It's a funny thing when you get home, and nothing has
changed. Everything is still waiting for you, just the way you left it. Waiting
for you to sort through it. Waiting for you to dig through the junk and toss
what you don't need anymore.
As we pulled into the garage coming back from the airport I
noticed a few boxes from my old apartment sitting in the exact same spot I left
them, just collecting dust. I didn't think much of it, but as the days passed I
couldn't help but notice those boxes every time I went to get in the car. They
were in my way - still are in my way -
and I have to make an effort to get passed them every time I want to go
somewhere. They are just sitting there, almost mocking me. It's almost as if
they are saying "we're still here... what, you thought because you left
the country we'd just magically disappear??"
Nope. They remained exactly as I left them - now a tad more stale and dusty -
but still there, untouched. Still there, waiting to be dealt with. Still there,
waiting for me to figure out where to put them and what to do with the contents
inside. STILL THERE.
As I've been home and thinking over the past few days the
reality of it has sunk in. One day, sooner or later, I'm gonna have to sit down
and go through those boxes. I'm going to have to take time out of my day to dig
through the dusty junk that has been sitting there for months and months and
sort through it. I'm going to have to get rid of things I don't need anymore,
and I'm going to have to let go of the memories that go along with those
"things".
So... Incase you haven't figured it out... it's a funny thing
how a box of junk can be so metaphoric. Now that I'm home and settled in a few
days, I find it no coincidence that I'm here at the exact time that I am. Yes,
I've just been through a lot - a whole crap load of "a lot" - and I've learned
a lot through it... but the cycle of learning life's lessons is never ending. And
it looks as though there are some things that are still waiting for me to "sort
through" them. Silly me. And I thought I'd be in Europe, far far away from
having to sort through any dusty thoughts or memories I had left back at home.
Silly, silly me. And clever, clever God, him with his perfect timing and
everything. I'm really not being facetious
when I say that - I am truly amazed at how he sets things up and how perfect
his timing is. He sure got me on this one. But he sure knows what he is doing.
And I sure know that in the past I'd stuff those boxes even further under a
cupboard to deal with later - maybe I would just deal with them when I was
healthier. I mean I have an excuse. I was sick with malaria. I need to recover.
Maybe I would just deal with them when I had more time. When I wasn't so busy
trying to get better to go back on the race. When I wasn't so busy laying
around watching LOST all day. When I wasn't so busy keeping my mind numb enough
not to think about the reality of all that has happened, and all that is about
to happen in the next few weeks.
Well, not this time.
I said I was ready for whatever God had for me next, and so I'm ready to get
into those dusty boxes and toss the stuff I don't need. I'm ready to face letting
go.
"If God is for us, who can be against us?" Nothing. No one. Things might be difficult, but
nothing is too big for God. And with him to lean on, what have we to fear?
Absolutely nothing.
As most of you know I got sick in Nigeria and had to be sent
home. Here's how the story unfolds...
What I remember:
We were staying in a little village called Iwo, Nigeria. I
don't have much to say about the place except the power went out about every 15
minutes and it was h-o-t HOT there. My
roommate and friend Courtney had just come down with typhoid, and I had been
taking care of her for about 2 days. I was beginning to feel very tired and
drained, and emotionally it was really difficult to see my good friend so sick.
My other teammates rotated off with me and I moved into the other room so they
could help take care of her for a while, and I could get some sleep. I noticed
that I was starting to have this weird feeling - the feeling I get when I'm
about to get a fever - and we were laughing/crying in a ball of pent up emotion
because it just seemed that I had stressed myself out to the point of being
sick about it. I really figured I was just sick because of stress and our lack
of good nutrition for that month...
I remember sleeping for about 2 days, just not feeling like
I could get out of bed. Then I
began to really start feeling sick - my fever spiked and we decided to have the
doctor come visit me. They took some tests, hooked me up to an IV drip, and
came back an hour later to tell me I had tested positive for malaria. Great,
is all I could think. Now half
our team is sick!! After that is all a blur
- that night my fever spiked again insanely high and I remember having
delusions and nightmares about Gilmore Girls all night - haha. Who has delusions about that!!? Only me. Not so sure I can ever watch that show again... anyways, I just closed my eyes and
tried to drown out all the noise in my head...
