...to know the love of Christ, which surpasses all understanding...

Greetings from Thailand. The last few days have been a beautiful reflection of Christ's love here at Beginnings. 

Friday night, we were able to take the girls out to dinner at a fancy buffet restaurant. And in saying we, that includes all of you who have supported us financially and are supporting us in prayer. This was an experience the girls have never had before, and would not get to experience otherwise. Janette wrote a fabulous blog about it, I would recommend reading it, because her words sum up exactly what that moment was for all of us. Beginnings in Bangkok Here are some of my photos from the evening!

All of the girls of Beginnings, along with the summer intern team, Bonita, and Roy.

It is wonderful to see the Lord's provision for these girls, and how He turns the most dire, hopeless situations into something beautiful. He has broken chains of addiction and cycles of abusive relationships to get these girls to this point and He continues to work in and through each of their lives. 

I would like to invite you all to celebrate with me as one of our girls has, today, decided to follow Jesus Christ. As scripture promises in 2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." Today, this dear sweet girl, who has endured more in her 17 years of life than what most of us will ever even go through in a lifetime, has surrendered her heart to the only one who can heal those wounds. The Lord promises that she will be made new. Its beautiful to be able to witness the beginning of this transformation. As she offered the prayer for our dinner tonight, speaking with affectionate words to her Savior, my heart was overwhelmed with joy and excitement for this daughter of the King, who will forever be captured by His love.  

That's all for now! I love you all dearly, thanks for your continued prayers. As I write this, I am somewhat sad that the end of my time in Bangkok is drawing close.  However, I am confident the Lord still has a lot of work to do here. I'll keep you all posted!

A slow start...

Hello friends & followers! The last few days have been relaxing, which has been nice. Friday night, I made my first trip into the Bangkok nightlife. Bonita, Jit, and I ventured to Soi Cowboy. It was a difficult experience, although I'm glad I got to see it firsthand. I won't go into detail, but I will say that it is really horrible how these women are exploited. The Lord was definitely with me through the entire experience, and I could feel His calming presence in my life during those moments.

Saturday, we spent the afternoon and evening at Roy and Bonita's apartment. It was a beautiful place, and they took us out for Mexican food. Who knew that you could find delicious tacos in Thailand? I had my doubts, but the place ended up being fantastic! We spent the evening sharing about our experiences thus far, and talking about global missions, and the concept of God writing eternity on the hearts of men. We finished off the evening with mangoes and sticky rice (our new favorite dessert!) and headed back to Beginnings for a night of rest.

Sunday, we had the day to ourselves. Most of the girls went home to visit their families, since Monday-Wednesday were days off of school/work for a Buddhist holiday. Roy and Bonita were so gracious to allow us over to use their swimming pool. Sad day that my bathing suit is still sitting on my bed at my Ferncliff Drive residence in Lynchburg :/ I ended up having some beautiful time to myself to spend with the Lord, and to journal as well. The Lord has really taught me to just be still and know that He is God during this trip. It seems like in America, we always go, go, go, and yes, I spend time with the Lord but it is very scheduled. On this trip, there have been many moments of downtime. I am really learning to treasure these quiet moments and am really learning to let the Lord speak to me. It's been beautiful.

We also were able to go to an extremely nice spa on Sunday and get massages. Bonita encouraged us to have some time just to pamper ourselves, because the work we are doing is draining in a lot of ways, and we need to have time for ourselves. I must say, Thai massages are INCREDIBLE. The one I got was a 4 hand foot massage...but in Thailand, when you get a foot massage, you also get your head, neck and shoulders too. It was a wonderful hour, and extremely relaxing. We finished out the evening at the night bazaar, and I picked up a few more souvenirs.

Yesterday, again, was slow. Our morning and afternoon were uneventful. Our evening, Courtney and I went to Hillary Bar II, which is down the street from our current residence. It is a pool bar, and we've gone on 2 previous occasions in the afternoon to just hang out with some of the girls, and build relationships with them. The girls have really seemed to enjoy our company, and last night brought a handful of more great opportunities, and we are excited to see where the Lord takes those. I cannot believe we have almost finished 2 weeks here. I love it here, and I am loving what the Lord is doing in my life! Sawatdee ka (that's goodbye in Thai)!

A few reflections...

So I'm sitting on my bed right now, preparing to go out into the bars tonight. This will be the first time I've gone out into the Bangkok nightlife, and I am trying to absorb all that Bonita has told us, as well as what Lynds and Janette have both shared with me. If you want to know more about what goes on in the bars, Janette gave a pretty good picture in her last blog so please read it! 

