We went to Church and met a young couple who are just beginning to look at starting a safe house up in the north of Thailand. They were planning on going at it alone, because they couldn't find anyone with the same vision and didn't want to get sidetracked off what God gave them. But when they heard our vision, they almost cried they were so happy to have found someone "accidentally" who wanted to see the same things happen. They are not from Victory, but are willing to partner together. He has a background in law enforcement in the states, she's from Myanmar, they got married 3 weeks ago...and they want to rescue girls. We are getting them connected with our new friends up north to train and learn their systems and, if this goes how it looks, we might have house parents for our first home in Thailand in a few months! Wow! God has great plans and has networked us so beautifully this trip.
We are going to Walking Street tonight, I think I talked about that a bit. It's the hub of prostitution. One of the hardest things is seeing these old, white men with little Thai girls on heir arms. The girls look to average around 13. Some men have two girls, some girls have 3 guys together buying them...it's so bad! However, we are so blessed to see others with huge hearts to see this STOPPED, not just made better. God's up to something big and we are all in the middle of it - exciting!
On a lighter note - here are some of the cultural differences we've seen:
:Air conditioning! It's a must everywhere. It's the end of winter here and at least +30 in the days. They say April is the hottest month and even the locals don't leave the house unless they need to.
:Bum guns...;) That's what the missionaries call it. They don't use toilet paper, but have little shower hoses by the toilets to clean off with...yuck! I carry kleenex. And they have what they call squatty potties. Toilets close to the ground that they stand on the side and...squat. Then they have a pail of water that you pour down it to flush. We stopped at a rest stop on our trip to Cambodia and the guys urinals were outside...beside the highway. And, there have been a few occasions where there is a lady cleaner in the guys rest room with a mop, cleaning around their feet as they stand at the urinal...hilarious! Ok, enough potty talk.
:Everything is uber cheap! Massages are about $4 and dental work is really inexpensive. Our hotel which is beautiful is $41/night. There are markets everywhere, some are fun, some are really dirty.
:Rice! Rice, rice, rice :) Even I am getting tired of it. They have rice and stirfrys at their breakie buffets. We found a nice western restaurant next door for this week. And I think we're going for lunch right now.

Talk to you all soon, luv!

Hi all! I have about 3.5 minutes to write this before we're headed to church. We're in Pattaya, back in Thailand. The last week was spent in Cambodia doing a conference and just getting exposed to the culture there. It's so vastly different than even Thailand is. Thailand is lush and tropical and green, Cambodia is brown and there is garbage everywhere and people everywhere working and selling and begging and just trying to live...it's sad.
So much to tell about all that, but, alas...the time. I'll post more later. Love you all!

It's 9:30 am on...Wednesday? Yes, Wednesday. We've spent some time up in the Northern part of Thailand checking out an organization that has a safe house and an orphanage and a whole system to rescue and rehabilitate girls in the sex trade. Amazing, amazing mission. I'll talk more about it later...
I'm running on borrowed time right now, so I'll be quick :)
We're headed to Cambodia for the first time today. Pray for our border crossing - its supposed to be hairy. And from what we hear about that country, we'll have some eye openers. It's truly a 3rd world country. We'll probably visit an aids clinic today. And do a conference for the next three. Along with some more missions to visit - getting an idea about the rescue efforts that are running here already.
Thanks for all your prayers...we're halfway done here. Lots has gone on and lots more to come. So glad that we're in this together :)

We did Church this morning in Sriracha, Thailand and Kelly spoke for the first time with an interpreter. He did beautifully! The day was full and I'm really tired. It's 11 at night here and our church services are just starting at home...praying for you all :)
After church we went to a jail in Pataya, just 20 minutes from here. There were 22 people in there - 4 cells in filthy conditions and one family had a 9 month old baby. We worked with a ministry that goes there every week. 2 people got saved and others were encouraged. Most of the people in there were being held on immigration issues. Very sad.
We had evening service and then went to dinner beside the night market...really cool place - tons of people and their little shops out in the marketplace. When we were walking out an elephant came around the corner...a little shocking. He was just a baby and quite hungry. We bought some sugar cane from the trainer and I got to feed him. Neat way to end our Thai day :)
Tomorrow we fly up to Chaing Rai to see a ministry that is established there and then we fly back here on Tuesday. Wednesday we take a van ride to Cambodia for the rest of the week.
I'm really feeling your prayers as I'm seeing all this junk and my mother heart is not feeling too overwhelmed to be of any service. I see the issues and know that we are part of the answer. Love you all!

Now the hard part starts. The conference is over and we had a little preview of what the streets are like in the bad part of the city last night. There were girls everywhere trying to sell themselves. Some just sitting there waiting to be noticed and some on the arms of old white men. There were many "lady-boys" - transvestites - who have their own little streets along the way to sell their services. They have menus on the streets that you can order the type of services you'd like...evil!

