I just finished reading The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam. She is a woman who was born in Cambodia deep in the jungle during the horrific of rule the Khmer Rouge. Being deep in the jungle she was spared form the slaughtering that was going on in the country around her but eventually, she was launched into a nightmare of her own. Having been orphaned at a very young age, it wasn’t long before she was taken from her jungle home and thrust into the dark work of indentured service and sex slavery. Her story is a hard one that haunted my dreams. But it was not her story alone that haunts me, it’s the realization that her story is one of so many. While retelling her story, she would make comments along the lines of, “But that is just how things were…” In her world children were thought of as a commodity. In such poverty stricken conditions, apparently people tend to lose affection and simply shift into survival mode. Then, the greediness of perverseness of those with money and power create the demand side of that equation. It’s absolutely horrifying to think about the hundreds of thousands of children in the world that live in the reality of the dark world of sex industry.

Some get sold into the industry sickeningly young. Which means rape and abuse, day after day, is literally the only world they have never known. Everyday, they get up, and that is their life.

When I was playing Barbies and riding around my neighborhood on my rainbow bike, these little girls were having their innocence and humanity being stripped from them. While my parents lovingly kissed me goodnight and told me they loved me, these girls were learning not to feel or say anything in order to merely survive another day.

How is it that I was spared that life and they weren’t?

This morning I walked past a small spirit shrine on the street. It’s incredibly common to see these set up all over Bangkok. At this one, I noticed three or four people bowing down, burning incense, and praying this particular spirit house. Again, not an uncommon thing to see. But the thought struck me again, as it does from time to time how lucky I am to know the real God of the universe. But more than that even, it also struck me how lucky I am to have grown up in with heavy Christian influences in my life. Thailand is 98% Buddhist, less than 1% Christain. Buddhism is the only world most of these people know. Much like the heaviness of the sex industry, it’s equally overwhelming to think about the number of people in the world of have yet to be exposed to the life saving Gospel…

Its really easy for me think of these things and start to feel incredibly guilty. How is it that I was spared? What makes my life any more worthy than these who have been literally born into worlds of torture or spiritual darkness? Why? Why was I spared?

If I said that knowing these things did not make me question whether or not there could be a God that would allow these things to happen, I’d be lying. I have been plagued with these doubts at times. Everything seems so unfair. But I have been struck and forever changed by the realty of our Lord and Savoir and I can’t see around Him. He is the only hope and light in this dark world. So the way I see it, I have two choices. I can either get bogged down by doubts and the realities of this world wondering apathetically at the injustice of it all, or I can live in incredible gratitude that I have been placed in a position where I can be a voice for the voiceless join in God’s redemptive work in this world.

If I was born into a place where my innocence and purity was protected….If I was born into a place where I was not thought of as a commodity… If I was born into place where I can comfortably eat, stay healthy and not have to worry about surviving through another day… If I was born into a place where I was able to be easily exposed to the truth of Christ, than I am in a place of incredible opportunity to use the blessings I have been given to be a blessing to others. To live my life in ay other way would be an awful misuse of it.

A couple of weeks ago a random traveler met one of the Nightlight volunteers by absolute chance (or more likely God’s work) on the skytrain. The volunteer soon found out the heaviness on this girl’s story. She had just left England to get away from her occupation. She was a sex worker… and she just found out she was pregnant. The volunteer brought “K” to Nightlight where a few of us sat down with her to hear her story and offer her any encouragement or guidance she needed. On top of everything else, she was thinking about getting an abortion. That night she stayed at the volunteer house and I spent the rest of the evening in conversation with her. As more of her story unfolded sometimes all I could do was sit there in amazement. She had an incredibly tough background filled with all sorts of abuse, and once again all I could think was “Why?… why was I spared and not her?” But for the rest of the night all I could do was talk about God, what else could I do? In the face of such pain and loss, the only hope left is God. You can blame Him and get lost in your pain, or you can learn to let him love you and help you with that pain.

Somaly Mam is an amazing woman with an amazing story that I would encourage you to read. She rose above her circumstances above all odds and used her experiences to help others who found themselves in the same position. But in the last chapter of her book she talks about how broken and dirty she still feels, how her nights are still filled with nightmares, and how she doubts she will ever be released from the pain of her past. She never found Christ to fully restore her and my heart breaks for this woman that longs to be whole again.

How thankful I am for God and for being in knowledge of His restoring Love. How grateful I am that God has put me in the position to share His transforming love.

After conversation with “K” that night, I felt so filled. Nothing fills me more than being able to talk about and share God’s love. She kept saying how the night before she had just been praying for direction… and then she met us…. God is so good.

Thank you God.

