There is Hope, Always Hope

Well.. I am back in Santa Barbara, Calif. United States of America. I have been through too much to comprehend and my heart is coping with moving into a new home, that will be my home for the summer and for all of next year at Westmont, being with new people that have no idea what i have seen, heard, touched, loved. I am trying to process my last month but there is no time for that right now. I start my first summer school class today, i am seeing my dear beloved friends that i haven’t seen for a while, settling in, blah blah blah, sorry just blabbering trying to make sense. I think I’ll be a busy for a while. God will provide time for me to think, and process, to cry. He has been so good to me and has blessed my every step in this journey that I have had for the past month. so ill trust Him with my time here too in Santa Barbara.

I think I’ll be continuing on this blog throughout my summer here in SB. So if you want you can continue reading.. if not. thanks for listening i hope you have been touched and please inform everyone you know of what you read!!

LOVE YOU.

hello my friends and family :)

I miss you! but i am falling in love with this part of the world. this trip has obviously opened my eyes to so many things. things seen and unseen. this may seem cliche for whatever reason but i love being out in the world it changes something in you. it takes away  comfort and sticks you in a place, raw. it changes your life. this trip has been long and hard and we are all falling over with exhaustion and if the small hours of sleep isn’t doing it its the heat that just drives us crazy. Pray that God will give us an extra dose of perseverance and strength. we have one week left and counting. i have mixed feelings about our departure. I miss all of you so much and i miss (surprisingly) some American tokens that you would only find in the states like chipotle or blenders. but i know when i find my seat on that plane and settle in for the next 21 hours of traveling i will tear up and want to parachute of that plane to stay with the beautiful people i have been sharing life with here in Thailand and Cambodia. Sorry i haven’t blogged in so so long i have been so tired and busy. I haven’t told you anything about Cambodia yet.. wow. well i have a lot to catch you up on. we first flew into Siem Reap which is in northern Cambodia. we got into more vans packed all of our luggage in there and rolled out. when we arrived at our palace hotel. which seriously it was HUGEEEEEE! I knocked out and slept for the next four hours woke up to some activities. we visited more NGO’s and checked out the markets and hung out at local (safe) bars. Siem Reap is a very underdeveloped place but it had so much to offer in beauty. it was a perfect introduction to the Kingdom of Cambodia.. I am going to be really honest with all of you at this time I was getting pretty drained. i honestly did not feel like was ready to take on another country. but here i am still trekking and God has shown me once again how powerful He is and how wonderful He is to me. Cambodia is different. very different. i feel like our focus has drifted from sex trafficking to deep deep poverty. Cambodia like i have mentioned before in my first blogs Cambodia is a very poverty stricken country they are barely getting their act back together. They have overcome the worst genocide and a war that lasted for 30 years. It has now been 30 years and they have made so much progress in their development of buildings, businesses, hotels, and really everything especially when we ventured on a 6 hour bus ride (that i slept most of the way and was awakened just to see a 3 little girls outside holding HUGE spiders and dangling them in my window) to the capital city Phnom Penh. this place is amazingly beautiful. Their culture and their personalities are all so friendly and personable. and seriously if i had a nickel for every time someone started speaking to me in Thai or in Khmer or told me i looked Thai or Cambodian i would be a very rich woman. Its so funny when they look at me and then i smile and say a firm “hello!!!” the looks they give me after that are PRICELESS!! always confused. ahah. today i got Malaysian. its the best! haha. okie dokie. anyways. the people here just like to mess around and are so sweet and caring. We have an honorary member of our group who represents Cambodia so well her name is Lily and she is our coordinator here and she is the SWEETEST woman ever. All you parents out there you will be glad to know we have Lily around she makes us put on “sun cream” everyday before we leave the hotel, makes us drink plenty of water and tells us that we are still not drinking enough, she counts our heads when we get on the bus after each stop to make sure we are all back.. she is our pseudo mama. she is the best. today she says on the mic of our bus “xoxo to all of you.” it