I am finally home after spending 2 weeks in Thailand unwinding  and preparing myself for re entry.  I just wanted to say thank you to AIM for everything, and to all of my supporters!  Your prayers and financial suport over the past 9 months was greatly appreciated, and I am so thankful that I was given the oppertunity to expirience so many diffrent people, cultures, and see Gods hands working all over the world. 

I know that God has plans for me to continue traveling and working with orphans in the future. Now that I am home, I will be going back to work for the Forest Service, and plan to finish my degree.  Thanks again to everyone who made this trip possible for me, you really do mean the world to me!!  

Over the past 3 weeks we have been working with a ministry in Patong, on Phuket island, called SHE (self, help, empowerment).  The idea behind it is to provide a safe place that works to get girls working as prostitutes in the bars into an environment where they can be employed making jewelry and other arts and crafts. 

Each day we hang out in the shop with the girls, laughing, and helping them make beautiful jewelry and homade cards.  It is amazing to hear their stories and see the transformation God has already made in their lives. 

At night we walk the bars, our job, is simply to sit with the girls and get to know them.  We try to create relationships with them and invite them to the shop to expirience a new way of life.  This is not as easy as it sounds, as many of the girls want to get out, but becasue there is such a pressure in the Thai culture to send money home to the family, they feel obligated to stay. 

This is Lek.  She has become a good friend, and the first girl I always visit on our nights out.  Lek has a beautiful 12 month old daughter.  Because of her job, her daughter is not able to stay with her, so she lives far away with Lek's mother.  I have really been suprised by how open these girls usually are.  If you ask them any question, even the hard stuff, they are usually willing to talk about it.  Lek doesnt like her job, but she does it to make enough money to support her daughter and family back at home.  She also hopes to one day find a man that will love her and take care of her and her baby.   This seems to be the cycle that many of these girls get trapped in.

The hardest part of this ministry is the amount of time it takes.  Often Mark and Sharon (the couple that founded SHE), will spend months at the bars every night, and see no fruit at all.  The hardest part for me is to see a girl I have been talking with with a client.  Often we will prayer walk the bar areas at night.  This is the times where we are able to see more of the whole picture of what is actually going on.  The other night we passed two white american men holding hands with Thai boys that looked like they were about 12 years old.  It makes me sick to think that men would actually do that, that they would buy boys, they are just boys!  But this is reality of life here, and all we can do is pray, and hope that our conversations will create a lasting seed of hope of a better life for all of those consumed in this industry. 

Our last family photo in South Africa.   We miss our boy (James), as he returned back to the states where he felt God was calling him.

Our Thailand race was simple and easy, and kept the competative spirit at a minimum.  We spent a day in Bangkok touring temples and seeing the sites. 

Oops, I got to expirience the joys of being a monk for awhile, until I realized where I was standing on the boat.

Big Budda, its huge and its all gold.

The hustle and bustle of big city life.  Makes me glad I am now at the beach.

This is my new diet.  Its always a little scarey when you have no idea what it is that you are about to eat.   The joys of Asian food, which I recently found my body just doesnt like, and i'm alergic to MSG, which is basically in everything. 

We meet at a coffee shop near the bar strips.   I am a little nervous, not about what we are about to do, but about what I am going to see and how I will be able to handle my emotions.   We sit in a circle and pray, pray for protection, for open opportunities, open hearts, and above all understanding.

As we walk the streets, I realize how protected and sheltered I have been from this kind of stuff.   Working with men all the time, naturally, I hear stories, but I have never actually been so exposed to it like I am now.   As we walk down the street to the first strip of bars everything becomes reality.   Women standing on the corners dressed in almost nothing beckon us to come inside, men hold signs asking if we would like to see a ping pong show, old men stagger around drunkenly with women dressed in almost nothing on all sides.  

As we walk up to the first bar we are greeted by a handful of girls, eager to touch us and be of service in any way possible.   We order cokes and I sit for a while, looking around and taking everything in.   I watch the men, many middle aged and balding, as they stammer around, searching for the perfect girl, caught up in a game of lust and seduction.   I watch for a while, trying to gain some understanding, trying to sort out the mess of emotions I am feeling.   An old man stares at me from across the bar.   I feel his eyes on me, eyes that do not see me as a human, but more of an animal, a piece of meat, eyes to a soul that has become so numb and empty, that there is no emotion, eyes that are consumed and can see nothing but lust.   I have to look away.

