human trafficking awareness day.

Terms:
(In relation to the Red Light district in Bangkok, Thailand)
Human trafficking: moving of persons from one place to the next through force, fraud, and/or coercion for the purpose of servitude, debt payment, and forced sexual acts under coercions.
proxy husband- man who "takes on a prostitute" for an extended period of time as a forced sex slave or domestic slave. **In sex tourism these men will "rent" girls out for extended periods of time to be pseudo girlfriends during their vacation. Girls will act as tour guide, sex slave, domestic slave etc. 
Lady Boy: dresses, acts, takes on the persona of a woman.
"Ugly Girls" (A sign held in front of bars): if the ugly girls are bought and never return home, it's okay. Whatever happens to them happens to them. They are viewed as dispensable and not worth anything.


Victims: women, children, men.
Tactics: false marriage proposals; being sold by parents, neighbor, relative; kidnapped by traffickers.
Health risks: drug and alcohol addiction: introduced by traffickers.
Physical injuries: broken bones, bruises, STDs, AIDS: myths- having sex with a virgin will cure AIDS- (kids sown back up without anesthesia and sold again as virgins the next night), miscarriages, forced abortions
Psychological Harm: suicidal thoughts, suicide, PTSD, depression.

In Thailand:

• 66% of all men that land at Bangkok airport are there for sex tourism.
• 10% of profit from prostitution comes from Western Society. 80-90% comes from Thai men who see a prostitute on a regular basis.
• Guys at younger and younger ages are being introduced to prostitutes; 12-13 year old boys being introduced to sex by their dads who will take them to prostitutes.
• 1/3 of all Thai men and 40% of house wives have HIV/AIDS.
• 86% of male prostitutes are heterosexual men being forced into prostitution by family members.

This is the reality of the broken world we live in. 

"Greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this city" -Christ

weird thoughts.

I'll be honest..I'm struggling.

I have had the hardest time as of lately finding balance between being here at home and focusing on the now, and still being excited about leaving and working hard fund raising. I love where I work, I am madly in love with at church, I love my friends, I love keeping up relationships, and I love the funny little ins and outs of my days. Its so weird to think that by this time next year I won't have those all at my finger tips any more.

I will be surrounded by a whole different group of people, many different languages, doing a different kind of ministry, and encountering injustices that I have never fully understood . I'm having a hard time because I'm so ready for that as well. I want  to be challenged where I haven't been challenged in a while. I want to meet the group of strangers that will become my family. I want to live out of a backpack and sleep on the ground. I want to live in the poorest and dirties parts of the world so that I can love on kids who have not felt love. I want to share the pain of the young girl who has been abused by men. I want to clean the feet of an old widow. I want to bring Christs hope to those who feel like they have no hope. I want to hug those who feel, and are often literally, forgotten. I want to bring the name of Jesus Christ to places that it is not spoken of. I want to worship, and see people worship, where His name is not worshiped. I want to see God move when I can't.

I feel so torn as to how to live...I just feel 'off' I suppose. Its hard living 'normally' when I know that normal will feel like a foreign concept in only 8 months time.

...just a thought for the day!

Thinking biblically.

What is weird?

This sums up and puts into words my feelings at this moment.

my heart.

Where are you right now Mercy? Are you staying warm at night? Are you getting enough to eat? Know that I love you so much, and I am praying that our Daddy is surrounding you and ravishing His love on you. I will see you again my beautiful princess.

I chose to write this blog.

Being a junior/senior this year, inevitably my future has come up a lot; what I will do next year, if I should go ahead and apply to colleges, which ones I should apply to..etc. And whenever a huge decision came up that needed acting upon, I immediately went into prayer and prayed that the Lord would tell me where to go and where he wanted me..but more often than not, I got no answer and was confused. I mean, I was going to Him for this stuff and I was listening with an open heart, so why did he not tell me where I need to go?
Then I realized that I was trying to get God to make my decisions for me. Please don't mistake what I'm saying as 'you shouldn't go to him in prayer and earnestly seek after his will', because I believe with all my heart that you should go to God with every decision; big and small. But one thing that the Lord has really been teaching me lately is that he is completely passionate about our free will.
He doesn't want to make decisions for you, he doesn't want mindless robots or puppets to control that go on auto-pilot. He has wonderfully and fearfully made us with the freedom to be able to choose.
I have gotten that question before, 

"If there is a God (haha) who loves as much as the bible says, why couldn't he just make us love him back if he has that power?"

Well let me ask you this, if you fell in love with somebody, would you want them to be forced to love you back, or would you want them to love you back, simply because they love you? He wants us to choose to love him, just like he wants us to make decisions, that aren't forced, that glorify him.


I can promise you this, no matter what you choose in life, no decision can stop God's glory from shining through. Yes there are most definitely choices that are better than others, and in some decisions you make you will see God's glory in a much bigger way than others, but even if you don't make the 'right' choice, you will still see the hand of God at work. Because frankly, God is a whole heck of a lot bigger than any choice we could ever make.