The Body of Christ can be such a powerful thing. Since I have been here I have noticed the great impact that the manifestation of Christ’s body in the world can truly have. Nightlight, although not classified as a church in an institutional sense, as Gods people moving and acting in the world, I feel can’t be classified as anything else but “the church.”

I went on a Nightlight retreat this past weekend and observed some incredible things…

“M,” the girl we have been helping return to her own country decided last minute to come with us. Unable to speak Thai, she would not be able to understand much of what was going on, but for weeks now she has been drawn to Jesus and the church, an incredibly foreign concept to her previously. In the early stages of her stay with us it was hard to see her have to wait week after week as Nightlight waded through all of the red tape. But then we noticed something incredible, the longer she stayed the more she was drawn to Jesus and His people. When once she didn’t even want to look at a tract that was found in her language, she gradually became so drawn to the Bible she started to read it for hours every day. There had to be something about this Jesus person if his people continued to take care of her every day.  Unable to resist His pursuit of her any longer, she finally received Christ this weekend. Praise God.

“N” was also at the retreat. She is affectionately referred to as “Gomer” by some of us. Just like out of the pages of Hosea, she comes and goes from our care. Unable to fully recognize the love that is offered to her at Nightlight, she tends to only stay for a couple of months at a time before she gets restless and takes off again. Somehow, however, something always draws her back to Nightlight. She has had so much counterfeit love and abuse in her life it’s no wonder the brokenness is taking time to heal, but she is always welcomed back with loving arms. This weekend I saw her get baptized. Although God is still very much in the process of restoring all that is broken inside of her, this baptism symbolized such hope; a step of intent that she wants so much to understand this great love that continues to draw her back into the loving arms of God’s people. An opportunity that could never be possible without Christ’s body reaching out.

During the worship times the chairs were set up in a big circle and sometimes there was dancing in the middle (which I personally wish was a part of every worship service…). Most often though, simply the children of some of the girls would dance around in the middle. There was one child in particular that always seemed to stand out. It probably had a lot to do with how incredible adorable she is. She looks just like a little doll and I couldn’t help but think how beautiful she would grow up to be and how wonderful it is that she is surrounded by all of these Christian mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers that will feed value and purpose into her life. This opportunity, sadly, is not the norm in Thailand. Girls are not valued very much here outside of what type of money they can earn for the family which is why so many of them end up in the bars. This little girl’s own mother was dropped off at Nightlight by a bar owner because she was very pregnant and no longer able to make money in the bar. She was affectionately welcomed in and transformed…and was up front leading worship this weekend as her little daughter danced around in the middle.

A couple of weeks ago on an outreach night, one of our team members noticed a particularly young looking girl in the bar. Before leaving the teammate felt an urging to pay the girl’s bar fee to take her out of the bar for the night. The girl changed out of her bar clothes into a fuzzy teddy bear t-shirt. She told us she was 19 but she did  not look much older than 15. She was very upset. This was her first night dancing and apparently did not understand that dancing in the bar meant she would also have to go home with anyone her bought her. She was told about God and offered a job at Nightlight. When she went back to her family though, they told her to go back into the bars and make money. “If other girls can do it, you can do it,” they told her….

Such a contrast between her family and the one this beautiful little girl I saw dancing in the middle of a circle of people worshiping God. Because of Christ’s church, this little girl and so many others have a chance to experience true love in a society where that is so sadly scarce…

The Body of Christ is a force to be reckoned with. When people get off their butts and out of their pews and actually love, incredible things happen. When we put down our judgments, and our fears, and our social constraints, and let God redeem it all, when we lay down our wills, do our part according to our gifting and actually love….beauty follows… a beauty that even the most lost will not be able to resist. Believe in that power and live accordingly.

Thank you God for allowing me to see and be a part of your beautiful body.

John 13: 34-35

As I settle into the steady rhythm of life here I find myself feeling more and more at home. Its normal now to see whole cooked chickens (head and all) hanging from a food stall on the way to work, to eat rice with nearly every meal, and to get  stopped on the sidewalk by an occasional slow elephant.

Yet every once and a while I get caught by the reality of it all and just think “Wow, I live here…” which is usually followed by a intense feeling of gratefulness and awe that God has me here a part of this amazing work.

These moments usually happen now when I am in the bars. And although it seems odd to be filled with gratefulness and joy when in that atmosphere but that is exactly what I feel.

I remember on my second visit to the bars when I was still very much in shock with it all, I was sitting uncomfortably in my seat when one of my teammates leaned over to me and said, “I just love doing this and being here, this is the easiest part of the job.” And I thought, REALLY?  You think it is easy being here?! That thought was still completely unreal to me. But here I am two months later with that exact feeling. Wow, God.

