I feel like my time here in Bangkok has been a series of one transition after another. I have moved more times here in Bangkok than I have in the entirety of the rest of my life. In the same way, due to short-term commitments to NightLight most people make, I have “made” and “lost” more friends in a two-year period time of my life than any other time. This also makes for a challenging job description as I am continually picking up new responsibilities and filling in where holes are left. This, in part has left me felling like I do not have much an identity here. Of course my identity in Christ remains, but everything else feels up in the air.

Just over the past couple of months however, I have picked up some more steady responsibilities that are playing more into my giftings. I have been teaching our women at chapel time once a week as well as helping with the “Heart Groups” that many of our women participate in where they can learn more about their identity in Christ.I feel like a part of me is being awakened again. Not that simply being a servant and doing the incredibly necessary practical things that it takes to run a business and a ministry center has not been a fulfilling, especially since it is for such an amazing purpose. But the teaching and the hope of being able to pour into people in a more spiritually deep way is stirring me up again.

However, being called up to this next level stirs up many more fears, the fear of not knowing how to truly help these women being the highest. The problem is, I have never been a woman who grew up in their particular culture and with their specific circumstances nor have I ever been in a place where I felt I had to sell my body to make a living. In fact the concept of selling my body is so outrageous to me that that is part of the reason I ended up in this line of work, to be a part of a system that breaks that cycle. No woman should have to sell the most precious part of them. That fact that sex has turned into a commodity means something is deeply wrong and it stirs up a holy discontent in me.

But how do I relate to these women and how do they relate to me? I have grown up in such privilege, and they know that. I often wonder how I would take advice from someone who clearly has never dealt with the types of things that I have gone though. After all, it is our brokenness that binds us, our ability to relate to one another because we have made the same mistakes. When I was at home working with teenagers I felt somewhat qualified because I WAS a teenager at some point who grew up in relatively the same circumstances and culture and faced all the same temptations that American teenagers face. But here, it is all so foreign, in more ways than one.

And sometimes it makes me wonder if I really belong here at all…

I guess it is a questioning of every thing… again. Because I have been here before. Caught in the middle of something I thought I understood but is becoming increasingly more ungraspable. I know this is how we mature in grow in Christ, but it is still tough.

 I want to understand God so much more than I do, but there is a part of us that has to live with the dissonance of never being able totally understand the Being that we share the deepest kind of love with.

I went on a little trip a few weekends ago to visit a famous waterfall not too far from Bangkok. It was this wonderfully whimsical type of waterfall that had seven tears and all of these crystal blue pools that you could swim in at each level. It was exciting to discover each new tier and we laughed and splashed around the pools, daringly jumped off of the shorter waterfalls into the water below and watched people use some of the rocks the water was trickling down as waterslides. I felt adventurous and giddy and peaceful. And as one who is continually trying to compare life experiences to our walk with God, I immediately made the connection that this is often how our God can be. God offers us those same thins that that waterfall did. Chances to be adventurous and to have fun and to feel his peace.

But then I remembered another waterfall that I had visited on a previous trip.  This waterfall was much larger and stronger with no crystal blue pools to swim in. This water was mysterious and churning from the large amounts of water pouring down from above. Standing next to it was loud and disconcerting. Looking up at its immensity filled me with a certain bit of fear. I backed up from the water’s edge worried that I might accidentally fall in, knowing that it would immediately pull me into its rolling current. It was… overwhelming. And this too, I realized, can be our God. So big and consuming that you hardly know what to do. Because however much peace our God offers us, there is still a fear that we have of this large entity that we can only begin to describe. And He can pull you in to his rolling tide before you even know what is happening…and it’s frightening.

He is the safety net, but we still must walk the tightrope. Which is both exhilarating AND frightening.

I knew that when I left America that I would be giving up a lot of securities. I knew that I would not have a steady income; I knew that my chances of a husband and a family (and therefore some form of steady support system/community in my life) would dramatically diminish; I knew that I was entering a culture that I would likely never fully fit into while evermore driving a wedge between me and my own culture; I knew that I would be entering into a battle against a large darkness that consumes Thailand and would likely only be making small seemingly insignificant dents.  And these realities are all frightening if I let my self linger on thinking about it too much. The chances of failure and discouragement and looming depression are so large that I wonder how I continue to function from day to day.

But I do know how I function in my day to day, it is because our God is bigger than all of this. And although this big God and the life he calls us into can sometimes be frightening, it is worth it.

So as I wonder about my future here I will trust that my big God, for as long as he wants me here, will equip me. I will trust, that even though I do not understand everything and that sometimes I am still filled with fear of the future, that my God has a plan. And I will trust, that somehow, my God will deeply connect my world with the world of these women… with him as our all consuming God.

“I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever.” Psalm 52:8

This month also brought in another run in with the young teenage boy we took in off the street about a year ago. After finally getting him back home with his mother and connecting them with the right people for counseling, things finally stared to look up. Him and his mother had even begun coming to church every week where his mother miraculously accepted Christ. A couple of weeks ago, however, he had run away once again and showed up on our doorstep. After trying repeatedly to get a hold of his mother, we decided it would be best to let him stay with us for the night, but with a bit of a frustrated heart. It was Valentines Day and a had planned on hanging out, instead I found myself staying home caring for this troubled individual… not exactly what I had in mind for a Valentine’s date.

But the frustration did not lie so much in that I could not carry on with my original plans, the frustration was more that we had all put so much time and care into getting this boy in a safe place with plenty of help, only to see him right back where he started… back out on the streets in the red light district.

Sometimes it is so discouraging to know of so many people wanting to help and see justice and restoration prevail yet to see such little progress being made. As is common with this type of work, you see the same issues rise again and again and you begin to wonder if there is any hope in sight.