... when I opened my eyes I had no idea where I was. As my
vision focused I saw Bill's smiling face and all I could say was "Where am I?"
and he brightly replied: "You have malaria and you are at the hospital". I was on a cot in the middle of a big
room, and there was a fan blowing on me and an IV drip going into my hand. I'll
never forget the taste or the smell... I had the taste of the meds in my mouth,
and the medicine was just sweating out of my pores. I hope I never have to
smell and taste those things again. From that point on it was a blurry series
of memories - being poked with several needles, being sponged down, finding out
my squad-mates donated blood so I could have a transfusion, waking up at random
hours of the night feeling as if I hadn't drank water in months, and best of
all, waking up to find I was never ever alone at any point. My brothers and
sisters were by my side 24-7, and although I didn't have the strength to voice
it at the time, it was the most comforting feeling to wake up in that cold, creepy
place and see that I wasn't alone. Not even at 4 in the morning.
I ended up being life flighted to Paris where I received
more treatment and 2 more blood transfusions, and the next thing I know I was
on a plane with my father headed back to Ohio. I had an appointment here at the
Cleveland Clinic and it wasn't until I reviewed my charts and everything that
had happened that I even realized how serious the illness was and what I had
gone through. I had a strain of malaria called "Falciparum malaria" which turns
out to be the most severe form of it. My kidneys had failed, my blood count was
scarily low, and all these other things happened to me that I really had no
idea were going on at the time. But the blessing in disguise is that even
though it's the worst strain of the virus, it's also the only one that doesn't
stay in your system. Once it's out, it's out, so you never have to worry about
a relapse. Praise God for that!
As we touched down in Detroit I was overwhelmed with
emotion: This is the end for me, and I didn't even get to say goodbye, was all I could think. The tears started flowing and
didn't stop for quite some time. Then it hit me... What am I thinking?
Who says this is the end? Who says I can't recover and go back for the last
month?? So I have a goal: I am going to
Ireland for SURE for the Awakening conference, but I'm gonna shoot for even
sooner then that. I'm aiming for the month of August for the last month of
ministry with my team - ultimately it's up to God and to the Dr.'s - and my
family might want to have a little say in it too ;) - but God has proven to be so insanely faithful and I have learned so much the
past few weeks that I know whatever the outcome is - I will be exactly where He
wants me. And I'm ok with that, whatever it may look like.
And this may sound morbid, but I learned more through being
sick then ever before. God hears our
prayers. God listens, and He answers. It seems so simple, so infantile, but it has never
been more real and true to me. And He is always, always with us. People had always given me words about how
God has a big plan for my life... I believed it, but sort of shrugged it off. Now
I know. I have no doubt that He
kept me around for a reason - and I am so ready to take on whatever it is that is coming my way.
- there are more minature goats then people crossing the street...
- your pastor/contact gets in a fist fight on the way home from church ...
- you and your teammate learn the hard way not to spray a 3 in. cockroach with RAID - yes they dofly, and it will be right into your bed...
- malaria among the squad becomes as common as the every-day head cold...
- when a local is speaking with you and puts his hand up in the "stop" motion and says "Ok, I am coming..." it really means he is going and will proceed to walk away
- you will be asked to preach... every day... five times a day...
- you will be asked to preach... at 3 a.m.
- because you are white means you are very rich, know Obama, and have access to grant whoever you are speaking with a visa to enter the U.S.
- Jesus is a Weeeenah Maahhhhn (that is, a Winner Man) and you can apparently carry Him on your back...
- you go camping in Togo with 3 random people, pick up some hitch hikers from American University, get in a fender bender, and still somehow manage to have the weekend of a lifetime...
- you get invited to a goodbye party for a co-worker you met that day, show up with 20 ppl you don't know, and salsa dance while you are waiting for your food...
