Hot sunny days can be good. As long as you're in the shade that is. But if you're playing soccer in the middle of the day, even if you're in the shade, prepare to be exhausted.

I was not playing soccer. Alex's boys were, with other high school boys during their PE time.

While we were watching the boys play, Alex states (in between cheers for the boys making goals) "I feel like it's very good for them to be around other kids, I also feel like it's good for these high school boys to be around them too, just because you go to a posh school and they don't and just cause these boys grew up in a mountain village and have the type of job they do now does not mean you have to shun them. People need to be accepting."

We were able to tour the RCP center that they have for the next year. Alex can only do a lease for a year at a time because they will have so many more boys come within that year that they will be busting at the seams by the time next winter hits.

Its amazing all the dreams she has for these boys. Outside of teaching them English and some basic life skill classes, she wants to some day in the near future have a garden for them and teach them that if you give things a lil love and care, they can grow. She also wants to take them to volunteer at a center here in the city so that it's not all about, "them getting and getting and getting", she wants them to give back.

After all of her accomplishments, the thing that still amazes me the most about her is her character. Nobody really inspires me like her. She lives what she speaks, and she speaks so kindly. It rubs off on the boys.

Twenty-two boys come to the center. They are the best. They are so respectful and kind. I seriously haven't been able to get their faces out of my head since I met them. They were somehow able to access parts of my heart that I did not know I had.

Please keep these precious boys and RCP in your prayers. There are so many amazing things taking place in their hearts and at this center!

Tonight three of us girls were walking down an alleyway between hotels in Chaing Mai. Its not like Bar Street on the other side of town where everything is out in the open, women standing outside calling potential coustomers in. This is hidden. You don't just "happen" upon a place like this.

This alleyway leads to boy bars.

Boys.

How can this industry get more sick?!

"Mostly it's retired men that are at these bars now, its low(non-tourist) season, so you'll see the same old men in these bars to purchase the boys every night you come. You know the drill though, if a boy comes up to you and tries to give you a shoulder massage just smile and tell him 'no', be nice to everyone, don't stare, etc." This is our pep talk coming from Alezandra Russell, founder of Recycled Child Project here in Chaing Mai. She is walking Kristin and me between the hotels to a strip of about 10 bars filled with just sexually exploited boys and their predators. Obviously, it is heavy stuff walking into places like this. But the second Alex sees a group of about five or six of 'her boys' smiles spread across all of our faces and suddenly Kristin and I are swept into Alex's night of loving on those whom society hates and neglects.

Alex started up RCP a few years back when her heart broke for these boys. Their mission is a youth-focused organization committed to recycling, rebuilding and restoring the lives of boys who are victims of child prostitution and sexual exploitation. She has a youth center for the boys, she teaches them English, feeds them lunch, takes them to the doctor when needed and is basically the mother most of them (if not all) never had.

Kristen kept saying today, "She's a modern day Mother Theresa!"

She is love, she is hope and she is a walking witness of the love of God. Today was one of my favorite days in Thailand, if not the favorite. She willingly let me in on her love story. I was able to meet these boys, talk to them, play silly games with them. I get to go to RCP center on Monday and I feel like a child that has to wait for Christmas. Alex quickly won my heart over, and now these boys are seeping in as well and I am looking so forward to get to know them better.

 

My team joined in with another team of all girls while our boys went off to do some "manistry." We total up to 10 girls in all and we have a blast laughing, praying, eating and ministering together. Four of the girls work at a coffee shop across from Chiang Mai University to build relationships and teach English to the people there. Six of us (including myself) are working during the day at Garden of Hope: a ministry for at-risk children that live in the slums. It is a Christian after-school organization that teaches children English and the love that Jesus has for them. Honestly, when I first heard that we were going to be working with more slum children I started crying. Through my tears I said to God, "Okay, I'm really looking at you redeeming in my eyes what prevention looks like for children, cause it was a really hard month in Cambodia." (Now, just as a disclosure, I knew this trip would be hard, and that many tears would be shed over the injustice of it all, however, I knew that my God could show his face through a ministry to little ones, and that it didn't have to all look hopeless. Praise God, he's good and this is a redemption month for prevention with children!)

All of the 30 children come from abusive households. But since they have been at Garden of Hope, there have been only two cases of abuse within the last two years. This ministry is really seeping into the community and teaching them the love of Jesus. Last weekend I went out into the neighborhood where the children live and we prayed in the name of Jesus with every parent that we met. All the families I saw believe in Jesus and love him and teach their children in his ways. It is encouraging to see.

