one sweet hello, one sweet goodbye

in less than 48 hours, the friend i blogged about just 2 posts below this one is COMING TO VISIT!! to say i'm excited would be quite the understatement. :) it's hard to imagine a part of Southeast Asia walking around in knoxville.. meeting my friends.. stepping into my world.. but here he will be! he is coming, along with 2 other dear friends from California that were on both the Cambodia & Southeast Asia trips this summer. it is going to feel SO GOOD to be reunited! my heart is anxiously anticipating the crazy amounts of laughter that this weekend will hold.
if you are interested, my friend will be sharing a little bit about the story of his past and how the Lord is working through him in Southeast Asia now on saturday morning..if you want specific details, let me know and i'll get them to you! i'd LOVE for you to come meet him and hear his heart because it is something so special that my words could never do justice..it is a story that has changed my life!

as much as i'm rejoicing in my friend's arrival, i'm also very much dreading tuesday morning at 5:30 a.m... that's when my little sister heads off for her 8 month adventure to Hawaii and beyond. she'll be living on Kauai for a few months & then will travel to another country to love and serve the people there until sometime in april. i'm SO excited and proud of her for listening to the Lord and following His leading... but boy i am going to miss her around here A LOT. Carrie and I are 7 years a part, and shared a room for a good solid 10 years of our lives.. but it wasn't until i went moved out to go to UT that we became close. in the past 5 years or so, my sister has quickly become my best friend in this life. it's funny how God created us so incredibly different (she hated all things girly for most of our lives, which drove me absolutely nuts) yet we share the same love for the nations.

 

my little sister has more wisdom than any 18 year old should have, and she shares it with me almost every day. she hears the voice of the Lord, and she does what He says without questioning it.. she's always been that way. she has a heart for serving and loving people- especially the poor and especially children- and that heart stands firm on biblical truth & does not waiver. i know that God will do great things through my sister because i see in her a determination and strength that can only come from dedication to Christ.
 i want to be just like my little sister because to me, being around her is like being around Jesus.

I'm excited for you Carrie and SO PROUD of you.. I can't wait to see and hear ALL that the Lord will do.. I just wish I was going with you! :)

crazy girl

This is the adorable wild child that I have committed to pray for, support, and be like "extended family" to for I guess the rest of my life! :)

my crazy girl & some of the sisters in her home

My crazy girl has a spirit of joy about her- personality just exudes from every inch of her being. She loves to laugh and dance all around- you can usually find her swinging someone's arms around or in the pool jumping off someone's shoulders. She is loud and crazy when she warms up to you. Her HOL mom says that her personality tends to get her in trouble.. she can be bossy or pushy with her sisters when she wants to be. When she came to her home, she got in trouble all the time and even got into fights at school. She came from a poor tribal village where her mother had died and her father had nothing. Now she has 2 parents  and 7 sisters that love her and provide for her  and she knows Jesus.

all the girls in her home and their mom

When I decided that I wanted to become an extended family member to one of the HOL children, I was able to choose from a few that needed a family member because I know them all. I love that I got to pick my crazy girl, because one day I can look at her and say "I chose you.. out of all the others, I chose you to be mine.. just like Jesus did."

saying goodbye

On the last day of camp, saying goodbyes is always emotional and sad for both our American team and for the HOL kids. When I said goodbye to my crazy girl, I held her precious face in my hands and said "I love you because you are my family. I'll pray for you and think of you every day.. and I'll be right back here next year to see you again." Isn't God SO good that I get to be a real part of her life? That I get to know her and sit in her house and hold her every year? I couldn't be more grateful for that gift and for the way He has restored joy inside of this crazy girl.

my friend.

I made a new friend this year in Southeast Asia. This friend CHANGED my life. He became more than my friend.. he became my family, my brother.  I've waited a long time to blog about him because I don't feel like I have adequate words to describe him- no words I have do him or his story justice.

