The Red Light District

She was not even 8 years old when they came for her. Mom left and dad was always out drowning his cares with drinks. She was helpless. They abused her and left. Then they came again, so she ran away. Out on the street she was held at knife point. They said, "sleep with me or I'll kill you." After one man had used her he told her she should end her life. He gave her a knife and sent her off. She almost killed herself, but someone saw and stopped her. One girl said, "you are already doing this for free, so let me show you how to make some money at it." With no place to stay, she tried to sell herself out on the street. Still, she was so young that many took advantage of her.

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The stench of urine and waste filled my nostrils and I knew we were getting close. My heart beat with anticipation. With tears and intensity we had prayed for a spirit of freedom for this night. Now all of our prayers had come to fruition and we were in the Red Light District. "Oh God, love through me tonight! Love through me tonight!" was my soul's desperate plea. At last the small white van pulled to the side of the road.

It was time. 

It is well known that this place is dangerous. To many our presence is not a welcome thing. The people know why we are there and that our goal is freedom for the girls. A fight even broke out at one point, but I felt no fear. My focus was on the girls. They were not what I expected...they seemed...normal. They were far from what you would think. We smiled and shook their hands. Some were friendly and smiled back. Others adverted their eyes when we looked at them. Some even followed us around and asked questions. Earlier the girls in the safe homes had passed out fliers for a party a few days later. There they'd have the opportunity to hear about Christ and about freedom. I prayed they would come. I wanted to tell them how much Jesus loved them! The language barrier weighed heavy on me, but I prayed that the love of Christ might know no bounds in us. I pray that our weakness was His strength in that dark place.

I was struck by the vastness of the Red Light District. We walked several streets, but only saw only a small portion. So many girls can stay in business because of the amount of traffic that comes through. It costs next to nothing to get a girl for a while, so lots of men do. I noticed men walking by with a smirks of satisfaction on their faces as they pulled their girl for the night close. The girls wore shame around them like a cloak. It broke my heart. Children roamed the streets, even so late at night. They have no choice. It's either the streets or getting shoved under the bed of the tiny little room they call home. Loud, pounding music blared from the rooms of some. Most of them had posters up of other women, as if the girls are merely the object and the attention is elsewhere. 

Tears filled my eyes as we pulled away. I saw it. I walked through it. I cannot forget it now. These girls will forever have a piece of my heart. I have seen those who are under oppression. I touched them and they touched me. I wish I could take you with me to see it. I wish I could adequately describe their faces, their eyes. You would cry. You would hurt for them. You wouldn't be able to pretend they don't exist anymore. You would have to do something to help.

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She was 11 years old when they rescued her. Trauma and abuse was all she had know for 4 years...4 years of her childhood. She had been through so much that she didn't speak to anyone for almost 2 years. To cope her mind completely shut off parts of her memory. Finally, she started interacting with the house mother and the other girls at the safe home. Then she started to remember. Coping was hard, but she finally started to develop and bloom. Now she stood telling us her story with tears. Betty, the translator had to take over mid-way through because she couldn't finnish. Still, the message was clear...

There is freedom.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.

The wanting...

I just finished Shadow of the Almighty by Elizabeth Elliot the other day. Close to the end, I read this quote. Jim wrote this about one of my favorite verses in his journal just after he and Elizabeth got married...it was finally God's timing for them. It only confirmed what the Lord had spoken to my heart a while back here.

"Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalms 37:4

"It does not say He will give you what you want. It does say He will give you the want. Delight in Christ brings desire for Christ. He gives the heart its desires - that is, He works in us the willing. (Philippians 2:13). This is why He can say in John 15:7 'Ye shall ask what ye will...if ye abide.' The branch takes its sap from the vine, the same surges the vine feels then become the surges of the branch. My will becomes His, and I can ask what I will, if I delight myself in Him. Only then can my desire be attained, when it is His desire." (Jim Elliot)

In the last few months I have found that God has given me these desires. I know they are from Him and I know they are His leading. It's been pretty neat to look back and see that He has given me the want for different things. I have done things I never would have done, I want things I'd never want on my own, and I am in a place that I never thought I'd ever be. I only pray that He changes my desires even more, so that all of my desires become His desires.