melted our hearts. like i said the best. Our first full day in Phnom Penh was rainy and perfect the rain clouds covered the hot sun and the powerful gusts of wind cooled down our overheating bodies. we arrived at a building not really sure where we were. we walked in and saw pictures, plaques, and newspaper clippings all over the walls. as we stared at the walls we found out that Queen Latifah has been here, Barbara Walters, Jennifer Garner, the queen of England, the pope, and Michelle Obama to mention a few. soon enough we figured out where we were. we were in Somaly Mam foundation office!! if you don’t know who this is PLEASE LOOK HER UP! (she is on Wikipedia) this foundation was founded by Somaly who herself was completely sexually exploited. trafficked by a loved one she had to sell her body to not get beaten by her pimp. her foundation fights for these women’s rights and investigates brothels to shut them down and to rescue the children and women that work there. she just wants everyone to have a chance, to have an opportunity to a life not in bondage to selling their bodies. the best part is we got to meet her!!! this is a very rare thing because she is like a celebrity seriously the next mother Teresa. she has people who have people who have people. and she is always traveling but she so happen to be Cambodia and at the other office so she zoomed right over when she heard a group was here and wanted to meet her. she laughed with us and she is so beautiful. truly inspiring woman. if she can do it. we can do it. with all smiles she kept saying: “I’m crazy! I’m CrAZY!” but then she said something that will stay with me forever “you have to be crazy to do this kind of work” that was my confirmation from God. God uses us crazies!! i love it. she shooed us off to visit one of her women centre’s, again this was a very rare invitation. People said barely any tour group is allowed to go and freely hang out with these women… again a gift from God. because it was here where i left my heart. these are the women that i fight for. these women are the sole purpose and reason why i have come on this mayterm. they are my inspiration for my life long goals. women who have undergone so much pain and suffering yet they are learning to overcome and be strong. Ages 18 and up are learning other skills to help them later in life and they are making it. they all look up to somaly. and so do it. I just found my heart here and here is where i felt right. I am here to help them. i am here to learn to help these women. maybe it wont be at the somaly mam foundation but somewhere else. but its these women who have moved me to help to fight for this issue. we danced and sang and chit chatted with them all. making sure each and everyone of these girls felt loved and acknowledged. they walked us to the gate five hands holding mine. laughing and crying and intimate moments of them hugging me tightly and whispering to me “i love you sister” yes. yes. yes. these are my people. my loves. God’s BELOVED daughters. He has called me to love and these are those who He loves therefore i am going to love them FULLY. if i wasnt convinced before that i am going to fight for this for the rest of my life and now completely aware this is where my heart lies. please please know i am getting ready to come home and i miss you all dearly. i just dont think its going to be easy parting from a place where my life has been changed forever. the rest of our days have consisted of touring one of the 7 wonders of the world “Angkor Wat”, visiting garbage dumps organizations where they give kids who are garbage pickers earning less than a dollar a day education and a safe place to play a place full of kids as little as 1 or 2 years old having the ware on their face like they lived more than 10 years, we have dined at NGO’s restaurants employing kids on the streets teaching them cooking and how to be waiters and waitress’ a little Old Skool Cafe going on over here! woot woot! today we went to see the Killing Fields. we went the high school that was turned into a torture camp where they were interrogated. they were kept there for up to 7 months. and if they werent kept there they were executed in the fields. men, women, children killed. we visited both memorials today. too heavy to feel it or process right now. ill probably talk about it when i get back to the states.. its just to heavy for me to go there emotionally here in the country it happened. where it has effected them sooooo greatly. to where one million people were murdered. moms dads, uncles aunts, cousins, daughters, sons.. everyone was affected. whew. okay.. well i love you. i need to catch as many z’s i can tonight. hopefully my malaria medicine will give me more intereseting yet funny dreams :) sunday is on its way here. one more week!? insane. but really. one more week. so be prepared world. ahh. ok this time for reals. goodnight.

