Your heart is one with Me. You feel My passions and My aches. Your touch is My touch. You carry purity. I want to take you into the heavenly places and reveal mysteries to you yet to be seen. I am your Lover. I always will be. Do not be afraid. My Kingdom is here. The time is now. Come, come, come higher...you were made to fly.
Something I have been thinking about is how being a believer in Jesus Christ, I carry the very presence of God wherever I go. When I realize that I am in Him and He is in me, the places that I go, the people that I touch are impacted directly by Him because I bear the mark and anointing from heaven. It is not anything that I deserve, it is His gift and it brings Him joy. I love feeling the love of God flow through me and those times when it seems the darkest and most sad are the times when I get to experience even more of this beauty. This little girl's mom is dying of HIV at a hospice in Poipet, Cambodia. Three weeks ago, a friend of mine, Malina, and I went there to visit ministries and it was amazing to see what God did. We knew God was up to something. Getting across the border was an experience all in itself. First we got dropped off and had to take a tuk tuk which tried to take us to a special place where they could do our visa for us :/ which we rejected, had a drunk Cambodian border policeman issue us a visa while he "flirted" with Malina and then we crossed the border within 15 min of it closing. Quite the night! The next day I was in awe of God's power in this incredibly loud thunder storm and I enjoyed watching all the street kids bathe fully clothed in the rain. :) All three days that we were there, we went to this HIV hospice and got to pray with and love on the women there. I met this one woman named "Mom" who was laying on this mat on a bed, too weak to sit up. I don't even know if her family knew where she was staying at this point but she had a beautiful smile that lit up her face and the last day I saw her, she was feeling a little better and I got to see that smile. :) What was really neat is that I was able to use my Thai there as many of them either spoke or understood it. The first night, God spoke His love deep into my spirit and I realized that in being in this land, a dream inside me was being fulfilled.
In reading the book "Dreaming with God" by Bill Johnson, he said that the word desire means "of the Father." There is something exciting and fun about discovering the dreams and desires that are inside of us. About a month ago when I had to do a visa run, I went to Poipet for only a two hour stay. Even before I had wanted to come to Thailand, it had been a desire to go to Cambodia...not exactly sure why...but I think that the poverty and exploitation stirred in me a desire to see God's power come to heal. So I went, not really knowing what to expect but as soon as I crossed that border something happened inside my heart. I felt this burden, an ache for this land I couldn't explain. From the outside looking in, the needs can seem great and hopelessly daunting. As I sat waiting while my visa was being processed, I started to think about how that is the enemy's scheme in that land, to make it seem overwhelming...but Jesus came to love...and love happens one by one. I wanted to come back.
One night, Malina and I were there, we were walking back to our motel and we noticed this cart/tuk tuk filled with little girls around the age of 7. We stopped to say hi and in talking to them, we noticed one woman there who they all said was their "mom". Obviously this wasn't true. Finally, a girl in her early teens came up and truthfully said that every day they are taken across the Thai border and every night they come back to Cambodia. Here was the very definition of trafficking right in front of our eyes. Many times the police at the border are bribed and these kids beg in the streets all day and then return home. Many have been bought to pay off a debt. Many of the little girls, when we reached out to touch them, flinched. It was so sad because it wasn't like we could just take over the tuk tuk and rescue all the girls right then and there. There have to be other options and a way paved to prevent this from taking place.
The weekend I was there in Poipet, I got to see people, beautiful Cambodian people, who were doing just that. Malina and I were taken on a private tour of the facilities and ministries of the "Cambodian Hope Organization" where they house and educate children and their families who have been affected by trafficking and to help prevent trafficking from taking place. They have also set up what is called "School on a mat" where teachers go out every day, into the rural villages, where the children have nothing to do and teach them on a plastic tarp. It was amazing to see this organization taking love and putting it to action. Love is not just a word it means dreaming and living from vision...it means getting involved in peoples' lives and when this happens...justice and mercy are revealed. God's love should inspire action in our lives. Being here at NightLight, I get to see this taking place and again in Cambodia I was reminded again to dream big, desire much and then move to bring the love of heaven to earth. It is simple...and it can even be just taking a child our arms.
**The harvest is so great, but the workers are so few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask Him to send out more workers for His fields.--Matthew 9:37b-38
There are many needs...there in Cambodia and in the ministry to the Karen people. If God is calling your name, don't resist His call.
--Picture above--
"Mom" laying on the bed, Malina to the right and the lovely woman on the left called after we got back to Bangkok to say that she was home again with her 5 month old child. Yay God!
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