- you meet amazing people that will probably be a part of your life somehow or another even though you only knew them for 2 weeks - some will only remain in your fondest memories and some will keep in touch for a lifetime - but all equally meaningful relationships...
- the biggest thing that is motivating you to get through the end of this month is the fact that there is a Mc Donalds and a Starbucks waiting for you at your 4 a.m. layover in Madrid, Spain
Well, we have come to the end of another month. It's been hard for me to sit down and write about everything that's been going on because honestly, I don't even know where to begin. It seems like I start every blog like that... hmmm...
This month we have been in Togo, a tiny little country in West Africa that most people have never heard of. About 10 of us worked on the Africa Mercy, a ship that goes around West Africa and docks in different ports and does medical missions where they are. My job was chopping veggies in the galley with Allison, and it was actually kind of fun! Okay, lots of fun. Being on the ship has been a blessing - we have air conditioning, doctors, reces cups, starbucks, and SO many amazing people from all over the world. We stayed in a big city yet again, which was a little disheartening because I have been wanting to see Africa - the Africa I knew I'd fall in love with. Not the hustle bustle of a large city, but the true heart of this continent that you find in the villages and jungles that not many people visit. Just as I was feeling I might not get to see that this time around, God decided to give me the chance...
This weekend was amazing. It was truly an adventure...The best weekend on the race, by far. So. Let me try and sum it up for you! :)
So, there is a guy named Joel on the ship. He is an optometrist from Ireland, and he drove here to Togo all the way from his homeland in a VW van to work on the ship. Well, he was talking to Allison and asked if we had ever been out of any of the cities in Africa yet. She said no, and he said that we are really missing out on Africa because the cities are nothing compared to what Africa really is (which I could sense...). So he invited her to ask 3 or 4 ppl to go camping with him over the weekend to a place up north. She asked me, Annie and April to go, and he brought two of his friends who work on the ship as well... Micah from Chicago and Jens from Denmark. They all 3 are awesome men of God - they are respectful and leaders and goofy and nuts and fun all at the same time... We packed up Saturday morning, loaded up in Joel's VW van (which didn't have anything but open space in the back so some of us sat on folding chairs) and started the trek up to the mountains. We got there about 11 am and set up camp in a clearing in the mountains. Togo is beautiful... we were in the mountains, in the jungle, in Africa, camping. We ate lunch and then hiked down the mountain to a waterfall and all swam for a few hours. We got caught in a downpour but it didn't matter cause we were all in the water anyways. The hike back up the "hill" was treacherous, but only cause we are all a tad out of shape. We got back to the top, changed into dry warm clothes (it was actually chilly with the rain) and sat under a tarp and played cards and drank hot chocolate till the rain stopped. Then we made dinner on Joel's "wee little stove" and then had a bonfire. The locals came up when it got dark and they brought their drums and played for us and we all danced around the fire and learned their songs and dances... then went to bed and slept like babies. We woke up at 3:30 in the morning by screaming roosters, which was not fun. They were RIGHT outside our tents, we could pretty much see their shadows by our heads... annnd they didn't shut up until like 7 am - but that was just a minor set back. We ate breakfast, hiked to the falls again, and then went to the top of another mountain before we headed back into the city with 3 student hitch hikers we picked up along the way from American University. We played games the whole way back and laughed till our stomachs hurt... it was just an amazing weekend.
THIS is the Africa I knew I'd fall in love with, and I definitely did. I'm sad to leave Togo, and sad to leave new friends as quickly as we met them...but I know that Nigeria will have just as much excitement in store for us. So look out, cause World Team Police is coming your way ;) ;)
Over the past few days it's been an ongoing joke for me to come up with idioms and explain them to my new non-Americans friends. It's pretty amusing... we got some big laughs trying to explain stuff like, that's it in a nutshell, or laughing my head off, or he went the whole 9 yards... Well, as I was thinking about it later, I came up with another one - one that's been on my heart very much the last few days.
