For one of the newest lieutenants in the USA Eastern Territory, the most significant advice she ever received came from a taxi driver.

Although she had been intrigued by the Psalms and Bible stories as a child and a born-again Christian since her teens, Lieutenant Kenia Godoy had no idea of The Salvation Army’s mission and ministry until a chance encounter in a cab. She believes that the ride was arranged by God to redirect her life’s ultimate destination.

“I came to the Army when the worship leader at the Port Chester Corps invited me,” Lieutenant Kenia Godoy explains. “He was driving the cab I was riding in, and we started talking because he was listening to Christian music.”

She asked him about his faith, and he replied that he was a Salvationist.

“I didn’t know what that was,” she admits, “but he told me The Salvation Army is a church.” 

“Just after 9/11, my twin sister Mary and I moved from Brooklyn to Port Chester. The denomination we had been attending had no church in the area.” So, the two young believers began praying for the Holy Spirit’s confirmation of where they should worship—and the Holy Spirit soon answered her prayer.

At that point, Kenia took the taxicab ride of a lifetime.

“It turns out he [the driver] was the worship leader at the corps, and the way he described the worship there was so enticing,” she says. “We decided to visit the corps.”

The sisters immediately felt the Spirit’s presence and were warmly welcomed. Kenia said to Mary, “I think this is the place we need to be, and she said, ‘I think so too!’”

Kenia was especially impressed with the Army’s mission and ministry in the community.

“What I loved the most was that they were using the canteen to take coffee and sandwiches to day-labor workers on the street corners. In the Army, we get to preach not only with our words but with our deeds that God cares for those who are lost and in need, and we also do it by providing what people need in their times of trouble. This is what real evangelism is all about!”

As a child, God began preparing her heart for a lifetime of service. Raised in a Guatemalan Catholic family, her grandmother considered the Bible so sacred that she discouraged the eight-year-old from even reading it.

“Being a little kid, that naturally made me more inclined to do what I wasn’t supposed to,” she says, laughing. “I loved reading the Bible stories. And well into my teens, I developed quite an interest in Christianity.”

She remembers watching female evangelists on television. Each time they gave an invitation to pray the sinner’s prayer, she would say it.

Another deep draw to the Christian faith was learning about a Heavenly Father who loved her and actually wanted her.

“I had no dad in the picture, so the concept of a loving Father in Heaven really hit home to me! I said, ‘Wait a minute, I want to know about this Father!’”

At age 15, a good friend of the family who had become a youth pastor invited Kenia and Mary to a Campaign For Youth conducted by his church.

“We were returning home from it when he asked if I wanted to accept the Lord Jesus as my Savior. I said yes at that moment. So did Mary.”

The question and response happened when they were only a block away from her house, where there happened to be a police station.

“The police officers heard us praying and crying and came over to us to see if everything was okay—we just told them we had just accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior!”

“We still have a good laugh over that,” she says.

In her newfound faith, Kenia was asked to serve as a Sunday School teacher. She was given a rather rowdy class that no one else wanted to teach — but Kenia’s fun personality connected.

“I became convinced that being a Sunday School teacher was all the Lord required of me.

As a bilingual believer, she also helped interpret during Bible studies and worship services. Fair enough, she reasoned.

But then, the issue of duties that were more pastoral came up. She recalls she felt inadequate to become a pastor of any kind.

That same hesitation returned years later after her encounter with the cab driver and her subsequent involvement with the Port Chester Corps.

“I was approached about officership, and I thought at the moment, ‘That’s even worse [than being a pastor!],’” she laughs. “I came up with, like, 25 reasons why I could not become a Salvation Army officer.”

But her corps officer shared a powerful truth: “You are looking for Him, but you are doing it in the wrong way! God says, ‘Not you, but ME through you!’”

One of Lieutenant Kenia’s favorite verses, Deuteronomy 31:8 (NKJV), speaks to that promise: “And the Lord, He is the One Who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not leave nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed.”

Little wonder, then, that this woman of faith is convinced that, of all the taxi cabs in New York, the Lord hailed that taxi with a Salvationist driver!

Lieutenant Kenia Godoy was commissioned as a Salvation Army officer in June 2024 as a member of the Defenders Of Justice Session of cadets. Her sister, Mary, is a faithful local officer in the Port Chester Corps.

Looking back, her mind often goes to that fateful taxicab ride. Even then, she believes the Lord was intending for her to someday become an officer. In fact, His calling was beginning to form back when she was eight, she now says.

“David testifies to this when he said of the Lord in Psalm 16, ‘You make my life pleasant, and my future is bright. I praise You, Lord, for being my guide’” (CEV)

Even in a New York taxi. 

This article was originally titled “A Taxi Driver’s Life- Changing Tip” in the August 2025 issue of The War Cry.