But I suppose that is where a certain kind of faith comes in. A number of years ago I remember reading a book called God on Mute. It is written by Pete Greig who happens to be the guy who started the 24/7 prayer movement. He wrote this book during a long struggle with a sickness his wife had of which she did not receive healing. This can leave a man who has witnessed many healings in a very confused state. In this book, he describes something calls a darker trust:

“As we mature in Christ we begin to understand that God’s logic is rarely ours and that his path to joy is often marked by suffering. The world is full of people willing to trust God for promotion, prosperity, and popularity. And this is good, because God loves to give good gifts to his children; it is certainly better to trust God for these things than to trust ourselves for them. But as we mature spiritually, God asks us to trust him in the hard times as well. There is faith in God’s will when it is our will too, but there is also faith to trust God when his will is not what we would choose.”

It is in these times of uncertainty that we have to lean into this darker kind of trust. And in many ways, this is the more comforting kind of trust. The kind where you simply get to let go and trust that you know God is handling it, even if you don’t understand.

Sometimes it seems like every month we have another financial crisis. The questions linger… “Are we going to have enough money to pay our workers… to buy more materials… to keep things going?” But every month everything miraculously comes through. It is hard that there is never enough money to feel comfortable about our finances from month to month, but it sure does keep us clinging to God.

There is a story in the Gospels about a woman who comes to Jesus with a request of healing for her daughter, and at first, it doesn’t look like he will be helping her out. “He says to her, a Gentile, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread first and feed it to the dogs” (Mark 7:27). Jesus had a mission, and it was to the Jews, which she was not.

Ouch. Here she is asking in faith for help, not for riches, not for popularity, but for the healing of her child, and he seems to be telling her no.

But her reaction is something to take note of. She doesn’t stomp away, she doesn’t get mad at him or start to feel sorry for herself. She simply answers with more faith, “Yes Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

“Lord,” she starts out with, a title most of his own people haven’t even given him yet! She knows who he is, even if she doesn’t hear the answer she wants. Willing to settle for even crumbs, she responds to her Lord with intense faith, regardless of how he responds.

Ultimately, her daughter is healed and this turns into a story of miraculous healing. But what stands out to me most in this account is her faith, almost more than the healing. Because lets face it, sometimes, things don’t always work out the way with want them to. Sometimes the miracle we are looking for doesn’t happen.

It feels like a lot of life is standing in that place of faith this woman is in before the healing happens. Waiting in a place of hope and trust, even if the healing never comes.

Not that God doesn’t heal, he does, in the most amazing ways, as he eventually does with this woman’s daughter. But there is a greater healing we are all waiting for, the healing that comes when Christ returns in his fullness and makes everything as it should be. For the complete restoration of all things… we still wait. And until that time comes, life will be full of hard, unexplainable things.

So as we wait in this in-between time, wading around in the mess of injustice and brokenness, we hold on to that hope that God instills in us as his followers.

Even in these stressful times as a ministry, there are still many pieces of hope. The young teenage boy is back with his mother now and they retuned to counseling together. Just last week, a few of us who have been working with him got together with him and his mother to celebrate his birthday. And as we were all sitting in a circle laughing and eating cupcakes…I could sense hope settling in again.

Our God is good and he will make all things right.

I had no idea Thailand was going to grow on me the way it did. Southeast Asia was never a dream of mine. When I thought of being a missionary, it was always in Africa or South America in some off the map place with no electricity and rare communication with the outside world. As far as I was concerned, Bangkok was a stepping-stone to somewhere else.

But as is the case with many love affairs, Bangkok took me my surprise…

After having been gone for quite a bit longer than I wanted, when it was finally time to return, part of me feared that there was going some sort of awkward transition back into to Thai life. I was happy to find out slipping back in was quite normal.

Like returning home, every thing felt welcoming and familiar.

And what a wonderful thing to realize that Bangkok is home to me. Not home in the sense of “this is where I am from” but home in the sense of “this is where my life is.” And I mean life in the strongest sense of the word.

I feel so lucky to be here.. well, not lucky, blessed. When I was home most people that heard about what I was doing thanked me or responded to me with a “you are so sacrificial for moving to Bangkok and doing the kind of work that you do” kind of way. Truth be told, that always made me kind of uncomfortable. I don’t feel like I am making a sacrifice so much. I love where I am and I love what I do… there are so many other people that cannot say that.

I was walking down a street in Bangkok with a friend the other night taking in the sights and the noises and the eccentricities of the place. Bangkok never ceases to fascinate me. There is always so much more to discover. It is so immense; there is so much going on, so much pain, yet also much joy. The culture and everything surrounding it seems almost too big to get my head around, but still, it is my home and I am settled within it.

Beautifully enough, concurrently, there is another settling process going on. Knowing and settling into God’s love has always been somewhat of a battle to me. I have, for a very long time, known God’s love in the factual sense, but there seemed to always be a part of me that couldn’t quite understand it in the deep emotive sense. Without overtly knowing it, there always seemed to be a small part of me that longed to earn more of Gods love. As if there was something I needed to do to tap into the fullness of it. And more than that, every failure, every time I seemed not to measure of to some invisible standard, I somehow felt that God was disappointed in me.

In one of my very early blogs at the beginning of my move to Thailand, I talked about the crisis of irrelevance. How moving from a place that I had a very clear role and function in a position of leadership and familiarity to a place where I knew no one, had no clear role as of yet, and had to learn everything, including the language, from scratch was teaching me painfully how to define myself in God and not in what I do.

Over my first year in Thailand I let God, perhaps for the first time, love on me in that way, freeing myself of the self imposed guilt of not being better or doing more. I am happy to say that I am finally coming to a place where I have never felt more settled into God’s love. Not comfortable complacency, but true freedom.