During the weekdays we go into ministry and the first thing we do is pray for the upcoming day. We teach the children a bible lesson and a memory verse, then we teach them english. I am working with the pre-schoolers, their ages range from 4-7 years. The girls are quiet and completely content to color and chat the whole time, while the boys are extremely good at being rambunctious. :) It is exhausting and a joy all at the same time.

Stay tuned to hear what our team is able to do at night! A new post about that will come soon! I love you all, thank you so much for your prayers, comments and love. They mean the world to me!

*Johns are men that purchase women for sex.  My team and I go are going out into the Redlight District in Chang Mai and building relationships with the people to show them love, to offer the women and men that work there a way out of the industry if they desire it.*

Dear Johns,

I don't know how to show you love.

I don't know how to control my eyes as to not give you glaring death stares.

I don't know how to deal with you and your brokenness, because all I see is you breaking someone else.

In all honesty, you make my stomach turn. The evil you're doing undoes me. How dare you not care about other people that much as to see it as okay to purchase them, like they're a sack of oranges. How dare you not value human life.

I knew I would meet you here on this trip. I conjured up some sort of sympathy for you while I was in the States, but meeting you face to face is way harder than I had innocently thought it would be.

I want to go up to you and tell you off. A more grown up version of how your mother would slap the back of your hand and tell you you're a "bad boy" for acting the way you are.

In my head it makes logical sense that you would see what you're doing as horrific.

In your head you've numbed yourself down enough to believe the lie that what you're acting upon is okay.

How am I supposed to change your mindset? Your way of living? Certainly will not be by death glares, or my slapping the back of your hand.

I want you to change.  From the bottom of my heart I want you to change.

But I don't know how to show you love, the God Love you need, I hate that I can't right now.  But my stomach is still in knots as you drive away with her to your hotel room. My insides are crying out for her.

How dare you.

I have never walked out of a movie theater in the middle of the movie. I want to see how it ends. And, unless the movie was just too sad or your convictions did not match up with what the movie was showing, you have stayed too. We want to know how things end. Even better if they end happy.

But what happens when things stop in the middle?

On Friday I had to say goodbye to 3 children who have really touched my heart in more ways then one. They do not have a pretty story. Not one. My team leader, who has also been tremendously touched by these children wrote this poem about them:

She is two years old.

She is five years old.

He is 12 years old. 

We are leaving the way we met them. In the slums. With the father and mother. The social work system in Cambodia is a crap shoot and justices' name is rarely heard of, and never bellowed for the children in this kingdom. I have wept over these children. I have panicked over the future of these children. I have wanted to sweep them up on some days and just start running away. Far away from things that cause them harm.

One of my dearest friends sent me an e-mail this week about James 1:27.

"Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you."

Basically its about trusting God. Trusting him enough to love on the children through you, and then, after your time is up, letting him love on them and protect them. The last part really hit home for me when she brought it to my attention about how can we hear their stories and NOT be corrupted by the evil in the world unless we are totally and completely relying on the Father? We need to not let the world corrupt us to the point of not trusting in the Lord. He cares for these kids more than I do, and I had to get to the point with him where I have gone, "Alright God, this is your job, not mine anymore, you knew I would be here for only a month and Kristen and I brought awareness to the situation, now you finish it up."

My prayer for them is that they will experience victory in their lives. Victory from everything that is holding them back, holding them down. I love all three of their little voices, their hilarious attitudes, their hearts and smiles. Please be in prayer with me for them. The middle of this chapter in their lives may not look at all okay right now, however, I believe that they can all have happily ever afters.

She is trapped.

Why is she trapped? Because she has to give her 8 month old daughter for adoption.

Why does she feel like she has to give her daughter up? Because she was kicked out of her house earlier this afternoon.

Why was she kicked out of her house earlier this afternoon? Because her landlord in the slums told her to sell the child to him for $1,000 US Dollars. So he in turn could sell the child for sexual exploitation. When he found out she would not sell her baby to him, he kicked her out.

Why did she marry that man in the first place? Because she was a sex worker when she moved from Vietnam to Cambodia and wanted out. But now she is back in the cycle because she doesn't even know how to read Khmer and cannot get a job anywhere else, but just to sell her body.

She is trapped.

Friday afternoon.
I was asking these questions to my translator, every question carrying me deeper into a story about a woman and a precious child I had just met in the nurses' office. Their names: Huynh and Sat Long.  Huynh is asking for the name of an adoption agency so she may hand her child off and move back to Vietnam; she is also asking for a bus ticket to get there. She cannot afford Sat Long. She cannot even afford her bus ticket to Vietnam.