I just thought I'd share that with you guys. It blessed me and I hope it blesses you too. :)

Compassion's Cry

Compassion's Cry

This has been a long time coming. It is my great pleasure to reveal Compassion's Cry. It all started back in March and it has been a long journey. Let me share a bit of the story with you...

On my way to lunch one day I was suddenly struck with a thought. I had been thinking about how I could get more involved with helping people. I knew there are tons of needs in the world, but I really didn't know where to start. So the thought came to me: What if there was a place that  had lots of information about different ways to get involved and stories of what others are doing to make a difference? That night I started bouncing ideas off of my husband, but it was very clear that I couldn't tackle such a big project by myself. Nevertheless, I told God that I would obey (despite my inadequacies) if He called me to do it. Not a week later I get an email from a girl who has the same vision. Soon there are 3 of us working on this project.

Now it has come to life. So please take a minute to go check out Compassion's Cry and see what it's all about! Tell us what you think about the first post over there! Is this kind of thing needed? How might you get involved?

A big reveal is coming...

This is me today guys. Well, really this is me for the next few days! My computer and a cup of tea will be my companions at all times, and my fingers just might be numb from typing by the end of this weekend! I have something very exciting to reveal this Monday, but it still needs a lot of work first! Just to give you a little insight, me and a few other people have been working on this project since March. It's been a long journey but we are almost ready to launch! I am beyond excited.

I would greatly appreciate your prayers as I finish a few last things. I am really praying that God uses this in a powerful way.

Stay tuned for the exciting reveal on Monday!!!!

PS: Don't forget to think about sponsoring my blog for August! Each sponsor will help me get to Ethiopia!

Faith Spotlight: The Soul Anchor

Hey guys! I am very excited about today's post! Scout from The Soul Anchor is here today to share her heart. She always has very heart-felt posts. Though I haven't met her, I can really see her heart for Jesus through what she writes. It is really neat that she chose to talk about this topic, because God has really been convicting my heart of the same thing. If you read anything on my blog this week, please read this!

Hello everyone!  I am so honored to speak to you through Jennifer's "Faith Spotlight!"  I've loved reading the words of other women, and hopefully I can be a blessing to someone as well.  The things God teaches us are so individual and personalized, and I love that God works within each of us in the unique ways that we need.  I wanted to share with you one of the biggest lessons God has been teaching me this past year.  It's a lesson I'm still learning in new and developing ways.  I hope I never stop exploring this lesson either!

God has really molded my heart in the area of generosity.  If you look through the stories and words of wisdom all throughout the Bible, God is a HUGE fan of giving, of serving others, and of people who have a generous spirit.  There's a lot of examples I could point to, but I think the most famous verse is still the best:

"So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver."  2 Corinthians 9:7 (NKJV)

To be honest, I used to be a pretty selfish person.  While I was a child, my parent's made me tithe 10% of my allowance, and I did so very grudgingly.  When I was young and I needed to buy birthday presents for a friend, I always wanted to keep the gift myself -- or at least buy something in addition for me too!  Growing up, I was always thinking about me, me, me.  When I got older and could be more responsible for myself, I stopped tithing.  I was kind towards people, but I was in no way truly generous.  But then, last year, I went through some very huge events full of trials and heartache.  Last year, I was stripped of almost everything I had.  Literally.  I lost the place I was living in and I began staying with friends and eventually my parents because I had nowhere else to go.  A mere two weeks after I had to leave my home, I lost my job.  I was unemployed, no place of my own, and hardly any possessions.  I had my car, my clothes, and my cat.  That was about it. 

It was then that I truly experienced the generosity of others.  People and then my parents let me stay with them out of the goodness of their heart, gifts came from unexpected places, and bills that I had no money for were somehow paid.  My dear friend, Laura, told me this saying that I will never forget:  "When you're in need -- give."  That thought rooted deep within my heart, and I decided to try it.  I had less than $20.00 in my bank account, but I went to the store and bought a $5.00 Starbucks gift card and a .99 Hallmark card, and in it, I wrote a note saying that the person who found this gift card is a valuable person, loved, and greatly cherished.  I didn't sign the card, and I left it randomly in the mall food court for someone to find.  And then I walked away and never saw who found the giftcard, but that was the point.  That was the beginning of the Lord teaching me that to be truly blessed, I must be willing to be a blessing to others.