I am looking forward to so much this year. I can’t wait to see what God is going to continue to do with me and with this ministry he has chosen me to be a part of.

Over my time spend home, I didn’t blog at all. I did do a lot of speaking engagements, however. Being able to speak and teach was an important element in my time home. Again, it allowed me to process my first year here in Thailand and relate to to other people. Each speaking engagement was an exciting reminder of how great my God is and how amazing it is to be a part of what he is doing in this world.

In an effort to fill the void of a few missing months in my blog, Following is a sermon I gave at the college and young adult ministry at my home church on the book of Esther. It is a message calling the hearers to do exactly what I was just discussing… to remember.

” So we are coming to an end of our time in the book of Esther. And as a quick recap, In this story the Jewish people had just been in Babylonian Exile. Persia is the reigning power, Xerxes is our king. His wife disobeys him so he gets rid of her and he needs a new queen. All the beautiful women of the land are brought together for a year of beautifying… Enter Esther. A beautiful Jewish girl who wins the favor of the king and becomes the next Queen.

Then the plot thickens, enter the antagonist of the story, Haman. This guy has a thing against the Jews, wants to kill them, convinces the king, sends out a decree that all Jews should be killed. Mordeci, Esters uncle and former caregiver, finds out about this and goes to Esther for help. She’s scared because she could die if she displeases the king, but goes to him anyway making Haman look the fool, then he is hung, and here we are. Haman dead, Esther still in the good audience of the king.

Like any good action story or movie, just when you think all is resolved, the guy you thought was dead is suddenly alive again, found a gun and, is shooting at the main character again. Haman does not return from the dead in this story, but what we do have is the existence of that decree that was sent out calling for the execution of all Jewish people. The reason this is such a problem is because a decree, once sealed with the Kings seal, is irreversible. Problem.

However!, since Haman’s decree could not be reversed, Mordecai was allowed to write a “counter-law,” if you will. According to the new decree that was quickly sent out , the Jews were warned and informed that they were to defend themselves on that same day. In fact, in chapter 9, we are told that the Jews armed themselves, and rather than waiting on the enemy Persians to attack, they went on the offensive and decided to attack their enemies first.

The Bible says that the Jews killed 500 people in the palace city of Shushan, and another 75,000 people throughout the 127 provinces of the kingdom. At the end of the day, Esther even asked the king for an extension of time, so the Jews in Shushan continued the fighting throughout the second day as well. Since the extra day of fighting could not be communicated throughout the provinces, everyone outside the palace city rested and celebrated their great victory on the 14th day of Adar, but the people inside the city were still fighting. These fighters, then,  did not rest and celebrate until the 15th day. Rather than try to get everyone to recognize one day or the other as a day of celebration, Mordecai and Esther decided to allow both days to be days of celebration, and as we are about to read, those two days became what we know to be the “Feast of Purim.”

Esther 9:20-28-

²⁰ Mordecai recorded these events, and he sent letters to all the Jews throughout the provinces of King Xerxes, near and far, ²¹ to have them celebrate annually the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar ²² as the time when the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. He wrote them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor.

²³ So the Jews agreed to continue the celebration they had begun, doing what Mordecai had written to them. ²⁴ For Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast the pur (that is, the lot) for their ruin and destruction. ²⁵ But when the plot came to the king’s attention, he issued written orders that the evil scheme Haman had devised against the Jews should come back onto his own head, and that he and his sons should be impaled on poles. ²⁶ (Therefore these days were called Purim, from the word pur.) Because of everything written in this letter and because of what they had seen and what had happened to them, ²⁷ the Jews took it on themselves to establish the custom that they and their descendants and all who join them should without fail observe these two days every year, in the way prescribed and at the time appointed. ²⁸ These days should be remembered and observed in every generation by every family, and in every province and in every city. And these days of Purim should never fail to be celebrated by the Jews—nor should the memory of these days die out among their descendants.

Feast of Purim began in this time as a feast of remembrance that the Jewish people, from this day on would celebrate.  It is likely to have been celebrated by Christ , and still celebrated by Jews around the world today.Of the various feasts that the Jews observed and are mentioned in the Old Testament, the Feast of Purim is one that was not instituted by God. It was however initiated by His people and appears to have been blessed by God.While you and I don’t celebrate it, the Feast of Purim is an annual reminder to the Jews of several lessons they learned about God during their time of great sorrow and grief.

Now most of us are not a part of the Jewish nation, but we do, as God’s people, share a special relationship to Him, and because of this special relationship, we enjoy many blessings that are common to all who call on the name of the Lord. So as God’s people, why does God call us to remember? What is it that God wants us to remember each time we read the book of Esther or encounter its story?

You see – the story we find is the same story that is being told over and over again throughout history.

It is the story of your life, the story of our church, the story of your family, being told over and over again; and I believe that unless we realize that we are caught up in this story and learn the lessons God has for us, we are destined to lives of sorrow and grief – not because your circumstances will be any different than any one else’s, but because your eyes have not yet been opened to the reality of how God is being played out in the story of your life.

So what are the things that the story of Esther teaches us?

First, it is a reminder that we will always have an enemy in this world… in short, there will always be Hamans.

One of the first things you realize when you step into Thailand is the feeling of oppression. Spiritual oppression runs very deep but is also very much in the open. I live in a very dark place where the enemy feeds on even the smallest weakness. I live right in the middle of one of the red light districts in Bangkok. The view from my window is a banner of half dressed girls advertising a bar called planet pimp. Every night I fall asleep to bar music, a constant reminder of what is going on around me.

