Just Call Me Peter.

God and I have this really neat aspect of our relationship where I ask Him to challenge me or grow me, and He calls me to something incredibly uncomfortable so I can learn that lesson. This past fall, He presented the latest part of this growing process by calling me away for the summer. 

To do what, exactly? Spend two months in Thailand with an all girls team of 24, going to bars and playing Jenga and Connect Four to build relationships with prostitutes while drinking a lot of Sprite.
More than anything, I wanted to run. I wanted to head in the opposite direction and never look back, but instead of letting that metaphorical whale come swallow me up in the style of Jonah fleeing Nineveh, I took a deep breath, packed my bag, and with gritted teeth I ignorantly told God, “You better know what you’re doing,” as I boarded my flight to training camp.
Two and a half weeks later, I sat on the balcony of our home in Thailand and felt defeated. I was homesick for the first time since middle school and found myself wanting to do nothing but stay by myself with Jesus. I didn’t want to talk to anyone else or be with anyone, and slowly I was finding my way back to internal processing from verbal processing.
It was in this moment of weakness that I remembered the words a teammate spoke over me in Romania last summer when discussing our struggles on the trip.
“You remind me of Peter. You ask God for something, but once He gives it to you, you look down at the waves and forget to look to Him. Don’t let the waves take you down; keep your eyes on Him,”

I asked God to refine me and make me uncomfortable. Good move, right?
My team gets labeled as ‘women only’ once I’m too far into the process to change trips.
I looked down at that wave.
Homesickness hits when the actual length of two months becomes a reality and I realize I’m missing my cousins graduation, my sisters birthday, and another family vacation.
I looked down at that wave.
A conversation in the bars doesn’t go quite as planned and our team gets shaken up about it.
I looked down at that wave.

Just like He did with Peter, I can hear Jesus as He takes my hand and pulls me out of the raging water,
“O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31).
There’s this beautifully cliche saying claiming that God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called; that saying holds a lot of truth despite how quick most Christians are to repeat it.
God didn’t call me to Thailand because I was ready to go and had the perfect skill set for our ministry; He called me here to refine me and teach me so He can use me to speak His life and love over these beautiful, broken women. He didn’t call me away from home for the summer because I was dying to escape; He called me here to show me that even when I’m halfway around the world in an unfamiliar environment, He is the one I am to rely on.
Our God is a God of redemption, and even when He has to pull us out of the waves more times than not, His love never fails and His mercy never ends. How incredible is it that He chose me, an ordinary, sinful college student from North Carolina, to travel all the way around the world to look into the pain filled eyes of a prostitute and tell her she is worthy, she is chosen, and most of all she is loved? I’ve been chosen to bring life to these women and maybe be the only person that ever shows them real love, and despite the beauty of this amazing call placed upon me, I let my eyes slip away and look at the waves below me.
From here on, my eyes will stay focused on the One who gave me life and called me to discomfort, who with each morning brings new mercy and continues to romance me and cover me with His unending love.

I’m done looking down at the waves.

Donnie Moonfry.

