Photo courtesy of
Cheryl Weber

Our friend Regine Hüttner was describing the last leg of her journey to scale Mt. Kilimanjaro earlier this year during the Freedom Climb that she made along with 46 other women to raise awareness of the evil of human trafficking.

“I had nothing left in me physically,” she recalled. “It was more a test of whether or not I had the mental strength necessary to take the next step upward.” The beckoning peak looked too difficult to scale even at such close quarters.

How did she make it up to Uhuru, then?

She chose not to focus on making it to the top. Instead, she simply decided to take one step first, followed in slow succession by the next step and then another one. She described how when she decided to take that first step, it was as though God took over and helped her take the next step. This process continued for three agonizingly long hours before she could experience the exhilaration of reaching the summit.

Her experience reminded me of the words of a beloved hymn:

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’ encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on;
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead Thou me on:
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene–one step enough for me.

If you are not able to see “the distant scene” today along the climb to your destiny, perhaps you, like Regine, just need to take the next step. And the next step. And the next step. And, before you know it, you will have made your way to Uhuru (a Swahili word that means “freedom”)!