We are going to a mission that's already set up for these girls tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing how it's already working here - the rescuing, the counseling, the rehabilitation. Then Tuesday we go to the border of Cambodia and Thailand where Poi Pet is and our main Cambodian Victory Church is. I'm told that the border itself will break your heart as the parents put their children out to beg there. Some children get beaten before as it raises more sympathy and, thus, more money. There is an aids clinic right there as well that Pastor Joel visits once a week. It's basically their last stop.

So...those are some of the problems here. So glad that we are able to be part of the solution.

Love you all! Thanks for your prayer.

Hi all! We're having a coffee break at the conference. The leader from Pakistan spoke today about Christianity in his country and really...we have it good.We know that in America, but there is so much evil here against God and those who choose to follow Him, it's hard to hear about it, but good for them to have lots and lots of people praying.
We haven't seen much else of the culture, yet. My Thai massage was intense. I don't think I liked it, but it sure did stretch me.
Well, a quick little post, but the meetings are starting again. Love you all!!!!

Well, it's Thursday evening here. We jut finished a day of our leaders conference in Sriracha where the headquarters for Asia are. I am SO thankful for airconditioning! I'm not complaining, however. Loving the weather and humidity.
We chatted today with Pastor Joel who leads the churches in Cambodia. He said that Thailand is luxury compared to Cambodia, so I guess we're in for an experience. When we came here, I expected it to be much more 3rd world, but it's quite the same as a city in America. Malls and restaurants and nice hotels.
I'm looking forward to getting our hands into the mission that I feel is my purpose here. Our conference goes for two more days and then we preach on Sunday here...then to Cambodia :)
We see lots of scooters with two or three people on them. Kids hanging off the back with no helmet, some with bags piled higher than them.
We're learning some cultural things, too. Yesterday I weid? to a girl who sold me something and she laughed at me (wei...I don't know the spelling...is when you put your hands together in the prayer pose and bow.) I asked Pastor Terry about it and she said that when you do that for service people it's almost like an embarrassment to them.
The kids are beautiful, haven't seen any orphans, but just the Pastors children. They all are a really gentle, serving people and I am enjoying watching how they work.
Love you all! Talk to you soon :)

February 3/2010

We’re here! The getting here was an adventure in itself. We rushed out of Church on Sunday to make it to the airport in Calgary on time, just to make sure we cleared customs - got there 3 hours early and made it through in about 4 minutes! We had asked everyone to pray about that one part of our flight in particular and it worked!

Our flights were good to LA, and really nice from LA to Bangkok. We were on that airplane for 18 hours, but they treated us very well! We had great Thai food, wonderful flight attendants and - get this - DR. MARIO! They had video games in each seat. Granted, they were probably to keep kids happy, but we were on that plane for 18 hours, I think I mentioned that. They kept me happy.

We flew into Bangkok at 6:30 yesterday morning (4:30 Monday afternoon at home), and as we were on top of the clouds, saw the most brilliant orange sunrise. I asked God for that as we flew in the dark the whole trip. Thanks, God! It was beautiful!

It’s very humid here and I think my hair turned into a frizzball about 30 seconds after we walked off the plane...and...our bags got a longer layover than us in Denver...we will be reunited this afternoon and we will feel human again. We have my clothes, but nothing else. However, there’s a mall right across the street that has everything. I guess I didn’t need to pack the 4 bottles of bug spray and all the sunscreen we’d need for three weeks in +35. Oh, well, live and learn.

We only had about 5 hours sleep on the plane - which isn’t worth 5 hours of sleep in my bed. So...we were tired, but determined to stay awake until Bangkok bedtime. I was fast asleep at 6 and had a great sleep...Kelly was wide awake at 2, but fell back asleep. I think we’re on Thai time now. We’ll see how we do coming home.

Yesterday was spent getting hotels worked out, meeting Pastors Al and Terry who have been here for 28 years heading up Victory in Asia, meeting their family and staff at the children’s home, magazine, Bible school and TV station they run here. The girls helped one of their daughters set up her day care that is opening soon and the guys went to see more of the ministries. Then...Pastor Terry wanted to take us to get a foot treatment where you sit with your feet in water for a half hour and little fish eat all the dead cells off of them. I had heard of this, but never had it done - and now I know why. I was awful! - for the 3 nanoseconds my foot was in there. I pulled my foot out of that water so fast, I think I flung a few of those suckers onto the floor. Yuck!!! Dr. Hazel had the same reaction. Oh, well, we tried to be brave :) However, the 1 hour, $3 foot massage we did end up going to was amazing! We’re going for a Thai massage today which I hear isn’t relaxing, but good for you. I know a lot of things that are good for me that hurt really bad. Still, I look forward to it.

So, amongst all the shopping...oh, yes, us girls shopped, too - really great shoes for $8 -
resting and massages there was a bit of work thrown in. Just getting settled in before the real work begins. We have a Leadership conference starting tomorrow, then we’re heading to meet a man who has a ministry set up that sounds like what we want to do. We’ll go visit that and then head to Cambodia for the 9th.
Thanks for all your prayers and support! I’ll keep you posted as much as I can.

PS. I love you, my wonderful children!!! We miss you!