My friend is strong. He has known addiction so deep that he was willing to sell even his own daughter to satisfy it..he has come out of that addiction with strength. My friend is gentle. Before he speaks, he quietly meditates on his words- carefully choosing his response so that it comes out of a heart of dedication to his God. My friend is hilarious. He can make me laugh so hard that I fall to the floor with in hysterical laugher.. and the best part is that we can only communicate with a few sentences. His laughter brought relief to my aching heart when I thought it couldn't hold any more pain. My friend is bold. He stands up to people that want him to stop his work.. his prayers were full of boldness and power, unlike any prayer I have ever heard. My friend trusts his LIFE and the life of his family to our God. He knows that the risk of following Jesus is worth the reward of the people of his nation knowing Him. I have never, never met anyone like him.

When we said goodbye, I cried tears of sorrow at having to let him go- at knowing that he had to return home to a life of immense pressure and responsibility... at knowing my life pales in comparison to his. I wept for my friend to the point of not being able to speak.. and he wept with me. All I knew to say that he would understand is "I'll pray for you." So I said it- over and over and over as I hugged his neck. And then I turned and ran for the door because I didn't think my heart could take the sadness anymore.. and my friend followed me. He put his hand on my shoulder and he said to me "Amanda, I sorry for your pain."

My friend knows faith more than I will ever know. He trust in our God more than I ever will. When he prayed "I will not trade you for anything God" he meant those words in the depths of his being.. he meant that he would give his life.

This psalm resonates deep in my soul for my friend, my brother in Christ.. will you join me in praying it for him?

"In times of trouble, may the Lord answer your cry.

      May the name of the God of Jacob keep you safe from all harm.

  May he send you help from his sanctuary

      and strengthen you from Jerusalem.

 May he remember all your gifts

      and look favorably on your burnt offerings.

                     

 May he grant your heart’s desires
      and make all your plans succeed.
 May we shout for joy when we hear of your victory
      and raise a victory banner in the name of our God.
   May the Lord answer all your prayers.

 Now I know that the Lord rescues his anointed king.

      He will answer him from his holy heaven

      and rescue him by his great power.

 Some nations boast of their chariots and horses,

      but we boast in the name of the Lord our God."

 

Psalm 20

 

being home.

i've officially been home 28.5 hours, which is actually 3 hours less than it took for me to travel from Southeast Asia to Tennessee.. crazy huh?? i have all kinds of feelings about being home.. it is so sweet to hug my family, spend time with friends, sleep in my bed, and drink real diet coke again. in so many ways i needed to come home- i needed to be with the people that know me the best and most importantly, i needed to be alone. i haven't been truly alone in over 3 weeks, and i have been dreading the thought of it since the minute i left Cambodia.

being alone means dealing with the ache in my heart.

being alone means thinking about these faces and knowing where they are is still a really horrible place that is on the other side of the world from me, away from the reach of my arms to hold them.

being alone means crying out to the Lord until i have no more tears left because my confused heart doesn't understand Him right now.

the bottom line is that i don't want to have to deal with the things i saw because it hurts too much. i don't want to have to face the depths of the sin of this world. the depths of the sin of ME.. because i am NO different from any other. our sins are so deep and real that they affect us even at birth. we are never innocent- not even as children. never deserving of grace. and that is so hard to grasp & understand when i am looking at people who have literally nothing, looking at children who are victims of the worst kind of sin condition. my life would be much easier if i didn't have to try to understand.. but i do have to try.. for these faces, for these people, for the Savior Jesus that died so that i might have life.

i have so many stories to tell from my trip- some of them stories of sadness and pain but many of them sweet stories of joy. my hope is that i'll be able to share some of them with you over the next little while since i didn't have time to blog as much as i wanted to while i was gone! :)