My walk home is anything but peaceful. The streets are lined with girls looking for a customer. Bar after bar is full of even more women beckoning at any foreign man that walks by. A few buildings down is the entertainment plaza. Three floors of go-go bars where girls dance for the customers making it easier for them to “check out the merchandise” they stand there complete with numbers tacked to their boots to make it easier for the customer to point out which one he wants as if they were some type of value meal at Mc Donald’s instead of a living breathing person.

Even walking into one of those bars is a mission in and of itself. The atmosphere is so dark, our presence alone is breaking ground. There is no ignoring the advances of the enemy there. Here [in America] it is easier to forget that there is a battle going on around you. We get smothered by our comforts  and our hurry and its easy to avoid the things we don’t want to see.

But sometimes as a whole we need to become more aware of our enemy. Satan knows exactly what buttons to push in your life, what gets you angry, what distracts you or takes you out of the battle. Don’t ever underestimate the advances of the enemy, he has done his homework.

Whenever we go on outreach we cover ourselves in protection, that God would make us aware of how the enemy might be trying to attack us so that we are able to stand against it.We are fully aware of the battle we are in. We know that this side of heaven we will always have an enemy, there will be trouble, but…

Second, God will always have a way of deliverance for his people

While the Jews were in despair down in Egypt, God was raising up a Moses.

When they couldn’t get in to the Promised Land, He was preparing a Joshua.

When the giant Goliath taunted the people of Israel and there seemed to be no hope, God was preparing a David.

And when the people of God were being threatened by Haman, God was preparing an Esther.

Over and over again we see this miraculous story of deliverance.

Those of us who know God each have our own story of deliverance. No matter what the age, no matter what you face, God always has a means of deliverance. The point is simply this – God is going to bring deliverance to His people whether we choose to be a part of it or not. Sometimes it is spiritual deliverance, other times it may be physical or emotional, but you can count on this one thing – the Lord Jesus Christ cares more for you than you could possible care for yourself and has made a way of deliverance for you.

Why did Jesus come in the first place? He said in Luke 4,

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Whether we fully understand how the Lord works in our lives or not, the fact is that He said that He has come for the express purpose of deliverance – He wants to free you.

Most of us will never know the terrors of physical bondage or the kinds of fear that the Jews experienced under the death wish of Haman, but you live with fear and worry and anxiety every day of some sort. God wants to deliver you from all of it. And he’s good at it, God has his hand in everything, he will always provide away

I see this all the time at Nightlight. Testimony after testimony of girls being delivered out of their dark circumstances. One such girl states in her testimony, “Working in the bars was like walking in a storm all the time…” This same girl now leads worship almost daily at our morning chapel times….

It can be hard and draining work going on outreach week after week seeing one broken girl after another, but when I step into the Jewelry buildings and I see all these girls that were once lost in the sex industry rescued from that world… it is the best encouragement there is.

I get so amazed when I think about the provisions God as made for his lost ones. I know of a ministry that specifically reaches out to children from Cambodia who beg on the streets of Bangkok, another ministry that specifically reached out to the Lady Boy community, I even met a group of missionaries from the Philippines who are here to minister to the Filipinos who are in Prison here in Thailand! God has his hand everywhere.

If you are here tonight and you believe you are caught up in something that is too big for God to fix, you think you have a past that is too dark for God heal, I am here to tell you, you are believing a lie…

The third thing we can learn from Esther’s story, We all have a part in what God is doing in this world.

The bible is a continual story of deliverance and one of the coolest things about this story is that we get to be a part of that story. Not only does he want to deliver us, he wants us to be a part of the deliverance story of others! I always get really sad when I meet people who stop at their own personal deliverance, as if that is where the story ends. Because there is so much more! When we become one of Gods own he will launch us onto the adventure of a lifetime if we let him, cause there are so many more people who don’t know him, so many people who need help!

He doesn’t need our help, but he wants our help; And not his sake, but for ours…

One of my favorite things Mordeci says is when he sends a message back to Esther after she tells him of her fears about going to the king. He says: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish…”

When I first read that I was like, that’s messed up, he just trying to freak her out. But then I noticed with such certainty he says “for if you remain silent relief and deliverance will arise from another place.” This guy knows his God. Mordeci know God doesn’t need us, if Esther decided not to do this, God would have used someone else.

But he placed Esther is a place where she could have the privilege of being a part of this incredible deliverance story.

And then Mordeci finishes this little plea to Esther with basically the theme verse of the whole story “And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (4:14)

Which poses the question that we touched on a bit last week. Why are you here, in this place, in this time?  What royal pupose has God been preparing you for?

We are all a part of a royal inheritance made for a royal purpose. 1 Peter 2:9 says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

God is inviting us to be a part of what he is doing in this world. The reason God is always calling us to remember his stories of deliverance is #1 so we don’t forget what he did for us, but #2 so we don’t forget why in the world we are here…

What royal positions has God put you in to help those who are currently around you?

What are you willing to risk or suffer to save people that you will probably never meet?

What voice has God given you to speak up for those who are not heard?

What resources/connections has God given you to be an advocate for those who are alone?

A lot of us live very fearful lives, we have somehow convinced ourselves that we are not capable of much and so we mostly never even try. But what we must remember is that God is perfectly able to make us able. He is just waiting for us to step out and test him on this.

This is one of the things I love about Ester’s story. God does not just use the ones who seem to have super star courage right off the bat. He simply uses people who are willing. People who are willing to get past their fear and step out in him.

You’ll remember that when Esther is first asked by  Mordeci to approach the king she isn’t so sure. This is no small task. Its no wonder she is afraid. The girl does not want to do this… but she does it anyway because her uncle explains her back into the purpose of her existence. She thinks about her people, she thinks about her God, and then there is no question.