Putting your heart on the line.
What does that mean, exactly? The definition might differ depending on who you ask, but here's the way I see it: it means to completely open yourself up and allow someone into your life, unselfishly and unjudgingly. To pour into their life and give all you can without expecting anything back in return. To allow them to have a piece of your heart despite the fact that they're human and could potentially disappoint you, leave you, or even hurt you...
I feel like that's what I've been doing for the past 7 months. Upon leaving Togo I've been plagued with thoughts of things like "Why did I sign up for a trip where I have to say goodbye 11 times? Why do I bother building relationships with people when chances are I will never see them again? Why does God allow such amazing people in and out of my life so briefly?" . Well after stewing about it for quite some time, it hit me... That's what being a Christian is all about. My relationship with the people that enter in and out of my life should be a reflection of my relationship with Christ. That is what He did for us... infact, He sacrificed His entire life for the sake of a people that consistantly fail him and let him down - over and over agin. And how does He react when we let Him down? He opens His arms and invites us right back in without even a second thought. It's not even an issue! As Christians we are called to continuously put our hearts on the linefor Him - whatever that may look like. For me, it's been building relationships and friendships with the knowledge that I will be leaving - yet not letting that hold me back. It hurts, and I feel like every time I leave a place a little piece of my heart stays along back with it. But I also know that God has blessed me tremendously in my life, especially in the last 7 months. I wouldn't trade anything for the things I have been able to see and the incredible people I have been able to meet.
There ya have it, short and sweet. Don't really know what else to say, honestly. That's what has been on my heart these last few days.
Sorry about the lack of blogs lately... a few mishaps have gotten in the way of me being able to post anything. My laptop that I brought suddenly only works when it is plugged into the wall - and of course my power converters have all mysteriously stopped working. So that leaves me to type my blogs at the internet cafe which is about 2 hours away... The last place we were at had internet but it took about 25 minutes just to check my email...
SO. All that aside, I love Africa!!! From the minute our plane touched down I had chills. We were greeted at the airport by the entire staff that we're doing ministry with, and they've done nothing but go out of their way to take care of us the past few weeks. The first two weeks we spent in a city called Tema working with a lady named Rev. Martha. We helped out at her church, preaching and teaching and playing music for them. Our last 2 weeks we are staying in a seaside village called Kokrobite with a man named Rev. Gabriel. He is absolutely wonderful, and our ministry has been much of the same stuff as we did with Rev. Martha. When it comes to speaking at churches, let's just say that is not my strong point... At first I almost felt like a lost puppy dog without a piano! Haha. But I'm learning and definitely getting better about getting up infront of a crowd of people. It is HOT HOT HOT here, so hot that even though we have rooms to sleep in, we sleep in our tents because it's almost suffocating inside. And for some reason we have a nice breeze throughout the day - but at night everything is absolutely still and even in our tents we sweat through the night! There's no reason to complain, however, because we are literally 20 steps from the beach :)
Anyways, that's the quick update for you all... I'll be writing more blogs soon about everything going on in more detail. Hopefully the internet situation will be a little more manageable in the next few weeks!
- "look both ways before you cross the street" no longer means anything. "hold your hand out as you casually stroll through 6 lanes of on-comming traffic" is more the norm here - if you wait till "just after that truck" you will be there for 25 minutes... and your teammates will leave you behind...
- you feel ripped off when you come across a meal that costs more then $0.75 (U.S currency)
- you walk past some puppies on the street and tell the owner "ohhh I like this one, it's cute" and point to one you'd like to hold... in which case he picks it up, takes it in the back, and ten minutes later has it quartered up and boxed up for you to cook for dinner...