Suddenly, I feel an arm around my waist, startled; I turn to face him, the same empty eyes now inches from me.   I become angry, disgusted, I tell him to get his dirty hands off of me, and I walk away.   Turning back, I see that my gesture did not phase him, he is too busy being enticed by a few of the dancers.   All I can feel is anger.   I am angry that this happens, angry at men, angry at what women have become, angry because I know about the things that are going on behind the closed doors of the bar, angry that there is so much evil in this world, angry that there is nothing that I can do about it.  

I begin to talk to one of the girls.   She smiles, but it does nothing to cover the deep sadness in her eyes.   I ask her about her life, and she tells me about her twelve-month-old daughter.   We talk and laugh, she shares pictures, explains that the father of her baby was a client from Norway that fell in love with her, a man that created a beautiful baby girl, and walked away, a man, like so many in this world, that has lost the understanding of what it actually means to be a man.   Her daughter now lives with her parents, and though her job is not something to be proud of, it makes her enough money to send home every week to take care of her family.   She hasn't seen her baby in months, the sacrifices she endures to provide are more than I know anyone could ever fully understand.  

I no longer feel angry, but a deep sadness.   I want to cry, and I do everything I can to hold myself together.   As I look around, I no longer see the men in the bars for who they are, in their faces I see the guys back at home on my fire crew.   I realize that I cannot be angry.   That in each man, though I will probley never fully understand, there is a heart, emotions, stories I will never know, and as much as I want to, I realize that I cannot judge them.   More than anything, I understand that although I am disgusted, it is not my place to put any kind of label on them, all I can try to do, as hard as it is, is love them, trusting that God, who is the only one who knows the inner depths of their hearts, will mend their hearts and minds.  

In each girl, I see myself.   I know the longings of the hearts of women.   They too, I cannot judge, for like the men, I do not know their stories.   I know what it is like to desire to be beautiful, to be loved, and I know how easily we can sacrifice everything, our bodies and souls, in hopes of finding true love, in hopes of being able to provide.   Through my sadness, I know that being angry at all evil in this world will do nothing to fix it.   There is so much that I am unable to understand, but at the same time, I know that I want to try.  

I walk back to the girl I have been talking with, and invite her to come to the ministry base we are staying at tomorrow to have lunch and share pictures with her about my life.   She smiles and says she will.   I make her promise, and she does.   Leaving the bars, I feel a peace inside my heart.   I know that my time here is short, that my efforts will do nothing to change the growing evil of prostitution, pornography, and child sex trafficking in this world.   But I know that I can love, that that is all that God is really asking me to do.

I walk home, a glimpse of hope in my heart, hope that one girl will choose to keep a promise, and with that promise I can plant a tiny seed of hope in her heart…

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."

Mathew 25:35-36

Believe it or not, the other day I got to expirience fighting a brush fire, South African style.     

While sitting through an evening of debrief, we were told that there was a fire in the game park and that they needed a few people to come help with the supression efforts.  So I went down with the boys and got to expirience a new way of fighting fire.

First of all, in South Africa, anyone can fight a fire.  There were 12 year old boys, to the age of about 60 out there working to save their homes.  When we arrived they had already started a backburn.  Suprisingly, in Africa, no tools are needed or necessary.  There are no helicopters, no tankers, and no engines.  The only tool needed is to simply cut a branch off of a tree, and start wacking it at the fire, smothering it out.  It was a very interesting technique, but suprisingly it worked really well, and in a couple hours the fire was contained.

Tomorrow we leave for Thailand.  I cant think of a better way for me of saying farewell to Africa!

As promised here are a few pictures from our trip to Victoria Falls in Zambia.  They cannot do justice to the beauty of actually being there and expiriencing getting drenched in mist as you walk the rim of a waterfall that stretches for over a mile long, but it will give you an idea of how huge and powerful it is. 

At certain times of the year during the full moon there is a complete rainbow directly over the falls.  We were not able to expirience this, but a double rainbow is pretty cool too.

The other side of the canyon is Zimbabe.  Although we weren't able to actually go there because of political unrest atleast we were able to look at it from afar.  Someday I will go there.