I may sound like such a brave person moving to Bangkok and living and working in the red light district.. .but I’ll be the first person to tell you that I’m just as much of a coward as anyone else… All I do is walk in trust that God will enable me as I go along, where ever that leads me. Esther teaches us how to live in this world with courage and integrity, carrying our responsibilities to the best on ones ability and trusting God in his providence to protect and provide.

So what is it that you need to remember today?

Some if us need to remember that we have an enemy in this world and need to spend some time equipping ourselves accordingly.

Some of us need to remember that our God is a mighty deliverer. We need to spend some time remembering our personal deliverance stories and trust that whatever we are dealing with now, God is able to deliver us from that too. Some if us have never let God be that deliverer in our lives and we need to finally let him do that.

And then some of us continue to forget that as the delivered, we are now invited to be on God’s team of deliverance. We need to remember the ultimate purpose that God has called us to and brace ourselves for that amazing adventure.”

Message given at Seven24, New Song Community Church, October 4th, 2010

I was in Laos for a couple of days renewing my Visa and as I took the time reflect, refocus, and breath, I couldn’t help but notice how much less heavy the whole atmosphere felt. Don’t get me wrong, I love where I live. I love that I get to be a part of a growing light in such a dark place, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say there wasn’t a heaviness to seeing such brokenness everyday.

The hope of Christ keeps me from giving in to the despair of it all. But to see such brokenness, to see such suffering, the heaviness tends to creep up on you from time to time as you are faced with the staggering question… Why?

We recently had a “visitor” in our little outreach house. We found him on the street dancing, dressed up in women’s clothes. He was 13 years old, all by himself with a shopping bag full of his belongings, rain pouring down. One of our teammates asked him who he was and what he was doing. No place to go, he told us, I need to make money to live. We had been doing outreach on that street long enough to know what that meant… he was selling his body.

It’s hard to get your head around a thing like this at first. What happened to this little boy that, a) he was out on the streets alone, b) he was dressed up as a woman and somehow believed he was one; and c) he was in a place where he felt he needed to sell his body to live. The darkness of that situation ran so deep I felt like I was walking around in a perplexed haze for days after our part in his life.

So we took him in. How could we let him stay on the streets, or God forbid in the home of some sick man, one more night? Then over a period of days we were thrown into a whirlwind of difficult situations as we tried to figure out how to care for this clearly traumatized little boy

I remember the feeling of helplessness as we finally found him a more permanent place to live knowing that he had such a long journey ahead of him to healing. Why?… I kept thinking… how could this happen, why does he have to go through this?

The best of us, even the most spiritual of us all, have come face to face with the problem of suffering in the world desperately seeking for an answer. And of course, as followers of Christ, we must ultimately rely on the underlying trust inside of us the God knows what he is doing and he will make everything right again, and we must wait in that hope.

But it’s hard not to feel distressed that there is so much pain in suffering in the world.

While I was on this trip to Laos, I took along with me a book called “The Giver.” This is standard reading for most 8^th graders now-a-days, and although I had already read this book, I couldn’t remember very much of it so I wanted to read it again. It is a story about a community of people, presumably sometime far in the future, that had figured out how to eliminate all suffering and pain of any kind. In order to obtain this, however, the community needed to be rid of any kind of deep emotion, because as they found out long ago, emotions, if not kept in check could cause exactly the type of pain they were trying to avoid. No strong attachments were allowed, everything was in pleasant order, no one ever got significantly hurt, but they had nurtured out love. They had been living this way for so long, no one even knew what love was. Only one person knew, the Receiver. The Receiver was the one who held all the memories of the past. Every hurt, every war, every epidemic, all the pains the world had ever gone though, he possessed inside of him. He held the burden of these memories so no one else would have to but also so that he could guide the leaders of the community to make decisions to avoid any reoccurrences of these hurts. What the receiver also held, however, was every memory of love… every Christmas, every wedding, every song, every painting, every hand in hand walk on the beach, all things these people no longer experienced. Yet he couldn’t keep these memories forever, as he got older, he needed to impart them to someone new. He became the Giver and a 12 year old boy became the new Receiver. Suddenly this boy was brought face to face with pain beyond anything he had ever felt or imagined, as he received these memories his whole world changed and he began to understand exactly why they made decisions to live this way. But with the memories of pain, he was also given the memories of love… which brings us to the most beautiful part of this whole story. Once he came to know the great experience of actual love, all of the pain seemed worth it. He no longer wanted to live in a world without love, even if it meant no suffering. He decided in the midst of all those memories of pain that it was all worth it, if it meant the reemergence of real love.

You cannot experience authentic love without risking great pain. And how can one ever see the true greatness of sacrificial love without the existence of need in the world? Somehow, great pain and great love go hand in hand. And although in some ways that may seem incredibly unfair in the cosmic sense of things, Love is worth it. And as we know from the great love letter that God sent to us, Love wins. It always wins. And at the end of time as we know it, Love will win again, once and for all.

So here we were, two little white girls wheeling our baggage down a less than even street attracting an unusual amount of stares from the street venders and foreign men.

“The adventure begins,” I told Janie “This is like the opening chapter to the memoirs we’re going to write on our experiences here…” I had just finished reading Jackie Pullinger’s experiences on being a missionary in the dark streets of the Walled City in Hong Kong and was feeling rather literary. It just seemed so surreal… was this really happening? Was I really moving into a less-than-ready building to live in with one other female one block away from the bars we did outreach at? What was I getting myself into?

But still, the adventure and possibilities of it all outweighed the fears. I knew God was going to great things here and I was excited to be chosen to be a part of it.