But don't get me wrong, our sovereign Lord still helps us make decisions too. He still does divine callings and is just as live and active as he was in the old testament (but that is a whole other blog in itself), but even if he were to come right out and say what we need to do, we would still have the choice to act on it.

One thing I hear people say a lot is "Man I wish God called me to do cool stuff like travel the world or go live and be homeless or something radical and crazy, but he's not." But just take a step back and look at you're life. Did God call you to go sit and watch tv for an hour? Did he call you to go to the mall? Did he call you to read this blog? Chances are, he didn't. But you did them anyway didn't you?  Why is it that people only need to be 'called' when it comes to doing things for God?

..conviction!

We are DONE!

Satan,

You have to stop calling me; I told you it’s over. We broke up 2 years ago and I still see you hanging outside my door, disrupting me at school, even following me to family dinners! But we'll never get back together. You and I both know we have become estranged and I’m serious when I say we are through.  I know we used to spend weeks at a time together carefree, just doing whatever we wanted but I told you that was puppy love, back then I had no idea what real love is! 

Aside from that you’re such a liar! You always told me how I 'had' to dress, the 'right' way to look, and you always told me I needed these worthless things when I didn't! We always did what you wanted to do and you promised again and again that we would have the time of our lives but somehow I was always left cleaning up the mess at the end of yet another disappointing day. To be perfectly honest you never did satisfy me and your so not attractive to me anymore. I thought more partying, gossiping, and more time with you would do the trick but it only burned me out. And here you are trying to serenade me again. Did you think I wouldn’t notice that you are trying to get with all my friends?! Even my family! How sick are you?

Anyways I wanted to tell you once and for all, the rumors are true: I’m with Jesus and we are married now and yes He is that guy you always hated and even tried convinced me to hate. You really turned on the waterworks when you noticed me notice him, but that is not going to work anymore.  You told me about his family, how they don’t know how to have a good time, how they aren’t into “free living” like us. But I met them and they aren’t how you said they are, actually quite the opposite. I am almost flattered that you would try so hard to get my attention but no matter what you do or how you try you could never be half the man my Jesus is.  Stop calling me, stop following me; it’s just not going to happen.

Good riddance,

Julie

[dis]content.

The first time I heard 'The Anthem' by Jake Hamilton, I was sitting on my roof looking at the stars, completely awestruck, tears falling down my eyes, as I heard Jake belting. 

I am royalty. I have destiny. I have been set free. I will shake history. 

He's calling, wake up child. It's your turn to shine. You were born for such a time as this.

Fast forward now, a couple weeks later sitting in a field at my church. Screaming these wonderful words over and over again, they echoed through my earbuds and became a declaration over my own life. I had no idea the power or gravity of what I was saying, how I was indeed created with such purpose in mind. My sole purpose of existence is for glory.
Let me tell you, screaming at the top of your lungs, "I am going to change the world" does something to you. And then a couple days later I had one of 'those' moments. The kind where it all just clicks.
I was driving in George (my jeep wrangler) as the song came on my iPod, so naturally I turned up the volume. For those of you who have never heard this song, listen to it and you'll see why. And I heard the words, 'I can hear the footsteps of my king..'
then it got to

Wake up child, it's your turn to shine, you were born for such a time as this.

You may not know this about me, but I am a generally discontented person. All last year the only thought going through my head was Africa, and how excited I was. In Africa, time slowed. I learned a very valuable lesson that I have forgotten every since I've come back to America; to not worry about the future and what is happening next. In Kenya we had NO concept of time or what was coming next. It was so freeing! But ever since I have been back I have been thinking about what is coming next so much. What do I do about this year? Next year? College? Where is my next trip? Even just getting through the week for the weekend, which goes by much to fast. Then going through the whole next week just looking forward to Friday again.


It's robbed me.


It has robbed me of just enjoying where I am right now. This way of thinking has kept me from understanding how I was born for such a time as this. I've spent too much of my life wondering about how I'm going to get to the next thing and glorifying it in my head that I don't know how to enjoy the right now.  The truth is that whether i am in Bolivia, Russia, or Klein Collins High School, I'll never find true contentment as long as I'm searching for it in my circumstances.  When I can look beyond where I am at, who I'm with, and what I'm doing; beyond all of the junk, injustice, poverty, and chaos; when I can look past it all and lock eyes with the king of kings, that's when I'll find contentment and that's when a deep resolve will rest in my heart of hearts to say "it really doesn't matter."  none of it...good, bad, right and wrong, the hell and the happiness.  It all goes away when i can stand solely upon who the Lord is and who I am to him.


I'm choosing to say that i was born for such a time as this. 11 months ago 'this' was in colorado, 5 months it was in goergia, 4 months it was kenya, yesterday it was sitting at starbucks. It's all kingdom.  It's all destiny.  It's all a part of shaking history.  Would i rather be holding aids babies in eburru, kenya or walking in kibera?  yes.  I would rather be doing that.  but i believe the lord will give me all of those things back, in one way or another, in his timing.

but today, i'm choosing to fight for contentment.  

i'm choosing to declare that i was born for such a time as this.  

and i'm battling to make this good enough.