It’s a beautiful thing really. Because even just sitting there feels purposeful. Walking into enemy territory, as we file into the bar, I get this sensation that I am a part of an army. We pray every night that we are a light to these girls shining through in the darkness and it really works. One night one of the girls asked, “Why are you here?” She was amazed that we would come into the bars like this, “You all seem so happy…”  She continued.

These girls probably see men smiling at them all the time, but when we smile at them, its different, and they know it and I can imagine how re-humanizing that is.  We smile out of love, not out of lust. We look at their eyes, not at their bodies. We care about who they are, not what they can do for us sexually.

It seems outwardly so inefficient, trying to build relationships in the bars. It is very loud, and even when you know Thai quite well, its hard to communicate. To make it worse, every few songs they must go back up on the platform to dance. But somehow, God makes a way.

The girls  are touched by our very presence and open up to us telling us about their children and family and how they ended up and the bars. Each girl has a story, and we are there to listen.

I remember when I used to take the Jr. highers into inner ciry LA to work with the homeless population there. One of the tasks one morning, armed with a few bags full of pastries, was to simply find a homeless person in the park and sit and eat with him or her. I remember being so amazed just sitting there and listening to their stories. And I knew that just listening was turning them into a human again when so many other simply walked on by ignoring their very existence.

There is an incredible power and purpose  in “humanizing” when there is so much dehumanizing going on in this world.

I remember noticing “M”  right away. When I looked up at the girls in that bar she had a different glow about her, as if not fully engulfed by the darkness she was a part of quite yet. I wondered if anyone else had ever noticed that natural glow about her in a scene like this. “She was not made for this” I kept thinking, “God has better plans for that glow.” One of my teammates called her over and we talked with her a bit. She told us about her family and her little son whom she had pictures of on her phone. He was adorable. During the course of the conversation my teammate handed her a Gospel tract and although that is not my favorite form of sharing the gospel, its helpful when you are in a loud bar.  All too soon, however, “M” had to go back on the platform to dance. With no pocket available, she kept the tract in her hand and walked up on the stage. I just watched and prayed. I glanced away and when I looked back, she had opened the track and was reading it on the stage… Her dancing was nothing more than a sifting of weight at that point. I fused that image into my head. It was pure beauty to me. Smack dab in the middle of the enemy’s chaos, she was starting on a path to her basic human right to know the love of Jesus. In a place where she was only known as a sexual commodity, nothing more than an object, she was reading about how she was an actual person desired by a mighty God not because of anything she could do, but because she was his child whom he loved.

We all have the same desire, to be known and loved and cared for. It is our root human desire that can only be filled to its fullest by the perfect love of God. And as his hands and feet in this world, we get to be a part of His reaching out. We get to be a part of his love in action. We get to help make the devalued and dehumanized feel loved and human again. There is no greater job than this, there is no greater love than this. Praise God.

It occurred to me the other day how blessed I am to come in to a new country and already have a family here. Sure, it takes time to build connections and closeness, but we already have the same father and the same purpose, and there is an intense power and support in that.

On Tuesday I was sitting in the prayer room along side all those that are on staff here at nightlight. We were talking about what to pray for before leaving for the bar outreach. Gods calming peace permeated the room as I silently I looked at each of their faces and noted how incredible each of them was.

First there was “E”. She is our resident Brit, needless to say, I just love to listen to her talk. But other than the really cool accent, she has this incredible caring undertone to her voice. In every conversation I have had with her I have felt like her number one concern was making sure I felt welcome and comfortable without ever actually saying that. But there is a fierceness to her as well. She is fearless in the bars and is incredible at making connections with the girls. Her passion is evident and contagious and even though she is my age and I have only known her a short while, I look up to her already. Although one of her main jobs in the office have been processing the jewelry orders, she is passing that role on to someone else so she can focus more solely on helping the rescued trafficked girls get back home. The trafficking cases are grueling, draining, stressful, and dangerous to be so intertwined with, but this is her passion, and I have no doubt God will equip her to do it.

Next I look at “B”. She is a Thai staff but knows really good English. Although probably in her thirties, she has a whimsical childlike spirit to her. Her slogan is something like “Hang out with “B” and you will have a fun time” and boy is that true. She helped to start Nightlight. Annie asked her literally right before Beng was about to get a plane to move to Singapore if she wanted to stay and help start Nightlight, and she took the call. She wears her heart on her sleve and is always ready with an encouraging word or welcoming smile. She is a “helper” in the true sense of the word and I love that I know that I can go to her with most random questions about living in Bangkok. She has the desk right next to me and explained to me right away how she ahs the habit of talking to herself and to her computer and not to mind it. I don’t mind at all.

