of society, that was real
nonetheless. All the odds were against them.

Despite the insurmountable diffculties that the experts had laid out to them, Christine decided to
carry on with the project anyway. She explained that the experts had misunderstood her - she
asked them how it could be done, not if it could be done. She likens the odds she faced with
those that David faced when he fought Goliath. “God is with us (Romans 8:31). God is in the
business of making miracles where humans fail (Hebrews 13:5–6). God told us to go into all the
world (Matthew 28:19–20), and he’d shown me a part of the world so dark and hidden I hadn’t
even known it was there, and he was not letting me forget it.”

Not long after, an airport announcement blared, telling passengers on Aegean Airlines to board
the plane on gate A21. Her gate number was the name of the organization she was about to
establish. Christine took this as divine reassurance, a sign from God. With that she was sure God
was with her on this.

God is always with us and always making a way for us to do his will, to bring his hope and
change into this world. But there’s so much temptation to think otherwise, we tend to say to
ourselves:“Stay where you are. Don’t risk rejection. There are too many unknowns!”. Difficulty
loves to sing about hurdles that have been around since the beginning of time. God made a way
for the children of Israel; when Difficulty had been telling them that there was no way, God
brought them into the Promised Land. God made a way for them again and again, for more than
forty years. Don’t let Difficulty keep you from daring to go where God wants you to go. God
will make a way.

Christine proceeds to compare her situation with that of Moses in Numbers 13:28, 32, when he
sent twelve scouts to scout the land of giants. Only two understood their mission. Nick and her
were in the same situation, they needed scouts with vision, not excuses. When Difficulty pops up,
God wants us to see and hear something more—something beyond the difficulty. Two of the
scouts, Joshua and Caleb, did that. Instead of looking just at what was in front of them, they kept
their eyes on God, who was higher and bigger. They saw what God could do. Ten of the men
only saw what Difficulty said they could not. Then, as now, obeying God required getting past
the giants.

You must always take a first step, and then another, and another. You must always take a first
step, and then another, and another.