Anyway, so I'm just praying for wisdom, for a mask so I don't show my discontent with the situation these girls are living in, and more than anything, praying that the Lord will soften their hearts to what we are sharing tonight. Now would be a good time to mention that I'm listening to Shane & Shane on random on my i-pod. A song came on by them that I wasn't familiar with, even though I've probably heard it multiple times. It struck a chord in me this afternoon. I realized this is what the Lord ultimately wants for each of these beautiful daughters of His, who are forced to sell their dignity day in and day out. Its awesome to recognize that even in our states of brokenness and disarray, the Lord still pursues a relationship with us, just so He can display his boundless love. Here are the lyrics & the scripture it is based on. 

ACRES OF HOPE

by Shane Barnard and Robbie Seay

He will allure her
He will pursue her
And call her out
To wilderness with flowers in His hand
She is responding
Beat up and hurting
Deserving death
But offerings of life are found instead

She will sing
She will sing
Oh, to You
She will sing as in the days of youth
As You lead her away
To valleys low
To acres of hope
Acres of hope

Here in the valley
Walk close beside me
Don’t look back
For love is growing vineyards up ahead
You have called me master
And though you’re in the dark here
Call me friend
And call me lover and marry me for good

She will sing
She will sing
Oh, to You
She will sing as in the days of youth
As You lead her away
To valleys low
To acres of hope
Acres of hope

How the story ends is
Love and tenderness in Him
Not safe, but worth it
So the valley’s up ahead
Or the ones we live
We’ll sing together
We’ll sing together

We will sing
We will sing
Oh, to You
We will sing as in the days of youth
As You lead us away
To valleys low
To acres of hope
Acres of hope

“Lord, sustain me in the valley. Give me ears to hear Your sweet tender voice and lead me in to acres of hope in this dry and weary land." 

"Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. ‘In that day,’ declares the LORD,’you will call me 'my husband'; you will no longer call me 'my master. (Hosea 2:14-16)

Let the Nations Rejoice!

Greetings from Bangkok. Each day we are here, I fall a little more in love with this city. The people here are amazing, and so are the many sights to see. Sunday brought us a trip to church with the girls, and to put it simply, I had the most intimate God moment that I have had so far on this trip. Having never been on a mission trip before, and actually, having only left the country once to go to Canada, I had never experienced a worship service done in a different language. The service we attended Sunday was done completely in Thai. As the worship leader opened the service, I was nervous as to how much I would even be able to understand. My fears were put quickly to rest, as the worship leader began to sing the classic worship song "Above All". As we chimed in with English, our voices blended with the Thais around us, and in that moment I realized, probably for the first time that although we were singing in different languages, we were lifting praises to the same God, coming before Him with the same humble hearts. I realized that although the language barrier has been, and will probably continue to be, one of the biggest difficulties on this trip, that my Lord doesn't have a language barrier, and that He hears the prayers of all of his people. During this time of worship, I began to look around at our girls. Knowing what some of them have come from, it is amazing to me that they can even praise God at all. However, as I looked at their faces, I saw genuine hearts that recognize their Savior, and the unconditional love that He has for them. These girls understand what is to be given freedom from Christ on a greater scale than what I ever could, and to see them fully embrace the freedom they have been given has blessed my heart tremendously. 

On a funny note, all of us American girls ate some bugs for lunch yesterday. Eating a bug was the one thing I said I would not do in Thailand. However, they were one of the 'options' we had for lunch, and the girls talked me into trying it. It really wasn't that bad and actually tasted like potato chips. The only gross part was when the legs stuck in my teeth.

 

We had our first full-blown Bangkok shopping experience yesterday. Ann, the house mom here at Beginnings took us out to a fashion fair and to the MBK center, which was pretty much the most incredible thing I've ever seen. We were able to barter, and to get things that in America would be ridiculously expensive. How fun! It was crazy crowded, but we enjoyed it, and Lyndsey was a champ at bartering. We were definitely ready to crash when we got home. 

That's all for now! 

Day 2=Done.