To my right was “N”. I love her story. It is one of incredible patience. She has been volunteering with Nightlight for quite some time off and on. She had gotten her call into missions very early and was privileged to find and marry someone with the same calling. His calling, however, was as a teacher in Korea, and hers, she felt more and more, was to Thailand and specifically, Nightlight. But for years she remained faithfully with her husband in Korea supporting him and his ministry until God readied his heart and calling to Thailand as well. They decided to move before he even had another teaching job lined up and God faithfully provided a teaching job for him and a Christian international school, which is exactly his calling, and now “N” gets to live out her calling as well at Nightlight. She is now our resident go to gal for techy stuff as well as the one who will be taking over the order processing for Emily. Her story is an incredible reminder to me of how faithful and good God is.

To her right was “S”. “S” arrived a week after me and will be leaving a week from now. Her stay has been short but I cannot believe how much God has been doing though her since she has been here. Her heart is so big, one of the biggest I have seen. God gave her favor with the girls right away, this unexplainable connection. Her warm heart drew them in, of course, but I later found out what drove that extra warm heart. She too, worked the “call girl” life before God redeemed her so she knew all too well the struggle and the deliverance. God has and is continuing to do amazing things with her. We share a room right now due to an AC malfunction in my room which I once thought was an attack from the enemy but now I believe was a divine intervention form God. Thanks God.We have been able to connect very quickly as we adjusted to Bangkok and Nightlight together and her ability to connect to the Nighlight girls so quickly opened the door for me to make quicker connections with the girls as well and I am truly grateful for that.

Then I thought of the ones who were not there that night. One was “K”. She is the jewelry designer at Nightlight, but she does so much more than design Jewelry here. She is also my age and full of passion. I love that. And she has a humor about her that reminds me of home and the people I shared an office with at New Song, which is comforting. I love listening to her tell stores about her life and her family because they are full of all sorts of fun things. She is ridiculously talented and just a privilege to be around. Her life experiences continually astound me. I am incredibly excited about getting to know her more over this next year.

“R” has stunning eyes and a stunning heart, somewhat of a mom figure to many of the girls here. I love watching her interact with them because there is so much genuine love spilling from her. She tells me reassuringly, “If I can learn Thai, you can learn Thai!” She runs the jewelry store here in Bangkok, but as with everyone here, her role bleeds into many more areas as well.

“S” is a beautiful piece of pure joy. She fits the role of volunteer caretaker quite well. She also bakes things for us quite often which is quite refreshing in the land of scarce ovens. Her call into missions is an incredible one as she and her husband had a flourishing ministry back in the states. There are plenty of people to do ministry back home,” she said something like, ” More people should go where the workers of fewer.” I like that.

And lastly, I looked straight ahead of me and there was Annie, the founder and leader of Nightlight. I remember when I first met her I felt my face light up. I felt like I was meeting a celebrity. This whole thing started with just her… answering a call. She is remarkable, a mixture of incredible strength and a gentle, joyful spirit. Hand tailored by God to do this work. A picture of the Gospel in action.

And then there are the Nightlight girls, the beautifully redeemed nightlight girls who love to laugh and be silly and share whatever English they know in an attempt to welcome you and love you. We went to a concert last night a local church. By the end of the night we were all up front dancing and worshiping God together. As we were heading home after the concert I was overwhelmed with joy.

And walking, hand in hand with one of the girls singing a worship song together, her in Thai me in English… I knew I was a little closer to heaven.

This is my new family…

If you think about it, most of us spend our whole lives trying to be relevant.

We all have this innate desire to be needed in the world, to know that we “offer” something, to know that people care about and value us. And although that does not necessarily sound like a bad thing, what that desire to be relevant does is put your self-value in the wrong place, or at least it can.

For as long as I can remember I have battled low self esteem. My whole life I never seemed to quite measure up. I was never tall enough, pretty enough, outgoing enough, brave enough, smart enough… you name it. It was completely debilitating at times and lead me into some very dark places.

There came a point in my life, however, when I allowed God to begin heal those insecurities…  and I can remember very well how free and peaceful I began to feel when I let God begin to redefine me.

But of course the scars were deep, and I find out more and more each day how much there is still left to let go.

I never considered moving to Thailand and working at Nightlight “starting over” because “starting over” sounds to me like you are running from something and I don’t believe I was running from anything. But in a sense I am starting over.  And I’m not just starting over in another youth ministry gig in my own culture, I am in a new country trying to do a completely different kind of job and I am coming to find out that many of the useful things I have done or accomplished in life are completely irrelevant here so far.

I’m came prepared to be a servant, in whatever capacity that meant. I was warned way ahead of time that much of the work I would be doing would not be glamorous at all… counting beads, making copies, making databases.  I was forewarned and prepared and honestly, I have been settling quite nicely into these day to day things.