We felt like squatters the first week we were there. We couldn’t move into the floor that the newly renovated rooms were located because they were not ready yet, so we camped on the floor of the second floor. We shortly found out the water wasn’t working… and the construction guys were on vacation. That night we fell asleep to the muffled sounds of the bar music coming in from the street wondering where we were going to take a shower the next day.

Needless to say, it all eventually came together. The water was turned on and as the construction was completed we were able to move upstairs. Despite finding out that the music and noise from the street was louder on the 5^th floor than on the 2^nd, we were glad to finally move into our rooms.

I looked out the window that directly faces the rooftop bar whose music nightly threatened our sleep and thought, “This is my neighborhood.” As I looked down the street I could see it speckled with old white men hand in hand with young Thai girls, little kids from Cambodia begging for change, and bar after bar after bar… each full of Thai women beckoning at the foreign men to come inside.

There is two ways you can look at this, I remember thinking. You can either feel complete hopelessness for the condition of this place, or you can feel the joy of expectancy that God can and will bring restoration to this place. I chose the latter.

Although it threatens to wear on you at times, each day I get to live in this place is a joy and I have fallen in love with my neighborhood, my home, and my family.

I love “the hat man” that sells hats outside our door nightly with his sparkly eyes and kind demeanor. I like to think of him as our own personal doorman. I love “the vegetable lady” who cuts up vegetables for her vending cart in front of our house most mornings and/or afternoons who likes to give us gifts of whatever she is selling from time to time. I love the girl who sells coconuts on the corner who’s face lights up whenever I pass by and is always good for a chat and very patient as I practice my Thai on her. I love my conversations with one of the street girls who is always dressed eccentrically, has a rhinestone in one of her teeth and who always has a completely random story to tell me when I stop to see how she is doing. I love that God loves each and every one of these people and that our very presence in that building is starting something on that street an in those people.

I love that God has added to our community at the house since just the two of us moved in. First, a new long term volunteer that has graciously taken on the role of a house mother. She is always ready with an encouraging word or advice on various things. Her wisdom of years and maturity was a much-needed addition to the house. The next addition was our very first short-term, male volunteer who took up residence on the 4^th floor and who continually amazes me with his ability to put up with so many females. His intense kindness is daily refreshing, especially when your outlook on men and their potential tends to dim the longer you spend time in Thailand. It will be sad to see him go. Next came “our little girl” who is actually a grown woman who is in need of much care and attention due to her mental condition. With no other place to go, we took her in. We take care of her as a family, and I think that is the best part, learning to love sacrificially.

We, the Soi 4 family that is, had a time of worship and prayer together the other night. And as we sat there praying and sharing, we realized something. We realized that what we had was very good and sadly, very rare. That we could live together, worship, together, and serve together in fellowship with each other and Jesus Christ, we realized,  was what John was talking about when he referred to “making our joy complete” (1 John 1: 4).

In the reflective words of my roommate after our time of worship together on 1 John, “In real community there is vulnerability, where people can be real and exposed and there is no shame or withholding of love. If the church doesn’t do this, they are misrepresenting Jesus. He said He is the Light and that those who walk in the light have fellowship with Him. In the light, there is exposure and freedom.”

I am blessed to be a part of a community that longs to authentically live in the light in a dark neighborhood that so desperately needs it.

I just couldn’t believe it. It makes me sick just thinking about it. Partially because I don’t understand how this Craig guy can sleep at night. I keep thinking about how many justifications must run though his head in order to feel better about himself. Is he really any better than the traffickers themselves? Both parties are allowing a horrible atrocity to happen for personal gain.  But the sick feeling in my stomach had more to do with the fact that there have been plenty of times where I have used and loved Craig’s list without a second thought. And what does that make me? I know just looking for an apartment on Craigslist doesn’t make me a supporter of the things that happen through  that site, but what does it mean? It just made me think more intently about how many times we purchase or do something completely oblivious to the possible affect that action or purchase may or may not have on the world. Or maybe it does cross our minds but we have sold ourselves on the well rehearsed justification that since we are just one person there is no way anything I do can have that much impact of the world. But really? Is that ok? Can we really stand on that for too long? Because if everyone thought that way, nothing would change. The truth is, we have immense power, our actions say lot; integrity counts and it stands out in the world. We have no idea how much power one person has.

I watched The Blind Side last week. I cried through like 75% percent of it. I did not expect to be moved so much, but it was really quite uncontrollable. I was already in quite the emotional state because of the violent political protests that were going on around me. Watching the smoke billow up in the distance and hearing gunshots and explosions all night long for days does something to your state of being. As if seeing the destruction poverty has wreaked on the young girls of Thailand week after week is not enough, coming face to face with the reality of how completely reckless and heartless people can become when trying to prove their point sunk my heart to the point of tears on that first day when the violence was bad enough we had to send all of our workers home from Nightlight early so they could get home safely.

People are capable of so much damage… but those same people are also capable of so much good.

This movie, The Blind Side, illustrates perfectly what I am saying here. In the movie we see a woman, probably a little too wealthy and comfortable for her own good, using what she has to change the life of another. She has the perfect American dream of a life. There is no reason why she should or would want to complicate things by taking in some kid off the street. But that is exactly what she did. She took a risk, and it paid off because as the movie progresses, we notice something even more beautiful: the role her loving actions play not only in the changing of herself but the role these actions play in bringing to attention the blind selfishness the people in her circle lived in. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when she is at a lunch date with other rich wives in her circle and they realize for the first time that her actions are not just some silly whim that people of their sort tend to do from time to time to make themselves feel better, but a true self sacrificing act of love. It is at moments like these that one persons acts of love, integrity, or compassion can start the wheels rolling on the transformation of a whole community.

When we do something out of the norm… people notice… so why not make it count?