So, the first two days in Bangkok have been fantastic. Some highlights are as follows

• The girls here at Beginnings are wonderful! They have been so accepting of us and helpful. Even though they tease us about being "farangs" they are so helpful with everything.
• Banana Rotice- If you EVER have the chance to try it, please do. Its amazing. I'm not really sure what's in it, but yum yum yum. 
• Fruit- Mangosteens, Mangoes, Apples, fruits i've never even seen before, so cheap. We got an entire bag of mangosteen for less than $2. 
• Learning bits and pieces of Thai. We are trying to teach the girls English, but it helps for us to know some basic Thai too. We've mastered, hello/goodbye, thank you, you're welcome, beautiful, and come here. Haha. Definitely a ways to go though.
• Seeing God make beauty out of ashes. The stories of some of these girls are so dark, and seem so hopeless but God has turned them around and made them beautiful. One girl, Jit, has found such peace and redemption in Christ that she hopes to go back to her home town someday as a missionary. These girls are incredibly resilient and joyful despite what they have been through. They have taught me so much.

Thats all for now! We're enjoying our first Thai thunderstorm right now :) Hope to hear from you all soon!

We have arrived!

Hello friends & family! We have officially arrived and spent our first night in Bangkok. It is 10 in the morning here, currently, and we are preparing to begin our first full day in the country. To catch you up on the trip over, everything went very smoothly. Being my first flight and all, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I handled it like a champ, according to Lyndsey and Janette anyway. We flew from DC to Detroit, then Detroit to Tokyo, then Tokyo to Bangkok. We hit a couple roadbumps in Bangkok, like not being allowed out of the airport because we didn't have the address of Beginnings, but we finally got everything taken care of, and arrived back at Beginnings around 1:30 am. On our drive back, our taxi driver took us through the redlight district. It was good to see this from a distance, I think, before we begin going out and ministering in the bars. Driving down one side street, we literally saw 30-40 girls just lined up, approaching the cars that drove by. None of them looked to be older than 16 or 17. As we entered the 'bar area', we passed Nanabar (?) which is a block, 3 stories high of just bars. About 2,000 prostitutes are employed there. As we looked around, we saw western men with young thai girls everywhere. Although we knew to expect this, seeing it firsthand is so much more difficult to come to grips with. Thanks so much for your continued prayers, I will keep you all posted as we found we have internet in our room! I love and miss you all, feel free to email or facebook me, since I'll be able to keep in contact daily.

And so it begins...

To be completely honest, I feel like God has a great sense of humor. It seems the one thing we always say we won't do is the one thing He will ask us to do. Anyone who knows me is aware that I've never been much for missions. I've sat through countless missions emphasis weeks at LU, rolling my eyes and wondering why we didn't have a business emphasis week. Then one day, sitting in church, something clicked. Our pastor was talking about Freedom 4-24, a program to raise awareness and help fight the human trafficking industry in Thailand. As he showed a video detailing the struggles these girls battle every day, my heart began to break. I realized these girls, who were younger than I am, had to sell even their dignity every day, because they were required to financially provide for their families. I hated it, and I wanted to help stop it. I began to get more involved with the Freedom 4-24 cause through church, and the more I learned, the harder it was for me to get it out of my head. I literally couldn't stop thinking about these girls and how badly I wanted to help make a difference in their lives.

At some point during those weeks, I felt God draw my heart towards Thailand, but I was so scared. I talked to a couple key friends, and to my parents, about what God was doing in my heart. I finally surrendered, said "Ok God, I'll go." Within 24 hours, out of the blue, I got a phone call asking me to go to Thailand for a month during the summer, working with the ministry Freedom 4-24 supports. I knew God had big things in store for me.

In the days that followed, a close friend shared the following quotation with me, and it has become my anthem, so to speak, for this journey that I'm about to take.

“God’s will always expresses divine intention. Christ is intentional towards us. He never bosses us or appoints us to something for the sheer sake of presuming authority. His will always have a purpose. Sometimes we go our own ways, and God still has mercy on us and shows us something there. Other times we beg Him to allow us to go a certain place and He consents. Still other times God takes us places we never intended to go. Those are places where He will reveal Himself to us in ways we didn’t even know He existed.”- Beth Moore

I never intended to go on any mission trip, much less a month long one to Thailand, but God, the author of my story, had bigger things in mind for me. I know its going to be an amazing month, and He has shown his faithfulness through each and every detail of this trip. I fly out for Bangkok on Wednesday the 24th with Lyndsey and Janette, two of my roommates, and closest of friends. I should be able to update this blog a few times a week while I'm there, so stay tuned to hear about the work God is doing. Keep us in your prayers, its going to be a trying month, full of the unknown. However, as Paul said in his letter to the Romans, "If God is for us, who can be against us?"