I am now in Cambodia. more later. love you all.

well well well the time has come and another chapter of this trip is ending a new one beginning. i write to you from bright green chairs in the Bangkok airport with sleepy eyes and a full heart. the things i have experienced here have been beyond words and if it didnt take a million years to upload pictures to my blog i would have been just keeping a photo journal for all of you to see what i see but that has not been working out for me so i decided to keep writing to you.. haha. even though this is not my forte. anyways. i told all of you i would tell you about the adorable kids we got to hang out with two days ago. so i will hold to my promise. we met up with another NGO named VCDF (Volunteers for Children’s Development Foundation) and they are absolutely AMAZING! they do everything. this organization really understands the problem and tries to meet all the needs of the people. it is a perfect example. it is not an organization that goes in and tells the people what they need and how to solve the problems that they are not even fully informed on. This organization helps with first aid, giving new clothes, teaches mothers how to care and tend to their children, supplies them with vitamins and vaccines if needed, they teach kids about what is appropriate touch and what is not, they also have an orphanage where get to go and go tot school and live in a safe environment where they are not at risk anymore. This NGO focuses on the nameless, unidentified people on the border town of Burma, Laos, and Thailand. The people are not recognized by their country and Thailand wont recognize them as Thai citizens either. So these marginalized people are without a birth certificate, social security numbers,and without a voice. they don’t exist. they are the people unseen. They have no idea how to take care of their children or themselves. Most of them have never stepped into a hospital. they give birth to their kids on the streets. I have also learned that people here have kids to get an income. children here are commodity or the breadwinners to supply their mom and her boyfriend with money to feed their opium addictions. their are tons of children on the streets. begging, stealing, or selling flowers or little nick-knacks. What i don’t understand is how drugs could be more precious than a child. These kids on the streets with no name are a HUGE target for traffickers because traffickers go for people who are so desperate and have no connections to anybody so if they are taken or sold that no one would be looking for them. these people have nothing and nobody. a perfect subject. VCDF said “the traffickers are fast so we need to go faster.” They take in as many kids as they can and do outreach around their neighborhood and in the nearby marketplaces. We got to hangout with the kids at this orphanage who all chose to be part of a program and go to school and follow rules. They don’t force kids into this program or do they try to convince them. they say its their life we are just creating options for them. Many kids don’t want to give up the freedom of the streets and they like ruling their own lives so they turn down the housing and education. Those are the kids we need to be praying for. this program is a massive opportunity for these kids and will get them out of harms way. The children were incredible. they were so smart and fun and so free. it was amazing to see them smile. we step outside and they are surrounding our vans they just walk up to you and hug you and look up at you. some are jumping on you like a jungle gym. i have never seen kids sooo hungry to be loved. it was awesome that we got to love them even if it was for two days. their energy was unbelievable! haaha. when we left i don’t think there was a single dry eye in our van. those kids touched our hearts and the hope in their eyes i will always remember. they taught me how to be joyful amongst trials and sucky life situations to say the least.. I met one girl her name was ami. she was five years old and would not let go of my hand. i looked at her sitting in my lap and that’s when it happened. I WILL NOT STOP FIGHTING UNTIL THERE IS FREEDOM FOR THESE KIDS. i am ready to accept this challenge. this is a lifetime of work but i am willing to fight for these people, these kids, trafficking will be a thing of the past. there will be a safe world for these kids to play and not have to worry about being sold into prostitution or work labor. I am ready. WE are ready. Leaving Thailand i have mixed feelings. I am so so so excited to be in a new country but i am not done here. I have so much more to see to experience so many more people to tell that they are beautiful and valued and wanted. I don’t know when ill be back, but God willing I will be back here someday. I have learned so much. i have fallen in love with a country. and it wont be the last. there is a problem a problem that we can help change. please if any of what i have been writing the past weeks have moved you in any way shape or form please visit the websites i have been posting here or research it on your own. its everywhere not just here. its in our own backyard. be cautious of where you shop and if they use slave labor be aware of your nail salons, massage places, restaurants, etc. be AWARE. there is something you can do and its very necessary. PRAY. its not something that we can do as a last resort thing it is a thing that we MUST do the first thing we should do. it is a necessity. oh and as a side note we rode elephants through the jungle, bamboo rafted down the river, and cuddled with tigers yesterday. it rocked. Soooo, As i sit here in the airport listening to Over the Rhine and looking around watching most of my  group sleeping and blogging and reading i am satisfied for now. i am ready to be present in Cambodia. Thailand you have been so good to me. you have shown me beauty and pain. but most of all you have shown me how much hope there is. even in the darkest moments there is hope. always hope.