I was listening to a sermon the other day and the pastor said something like “I am all about rebellion. I am all about living alternative lifestyles. If you want to be rebellious and alterative in this day, stay a virgin… marry and stay married for a lifetime…. actually ask forgiveness when you sin against somebody…live on half your income when you don’t have to…There has never been a greater opportunity for the church in America to stand out form the rest of the world than there is right now!”

And its just so true! There is so much power in our everyday choices and actions.

But the problems is, we are too used to not risking anything, too used to not sacrificing much. We never want to get too uncomfortable. We have all these imaginary lines we draw between reasonable and unreasonable. We ask, for example, is it really reasonable to have to buy fair trade? It’s more expensive… I have to look harder… it’s so inconvenient… But really? Is it really all that unreasonable? Because what if we really understood how much power we have as a consumer? That if we refused to buy things that perpetuated slavery and unfair wages in the world we could ACTUALLY help to save the world. What action is actually the more unreasonable one here?… And think of how much we would stand out if we actually lived with that type of integrity? How much awareness would be spread? How much we could make people question their everyday selfishness?

What if, for example, when everyone else was buying an iPhone, you kept your old less smart phone and decided to sponsor a couple of children in developing countries instead? “Why do you still have that old phone?” someone would inevitably ask as you fumble through your texting effort with your oh so small button keys. “Well, let me tell you why… you see, I made a choice…”

When we do something out of the norm people notice…

And when people notice the possibilities are twofold, we get to help wake this sleeping society up, and we get to point to Christ.

Everything we do should point to Christ. By simply doing what I do here in Thailand, it has opened the door to countless conversations that all point to God. “That’s a great thing you are doing,” they inevitably say. “ I do it because God loves me…,” I am free to answer.

We just need to figure out what it is we want our lives to be about. Because when Jesus tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves I think he means it. And have you ever sat down and thought about what that means practically? Do we really care about others just as much as we care about ourselves? How does that play out in our everyday?

We have the power, what are we going to do with it?

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)

“But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.” (1 John 3:17)

So now, since it is Easter week and all, I have been more intentionally trying to get myself in the mindset of the reason for our celebration of Easter. How great to be able to center in on the single most important time in all of history. So many heart wrenching emotions and events all leading up the moment everything finally came together and started to make sense, the literal in-breaking of a new era and the moment humanity was able to witness the incredible power of God and the lengths that he will go to bring us to restoration.

But what continues to elude me the most about the incredible life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the immense amount of power that is behind it all. That this man, Our God, operates in a power that not only created all of existence, but also in a power that can defeat death.  And I suppose this power is somewhat comprehendible considering he is God of the universe and all. But then when you add in the fact that the power that resurrected Jesus Christ from his grave is also the same power that is available to all of us?…. that continues to absolutely blow my mind.

It is unreal how much we go though life underestimating our God and his power at work in us.

I sometimes get uncomfortable when I tell people what I do. Mostly because people react in a way I find unfitting. There is a certain air of “I could never do something like that… that is so amazing that you can.” As if it takes some sort of super Christian to move out side of your comfort zone and serve. The problem here is that it’s not me that does anything, it is all God. If God can call me and enable me to do something such as this, God can call any of his people to do anything of the sort.

Because I don’t think that Jesus defeated death for us so that we could live ordinary lives.

Freedom is the key I think. Freedom from the lies that we have chosen to believe. Freedom from believing we are not good enough, freedom from believing what our society has ingrained in us, freedom, really, from the belief that our God isn’t big enough.

There is this practice I just learned when a team came though to minister to the kids of the mothers here at Nightlight. The children’s program was designed to get the kids to really focus on hearing God. One of the things I was told they would have them do is picture God at the end of a path. “Now…” they would begin, “ is there anything in between you and that path to God?” It’s a great visualization process really and quite worth some thought. What do we put between us and God? What keeps us from tapping into the fullness of the power that God has to offer?

The question that plagued me the most while I was in America was always, “Is my own security and comfort more important to me than the Kingdom of God?” It is the American Dream, the essence of our perceived needs. It is this desire for earthly security and comfort, for the meeting of our own private needs, that highjacks us so and cripples our effect in the world. We are taken victim, fed lies, and then adjust our perception of the world accordingly. Then our tainted worldview affects everything we do.

We settle. And when we settle we lose out on the greater things that are far better than our own personal comfort, security, and success. We lose out on living in the true power and abundance of God.

One of my favorite verses of all time is John 10:10- “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Not Just life… life to the FULL… abundant life… he saved us from a life of settling.

If we spent half as much time loving others in the power of Christ as we did caring about our own lives and securities, do you know how much impact we could have in this world? Picture the abundance of that world. It’s about believing in that power that Christ offers. The power to overcome our perceived needs, the power to reach out no matter what the cost to ourselves.

The longer I am out here the more I realize how much need there is in this world. As Americans, and more than that, as children of God, we have so much power to make an incredible impact yet we continue to be highjacked by false realities that have nothing to do with the advancing of God’s Kingdom.

This past month as been full of being able to witness new beginnings.I saw 9 girls get baptized, 3 new girls get hired, and two of them accept Christ. Any of these events is nothing less than a miracle; each event a reminder of how powerful our God is and how powerful we become when surrendered to our God. None of these things could have happened if not for ordinary people reaching out in the extraordinary power of our God.

In the season of new beginnings and new hope, perhaps it is fitting for us to reflect on what newness Christ needs to bring about in each of us. What have we been putting between us and God that short-circuits his power at work in us? Because part overcoming the problems and darkness of this world is being willing to sacrifice everything and work in the fullness of his power.