Camp

I just realized that it's been over a week since I last blogged- oops! We have been SO busy that I haven't had time to sit down and write. We've traveled around the southern part of the country a little bit and it is sooo beautiful. I would gladly post pictures if I hadnt dropped my camera and broken the lense off.. Shocker that I did that, I know. :)
We spent most of our time putting on a camp for 72 of my favorite children on this planet. Every year I count down the days until I get to hug them again- hearing "chi Amanda!" (sister Amanda) yelled over & over across the resort for 5 days brought healing to my heart. We laughed and laughed like we always do, played games, worshipped together, learned about Paul and how we can be like him, and ate until we were full. Some of my sweetest moments were sitting with girls by the pool, talking about life (when we could communicate) or just holding hands and not saying a thing when we couldn't. I love the bond I have with these children- one that is formed through Christ. It is precious to me!
There is one girl who is going through some really dark, hard things inside her. Something happened to her when she was younger and went home for a visit that she is his now speaking about, and it is affecting her in most areas of her life. I was able to sit and pray with her while a pastor prayed over her- I will never forget her weeping while he had her repeat after him a prayer of forgiveness for the person that hurt her. The sound of brokenneas in her voice was something a child should never have to feel so young. The sin in this world is undescribable. Pray for her & her healing process- especially for her HOL mother as she walks through it with her.
Another sweet memory is the last night, when we got together to celebrate 10 years of the homes being established. The oldest child, who is going to college this year, gave a speech and spoke about the gift of being redeemed by the Lord & cared for in her home. She gave advice to all the other children to honor their parents & cherish their siblings. I am so proud of her and how she is letting God mold her. I wish I has pictures to go with this post- Ill have to add them when I get home!
Now we're back in the city for 2 more days before we head home. I have realt mixed emotions about that- im ready for a fountain drink & pancakes but it is going to break my heart to leave this place & these people. I have seen so much that I dont want to go home and forget. Pray that I listen well to what God wants me to do with it all.

Brokenness

It's hard to believe that my time in Cambodia is already over. Yesterday, Caitlyn Philip Tiffany Debbie & I said goodbye to our first team and took a bus back to Southeast Asia to meet up with the team from Fellowship. It was definitely a bittersweet goodbye- the entire 7 hour trip back I battled with an overhwhelming sense of grief and brokenness. There is SO much I saw and experienced in Cambodia- SO MUCH. Many things I can't even blog about- some because there isn't time, some because I need to protect the people I met.. but it's almost impossible to explain the depths of the hurt and pain my heart is carrying. I try to process it a little at time, because when I look at the big picture, it overwhelms me. I don't think that was the Lord's intention in bringing me to Cambodia- so I try to pray over it in small doses so that I'm not left feeling helpless and drowning.

On our last full day in Cambodia, our team went to visit the Ton Le Sak- a lake about 2 hours outside of Pnom Penh. This lake is special because on it reside an estimated 40,000 Vietnamese people. Did you read that? 40,000!! That is INSANE. They live in floating villages all over the lake- little communities of boats that are floating everywhere. The reason that they live this way is because the Vietnamese are so looked down on by the Cambodian people- they are the poorest of the poor in Cambodia. So poor that they don't even have a land to call their own. They are a displaced people with no citizenship, no school to go to, nothing but their floating boat houses. It was so sad to see the people of my heart living in such poor conditions- they are truly a forgotten people.

When we got to the lake, we were taken over a bridge made out of wooden planks (yes, i freaked out and froze in the middle of it for those of you that know me well) and then we got into boats and went to a pastor's house. We prayed for him, hopped back into the boats and started out into the community. We just drove around for awhile, looking at how the people lived. There are houses that have boat repair shops in the front, little general stores.. it really is like a community out on the water.

After driving around, we stopped at a house and were invited in by a family of 4. This family had 2 beautiful young daughters. We sat with them and the Vietnamese that were with us began to share Christ with them while the 3 Americans sat in their boat and prayed. So many of the people living on Ton Le Sak have NEVER HEARD the name of Jesus. Never. Can you imagine? The missionaries we were with said that when they first came to Cambodia they drove boats up and down the lake, asking people if anybody knew about Jesus.. and everybody answered no. They are just sitting in boats, living for the next day, waiting for someone to share the gospel with them.. and praise the Lord, the family we sat with accepted Christ! It was a beautiful way to end our time in Cambodia and I'm so thankful that the Lord allowed me to experience it.