- seeing up to 6 people on one moto is completely normal
- you stay up for 24 hours straight before a travel day just so you are able to sleep on the bus
- your van driver drives 100 mph, passing cars that are passing cars, not seeming to mind if traffic is rapidly approaching from the other direction
- you willingly jump into an SUV with 3 complete strangers you just met on a tour who offer to give you a ride home in avoidance of riding the city bus
- a dance party consists of pressing the different "rhythm" buttons on an old yamaha keyboard
- you have access to cozy beds with blankets, yet you find your teammate taking a nap on the cold hard floor
- "same same but different" has become a normal part of your vocabulary
- living with a stomach ache almost every day is normal
- even things that "have no fish sauce" in them... are made with fish sauce
- YWAM in Bangkok feels like home
- you jump in a cab and tell the driver who doesn't speak any english where you want to go... and somehow manage get there
- you are in downtown Ho Chi Minh City and an Abba song comes on and you and your teammates start dancing in the street, as locals surround you and take pictures, then ask you for your autograph when the song is over
- you have spent 3 months here and it doesn't seem "foreign" anymore...
- it's harder to leave this nation then it was to leave home 5 months ago...
We are leaving Asia in 4 days... I never thought it would be so difficult to leave a place that was not "home". In the past 3 months I have seen so many amazing things, and met so many amazing brothers and sisters in Christ... I can't believe our time here is through. I know Africa is going to be crazy awesome - but I also know that nothing can replace the people I have met here, and the things I have learned. You all will have a place in my heart forever! And like I tell everyone I've met, it's not goodbye forever. It's just "see you later". Maybe I'll be back one day, who knows?
As most of you know, this month is not one where I am able to share many specifics. Sooo I thought I'd take some time to let you know how God has been working in me personally.
One of the most appealing things to me when I applied for the race was the opportunity to "spread the Love" to the nations... A chance to play with orphans, teach English and Bible lessons, love on those that might never have experienced true Love before. A chance to reach out to the "unlovable" people, so to speak - the sick, the elderly, the unclean. And of course, a chance to see the world. We've been able to do all that and much more, but I'm beginning to realize that those things are just the beginning - just the surface - of what the Race is actually about. I'm starting to realize maybe... just a little bit... subconsciously...at the beginning... I thought it would also be a chance to escape my own struggles.
HA!! WRONG. I was sorely mistaken... but in a good way.
One thing I've always struggled with is patience. I've always been on the edge of my seat about "the next chapter" of my life. As soon as one chapter begins, I'm already anxious to know what's going to happen 100 pages from now. Where will I live after college is over? Who will I marry? How many kids will I have? And now...What the heck am I going to do after the Race? These are typical run-of-the-mill questions, I'm sure of that. I'm a girl, for crying out loud! The problem is, I never waited on God's plan - I always tried to make it happen myself. I always tried to figure it out before I was supposed to. That is where I got myself into some serious hardship... Looking back I can see I wanted all those things so badly that I would rush the answers - in turn making some bad judgement calls. I could only see my idea of the perfect end result, completely blind to what was actally happening. I would pray and pray for an "answer" but felt like I wasn't receiving any. Over the past few weeks that old feeling has started to creep up on me again, even thousands of miles away from home... and it just hit me... God's going to keep bringing this up until I learn to completely trust Him with it. Either I give it all to Him, or live one long, tiresome, anxious life. And really, that's no way to live! I also have been thinking that God doesn't answer prayers in just Yes or No... all those times I thought I wasn't hearing anything, I think I just didn't want to accept that the answer was wait.
All this going through my mind the last couple of days, and so Monday I turned to Sage's daily devotional (that was Feb 22) and it was all too fitting for me not to share it with you:
PATIENCE
"Have you prayed and prayed and waited and waited, and still there is no manifestation? Are you tired of seeing nothing move? Are you just at the point of giving it all up? Perhaps you have not waited in the right way? This would take you out of the right place - the place where He can meet you.
"With patience wait" (Romans 8:25). Patience takes away worry. He said He would come, and His promise is equal to His presence. Patience takes away from your weeping. Why feel sad and despondent? He knows your need better than you do, and His purpose in waiting is to bring more glory out of it all. Patience takes away self-works. The work He desires is that you "believe" (John 6:29), and when you believe, you may then know that all is well. Patience takes away all want. Your desire for the thing you wish is perhaps stronger than your desire for the will of God to be fulfilled in its arrival.