She is trapped.

I am screaming out to God in my heart, "There have got to be more options than this!!! I know that I may be from the United States, and dream too big, but, oh my gosh. There has got to be a way she can have a job with dignity, keep Sat Long and live a life worth living! Dear God, please HELP."

My team is heartbroken at the news about this woman and baby. We want to help out the best we can. We pray with her and even offer to pay her bus ticket once we know her baby is safe in the adoption agency's arms.

I walk away with the same "American Dream" prayer of, "God, I want her to have it all. A bus ticket is not the answer for her, please, oh please, give me an answer."

Saturday.
The girls on my team are all out eating at a place called Daughter's of Cambodia. It is a ministry in the heart of Phenom Penh and it helps girls that want to get out of the sex trade. 98% of the women that go to work at Daughter's never go back into the sex trade.  They have a spa, cafe and shop where the girls can work to earn a living. This ministry also offers counseling, free childcare for the working mother, and even doctor visits.

We are sitting around the calm atmosphere of the cafe, talking and giggling, and I am staring off, thinking of Huynh and Sat Long. I shock myself out of day-dreaming and grab Kristen's arm right next to mine and say, "She can work here, this woman can work at Daughter's!" All of us get excited as we think about how amazing it could be if Huynh could really, in fact, have it all.

Monday morning.
Kristen and I walk in to ministry and Huynh is in the nursery room with her daughter. The adoption agency, we found out, did not go through. We present the information to her about Daughter's and what they do. For the first time, I see Huynh smile. We have no idea where to start off, we know that the main offices are not located where the cafe, spa and shop are, but we decide to go there.

So with translator and baby in tow, we get in a tuk tuk and head to Daughter's. Once there, Kristen is able to contact the Director on her cell phone. Kristen explains Hunyh's story and the Director tells her, "Oh my goodness, this does sound desperate, where is this woman? Can you get in touch with her? Can you bring her to the office now?!" Kristen's response is, "We have her in the tuk tuk and we're on our way now." "Yes, yes, bring her now!"

On the way there we all cannot stop smiling.  Huynh even mentions to Kristen and me that she can see the glory of God all around us. This is coming from a woman who at the time, was wearing a red Buddhist bracelet.

We all go in and Huynh is interviewed and accepted and will start work tomorrow. Her baby will be in the daycare. She will have a house close to work. She will make a fair wage. She will have a job with dignity, and keep her child. This is Divine.

On the way back home, Huynh is holding her sleeping baby. She looks over at Kristen and me and says, "I had a dream that I had a little house where my baby and I lived and I had a job I had no shame in. Today, you made my dreams come true. I am so thankful."

As it turns out, baby Sat Long's name means "Optimistic." One translation states, the doctrine that this is the best of all possible worlds. And I truly believe with all of my heart, that this is the best possible outcome in Huynh and Sat Long's world.

When going on a missions' trip, one expects to have culture shocks. I have no idea why, but in my head I had thought that I would just work up in "levels" of how much culture shock I would experience starting in Cambodia, then moving on to tougher situations in Thailand, a big shock in India, and then hitting the reality of this existing in my own back yard in Atlanta.

Well I had quite a shock to the system yesterday. I felt like it was one round in the boxing ring after another. I will be honest with you all and say that I need prayer. Prayers of discernment and prayers for the children of Cambodia.

Kristen and I are working in the slums some days and it is...well I cannot really find a word to describe it...I guess the best way to describe it is intense. These houses are on top of garbage. Literally. They are about eight feet above the ground on stilts of wood. Most have no walls, I do not remember seeing many doors, if any. The households consist of drug-addicted fathers, children working as garbage pickers, and stressed-out, excruciatingly thin mothers. Children have been beaten in front of our eyes in that place. Some for reasons unknown, one was because she lost the equivalent of 2.5 cents. It is horrific.

I can get why now Moses had so much anger in him to kill a solider for beating another Jew (Exodus 2:11-13). However, God had a better plan - one to rescue an entire nation from slavery (Exodus 3:7-10). I am seeking God on what his plan of salvation is for these children. I feel so hopeless when I see the unspeakable happening right in front of my eyes. I can honestly tell you that right now I do not know how he is leading me to react. My brain seemed to turn off from the trauma that I was hearing and happening. But I feel that if he had a plan for the Israelites before Jesus extended his love, then He has a plan for these kids after Jesus showed us his love . There has got to be a future of hope for them as well.

Please pray for the protection of these children in Cambodia. Pray for their angels to guard them, protect them and keep them safe.