Since leaving I have really struggled to fully engage with where I am now. My heart and mind just can't stop thinking about the things I have seen. I constantly pray, dream, and think about the faces of Cambodia. I would love your prayers as I enter in to a new role as team leader of this next trip- I know the Lord is asking me to be present here and to let the other things go for now. Tomorrow I get to see my 75 brothers and sisters and spend the next 5 days with them and I know it will be good for my soul!

For now, I will leave you with this verse that the Lord gave me today for Cambodia:

"Oh, how can I give you up Israel?

How can I let you go?

How can I destroy you like ADmah 

or demolish you like Zrbolim?

My heart is torn within me, and my compassion overflows

No I will not unleash my fierce anger.

I will not completely destroy Israel,

for I am God and not a mere mortal.

I am the Holy One living among you,

and I will not come to destroy.

For someday the people will follow me.

..and I will bring them home again"

-Hosea 11:7-11

Cambodia

I've spent the past 4 days in Cambodia and I LOVE it here. The people are so gentle and kind, the children are so tan and beautiful and the trees are so green! But for all its beauty, Cambodia is a place of great darkness and sadness. 98% of the people here do not know Christ. You can see that people are just living for the next day, trying to figure out the next meal.. they don't know hope.


One of the greatest issues in Cambodia is sex trafficking. The girls line up on the streets to sell themselves to whoever will buy them- I have seen it with my own eyes. We spent the past 2 days visiting organizations that work to help girls and women get off the streets but nothing became real to me until today. Today we went to Sway Pak- a village that is known around the world for trafficking children. You can feel the evil in Sway Pak when you walk down the streets. There, almost every children in RAISED to be sold into prostitution by their own families. Virginity is especially valuable and so most families sell their daughters at as young as 5 years old. A Cambodian proverb that says "Men are like gold, women are like white cloth" basically says that if men are dirty then they can be cleaned easily but once women are dirty then they are stained forever. This is why once women have lost their virginity, their family feels no guilt in selling them into the sex trade. They no longer have value in the eyes of their society.

Today in Sway Pak we walked down the dirt roads, past the very homes of the people who do this to the children. I looked past their doorways, saw their homes, looked into their eyes. My heart cried out- "Jesus, where are you? God, why does this happen? Please, Lord, redeem these people."

 And then we turned a corner and all the sudden there were children EVERYWHERE. The dirt road was full of them.. running all around us, grabbing our hands and asking for candy. They reminded me of a street full of my students- little girls with innocent faces and little boys with wide smiles.. except they were all destined for a life of prostitution, slavery, a life without Christ. My hands were handing out candy and clicking pictures with my camera but inside all I could do was cry out to the Lord- "why? why? Help them Lord!" I wanted to stay be with them and at the same time I wanted to scoop them up and run. When it was time to go, I made it as far as the corner of the road before tears were streaming down my face. I can't describe the overwhelming helplessness I felt (and still feel) for those children. I can't explain how hard it was to leave them on that street knowing the life that they are going to live. It's terrible and horrible and unfair.

I have so much to process and understand and ask the Lord to show me.. but for now I know He is saying to me that I need to pray for those beautiful innocent hopeless faces I saw today. Because He has not forgotten them, and I now that I've seen them.. I'm responsible to pray. One of the places of rescue that we visited this week reminded me of this song, and it has become my prayer today:

I will change your name

Your name will no longer be called-

wounded, outcast, lonely, or afraid.

I will change your name

Your new name shall be:

confidence, joyfulness, overcoming one.

faithfulness, friend of God,

one who seeks My face.

Join me in praying that Christ will REIGN in this country.