Hope for Healing
For those of you who haven't heard yet, we have reached our goal of $10,000!!! It is still hard for me to believe. When we first calculated this as our budget in January, there were some doubts in my mind. Though I had doubts, I chose to trust in God to provide. It would have been easy to doubt because that is our fallback. Our natural response as humans is to hesitate to trust in God, to put our faith into anything but Him. But we have a choice, we can choose to trust in the Lord even when there are doubts coming from within you and even from your closest friends and family. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, "God Provides, Always" even if God did not provide the $10,000 for our trip, He is still good, He still has plans, they just might be different than we were expecting, which would have been okay. But the Lord does love to give gifts to His children (Matthew 7:11, "If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!"). This trip to Cambodia is just that, a good, great, wonderful, amazing gift!
WE ARE GOING TO CAMBODIA!!!
Not only that, but we will be leaving in 27 days. Even though it is so close, I do not think reality has fully set in that we will be living on the other side of the world for three months. The process has definitely begun though. Every time I watch a video, read an article, book, or blog post about Cambodia or sex trafficking, I automatically start picturing myself there. Today, a couple of my Nursing Major friends did a capstone research presentation on sex trafficking. It was a very professional, non emotional presentation, but I found myself crying. I was overwhelmed, not only by what victims of sex trafficking have to go through while they are enslaved, but how complex and long the healing process takes for these victims if they are eventually rescued. For the past four years I have read, listened to and watched story after story of people that were or are victims of sex trafficking. But sitting here in this presentation, it really hit me that encountering these people face to face in Cambodia is going to bring to me a completely different kind of brokenness. It is one thing to read these stories, but it is another to actually know the people, talk with the people, hear the voice of the people in those stories. The Lord has been slowly showing me how much I will need Him during my time in Cambodia. If I tried to go to Cambodia in my own strength, without relying on the Holy Spirit, I would be utterly crushed. The brokenness would be too much for anyone to handle, especially me. Carrying people's burdens comes very easily to me, but this burden, their brokenness, would break me. But I know that in the Holy Spirit's strength, I will be able to help carry their burdens. I also know of an incredible hope for these victims. I have a hope in the healing that ONLY God can bring to their lives. Our God is a God who wants to see redemption in the lives of His people. He wants to bring people in darkness, into his light. He wants those enslaved, to be set free. He wants to see the broken, healed. And He wants us to be washed clean. I know this is possible because I use to be in darkness, I used to be enslaved, I use to be broken but through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ I have been set free! (Galatians 5:1). This truth is for worst of sinners, the most broken, the ones with the greatest hurt and pain. God created the universe and he can and will bring redemption. I put my faith in that hope. I put my faith in hope for healing.
WE ARE GOING TO CAMBODIA!!!
Not only that, but we will be leaving in 27 days. Even though it is so close, I do not think reality has fully set in that we will be living on the other side of the world for three months. The process has definitely begun though. Every time I watch a video, read an article, book, or blog post about Cambodia or sex trafficking, I automatically start picturing myself there. Today, a couple of my Nursing Major friends did a capstone research presentation on sex trafficking. It was a very professional, non emotional presentation, but I found myself crying. I was overwhelmed, not only by what victims of sex trafficking have to go through while they are enslaved, but how complex and long the healing process takes for these victims if they are eventually rescued. For the past four years I have read, listened to and watched story after story of people that were or are victims of sex trafficking. But sitting here in this presentation, it really hit me that encountering these people face to face in Cambodia is going to bring to me a completely different kind of brokenness. It is one thing to read these stories, but it is another to actually know the people, talk with the people, hear the voice of the people in those stories. The Lord has been slowly showing me how much I will need Him during my time in Cambodia. If I tried to go to Cambodia in my own strength, without relying on the Holy Spirit, I would be utterly crushed. The brokenness would be too much for anyone to handle, especially me. Carrying people's burdens comes very easily to me, but this burden, their brokenness, would break me. But I know that in the Holy Spirit's strength, I will be able to help carry their burdens. I also know of an incredible hope for these victims. I have a hope in the healing that ONLY God can bring to their lives. Our God is a God who wants to see redemption in the lives of His people. He wants to bring people in darkness, into his light. He wants those enslaved, to be set free. He wants to see the broken, healed. And He wants us to be washed clean. I know this is possible because I use to be in darkness, I used to be enslaved, I use to be broken but through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ I have been set free! (Galatians 5:1). This truth is for worst of sinners, the most broken, the ones with the greatest hurt and pain. God created the universe and he can and will bring redemption. I put my faith in that hope. I put my faith in hope for healing.
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