What's Next?

The next step in my journey will be to go back to New Zealand to be on staff for the Discipleship Training School starting January 16 and ending June 1. I'm planning to leave January 1 (this Sunday). These first two weeks leading up to the school will be dedicated to staff training before the students begin arriving.
As a staff member I will be taking on a leadership role which will involve doing one on ones with students, leading a small group, helping organize outreach, and helping lead an outreach team. As well as just being the one who invests time and prayer into the lives of the students. This school has the same general overview of 12 weeks of lecture for the students and then 6 weeks of outreach. The outreach locations are TBA.
I will specifically be a part of the Justice DTS and we will either be having class twice a week to learn about and discuss justice topics such as sex trafficking, child soldiers, abortion, etc....or we will join up with an organization in Tauranga (the city I'll be living in) who is trying to bring awareness and education to people. With them we would potentially be doing assemblies and things of that nature that will get the word out about human trafficking.
Through this time leading up to leaving God has been very faithful and very gracious. Today I received 1,000 dollars from an amazing family that I know, and God totally had his hand in the whole thing. The father of this family bought a snow plow early in the week and intended to turn around and sell it again. After purchasing it he sold it within 5-10 minutes and it sold for 1,000 dollars over the original price, and that provided the money for my donation. He came home and said I don't think this is a coincidence, and I don't either. Our winter has been in the 40s with no snow, and there's no snow in the forecast, so for someone to want one so urgently and this week was definitely a move of God. So thank you Lord!!
But I would like to ask you to continue to pray with me for more finances, a smooth transition back, and just God's hand over us as a staff and the students coming. Thank you!!

Faith

"Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us ASSURANCE about things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in the days of old earned a good reputation."
Hebrews 11:1-2 (NLT)

God has been challenging me on quite frequently lately....do you trust me...no no no I mean daughter do you REALLY trust me? It's a tough question....the simple answer is yes and most of the time we (myself included would say yes), but when you get down to it do we really trust Him with everything, the big and the small? Do we have faith to believe God will come through in every situation?
I would love to sit here and say yeah I do in every situation and at every moment have faith and trust the Lord with everything, but being honest that's not how it is all the time...we're all human and we all have weak moments....thank the Lord He gives us grace, and more than that He teaches us about these different principles...so for me in these past five months and especially right now God is giving me a lesson on faith.

I've read Hebrews 11 a number of times (and if you haven't read it, it's a great passage about faith) and it always blows my mind about how much faith the people in the old testament had. I mean flip (just to name a few) look at Abraham and Isaac, Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God asked him to, even though God had told Abraham that "Isaac is the son whom all your descendants will be counted." Abraham had so much faith to believe that God is in control and He does know best and even though God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Abraham still believed in who God was that out of this God would have a plan and He would bring understanding because Abraham knew the character and nature of God and that is that He is good all the time. That's pretty crazy this man was willing to sacrifice his son and just walk in obedience and trust the Lord with everything.
And then you've got this man Enoch who "was taken up to heaven without dying" (11:5) "he disappeared because God took him" (Reference:Genesis 5:24) like oh my goodness THATS INSANE! God took him from this earth before he had passed away. I don't know about you, but I think that's pretty awesome. The second half of verse five and then on through six says: "For before he (Enoch) was taken up, he was known as a person who pleased God. And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him."
For me this verse is challenging. Because when we come before the Lord with a clean heart, it gives so much way and so much room to the Holy Spirit to do amazing things within us and around us, but then what God has said to me before and I feel like he's kind of reiterating now is that it's great and powerful to confess and come before me (God) with a clean heart, but if you doubt and you don't have faith in who I am and what I can/will do that's quenching the power of the Holy Spirit and is quenching me from moving in, through, and around you.
So for me this challenges me because I believe that God exists and I believe he "rewards those who sincerely seek him", but I still doubt and let me be honest....it's really annoying, because God has proven Himself so faithful to me (and if you look at your life to you as well) so many stinking times. He's always there, He never leaves us nor forsakes us. He's a good God. He loves his children, He sent his only son who died, rose, and is coming again and He did it for us...for his children. He's the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, He's our Jehovah Jirah (provider), like the list could go on for a while....but you get the point we serve an amazing God.... and nothing is impossible for Him.
Whatever our life situations are right now, whether it's needing finances, wanting healing for something, brokenness in relationships, an illness, etc....I want to tell you today GOD IS FAITHFUL and I want to challenge you (and myself included in this) to wake up every morning with that in mind and let faith rise up in you and dare to believe that God will come through in every situation big or small. Blessings!

Pattaya-One Womans Story

Sorry this got blacked out for some reason on the other blog......

We spent twelve days down in Pattaya and while we were down there we had the opportunity to do bar ministry and talk to the “bar girls” as well as teach English class and share a short devotional with the girls through an organization called the Tamar Center. During English class I met a woman named On (the woman on the right), and as our time progressed there we built a good friendship. On our last night of bar ministry we went to the bar she was working at and while talking to her I got to hear her story of how she ended up working in the bars. 

She’s thirty-six years-old, both of her parents have passed away, and she has two sons, one who is seven and one who is thirteen. She had been happily married for SIXTEEN years when she found out her husband was cheating on her, and he wanted to continue seeing both her and his mistress. But she wouldn’t do it, so she talked to her kids and she left everything behind, including her sons. She moved to Bangkok and worked in a nursing home for five months there, after which she moved to Pattaya. It’s in Pattaya that she began working in the bars because she wants money to support her two sons. She doesn’t have a high education and so working in a bar is the easiest way to earn a decent amount of money. Everything she does she does for her kids. She hasn’t seen them in six months because she can’t afford to go see them, but she does the best she can with sending them things and talking to them on the phone. She told me about how sad she is and that after work when all the girls go out to do something she goes home and she cries because she hurts and is lonely, but she knows she has to keep going. I asked her if she ever prayed in those times of sadness and she said she listens to the songs we sang after English class and thinks about the devotions we shared and looks through pictures and that makes her feel better. 