But these day to day things have nothing to do with the experience I have and the education I have obtained and there is this growing desire for acknowledgement. Like a “do you know who I am, the type of experience I have, and what I gave up to be here?!” type thing that has me wondering what I have had closed up inside me all these years unresolved…

Suddenly almost nothing I have accomplished before is relevant and it makes me so incredibly uncomfortable.

All of the skills that were oh so practical as a youth minister along with my fancy degree from Fuller Theological Seminary are lost simply due to the language barrier. Until I learn the language much of what I do will have nothing to do with what I am experienced in.

All the relationships are new too. No more connections or reputations are left to speak up for me. Its just me, no bells, no whistles.

But there is something about losing your relevance that forces you to rediscover your identity.

I got a taste of this identity crises when I stopped working at New Song a few months before I came here. I remember going to this meeting full of people who worked at churches and as we were introducing ourselves to each other I remember feeling a little panicked when I realized I couldn’t tell then that I worked at a church too… as if I didn’t matter as much because I did not have that role anymore.

Coming here has heightened that feeling of panic of irrelevance. Here, I’m like a child again, starting over, completely vulnerable, and unadorned… which is not, I have found, a bad place to be in.

I have nothing to offer but my vulnerable self. I must now find my identity not in my accomplishments, but in God alone.

Henry Nouwen puts it so well: 

“The great message that we have to carry, as ministers of God’s word and followers of Jesus is that God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love and has chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life.”

And if being irrelevant makes you uncomfortable, this forces you to ask the question of how much you were doing for your own glory as opposed to God’s glory? How much of this was I doing to make myself feel better and more important and more useful and how much was I doing out of response to God’s love alone?

I’ve found it’s a finer line than I thought…

Which is why I am so much enjoying this ongoing adventure… He keeps  on surprising me.

I don’t think I had ever felt so overwhelmed in my whole life.

Tonight was my first night out in the bars. You go in to something like this knowing it is going to be tough, but there is no amount of explanation that can get you ready for what you see.

The area I live is about two blocks away from the darkest of places I have ever been. We started out the night in prayer, something I feel like there can never be enough of before going into a place like this. Then as a group we grab something to eat and head out towards the bars.

As soon as you pass the Starbucks there are countless girls standing by the curbs. The foreigners go to Starbucks and foreigners are their number one customers…

“The one’s facing away from the street are prostitutes and the ones facing toward the street are just waiting for a taxi,” I was told. I though how odd it would be to flag down a taxi while surrounded by all of these girls in obvious need. But I suppose one must live with a certain amount of compartmentalization to live here…or perhaps its just numbness to most.

The streets are where you find most of the women who are trafficked in from other countries. Here they are mostly from Uzbekistan and different parts of Africa. The people in my group would occasionally stop to start conversations with these women. They can’t be legally hired at Nightlight but they can be helped back to their own country.

It’s more complex than I thought, these girls were trafficked in against their will, but eventually just begin to accept their lifestyle. Most will not take the offer for help for quite some time and some never. The devil is horrible. And sometimes going home for them is no better off than staying. What an awful way to feel… like there is no way out.

The eyes were what got me the most. There is so much sadness in them. Standing there, waiting for a client, I’m sure there is a lot of time to think, to not want to do it but believing that that is the only thing anyone will pay you for. Knowing that if you don’t get a client that night you won’t be able to eat or pay the rent. That must be an incredible paradox to live in. Wanting someone to pick them up yet really not wanting it… all at the same time.

It was already too much… and then we entered the bar area.

So many bars to choose from. And it was easy to spot them, all the foreign white men, sitting down with these girls. I couldn’t look at one of those men for too long, because anger would start to well up. To have lost so much respect for the humanity of women, to view them simply as objects for pleasure, not caring how much damage they are doing to them, its too unreal, too sick. Nothing in me could understand. God’s beautiful creations, abused and objectified, it’s just too much.

The sights and the sounds were already chaotic and we hadn’t even stepped inside a bar yet. We walked past bar after bar until finally entering one.

I know the shock could be easily seen on my face. It was a nearly nude bar, girls wearing next to nothing. “Most of these girls come from a place where they never even wore bathing suits swimming, always fully clothed,” someone explained to me. They were on top of a platform moving seductively to the blaring music, which of course was all American… I can imagine how I am never going to be able to hear that music back in the states the same again.

Each girl had a number pinned on to her… as if they were something simply to order, like when you are at Mc Donald’s and order the #6 or something…

After each song they would shift  spots so different people in the bar could get a look at them. After three songs, that group would leave the platform and a new group would come on.