I had plans on Friday. Then at last minute, things came up and these plans fell through.
So I found myself on the road to Asheville with my dad, still without plans when we arrived in the downtown area for his meeting. 
I wandered, at first a bit frustrated, but the more I walked the more I realized that being irritated by things beyond anyone's control that brought these plans to an end was only going to make me miserable. The weather was beautiful, the setting ideal. Sure, I was not spending this time the way I originally had planned and I had no idea where I was going or what I was going to do for the next three hours, but I certainly was not going to pout and waste a perfectly good afternoon. As I walked, I prayed for the people around me and the places they were going and the problems they were having, even though I didn't know them or anything they were going through. Soon an hour had passed without my noticing as I kept praying and walking and praying and walking. Finally, I prayed that, since God had obviously brought me there without plans for a reason, He would use me during my time there to be there for anyone who needed someone or just to be a blessing in someones day.
I parked on a bench and pulled out my copy of Lord of the Flies that I was working on and decided to just chill for awhile and give my feet a rest.
That was when I saw him. His feet were the first thing I noticed as I looked down at the pages of my book, and they were well worn, covered by a pair of broken in leather sandals. He wore a pair of camo patterned pants, a worn out grey t shirt, and a shockingly teal suit jacket. Travel mug of what I assumed was coffee in hand, he came up and simply asked me if I had 50 cents I could spare so he could get on the internet. I had a random assortment of change, but no quarters, so using a lame excuse ("I'm so sorry! I legitimately have no spare change or I really would give it to you!") I told him I didn't. I thought he'd move on with this, but instead he noticed the book in my hands. "Dude! I read that book in high school. It's a good one. How far in are you?" He asked, enthralled. I answered his question simply and politely, not really knowing what to say. He asked if I was into poetry, and the next thing I know he's sitting next to me showing me a book of poetry he carried with him at all times.
I knew the reason He had brought me to Asheville without plans. 
For the next hour, I sat on that bench talking about poetry and music and the reason he was there at all. His name was Donnie, but he went by Moonfry. His life was not glamorous, but judging by the smile on his bearded, youthful face, you could tell there was something about him that was happy, although troubled. Two months on the road had taken him from New York through Tennessee and now into Asheville; next destination unknown. He had been jumping on trains and living off nothing, living in tents in the forest and (like he had the night before we met) sleeping in bushes to keep out of the rain. He read me the poetry he had written and showed me the tattoo of Donnie from The Wild Thronberries that he had on his left arm and told me how he really wants to go back to school for graphic design. 
The craziness of his life and the hard times he had seen or even the teal suit jacket were not what stood out to me about this new friend. In the middle of our conversation, right as he told me about sleeping in the bush the night before, a cool breeze rolled down the street and a beam of sunlight hit us from over head. Smiling, he looked around and said simply, "The weather is beautiful today. Who the hell could complain about anything?" 
There I was, this selfish little eighteen year old home from college for the summer, arriving in Asheville unpleasant about spoiled plans, sitting on a bench with a homeless man without a penny to his name, and I was the one who had been complaining. 
Suddenly, my fallen out plans didn't seem quite so monumental anymore. 
After the hour had passed, I knew I needed to be getting back to meet my dad before we left. Apologizing for needing to leave, I reached into my purse and pulled out a hand full of coins. "It isn't much," I told him, "But every little bit counts, right?" He nodded and accepted the handful of coins, shaking my hand and saying, "Hey, thanks for taking the time to talk to me. It was nice to actually have a conversation with someone who has a brain for once," I told him it was no trouble and wished him luck on his travels, where ever they take him. With one last nod and well wishing, he bounded up from the bench and back into the real world as I walked away down the sidewalk. 


Plans fall through and people let you down, but just because these things happen doesn't mean we should ever forget the blessing we have in our lives. From a roof over our heads to simply clean clothes to wear each day, we should never take for granted the blessings in our lives. 
Thank you, Donnie Moonfry, for that hour. In some ways, I think you blessed me more than I could have ever done for you.

The most destructive disease.

[With the semester wrapping up and my freshman year coming to a close (AH. WHAT?), blogging has not been a real possibility in my world. I'll be home on May 4th and back in action though, and I have a few things I've written down that I've felt compelled to write about once I have a free second that isn't taken up by exams and papers and endless math formulas. That being said, I just wanted to share this brief but very serious point.]

I'm currently in the middle of Panarctica (The Panera close to my house which is always freezing) working on my American Lit final essay. For my topic, I've chosen to compare the point of view in John Woolman's "Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes" and comparing it with the issue of modern day slavery. Human Trafficking is not an issue I take lightly, so you can take it without any surprise that I am currently looking like a fuming hot mess in the frozen corner booth, slurping down unending amounts of Dr. Pepper and lemon while furiously highlighting away articles upon articles with statistics on human trafficking in the United Stated.
The United States. America. Ah-mur-i-CAH. The country known for freedom and prosperity and greasy McDonalds sold in elephant sized portions; not exactly the place that comes to mind when one hears the term "human trafficking". But it should.  See, the seedy back alleys and red light districts of Asia and Europe are not the only places that women and children are used and exploited for sex.
Want to know some scary facts about human trafficking in America?* 

- 75%-80% of human trafficking is for sex, and 50% of all people trafficked are children.
- There are currently more people enslaved than there ever have been in history, and the cost of a slave is lower than it ever has been.
- The United States is listed among the top destinations for clients of human trafficking, with the most popular locations being California, New York, and Florida.
- Human trafficking has been reported in all 50 states and Washington D.C. 

- There is a large number of children and teenagers being trafficked in America between the ages of 9-19, with the average being 11 years old.
and the one I personally found the most disturbing:
- There are currently an estimated 13 million children enslaved around the world.

Take a second and let that sink in. Until I began to research this topic not only for my paper but for my trip this summer, the numbers didn't seem real. It's easy to look at "13 million" and think "Oh, that's a big number," and move on with your life without letting the reality of how completely huge it is set in. 13 million children is a freaking ton of them. 13 million is larger than the population of many countries in Europe, and not just the tiny ones only nerdy little home schoolers like myself know about and memorized the capitals of in middle school.

The population of Finland is 5,357,537. The number of children currently enslaved is 13,000,000.

The population of Austria is 8,470,929. The number of children currently enslaved is 13,000,000.

Iceland has a population of 304,261 . There number of children currently enslaved is roughly 43 times larger than that number. 