Ephesians 1

18I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

I remember when I was a kid, Valentine’s Day was one of my favorite holidays. For some reason it was seriously almost right up there with Christmas for me. To this day I still can’t fully remember or explain why this holiday filled me with so much excitement.

Maybe it was because In elementary school, Valentine’s Day was done right, no one got left out.

You remember how it went, right? The night before valentines day I would spend hours pouring over my little purchased  box of Valentines cards picking out the right ones for each of my classmates. Then I would fill the little envelopes with a few conversation hearts (this was way before any of them said things like “tweet me” or “see you on-line” by the way) or tape a red Hersey’s kiss to the outside. Then on THE day, a few hours were set aside so that everybody in class could make their own little Valentines card box. Then it began, the passing out of the cards. One by one everyone would make their way around the desks dropping little valentines wishes in each mail box. No picking and choosing, everyone received a Valentine from everyone in the class. Then you would sit at your desk and open each of the cards enjoying all the little treasures. I loved it! How could such simple little things like a tiny little card and a few pieces of candy fill me with such joy? All I know is that I remember no shame, no sadness, no longing for a significant other, cause that was not what I understood Valentine’s Day to be about yet.

Valentine’s Day to me was a simple day to show and receive a little bit of love to and from the people around you. It was pure and simple.

Of course as you get older, the day takes on new meaning. Jr. High is where I believe it stopped being so fun for me. No more Valentines day mailboxes. Friends now could pick and choose who they wanted to give cards and candy to. And to make it worse, there was always some club that sold these evil things called “Valentines Day Grahams.” These were little gifts that you could preorder to be delivered during class time to anyone you wanted to buy one for. They became a status symbol, people carried them around like trophies. The “cool kids” always had tons while the rest of us frantically arranged for a friend to send us one just so we wouldn’t feel left out.

Its so odd how the human race always seems to find a way to stratify itself, declaring some less worthy than others, most of the time without even realizing it.

Last night Nightlight did a Valentine’s Day outreach. A group of women from the states brought over valentines day cards and candy and made around 1000 little gift bags to hand out. We hit the streets of the red light district armed with these simple little gifts and began passing them out to the “working” women. We even entered the go-go bars and passed them out the girls dancing on the stage. I have never seen anyone so happy to receive such simple little gifts; they were ecstatic. The whole thing reminded me of elementary school Valentine’s Day again, the pure innocence of it all, that is. Valentine’s Day once again was turned into a day to share simple acts of love, no showing favorites, no coupling off, just simple acts of leveling love.

Before we went out that night we all spent some time in prayer together and I remembered someone saying “Thank you God for not showing favorites, you love everyone the same,” and it struck a chord in me.

God’s love is a leveling love.

God never leaves anyone out. And that is so powerful, because there is no other love like that. Its hard not to be in awe of Jesus’ limitless love that we freely receive by no merit of our own. Even in light of our blatant disobedience at times, He still loves us, that’s a love that can drop one to her knees if one would spend some time thinking about that reality.

So let this be an encouragement to you this Valentine’s Day as we reflect of the true meaning of Love:

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

1 John 4: 7-11

Its really quite amazing spending the holidays in another culture. Most of us have had the experience of spending Christmas with someone else’s family, while away or at your significant other’s, and that in and of itself is different. But to do the holidays in I completely different culture with no family member or long time loved one n sight, well, that is something.

I’m not a huge fan of the holidays, actually. I always feel like I am drowning in them back home. Thanksgiving is great…. food….family… ain’t nothing wrong with that. Thanksgiving is what Christmas should be. Then materialism comes in and messes it all up.

I found that the materialism followed me to Thailand, living in the city means living around the wealth. Thailand is still considered a developing country… but there are still people here with LOTS of money, the starkness between the rich and the poor here is insane. I have never seen such ridiculously large and extravagant shopping malls in my life… then to go from there to outreach at the bars where you know most of them ended up there because of poverty, it’s a tough feeling to deal with.

For Christmas Eve this year the Nightlight team teamed up with another ministry to spread some Christmas cheer. Armed with a few hundred roses and special gifts for the street kids, we dressed up in Christmas colors and learned a couple of carols in Thai. It was great spreading a little bit of joy around in such a dark place, but as we entered the redlight area and saw all the Western men there doing as they always do, my heart broke a little more than usual. It was Christmas Eve, and the bars seemed even more full than usual…

There is so much that can cloud us away from the true meaning of Christmas just like there is so much that can cloud us from the true meaning of life. What Christmas is supposed to be is a reminder of that meaning, a reminder of the in-breaking of our savior who saved us from that darkness and cloudiness that threatens every corner of this world. A reminder of Christ Joy, Peace, and Love…

Christmas night I left on a train for Chaing Mai, the cooler hill country of Thailand, for a little break from the city. It was absolutely beautiful. I was looking forward to escaping into nature for a little bit. We decided to go white water rafting. It was great fun winding our way around all of those obstacles laughing and screaming my head off. Then at the end of our run we entered a clam part of the river. The rushing water sounds stopped and all that was left to hear was the gentle sounds of nature and the occasional swishing of a paddle. The transition was incredible. The peace of it all almost brought me to tears. And all I could think of was “the peace of God which transcends all understanding…”

“This…” I thought, “is what Christmas should be.”

Instead of craziness, and materialism, and stressing out over all the gifts to be bought and Christmas parties to go to, Christmas should be time of re-centering of the Peace and Hope that Jesus Christ offers us.

One of My favorite Christmas carols is “Oh Holy Night.” One of the lines in particular stood out to me this year, “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks, a new and glorious morn…”

When we think of the inbreaking of Jesus into this world, a thrill of hope should run through us, joy should well up, not because of things we might get, but because no matter how weary we get in this dark world…. There is hope, Jesus Christ… which brings about a peace like no other.