Many people have asked me if I’m excited, and I am. I’ll be working with a program called Cross-Cultural Solutions, which has been called something of a “mini-Peace Corps,” and I’ll be staying in Yaroslavl, a medium-sized city on the Volga River. I’ll be making crafts with kids in an orphanage, kicking around a soccer ball at a summer camp, and playing flute and piano at a home for the elderly. I don’t know any Russian. I promised myself I’d learn the basics of the Cyrillic alphabet before I left but life has a way of slipping by, doesn’t it?

I have my passport and my visas, my motion sickness medication and my sunscreen, some board games for the kids, and my Fodor’s guide to Moscow and St. Petersburg. A distinct feeling of unreadiness plagues me anyway. I’ve never traveled out of the country before. A big case of "The Unknown" is staring me straight in the face.

A friend gave me a stack of note cards to take on the trip. I haven’t read them yet—I figured they’d be a good treat for the days when I’m homesick—but they contain different Bible verses that helped her through her first semester at college. I was just generally happy that she took the time to write out verses and decorate cards for me (the top one reads “Erin, Russian Princess!”), but they also made me start thinking about the power of religion in the face of that scary thing that is "The Unknown."

Don’t get me wrong. I am excited for the trip. I’ve had dreams about Russia the past three nights, probably geographically and cultural inaccurate dreams, but dreams nonetheless. But I do know there will be days when Cedar Rapids, Iowa or Chapel Hill, North Carolina sound a lot more appealing than Yaroslavl, Russia. During those times, turning to the Bible will be much more economically sound than turning to my cell phone with $3.99 a minute long-distance charges. And in all truth, turning to the Bible will probably more comforting. With God, nothing is unknown, because no matter what He is present, and that is all that counts.

For that reason, I will be posting this in my room in Russia: “ Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast” (Psalm 139:7-10).

On the far side of the sea, on the wings of the dawn, even the dawn nine hours ahead of dawn here, God is present. Because all things are known to Him, I can go with confidence toward what is unknown to me.