On doesn’t want to be where she is, doing what she does, selling herself and working at a bar, but because of the culture and because of what has happened in her life she feels like she has no choice. She’s been trapped and backed into a corner and people may say “well it’s her choice”, but what people don’t understand is that these woman grow up in an environment of lust and debt. These woman are not looked upon as daughters of the King, but as meat and it’s been forced into their mindset that that is just how things are and that is just who they are. They have grown up in a society where you are shamed if you can’t provide for your family and that from birth you are indebted to your mother. They sell themselves and work in the bars because it’s one of the only ways they know how to make decent money for their families. It’s an insane cycle and On’s is just one of many stories. 

But I believe that in the darkest places is where Jesus is at. I know God will have victory over this city, he is already moving there through the Tamar Center.

Catch up time!!

Hello everyone!! Sorry it's been so long...but here are my accounts from Thailand....hopefully there's not too much writing and I hope you enjoy the video!

Akha Tribe

Forgotten, exploited, and stateless the Akha Tribe is a people group who live in Chang Rai, Thailand right along the Thai Burmese border. In the past they were enslaved to plant opium and cultivate the fields for drug lords. If they tried to escape they would be killed by the soldiers who patrolled for the drug lords. The children in the villages are vulnerable to traffickers because of the lack of education, since Thai schools find it hard to accept them into their programs. And because they have no rights with the Thai government they have no means of health care or governmental funding for food or housing. The tribe also struggles from chronic malnutrition.

But with all that said we got to work alongside an amazing organization called Rescue Mission for Children who has been working with and fighting for this tribe of people for eighteen years. The organization has upped the education rate from point one percent to twenty percent and has built a compound where thousands of children have gone through and experienced the love of Jesus Christ and been healed from multiple wounds of their past.

We had an amazing opportunity to visit a tribe twice during our week. While there we washed lice out of kids hair, played with the kids, and our doctor did health checks and handed out medicine to 180 people. We checked and recorded name, age, height, weight, age, symptoms, diagnosis, and the medicine needed. It was an amazing thing because it started health records for all of these people which will benefit them in the future. We also had the amazing opportunity to take eighteen of the kids out on an elephant ride and to a nice all you can eat buffet, which was an incredible experience to take these kids out of an environment of poverty and despair and into one of love and joy. The last thing we did while there was leading devotions and a worship song every night on the compound to the kids who were staying there.

It was an incredible time to see God’s heart for these people and the way he has used Rescue Mission for Children to bring hope and bring change for this tribe. It was also just an honor to come along side this ministry and encourage them and sow into what they are doing.

Bangkok

We were only in Bangkok for a brief few days in between Chang Rai and Pattaya, but while there our time was spent in helping with flood relief and playing with kids in a slum ministry. 

To help with flood relief we helped make life jackets one day and we helped package up meals and food for people another day. 

The life jackets were made of old plastic like rice bags that we sewed compartments in that empty bottles could be stuck in for floatation. Then the YWAM base in Bangkok would deliver them to the people who were being affected by the floods. 

The last day we were there we went to a park and played with kids from the local slum ministry, whether it was playing frisbee or riding in duck boats on the pond we had an opportunity to love on them as Jesus would have. 

Pattaya-One Woman's Story

We spent twelve days down in Pattaya and while we were down there we had the opportunity to do bar ministry and talk to the “bar girls” as well as teach English class and share a short devotional with the girls who worked in the bars through an organization called the Tamar Center. During English class I met a woman named On (the woman on the right), and as our time progressed there her and I built a good friendship. On our last night of bar ministry we went to the bar she was working at and while talking to her I got to hear her story of how she ended up working in the bars. 

She’s thirty-six years-old, both of her parents have passed away, and she has two sons, one who is seven and one who is thirteen. She had been happily married for SIXTEEN years when she found out her husband was cheating on her, and he wanted to continue seeing both her and his mistress. But she wouldn’t do it, so she talked to her kids and she left everything behind, including her sons. She moved to Bangkok and worked in a nursing home for five months there, after which she moved to Pattaya. It’s in Pattaya that she began working in the bars because she wants money to support her two sons. She doesn’t have a high education and so working in a bar is the easiest way to earn a decent amount of money. Everything she does she does for her kids. She hasn’t seen them in six months because she can’t afford to go see them, but she does the best she can with sending them things and talking to them on the phone. She told me about how sad she is and that after work when all the girls go out to do something she goes home and she cries because she hurts and is lonely, but she knows she has to keep going. I asked her if she ever prayed in those times of sadness and she said she listens to the songs we sang after English class and thinks about the devotions we shared and looks through pictures and that makes her feel better. 

On doesn’t want to be where she is, doing what she does, selling herself and working at a bar, but because of the culture and because of what has happened in her life she feels like she has no choice. She’s been trapped and backed into a corner and people may say “well it’s her choice”, but what people don’t understand is that these woman grow up in an environment of lust and debt. These woman are not looked upon as daughters of the King, but as meat and it’s been forced into their mindset that that is just how things are and that is just who they are. They have grown up in a society where you are shamed if you can’t provide for your family and that from birth you are indebted to your mother. They sell themselves and work in the bars because it’s one of the only ways they know how to make decent money for their families. It’s an insane cycle and On’s is just one of many stories. 

But I believe that in the darkest places is where Jesus is at. I know God will have victory over this city, he is already moving there through the Tamar Center.