I thought I should be stronger but everything in me closed up. I tried to pray but my mind wouldn’t focus. It was nothing less than oppression from the enemy. I was bound up in shock wondering how the heck I could ever talk to one of these girls, how could I ever get past the shock of it all?

I needed to focus on God I needed to pray but the spiritual oppression was so heavy and I really was not used to this type of sensory attack. The enemy and his chaos, its powerful.

“Have you even been in a place like this?” someone on the team asked me. “No,” I said but in my head I was thinking why would I ever willingly go in a place like this?!, almost offended… then I realized I was in this place willingly.. and the people on my team willingly go to places like this, subject themselves to the images and heartbreak week after week all in hopes a saving just a few.

We finally walked out of the bar and someone asked me how I was doing… all I wanted to do was cry and tears spilled forth… I wanted so much to help, to be a light in that darkness, to overcome the shock.

Its just so much worse than you could possibly imagine. And if you are not praying regularly for this problem in the world you need to be. 

Breaking down I believe was a necessary step, a step in the direction I am going with my life over this next year. I know with Christ I will be able to overcome that oppression I felt so strongly and I will help these lost and broken ones.

It is a battle out there that I know God is preparing me to fight.

Im sitting on the plane right now thinking back on my last week, so many good moments leading up to my departure. Sitting on the upstairs patio by a fire pit at Cabo Grill looking over downtown Oceanside. Sometimes you forget how lucky you are to love in a beach town. Seeing my best fried perform, living in his element and calling in life. I love watching people live out their passion.  Hearing from the two girls I mentor how encouraged and inspired they are after talking with a peer who is souled out for God knowing that this was exactly what I was praying for. My God is a good God. Swimming in the ocean with those same girls hearing one of them talk about how jumping in the waves feels like playing with God. It does. Taking a late night walk down the Oceanside pier with a good friend caught up in good discussion about God, the church, and marveling at whatever God has in store for us. Who the heck knows right?  I will miss it all, I will miss you all.

A few hours ago I was saying good bye to my parents as we stood by the area in the airport where you had to have a boarding pass to enter. It was then that I began to feel more deeply everything that I was giving up to go on this new adventure. But as tears began to stream down my face in sadness over everything I was giving up and was going to miss I also felt so incredibly grateful for all the things God has blessed me with that I have the privilege to miss.

This past week, mornings have been the hardest. First of all, I am not a morning person, It takes me a good couple of hours after I wake before you can safely talk to me. In addition, for some reason all of my anxieties try to attack me in the morning. It normally takes a good session with God to get me back in right mind again. So on the week before leaving, the morning anxiety was ever present. I went to bed last night expecting to wake up in pure panic. But right before I woke up I had an incredible dream. I was a some sort of party and a swing dance contest started up.  Already on a dancing high, I asked this gentleman who happened to be sitting right next to me if he wanted to join in on the contest with me. We get up and just kill it on the dance floor twirling about working in perfect sync with one another. He threw me up and around in every direction, as swing dancers are known to do, and I was absolutely giddy. The song ended and we were announced as the winners of the contest because we were clearly the best. We just kept laughing  and found our seats again, still high and out of breath from the experience. And then I woke up… with same feeling of giddiness… and no panic at all.

If you know me at all you know how I feel about dancing. I believe it is magical… for real. Now don’t get me wrong, I have no dance training or experience at all and am not even particularly good at it. But I LOVE to dance. Its like medicine, it just makes things better. When I get in a bad mood I turn on a good song and I dance, sometimes all by myself in my room. Call me a dork if you want to, I’m ok with that.

Last New Years Eve I had the privilege of going with my roommate to a swing ball. Now this girl has grown up swing dancing and I have tried it maybe once before in my life. She assured me, however, that in swing dancing, all you need is a good lead and a knowledge of the basic step and you’re good to go. And although I was still pretty unsure about that theory I tried it out. And boy was she incredibly right. If you have not tried this girls you need to. All one has to do is follow. The guy has the hard part, he is the one thinking ahead planning out the next steps. He simply leads you along with him. And its so much fun once you get over the anxiety that you have no idea what you are doing.

A few days later in the middle of a quiet time I had a realization that that experience with dancing is a lot like our relationship with God. I mean, he takes the lead right and all we have to do it follow. He’s got the hard part, we have the fun part. Sure we get to put in our own God given creativity, as long as we continue to follow alongside his lead. If you try to take control, though, you mess up the whole dance, I can’t imagine if I would have told my partner that I would take the lead, I had no idea what I was doing, I would have messed up the whole thing, I would have stepped all over his feet. But if you relinquish control and just pay attention to him, you get an incredible dance.

I think God wanted me to remember that this morning. How much fun it is to dance with Him.