Sawadee Ka! We are in Chaing Rai right now sitting in the hotel lobby getting ready to embark on our next adventure. But we sit here with a home stay underneath our belt and lots of night bazaar goodies. The time we spent here in this amazing city or I guess it’s more of a rural area, anyways the time we spent here has been so relaxing and the air here is lighter. While in Pattaya the air was thick like I said before it carried so much spiritual darkness and the humidity was heavy like it was just sitting on us. When we left that place to come to this area overflowing with Thai culture, Rachel and Brad told us that this is the true Thailand and they were right. It has been a blessing to be here. I feel free here, free to laugh. This trip has been nothing like I expected. Everything is going by so fast. Its been really hard to grasp where we are putting our feet and what is right in front of our eyes. Again its been so nice to be in Chaing Rai it has been a time to shop, sleep, watch T.V., to lounge around in coffee shops with free wifi, and enjoy the nightlife in local bars. It’s a pleasant feel here. What I have noticed is that we are so quick to find a place to hold our heavy hearts. We are going through so much emotionally, spiritually, physically, that we long for a break a place to breathe and have fun and Chaing Rai has provided a resting place for us. But do not be dismayed I have not forgotten why we are here. Our last two days have been beautiful remainders. On Monday we left the comfort of our hotels and headed to the farm villages in the hills or northern Thailand. There we met the team of the SOLD project. Rachel Goble one of our leaders on the trip is the on this team and it was so enjoyable to see her with her people and in her element. We sat in wooden desk chairs in the soon to be resource center in the middle of the jungle. We listened to Rachel Sparks’, the founder of the SOLD project, spiel telling us about their organization. These people are inspiring and just like us. It is motivating to meet people who are chasing their dream chasing what they believe in chasing change and fighting for it. When our team gets back to the states we have a huge responsibility to be advocates for what we have experienced and witnessed and for what we want to see change in the world. After meeting them and talking with them we hopped in the back of a pick up truck and loaded our 15 person van and headed to the nearby school where we would meet the kids that we were staying with that night. We got to the school and it left me speechless. I was a bit under the weather and low on energy but seeing these kids lifted my spirit. After learning how important and absolutely vital education is for these children, that their entire future lies in the hands of their education, especially in these rural areas. Because these rural areas are the places where agents and traffickers come to take women from their villages who have no other options or opportunitues because they are poor and have no education and they offer them jobs in the city or in Japan or in the Philippines or in the states and that’s how they get the women in the brothels and bars. To see about a hundred kids all in their uniforms and singing their national anthem made my heart sing. I was overwhelmed. We drove to their village afterward and were assigned to our houses for the night. We walked through the hot jungle until everyone had a place to stay and then we went back to our house and played with our kids. Despite the language barrier, my upset stomach, and the hard as a rock mattress we had the best time EVER! We had plenty of fun just hanging out with our kids. When we first came to the house we went and fed the pigs. That was interesting and smelly J mind you this is a 9-year-old girl helping us understand and cook and find our way around. After that she, (Sotida) took us to meet her cousin. Jatoupon, we could not pronounce his name right for the LONGEST TIME and he would just laugh and laugh he is 12 years old. We found things to talk about like school and sports and after a game of charades to see what sports they play we found they like badminton so we played that for a long while. I was sweating so much. Ha. Then we sat on the cool tile and he lovingly ran to get a fan and plugged it in for me. Seriously these kids have such a servant’s heart and are always willing to help. I started asking him about school and about what he is learning and he quickly shot up and darted into our small blue house. He returned with a book a “learning English” book and that is how we spent the rest of our night. Reading English learning Thai words and acting out each word we learned it was so FUN! I love communication and language it is such a powerful thing. Even when you know 3 words of the same language it makes a world of difference. There was so much laughter coming from this village hidden on the hill and our house was the loudest. Heidi and I went in this together and we just laughed and laughed SO LOUD. It was so great when grandpa came over and literally talked to us in Thai for 20 mins. We just smiled. The bathroom was another experience. It was through the chicken coops and roosters and pigs that brought a lot of laughter from the whole family. To be completely immersed in a culture that you have no idea what you are doing it’s a funny thing. They had so much grace for us. The kids took such good care of us and the aunt and uncle we stayed with were so sweet. It was amazing the work ethic of these people. It made me and Heidi feel so lazy. We “slept” for most of the night and awoke with the roosters. Ate breakfast and headed to the resource center and then did our first service day. We lay concrete and painted and cleaned a pond. It was sooo tiring but we DID IT! We said goodbye to that part of our adventure and that place and left to be welcomed by a hotel room and showers and lots of Thai shopping and fell fast asleep dreaming of a redeemed Thailand. This trip is kind of a blur because we are just going from one place to the next but my heart is remembering. Now we are about to load into vans again and go to our next destination. Thank you for praying and please keep it up. We are safe and having the time of our lives. LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH» you all matter to me so much. Know that. Peace.  

ok ay so here we are lying in bed waiting for our trip in the morning at 5 am. we take off from Pattaya Thailand and on our way to Chaing Rai. This place is more in the country of Thailand more immersed in Thai culture. Pattaya is more modernized and a tourism destination in chaing rai we will see thai ruins and authentic thai culture and traditional thai clothing.. I am so excited. It is 11:29 pm on Saturday i should probably be packing but i am enjoying the company of the two beautiful ladies Veronica and Courtney. thse two women are amazing. they are caring and passionate and have the most alive spirits i know. it has been so great to have these women by my side so present and so willing to love me. Everybody on this team has a really special way of caring and loving eachother leaving room for people to be free to be who they are are. the chemistry in this group is amazing. seriously i cant tell you enough. we have encountered many gnarly nights together and we can come back and get swooped up in a time of worship and card games. it is exactly the  right amount of fun and seriousness. we are amazing. ha. I am ready to explore the rest of Thailand but i am sad to go from this place. i have grown accostmed to these neighborhoods and these people on the street and the recovering women at the Tamar bakery who have been our bubbles of hope. I am going to miss this place. the place of exposure and of first looks into this problem a place of confusion a place of experience a place of numbness a place of complete surrender a place of unity and bonding a place of hope and hopelessness. Pattaya will always be in my heart. I will return to this place and all of you who are reading this can hold me to that. It has made a huge impression in my heart i will hold near and dear. Thank you Pattaya for making my life so much more complicated and this issue so much more than an issue but life. I am sad to leave, weirdly sad, but i am ready. next please. here we go. talk to you when i am at my homestay in Chaing Rai. keep praying for Bangkok. keep praying for Pattaya. love you all.