Patience takes away all weakening. Instead of having the delaying time, a time of letting go, know that God is getting a larger supply ready and must get you ready too. Patience takes away all wobbling. "Make me stand upon my standing" (Daniel 8:18, margin). God's foundations are steady; and when His patience is within, we are steady while we wait. Patience gives worship. A praiseful patience sometimes "longsuffering with joyfulness" (Col. 1:11) is the best part of it all. "Let [all these phases of] patience have her perfect work" (James 1:4), while you wait, and you will find great enrichment."
So yeah. So much for thinking that God wasn't telling me anything - I'd say that's pretty clear! So here's to turning over a new leaf to trust and patience. No longer worrying about the future, but focusing on the here and now, and everything I'm learning and experiencing. I know there will be days when it's not easy, but at least now I can rest on the fact that He's got it. Not withholding anything from me, but just keeping it for a while until it's the perfect time.
And that, my friends, is more comforting then anything I could ever come up with :)
Hold steady when the fires burn,
When inner lessons come to learn,
So here I am in Cambodia, and for a couple weeks now I've been struggling with what to write about. There's so much on my heart that I really don't even know how to put it into words. The past places we have been have all touched me, but none in the way that this place has. I guess it's not fair to say that I feel more connected to the people and the villages here then the months before because each place I go to it seems I feel more intensely about the last. But I can honestly say there is just something about these people and this nation that hits my heart in a very different way then I've ever experienced.
I can't lie - our first couple days in Cambodia I was not too thrilled. The whole process of getting into the country was long and tiring, and it seemed as if we went back 20 years when we crossed the boarder from Thailand. Strange sights, strange language, and very strange smells... it was by far the most "foreign" feeling place we've been to yet. Cambodia is also referred to as "Indo-China" because of it's strong influences from China and India, and I could clearly see the aspects of both cultures right from the beginning. Not that I've ever been to either place, haha. But from what I have heard and seen and read about, I gather it's spot on :). The country is on the up and up right now, coming out of a 20 year genocide called the Khmer Rouge. Thousands upon thousands of people were brutally murdered, women and children included, simply for being educated. The leader of the regime would go to the villages and ask for all of the educated people, and trick them into thinking he had jobs for them if they left with him. Instead they were taken to concentration camps and killing fields and murdered because he wanted to wipe out anybody that could potentially be strong enough or smart enough to rise against him. This all completely ended in 1997, and some of the people we are working with have shared with us the things they have experienced and seen in their lifetime.
Although the country is growing tremendously, it is still facing huge problems with poverty and hunger... and alcoholism is a huge problem here. It's not like in the states where college age kids go out and drink too much... it's fathers of 4 and 5 children literally selling the roof over their heads for alcohol. It's 10 year old girls and boys raising their younger brothers and sisters because their parents have either drank themselves to death or are on their way to it. It's enslaving the elderly and the crippled and the tiny children out to beg for money - which they then take and use for themselves. I was sorely mistaken in thinking that human trafficking only effected young women... there's many different forms of it, and although the sex industry is a huge part of it, it's not the only one.
It's not all hopeless, though. The ministry we are working with is absolutely amazing and I am so grateful that we have fallen into their hands. They take "at risk" girls and provide them with a skill that gives them an out to the lifestyle they had been living before. They have youth group and church for the villiages out in the countryside which I've been working at, teaching English and even teaching piano to some of the staff (whom I have slowly but surely become very close with). We also drive from home to home to teach english to the orphans that don't really have a way of getting to the youth center/church they had built. They "bring the church" to the people that can't get there. There is a woman who is crippled from polio and can't leave her house - it is built up on 15 foot stilts because of the flooding in the rainy season, but there are no steps for her to get down even if she could. When I asked about it they explained to me that's where she stayed all day every day, and because of that they bring the church to her - because that is what God intended the church to be. Talk about a gut check. It really put a lot of things into perspective for me, especially my view of "the church" and how many are run in America. On a different note, we also were lucky enough to hand out the shoeboxes from Operation Christmas Child... to say that I was the person who got to hand that box to a naked little kid covered in dirt in a village in Cambodia is almost inexplainable! Especially to see that those boxes we pack up at church really do make it to the children across the world.