There is an unexplainable feeling associated with sharing the gospel. It is this complete letting go. Becasue really you are just a tool… like a hammer hitting a nail, the hammer really has no power of its own. There is usually much anxiety in letting go. There are always all of these questions in the back of my head that fight to make me want to stop, to hide in my bed and not even try. To me, God is so complex, how could one even begin to explain Him to someone else? How could my words ever do Him justice? Is the Gospel really that simple, can it really be explained in 5 minutes? Can the walk with God really just start with one simple prayer from the heart? 

Single moment evangelism has always been so hard for me because that is not how I came to know the Lord. For me it was a long arduous process, a period of months where bit by bit I started to understand give myself over to God. I have no day, no single moment to recollect. There was no single “sinner’s prayer” that I said. I was a seeker of God, and then over time, became  a follower. Not sure at all when I crossed that line from “unsaved” to “saved.” It is a question that has followed me for years, especially as a minister of the Gospel. 

Experience is a powerful thing. It defines who you are, how you experience life, and really how you choose to understand how life works. Thats why people who have had bad experiences with the church find it really hard to see the Goodness of Christ’s church. The truth can be found, but its just to hard for them to see past their experience. And maybe that is why it has been hard for me to trust single event conversion. It is not in my experience. My conversion was a journey, not a moment. And even though I have faithfully shared the Gospel with many people over my years as a Christian using a five minute explanation of the Gospel followed with a sinners prayer, there was always an unrest in me, an inability to trust that that was enough. 

This past weekend I went on an evangelism trip to Mexico. A little weekend mission trip right before I leave on my major one is a few weeks. I told myself once that I was never going to go on a short term mission trip again because true impact comes from long term relationship building, not hit and run ministry. But something (as well as someone… thanks Wilmer) was urging me to go on this trip. Lets just say, I was blown away.

Sometimes I forget how different cultures can be. I mean I can know it in my head but not really understand it until I experience it. Soccer balls and bracelets. That what we carried with us. They had 5 colors, each color representing some thing that helped explain the gospel. Would you like a free soccer ball? Can I take a few minutes to tell you what the colors mean? Ask that at the door of the average American, they’ll shut the door in your face. But in Mexico, they listen. At first, perhaps, just to be polite, but there comes this distinct moment when they realize what the bigger gift is that you are offering them: the gift of eternal life. And you can see it, you can actually feel it, that they are getting it. Its like giving a person who has been drinking warm water his whole life a nice refreshing glass of cool water. 

It was hot, so very hot. And it was hard, letting go of anxieties. But I saw my God work. Because the Gospel prevails. It just begins with trust. Another lesson learned before I leave for Thailand, never underestimate the power of the Gospel. It can work whatever way God wants it to work, outside of any of your personal experiences. 

And as I sat outside at a church gathering in the small town in Mexico watching the sun go down and listening to a sermon in a language I barely understood, I marveled at our God. I looked around me and thanked God for his diversity and the power of his love to reach anyone, anywhere. The different manifestations of His one church in the world continues to blow me away.

Food tasted better that night and rest felt so incredibly earned after a hard days work for the Lord spreading his Love. And that is, I continue to realize, how I want every day of my life to be like.

30 days

30 days is all I have left until I start the next big adventure. It’s weird how quickly time can go at some times and how incredibly slow it can go at others. This is one of those quick times… and although I am excited about jumping into this ministry, there is nothing like knowing you are leaving your home for a very long to make you feel prematurely nostalgic. The beautiful beaches, the familiar faces, the fume-free air, the bed that has my imprint in it, even the feel of a cool breeze moves me… it will be a long time before a cool breeze is a regular part of my life again.  

One does not appreciate cool breezes until you live without them.

In the Philippines, I remember sitting in an upstairs room that people met for church. Like most places in this area of the Philippines, it was not air conditioned, and it was HOT. We were there that day to set up a medical clinic, but to also evangelize to those waiting to be seen as well as assist the doctors in any way we could (ask me about the tooth I pulled later…). Taking a break, I remember sitting in the corner of the room wrestling with the tension of the memory my body had of cool breezes. My body seemed very confused seeing as how it was not used going that long without getting cooled off. I remember the experience of intense aggravation that was sent through me knowing that there was nothing I could do to cool off because even the piece of paper that I turned into a fan was doing nothing but blowing more hot air at me. Thailand, where we went a few days later, was much the same. 

For some time  I’ve been trying to get my head around fully the “bigness” of this coming change but now I wonder if that is even possible.

Today I accomplished the last big thing on my list of things that set me up for leaving. A friend and I drove up to LA to visit the Thai Consulate for my Visa. We got there way earlier than we needed in an effort to beat LA traffic so we decided to drive around to look for a place to eat. Some how we ended up driving around a Korea Town of sorts unable to read any of the signs (the ability to read signs… another thing I will miss). We finally parked when we found what we thought was a suitable place to eat. The food was distinctly American but one could tell by the decor that the owners of the restaurant were not. 

