By Tim Benjamin

My call to ministry has been a long and twisty road. Many times I have thought about hanging it up because of how often I feel unqualified to be in this line of work. During the dark days of being a pastor, the one moment I always go back to came in the summer of 1995. I was on a mountain in the Philippines, and I had a near-death experience. Allow me to explain.

It was the summer between my sophomore and junior year at Ohio Northern University. I had already expressed to my pastor, Calvin Waugh, that I was kicking around the idea of following in his footsteps. He asked me to consider going on a mission trip because he thought it would be good for my development to see what the mission field looked like outside of the USA. I was 20 and craving adventure, so I quickly signed on. My best friend, Matt, signed on shortly after I did.

After a time of fundraising and work, the time for the trip finally came. I was so excited to go, and I have to admit, the trip did not disappoint. To this day, that trip is probably the best thing that ever happened to me.

One weekend when we were there, there were three options of places to go. Matt and I chose to climb Mt. Pinatubo, a volcano that had erupted a few years prior to our arrival.

We drove as far as we could across the cooled lava fields, and then we had to hike the remaining few miles to the village we were going to near the summit. It was like walking through the pages of a National Geographic magazine. No picture or no description could do justice to some of the things I saw hiking up that mountain.

The morning after we arrived in the village is when things took a turn for the worse. We decided to leave for the return hike before dawn to avoid the full sun. We were getting things together with a handful of Americans, a group of Korean seminary students who spoke neither English nor the local Filipino dialect, and a 1500-pound water buffalo dragging a wagon with no wheels loaded with supplies.

My friend and I were loading up the supplies, and the guides were getting antsy for some reason. To this day, I do not know why, but we noticed that the flashlights they were carrying were getting further and further away and closer to the tree line. We suddenly realized that they were leaving us behind.

Matt had a huge flashlight with him, so he went ahead and ran after the guides while I went back to get the group moving. The water buffalo was a powerful animal, but not exactly fleet of foot.

Suddenly, I realized there was a problem. I was the only one who knew which way the guides went and half the group I could not even speak to because of the language barrier. I quickly explained the situation to the Americans in the group that the guides already started down the mountain without us. Everyone looked at me, so I pulled the harness for the water buffalo and we started walking.

It was slow moving and the only indication of where to go was the occasional flashes of light from Matt’s light, who was some distance ahead. Since it was dark, I could see it shining into the sky. We walked for about 4 hours, and we arrived at the mission, where the truck picked us up. The sun was up by the time we arrived, but it was not at full force yet. We had dodged the heat of the day, and all of our water bottles were empty.

I stood in the village as the crew following me started drawing water out of the well to drink. Many of them expressed their gratitude in broken English. Then the Americans asked, “How did you know where to go?”

I had no idea how to answer their question. There was no road; there wasn’t even a path. I did not know how I knew where to go other than the occasional light in the sky that I could no longer see when the sun broke the horizon. But we still made it to the pickup point.

Then God said something to me that I have never forgotten. He said, plain as day, “So long as you follow Me, everyone who follows you goes the right way.” It didn’t matter that I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going; my calling was clear: follow.

Tim Benjamin

I can’t tell you how many times in my work as a pastor that I have been in that exact situation. But I just remember what the Lord told me. I follow knowing that the more people who follow me are actually following the One I follow … and that is good enough for me.