On a day off, we went whitewater rafting on the Zambizi.  Halfway through the trip we found out that there were baby crocodiles in the water all around us.  My thought was were there are babies there are mammas, therefore I spent the rest of the float trying very hard to stay out of the water.  Later we took a sunset cruise on the river where we got to see some wildlife including hippos.

It's easy to do ministry when you are out on the mission field.   Many times our contacts and programs we are working with have already been set up for us before we even get to the next country.   Our leadership plans where we will be staying, how we will eat, what we will be doing, and how long we will be staying, so our lives are pretty easy, we just have to show up and do what needs to be done.   It's in these times that it is easy to say that we made a difference and have a lot of stories and physical evidence to show for it.

However, the mission field, for many of us, is not everyday typical life.   In real life, back at home, there is no one to set our lives up for us.   No one to plan who we will meet, and what we will be doing from day to day.   It is in living our lives that I believe real ministry takes place, the kind that really matters, though often it seems less valuable and the outcome is harder to visibly see.  

This past month, Leah, James, and I set out on a journey that took us through Namibia and Zambia.   Our goal was to live ministry, as we would back home, from day to day, not planning exactly what was ahead, but trusting God to lead us where we were supposed to go and what we were supposed to do.  

And like life, there were ups, and there were downs, but as I sit back at debrief in South Africa, I know that this small journey, like the moments of my life, was worth every second.   I would be lying if I was to say that I learned some huge lessons about life and about God.   In fact, most of the things I learned and did were tiny compared to what others have done this month.  

The one thing I learned was to be.   So often in life, I get caught up in doing.   I try to do what other people think is right, I do what I'm told, do what I'm supposed to, do what will get me one step ahead, do what makes me feel good, and I do all this because in the end it matters to me what others want and think of me.   So often I do all the "right" things, all the while never even thinking about God, because I am more interested in the approval of the world and those around me.   I let religion decide what is right and what is wrong, I let what other people think and expect decide the outcome of what I do, and when the day is done, though I think I did all the right things, what did I let God decide?

Life, though we wish it could, does not go by like a fairytale.   There are days when God chooses to use us for huge things, and there are days when we feel like He isn't even there at all.   These ups and downs, however, don't make our lives any less significant in His eyes.   This is how our ministry was this month.   There were days I felt useful, and there were days I was consumed in my own desires, wondering if I was really doing anything useful at all.

But it was through this that I learned to be.   I learned to notice the small things, the things many would look at as insignificant, even miniscule, and see Gods hands working.   That buying a loaf of bread for a begging family, touching the hands of a blind mother, having conversations with travelers and sellers, smiling at someone who is sad, and pushing a child on the swings, is just as much ministry as the million other things that get noticed and praised.   That we don't have to go on a mission trip to accomplish Gods will or do huge things to make a difference.   It is in living our lives, however that may be, that real ministry happens.   When we choose to let God decide our actions and circumstances, instead of trying to gain the approval of others.   Though my actions are small, the purposes of Gods heart are huge.  

For the past few weeks our team (Zeo) has been staying in Gordons Bay, South Africa with Tom and Cindy Sipling.  It has been a time of rest and to continue bonding and growing as a team.  We have learned alot from Tom and his family about the power of prayer and how to live ministry as a lifestyle rather than always seeking it out for the sake of doing.  

For the rest of July, our team will be splitting and going seperate ways, though we will be togeather in spirit.  Lynette, Amy, and Alissa, will continue staying in Gordons Bay to dive further into prayer.  Tomorrow, Leah, James and I will be boarding a bus heading to Windhoek, Namibia.  Our goal is to eventually make it to Victoria Falls which is located on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. 

This all, of course, will depend entierly on God.  We have no pre planned ministry, and no further plans for transportation past Windhoek.  Our plan is to head in a direction and see where God decides to take us.  With a very limited budget, we realize things could get tight, a little hard, and we might have to skip a few meals here and there to conserve money, but this is the reason we are setting out on our journey.  We really want to have to depend on God for everything.  Our plan is not to seek out ministry, but to let God lead us into what he desires for us to be doing.  Please keep all of Zeo in your prayers as we set out on a different kind of journey.