Over the course of the next few months and into the following year, God taught me many lessons about the blessing of tithing and investing in the community I call my church, of picking up the tab for a friend at the cafe who you know is struggling and seeing the relief in their eyes, and of ways to be generous outside of money as well.  I have learned about the generosity of my prayers -- not focusing so much on my needs and my hurts, but of raising the name of others before God as well, of taking the time to volunteer and help out someone who needs it.  Whether it be mowing the neighbors lawn, taking the elderly lady across the street grocery shopping, watching the kids so a tired mom and dad can have a night out, or helping a teenager become more confident in their schoolwork, there are SO many ways that we can demonstrate a generous spirit. 

God asks us to be a cheerful giver -- he doesn't want us to give of our money, our time, or our efforts because we feel we HAVE to.  He wants it to be the joy of our hearts, and I can totally see why!  When you give freely of whatever you have to offer, you are opening yourself up to others.  When you give something up for someone, you become vulnerable.  In the same way, when you're willing to receive from another, you are opening yourself up to vulnerability as well.  Creating this space between two people opens the doors for love, for compassion, for an increased sense of community, and a common experience of blessing each other.  People who have generous spirits draw closer to each other, and those who are generous in the name of Christ also draw closer to the heart of God as a result.  I think it is beautiful that the word "charity" also means "love," and they should truly be thought of as one and the same.  To give cheerfully is to learn to love others, to validate their worth as fellow human beings, to acknowledge the interdependence that exists between communities, and to focus on the fact that what we have it not our own anyway.  All that we have is a gift and a blessing from God, and the best way that we can say "thank you" to him is to pass it on and be a blessing to others in His name.

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Please check out her blog! You will be greatly encouraged by this beautiful young woman!

WIRED Week 2011

Well, this past week was simply amazing. I've been holding off on writing about it so that I could process all that happened. I still can't adequately explain everything, but here it goes! Basically WIRED week is about bringing the local church together to serve and worship in unity. We had 40 something youth groups and over 1000 kids. Everyone stayed at host churches in the area (one of them is our church) at night, and during the day we came together for worship, Bible study and serving the community through various mission projects. Believe me, it's awesome.

Our worship band for the week was DecembeRadio. Let me tell you, they are one talented group of people! Cody Deese was the speaker and man, he brought it! He certainly wasn't afraid to say what needed to be said!

The theme was "Under Siege" and it was all about spiritual warfare. It's kind of funny because one night the power went out completely. It was hot and dark but we still had worship!

My sweet sister also came into town for the week to help with a VBS track group, and also to keep me company while my husband did all his assistant camp director things. He basically lived at the church for 3 weeks...no joke.

I was also able to help at this booth! We sold these bracelets to raise money to build safe houses for victims of sex trafficking. This is the group I will be going to Ethiopia with this fall!

Speaking of Ethiopia, you should check out my vintage-inspired headbands that I'm selling to raise money for the trip!

Everyday, I helped deliver lunches to sites. For the first 2 years of WIRED I served as a track leader...it kind of made me miss it.

It was so good have my sister here all week! She is the sweetest girl ever and I'm so glad to call her my family! She was good to wear my headbands a lot to help me promote them...and of course, I wore them too!

By the end of the week there were over 150 people who committed their lived to Christ. And that was just from the WIRED participants! There were lots more at our sites! It is so neat to be a part of a generation who is rising up to be the hands and feet of Jesus. We aren't content with doing things simply because they've always been done that way. We are questioning. We are trying to make our lives line up with scripture, not tradition. I can't wait to see what the church will look like in the future. I have great hope!

WIRED Week, I will see you next year!

learning simple things

The pulse of worship becomes more intense with every line.

Hands raised.

Hearts open.

Over a thousand people sing out an anthem of praise.

We draw near to God.

God draws near to us.

