I'm official... till October

This week was pretty out of the norm.

First of all, I had to say goodbye to Lyndsey and Janette on Tuesday, which was very sad to put it lightly.

Then, all of the bars were closed for two days for "Buddha day". And regardless of the "reason for the season", and as much as I missed our girls, I'm so glad they weren't there.



Wednesday morning I left for Laos with Ann and Wan to take care of my visa. It was a very long, hot day. But we got my visa and I'm good through October 27th! In the mean time, we're going to be working on a work permit to last me through December.



Yay!

Here's a picture from the place where we ate dinner in Laos. It was right on the river. The land on the other side of the river is Thailand. So close, but so far away.



The second night we stayed in a city in Thailand called Nong Khai. I very much prefer Nong Khai to Laos. I knew it was going to be good the second I saw this promising rain cloud. The rain just helps cool things down so much!



Once it stopped raining, we got to explore. Here's a little bit of Nong Khai.











And last but not least, I finally tried roti. Lyndsey and Janette had told me that I haaaad to try it, but I just hadn't seen it yet. I know it kind of looks like cheesy bread, but it's not. It's actually a really good dessert. It's this dough that they cook and add sweet stuff. Mine had bananas in it. I don't really know how to explain it. But it's good.



I'm glad we got all the visa stuff taken care of for a while, but it's definitely good to be back. I went to the pool bars yesterday after we got back and again today. I missed all of our girls so much. It was SO good to see them again.

Man, I love them!

a sad day for Bangkok

It's crazy to me how fast this month has flown by.
It was so great having two of my closest friends here with me and I just wasn't ready for them to leave.
We'd been avoiding thinking or talking about it. But, we had to say our goodbyes early this morning and Lyndsey and Janette are on their way back to the states now.

I love you both and I miss you already! I know you're both going to miss your family at Beginnings and your friends that you got to see again and the new friends you made over the last month, but know we're also going to be missing you so much.











Love Love Love You!

cheesecake success

A few days ago Ann found out that I occasionally like to bake. (Thanks Lyndsey and Janette) So, she asked if I wanted to bake something at the house. I wouldn't have been quite so intimidated except that Ann is a GrEaT cook. Like, she used to have a restaurant. She's legit.

She said she loves oreo cheesecake and that the girls love blueberry cheesecake. So, I made both. Why not.


I learned two things in the process:
1. Cream cheese is expensive in Thailand.
2. They don't sell graham crackers here. So we bought "cream crackers", which are basically saltines. And apparently, if you crush up saltines and add butter and sugar, you can still make graham cracker crust. Just fyi.

It was fun, but the best part was watching the girls dig in.
When we asked which kind they wanted, most of them just said two, so we gave them a slice of each. These girls are tiny, but they can eat!







Good news. It tasted like cheesecake.

white as snow

This is going to sound random

So this week I completely ran out of clean clothes. I tried to do laundry the next few days, but each day it was supposed to rain, and since we line dry everything, I had to wait until a day that it wouldn’t rain.

This could be way too much information, but for those few days, I had to go digging through my dirty clothes to find something to wear. I’m not going to lie; when I’m at home I totally wear things more than once before I wash them. But here it’s a different story because it’s so hot! At the end of the day I usually feel pretty nasty and all I want is to be clean.

It’s ok if you’re wondering where I could possibly be going with this. Just let it happen.

Finally, after a few failed attempts, I got to do laundry. Hooray! It felt so refreshing to be able to shower and put on something clean. Oh the little things in life.

I know that this is going to sound petty, and in truth it is no comparison at all to what they feel. But, I’m always thinking about our girls from the bars, and that moment was no exception.

All I could imagine was how much they must just desire to feel clean and new. That even if at the end of their day, they are able to go home and try to wash away their day and sleep it off with a good nights rest, the facts are that when they wake up they’ll have to do it all over again.

I want so badly for each of them to experience what our girls at Beginnings have. To be able to leave everything that they have to do now and to never have to walk hand in hand with another man that will just leave them feeling filthy, to never have to go with a man that doesn’t even know them, and certainly doesn’t love them. Another man who will leave them feeling dirty and used. Over and over again.

… Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
Isaiah 1:18

a new freedom

God is so big!

There's a girl that I met one time since I've been here. Rachel and Mary had met her one night when they went out for outreach. We wanted to invite her and the girls from her bar to the going away party that we had at Beginnings so we went back to tell them about it and give them invitations. That was when I met her.

She didn't show up to the going away party and I hadn't seen her again since then. But, one of the girls from Beginnings has gone back to talk with the girls at that bar to reconnect with them.

On Saturday night Ann told us that she had called and was interested in moving in and was going to come talk with them that night.

Today she showed up with a few friends and Ann came and told us that she would be moving in tonight! Only a few hours later, she had gotten her things and was moving into her room and had dinner with us tonight!

I was amazed to see her life change so drastically in just a few hours.
Yesterday this beautiful girl was trapped in the sex industry, using the only means she had to provide for her family. But today she was able to make the choice to leave that life and step into a new life where she will experience love in a way she has never experienced before. Where she will experience family that cares for her. And where she will experience the amazing love of our Heavenly father.

I'm really having a hard time putting into words how incredible this is. But I think this song does a pretty good job of summing it up for me.



Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
The old has gone, the new has come!
2 Corinthians 5:17

bigger than me

There are some things about being here in Bangkok that I don't imagine ever getting used to. One of those things is knowing that when I come home at night, many of my friends are either still working in the bars until 2 in the morning or are with a customer. There are nights when just the knowledge of that makes me feel sick and restless and I lie awake with the frustration of how unfair it is for them and how I feel helpless and just wish that there was more that I could do.

There was a girl that we connected with and brought to Beginnings the first week that I was here. She said that she was interested in moving in and said she was going to come again last week. When she showed up again, she said that she wanted to move in the next week. But, the day that she was supposed to move in I was told that she wouldn't be able to move in because her aunt wouldn't allow her to stop working.

There's another girl that Lyndsey, Janette and I have become friends with. A few nights ago at dinner Lyndsey was asking Ann if this girl had ever shown interest in Beginnings. Ann said that she had come for English classes a few times, but that she wasn't able to leave the bars because she was making a lot of money in the bars and couldn't make the choice to leave.

And last week we were able to pay the bar fine for one of the girls that we've gone to see almost every day in the pool bars who has expressed several times how much she does not like her work and doesn't want to work in the bars anymore. We brought her to eat dinner at Beginnings. I watched as Ann talked to her and told her what Beginnings is about. After they talked, the girl told me that she was very lucky that we brought her here and that Ann has a very kind heart and that she felt like Beginnings was like a big family and she felt very warm here.

It seems so simple to us that if we found an escape, a place of hope for a new life that Beginnings offers, that it would be so easy to leave our work and move in immediately. But everything these girls do is for their families! Their whole life is about their loyalty to them and bringing honor to them by being able to provide for them. It's not an easy choice for them to make.

So we continue to see them in the bars every day. And I couldn't help but think to myself, so that's it? So her aunt says no? So she needs to make more money? So for whatever reason, it's just too hard for them to make the decision to leave their work and come live at Beginnings? So that's it? So we watch them go through the same thing every single day. We listen to their stories about how their "boyfriends" (customers) have another girlfriend and "that's ok". Or how a customer was yelling at them and called them stupid and made them cry. And what can we do about it?

We can love them. We can show them that there's somewhere they can come when they reach their breaking point. And most importantly, we can pray.

The only other time in my life that I remember feeling this frustrated and like everything was just so much bigger than me, was when my little sister Emily passed away 2 and 1/2 years ago. It wasn't fair. It hurt more than anything I ever knew. And there was nothing I could do to make it better or take the pain away for me or my family.

But then and now, I had to remember and have been reminded that I have to trust that God is SO big! He could comfort me then when nothing made sense. He was and still is in control. When nothing makes sense. When all I can do is cry and pray for these girls. They are in His loving hands.

When I can't find comfort in anything else, I find comfort in this:

With men it is impossible,
but not with God:
for with God all things are possible.
Mark 10:27