Among other things, Brett and I soon got into a discussion about time. I’m reading a book about ministering cross culturally and I just finished the chapter that was dedicated fully to discussing tensions about time. The point was that America is a distinctly time focused society while most others are not. For example, Americans generally excuse 5 minutes of tardiness but at fifteen minutes, we have generally reached our frustration point. On the Island of Yap in Micronesia, however, people easily excuse 2 hours of tardiness and generally don’t hit their frustration point until hour three. Most other countries fall somewhere in between. Although not quite as extreme, waiting on people is one of the many things I will have to adjust to while living in Thailand. I thought intently about this as I was fighting frustration with our waiter who was taking 3 times longer than he should have with our bill… clearly not working on American time.

We continued our discussion after leaving the Thai Consulate and I started talking about how my biggest worry about moving to Thailand was not safety but adjusting. I said that I always seemed to adjust very well on all of my short term mission trips but I wondered if that was because I knew I would be going home after two weeks. Would adjustment come if I knew it would be a very long time before I came back to familiar things? How much time would it take? Would it be much harder than I can get my head around? 

But then Brett mentioned something that I thing is true. That if we are doing something that we know has a lot of meaning, that purpose and passion would help you through. 

The frustration of the heat as I sat in that upstairs room in the Philippines was almost overwhelming. But as the aggravation tried to make its home in me, I looked around and remembered what I was doing there. And although my body did not cool down, I remember feeling the welcomed sensation of adjustment as my body stopped expecting a cool breeze and acclimated to its surroundings. I got up and began helping again, and the heat faded into the background.

The book of Deuteronomy has some great tidbits of encouragement in it. Not only does it give us the great Shema, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might,” Deuteronomy also contains all of these incredible calls to remember. Many have said the Old Testament could be summed up in one word: Remember. In chapter six God gives a charge to his people to make sure that the next generation is told the story of God’s faithfulness as well. God knows how important it is that each generation is narrated into the story of God. In chapter seven God states this in response to the fear some of his people carried toward enemy nations, “…you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the Lord your God and to all Egypt, the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the Lord your God brought you out.” (Deut 7:18-19) 

Take care to remember lest you forget the Lord…. (Deut 7:11)

Apparently forgetting is the source of many of our problems as humans beings. But I suppose that makes sense because that is where much of our faith comes from, remembering God’s faithfulness to us in the past. 

I met a young lady last night after Seven24. I had not seen her around before so I went up and introduced myself. Her first day at New Song was the day I was interviewed on mainstage about my ministry to Thailand. She told me how encouraged she felt to hear my story and then later to hear about God’s abundant financial provision for my trip. She said the she had been feeling a pull on her life towards potential full time ministry but had been nervous about how the details of that would work out. She now felt more confident that God would take care of it, however. 

God fills our lives with reminders of His faithfulness and provision, all we have to do is notice and remember. 

I remember some of the darkest times in my life was when I would fail to remember who God was. When I read about when the Israelites I sometimes catch myself thinking, “Man, these guys are annoying, why do they keep making the same mistake over and over? Don’t they get it?” Then I remember, that the story of Israel is the story of us all… we all take our eyes off God from time to time… and suffer the consequences of it. 

My seminary graduation commencement was this past Saturday. My family and I made the trek up to Pasadena to participate in the festivities. Heck, all that hard work… I had definitely earned my two second time to shine as they call my name and I walk across the stage.

I remember feeling incredibly childish as a stood on the side of the stage waiting for my name to be called. The gown felt way to big, like I was a kid dressing up in one of my mother’s dresses trying to feel elegant but not quite pulling it off. Seriously, the sleeves went past my fingertips and I was surrounded, as always, by people much bigger than and and whose gowns seemed to fit them fine. I felt so small… and although that moment was supposed to be my time to shine, to be recognized for all of my hard work and achievement, as a looked around at all the other graduates I started to feel like just another name and wondered if all of that hard work meant anything at all.

But then I spotted my dad way up in the balcony get up from his seat and walk down to the front so he could get a better picture of me and I remembered… I remembered that I did count … and I remembered all of God’s provision to get me to that moment and how he carried my through some very dark moments in my seminary career. And tears came to my eyes… we have a good God. 

All of our hard work for God will need to be steeped in remembrance. In fact I am sure remembering and looking for signs of God’s faithfulness will be the only way I’ll make it in Thailand. 

At a graduation dinner last Thursday one of my professors quoted this verse to us as his last charge:

“Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:58)

What a lovely benediction for us all.