Wrap your mind around how huge that number is. If that doesn’t deeply disturb us, we have a problem. 

Children are supposed to be innocent and carefree and obnoxious and snot nosed, playing with unrealistically proportioned dolls and racing bikes around a neighborhood street, not being forced into having sex with men old enough to be their fathers countless times a day.
This is a serious issue. It’s a disease plaguing the entire world, not just America. It’s disgusting. It’s destructive. It’s just flat out evil. 

These are the things my team and I will be facing and fighting in Thailand this summer. This is the evil we are up against. It’s real and spreading and constantly growing, and it will not be an easy force to contend with. We have to arm ourselves with prayer and incredible spiritual strength, trusting entirely in the strength and power of Christ to get us through it, with Him fighting along side us. 
Keep my team in prayer as we prepare for this journey, for strength (not only spiritually, but mentally and physically as well), for unity and love among us and pouring from us, and for all of us to be used as we are needed during our two months in Thailand. 

[As the trip gets closer and closer, I’m slowly put surely reaching the fully funded point. I’m currently at 75% exactly and still need $1250 before my deadline next month. Praise God for the money that has come in so far and thank you all for the support, both financially and prayerfully, that you have given me so far!]

* information from http://facts.randomhistory.com/human-trafficking-facts.html 

Thailand, an update.

It’s update time. I’ve spent the evening trying to figure out what to blog about, when the obvious smacked me in the face: Thailand. I realized I never actually put into detail what I’m going to be doing or how support raising is going or even told anyone that I’ve been assigned an actual team. So here we go.

On June 3rd, I’ll be leaving the comfortable idea of my home, my kittens, and my freedom of spend the summer drinking the entire world’s supply of tea and read every book ever written and instead I’ll be spending two months in Thailand through Adventures In Missions. There I’ll join a team of (currently) seven other girls and after training camp, we’ll be headed overseas for two months to begin our ministry. We’ll specifically be working with past and present victims of sex trafficking, showing these women and girls that there is a God who loves them and that they are beautiful. Night after night these beautiful girls work the bars and are objectified by men who are just as lost as they are. My heart breaks for the girls trapped in this cycle of survival and lost hope.
Our trip is actually called “Human Trafficking: Thailand”. I don’t know that any of us on my team are ready to face what we’re about to walk into, but God has called each of us for a reason, and He’ll see us through it all.
A few facts about this trip taken straight from the trip information:

- Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world.
The UN estimates that around 4 million people a year are now traded against their will to work in some form of slavery.
- As of 1993, there was an estimated 2 million prostitutes in Thailand. Prostitution is the largest commodity for the 450,000 Thai men who purchase prostitutes daily as well as for a large percentage of the 5.4 million tourists a year who arrive in Thailand for sex tours per year.
And those facts are 17 years old. So it can only have gotten worse.
 

For the trip I have to raise a total of $4,900. So far I have raised $1,390 and I’m so thankful to everyone who has given so this can happen. You guys are awesome, and I’m so sorry I haven’t had a chance to thank you personally yet, I’ve been super busy with exams and classes and basically just being a college student, but it is coming. 
Next month we’ll be having a fundraiser to help with the funds for the trip. We’re selling Brunswick Stew like we did for Romania ($7 a quart, so if you’re interested just let me know) and we’re talking about having a yard sale sometime after. 
You don’t have to buy stew or a secondhand sweater if you want to help out and donate though. You can donate (anonymously or not) through the website or by sending a check. http://adventures.org/give/donate.asp?giveto=partFund 
 

I’m going to be updating more often to keep everyone up to date on how the support is going and with new information as I receive it. We won’t know a lot about the details of our ministry until we are in country, but I will let you know what I know.
Thank you so much for all your support, both in prayer and financially. Please keep my team in your prayers as we all work to get our support raised and prepare mentally and spiritually for the trip. Pray for the people we’ll be ministering to and working with and for unity among our team as we come to know each other.
103 days until the adventure begins!

Because eventually we all have to come out of hiding. . .

It's funny how our first instinct when we mess up or do something wrong is to hide (or maybe it's only me. . .).  Secrets have a funny way of revealing themselves, so I don't know what makes us think there is a sane answer in hiding with our shame. We can't just stay hidden forever, burrowing in a dark corner and hoping that no one ever figures out how we messed it all up.
Basically, I screwed up. And I'm ready to come out of my dark little corner of hiding and admit that. 