It's so beautiful that would draw near to each one of us. As I sat in the back of the auditorium after worship, I was blown away by this thought: At the same time God was speaking to my heart, He was also speaking to so many others in the room. He speaks to each of us individually. Though hearing the same message and singing the same songs, He sees the hearts of all and has a different plan for everyone. The Spirit is vast. Just thinking about all that He was doing in that room (not to mention the rest of the world) absolutely astounded me. What knowledge! What power! What a great God.

And yet we live as if He is small.

We hear His voice and then forget what He said. We worship Him and live our own lives. We don't remember that the Bible is truly the Word of God. We fail to take the time to come before Him in awe of His majesty. Often you hear people talk about "going deeper" with God. What if we just grasped the simple things? Things like "God is love", and that we were once dead and now made alive in Christ. What if we really learned to pray and worship? What if we learned how to love? I am seeing that I know less about God than I ever have. Just the fact that He speaks to everyone at the same time, on an individual and personal level makes me want to worship. It makes me want to know my God even more.

Hands raised.

Heart open.

My heart singing out an anthem of praise.

When we draw near to God.

God draws near to us. All of us.

For now, I am just coming to Him as a child. I know nothing of His ways and I just want Him to teach me the simple things...for He has more depth than I can even fathom.

...phone photos of WIRED...

WIRED Week 2011 is going really well thus far. I wish you all could be here. The whole place is full of energy! I love being in one place with a generation ready and willing to worship with everything. I am expecting great things!

I'll be back soon!

Where I've Been: Philippines (Second time)

I never got over the things I saw and learned in the Philippines in 2007. By the summer of 2008, I was a new person in more ways than one. In that short period of time my health had rapidly declined. (I was very sick for most of college, but then God healed me...which is an amazing story I will tell another time.) For the first time in years I was whole physically, and I had just met Jonathan a few months back. We started dating just before I left to fly across the world. I kept a picture of him with me at all times, and I'll admit that I was more than a little love-sick for him. Still I felt compelled to go, so I did.

This time I was even more exited to return and see the people with whom I left part of my heart. However, this was definitely not the same trip. We still woke up early to visit and speak in the schools, but the team and terrain were vastly different. Before we had a small, intimate group. Now there were over 70 of us on the team and we were closer to the coast in the northern region of the Philippines.

I was struck even more so by the beauty of the country.

As I was sharing the gospel with a group of students at this school, I noticed the teachers nodding in accordance to the things I was saying. These teachers came up to us afterwards and with a new light in their eyes said, "Brother and sister, I will see you again when we are with Jesus!" I can't explain to you what it feels like to hear something like that.

This is one of my favorite pictures. Don't you love the umbrellas? Everywhere we went there were rice fields.

I loved making the kids laugh by speaking the phrases I knew in their language. The only things I remember now are "Mahal ka ng Diyos" (but I don't remember what it means) and "buhay na walang hanggang"...I think it means "life is good but eternal is better."

The children stole my heart once again.

This was the most interesting I ate while I was there...and yes, I ate it. Most of the food was absolutely delicious and the people were so hospitible! I especially love the mangos. You haven't eaten a mango until you've eaten a mango from the Philippines!

We stayed at a place near this beach for the last week I was there. They have brown sand here, not like the beaches in the States, but still beautiful nonetheless.

Some of the team came back from my first trip, like the lovely girl to my right and her sister. One of my favorite parts of the day was getting to hear everyone's testimony on our long treks from school to school. Every day there were different people in your group, so there was always a new testimony to hear.

At one school they asked us to sing for a large group. Since I was the only singer in the group, I steped up to the plate and sang "How Deep the Father's Love." I don't think I've ever sung better in my entire life or ever will. It was a powerful moment to be singing of how God sent His Son to die for us, for them, though we were the ones who had sinned against God. I stood there singing and praying that the love of God would penetrate the hearts of these people, the ones He died for. I'll never forget it.

By the end of the trip, I was very ready to come home to see my man (and family too). I was excited to come home because I knew that this wasn't the end. My life had a mission - to make Jesus famous and God had just led me to man walking down that same path. Though it was not as soul-shaking as my first trip, I came back with a new love for sharing the gospel. I wish I could tell you that I was incredibly focused on the Lord after that, but first relationship ever had my head more that a little in the clouds...but there is more to come about that in the next "where I've been" post.