We are usually out literally from sun up to sun down, working 12 hour days. We are hungry and exhausted by the time we finish in the evenings, yet I have never felt so fulfilled at the end of a day. I love love love it here... I don't know how I'm supposed to leave in 8 days! I know I have to, but it won't be easy.
Miss you and love you all back at home!! Thank you for all your support and encouragement. I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a while, I promise I will be more faithful with it in the weeks to come. ;)
So many crazy things have happened in the last couple of days, it's hard to even know where to start. I have a feeling I'll have quite a few blogs over the next few days. There's just no way I can fit everything that happened into one.
Yesterday we had a Christmas party for the girls in the English class, which was also our last class to help out with. As the girls filtered in I saw a new face in the crowd and I realized it was a lady that I had talked to a couple nights before in the bar as she was working - Her name is Put. I invited her to come to class just like I had with many other girls, and she actually decided to show up! It was so amazing to see her there, and the feeling it gave me was just indescribable. She told me (in very broken English) that all of us women were beautiful inside and out and she could see there was something different about us. She asked if I would be there for class on Thursday and I had to tell her no, we were leaving to go back to Bangkok. Her eyes welled up with tears and she pulled a ring off one of her fingers and put it on mine and asked that I please don't forget her... I told her that was not possible and I loved her and God loved her, then we hugged and parted. I am terrible at goodbyes, and that was one of the hardest I've ever had to go through... or so I thought.
That night we went out again for the last time to talk to the ladies working the streets and the bars. We headed out at about 6 pm... usually at that time the girls are putting on their make-up and still primping themselves and not too distracted by trying to catch men yet. I was paired up with a Thai girl who had just become a Christian 6 months ago, and we set off to a bar across the street. Apparently this was the bar that Sage and Jordan sat outside of and ate ice cream and felt compelled to pray over the other day, but I didn't know that at the time. Anyways, we went in there, walked up and down the huge aisle and finally sat down at one of the bars in the middle. We started talking with one of the bartenders named Sip (pronounced Seep) and before I knew it she was in tears. She hated her job, she hated selling herself to men, she hated her boss. She had heard about God before but always felt like He had no reason to forgive her or love her after all she had done - she had even heard about the Tamar Center and tried to call them about going to church but somehow was never able to get a hold of anyone. She wanted out of her lifestyle but didn't know how to get away - she owed her boss money and was afraid to leave, and had nowhere to go but back to his place at night. I told her some of my story and let her know that there's nothing a person can do that is past the point of God loving them. My partner translated the parts she couldn't understand, and then all of a sudden they began talking a million miles per hour in Thai... I just sat there, smiling and nodding... not really knowing what was going on.
After about 5 minutes of that, my partner looked at me and asked "do you think we should have her come with us now?" and I felt my stomach flip. I replied YES, and so we asked her if she would come with us before her night of work started- that we'd find a way to pay her boss back, and that we had a safe place for her to stay. She anxiously looked around, and then nodded to us. She said goodbye to the girls she was working with, grabbed her purse, and walked out with us. Talk about guts!!
Before I knew it she was swept away by the ladies in charge at the Tamar Center, but not without her asking if she would see me later this week... I had to tell her no. She asked me when she's going to see me again - I couldn't think, and so I just said I didn't know. She hugged me and half stated, half asked "in heaven?" and I sort of laughed and cried and said of course. Then she was whisked away into the crowd, and that was it...
It's going to be so hard to leave here tomorrow morning. I know my teammates and I have made a big impact on the lives of these women, but that doesn't make it any easier to leave. These women have touched my heart just as much as I have theirs... and these past few weeks are ones I will hold on to for the rest of my life.