I'm kind of human. Okay, maybe more than kind of. . . I'm INCREDIBLY human. Preparing yourself for a situation and actually being in a situation are two totally different things, and I sadly wasn't as prepared as I thought I was to handle temptation when it looked me in the face. Being at school and handling my work load and making new friends and experiencing new adventures all made church and God and everything I value seem so unimportant. They slowly but surely began to fall down on my priority list, and of course other things all only seem so much more appealing when the prospects of reputation and relations get thrown in. 
Don't get me wrong, I haven't done anything ridiculously wrong. I haven't compromised my morals or fried my brain out on drugs or dropped out of school to answer a call to the pole. I'm not going to lie to you though, I've been living very apathetically in my spiritual life and very much in the moment, going on what feels good instead of what I know I should be doing. Keeping with this honesty, it felt good for awhile. Actually, it was awesome. I was starting to see how I could be happy being like that forever. But every high has to end, and it comes in a crash, and that was when I realized how very much I lacked peace. 
By the time I realized this though, I was out a friendship, recovering from a two hour accountability talk with one of my dearest friends, and trying to hold together the remains of friendships damaged during my little escapade. I felt unworthy and disgusting, and I was this close to dropping out of the Thailand trip because of it. I thought that I had definitely and completely screwed up, and everything I had worked so hard for was gone. But that is the beauty of redemption. As my friend recommended (or more like strongly demanded) during our accountability talk, I sat down with my iPod and Bible and for the first time in awhile I had a serious, intimate moment with Jesus. As I sat down and prepared to be completely destroyed (in the most loving way possible, because He is pretty good at doing that), these words played on through my headphones,

My God is making new the wreckage of my heart

Your hand is reaching down to pull me from the dark

Your mercy reigns 

Your mercy covers me

Your grace sustains

Your grace is all I need. . .

I am worthy. I am loved. I am redeemed. I am washed in his blood and made new. 
I'm going to wrap this up by sharing with you something that my Romania teammate said the other day as we were talking about how we've both been struggling. I don't think I could have worded it better than he did. . 

"To think of all the times I've been ensnared and trapped by just crap in my life, but yet he doesn't lash out in anger or condemnation like I deserve. He washed me in His blood and welcomes me back like a prodigal son who just lost his way. Man, I'll never understand that kind of crazy, unmerited love," 

Me either, friend. Me either. But thank God we have it, regardless of our understanding.

Wrapping up the break.

I'm currently sitting in my bedroom floor, surrounded by boxes, piles of sheets, and sleeping kittens. Tomorrow my 3 and a half week winter break is over and I'm headed back to Greensboro to start my second semester of college. I'm a lot more optimistic about this coming semester, and I'm excited to get back to schedules and projects. I'm also incredibly excited to be back with my friends and into the usual shenanigans of laundry parties, onesie adventures, and Teen Mom nights.  

Until I have time to write an actual blog though, which is coming soon with a big update on my support raising for Thailand, I leave you with some pictures from break. 

 (^ Baby brother. We've spent the majority of break playing a lot of Xbox (I'm getting alright at FIFA and Halo 3.) and watching Lost and Arrested Development. I miss him when I'm not here.)

 (^ Good influence. I went as Ke$Ha to the youth group Christmas party [We were supposed to dress as celebrities or fictional characters])

(^ Oovoo party with Jenelle and Jess.)

One down, seven to go.

Last Tuesday, I took my last final and finished my first semester of college. Once there was a time when I hated college with all of my being. I swore I was in the wrong place and had to get through school to get started with the rest of my life. 
Things have changed. Quite a lot actually. 

In the past 4 months, I've learned a lot and really stretched myself out of my comfort zone. I've met some amazing people, cried under a tree and never lived it down, lead a project group, become known by all as the girl in the onesie, consumed a lot of caf pizza and waffles, survived living with a diva, found out what I really want to do with my life, got my nose pierced, rode in a taxi for the first time, have been around more needles and ink than ever before in my life, and become all around more confident. It's hard to remember what I did before I met my friends, and the idea of eating and studying alone or even being alone ever is a really foreign concept anymore. Basically, I went from being the girl that no one knew with the horrible roommate and lack of ambition to being the girl who runs around in a glow in the dark onesie and basically lives in the laundry room. 
I'm actually excited about next semester. After a long process of hitting brick walls, I finally got my room swapped and will be moving to the second floor of my building when I go back in January. I got reassigned to a room that is across the hall from one of my friends and I have heard fabulous things about my new roommate. My classes are going to be really interesting and I have a friend in one of them with me, so that is going to be an adventure. I changed my major from Interpreting to English, and I'm really excited about the things ahead of me now that I'm in a major I'm actually passionate about. I've gotten to a point where I really love school in all aspects, even when the work seems overwhelming. Outside of school, Thailand is getting closer and closer, and I really think it finally hit me how real this trip is. In just a few weeks I should be getting assigned to a blog for my team and getting my first glance at who my teammates are, and it's time to really pick it up with fund raising. I'm so excited to see what happens on this trip and see God work through my team as we minister to the people of Thailand and also to each other. 

One semester is down and there are seven more to go.
Let the adventure begin!