So, what's next?

Well, I arrive back to L.A. on Sept 15th and will start work again in ELI's office as I follow-up with this summer's teams, help train next year's, and do some speaking at chapels and churches.
I'm also planning to get my massage license!!! I am so excited about this as it's something that God has really put on my heart this past year. I love giving massages, but really want to get trained professionally to use this gift in ministry, especially overseas. I know there are certain massages you can learn for AIDS patients, cancer patients, and people with other terminal illnesses. Plus, I'm excited to use it to bless people in ministry who are tired, burnt out, and need a little love poured back into them. I know that it may also be a tool God uses for me to connect with and minister to people in unreached or closed areas (meaning you can't go there as a "missionary"). The possibilities are endless for what God may do with this talent and the lives He will touch. My prayer is that as I massage and pray over people, they will feel the touch of the living God and experience physical, emotional, and spiritual healing. I actually started this ministry during my time in Kenya and watched God touch and heal quite a few people (by the end, I was giving at least one massage a day). And yes, I definitely want to bless friends with it too, so once I start my classes this fall, feel free to give me a call and I'd love to come practice on you!
And I will continue to pray this fall about where God is taking me next. I will keep you updated as He leads.

A Day I Will Never Forget

We were up at 6:00am packing the van with sacks full of rice and mosquito nets to bring to a remote village still unreached by relief workers; a village where my hosts, Moses and Samantha, (an amazing Cambodian Pastor and his wife) were hoping to plant a church (they have already planted about 500 churches throughout rural Cambodia!).

Four hours later we pulled into the village where people had been waiting since sun-up. Word had gotten to them that help was coming that day and they walked for miles hoping to receive food for their starving families. Before I knew it, Moses had all the adults sitting down so he could share the message of God's hope with them and directed me to entertain the 40 kids while he did so. Not knowing more than a couple phrases in Khmer (the national language), I was so thankful when Samantha came over to help translate for me.

"What should I do with them?" I asked her. "Teach them Jesus Loves Me," she replied. Ok, I thought. I can do that. And thus started a fun repeating game as I said a word from the song and the kids tried hard to say it after me. After they could successfully say the first line, "Jesus loves me," I asked Samantha to translate it for them in Khmer. She just looked at me and said, "But they have no idea who Jesus is - they've never even heard that name before." I was speechless for a minute. I knew that there were lots of places in the world where people had never heard the name Jesus, but I had never been in one before. Yes, I've been around people who don't know Jesus or anything about Him, but at least they had heard the name before.
Samantha just encouraged me to continue teaching the song. I obliged, still in shock, and got to the line that says, "for the Bible tells me so." I asked her, "Have they ever heard of the Bible?" "No," she replied, "They've never heard of it." Again, I found myself struggling to take in this information. Sure there are lots of people who have never read the Bible and don't know what it's about, but these kids didn't even know such a book existed.

At that point, I stopped the song and asked Samantha and the kids if I could tell them a story instead to help them understand the song. They all nodded enthusiastically. "Ok," I said, "This story started a long, long time ago back at the very beginning of the world. Does anyone here know who created the world?" "No," they all said with wide eyes, "Will you tell us?" Tears filled my eyes and I struggled to continue. I guess I assumed they would have some belief about how the world was formed, but all that met me were curious little faces, eager to hear where everything in this world, including them, came from. Wow, where do I even begin? I wondered. I felt completely inadequate and humbled to be the one sharing the truth about our Creator and Savior with them for the first time, but did my best to fight the tears and begin the story.

I really have no idea how much they understood of what I shared that afternoon. From creation, to Adam and Eve, to Heaven and Hell, to Jesus and his death on the cross, I'm not sure what made sense or tied together for them. But I did my best, and my interpreter did her best (I don't think she always understood me, but we tried J). I do know that at least these kids have now been introduced to the person of Jesus and the God who created them. And I pray that Moses communicated the message well to their parents who can then explain more to them at home. And I rejoice knowing that plans are in motion to start a church in this small village where people can come to learn more about this God who is deeply in love with them.

I don't know how to describe the emotions swirling in my heart as we left the village that day: a strange mixture of sadness, joy, urgency, and calling. So much of this world is in desperate need of good news – news that we have, but keep to ourselves. They are hungry for God, for Truth, and for Hope; and He is even more hungry for them - for a relationship with them. And He's asked us, His church, to go and take the Good News to every corner of the world. When will we take him seriously and finish this task He's given us? People are waiting. Jesus is waiting.

I sense that this type of ministry is what God is calling me to next. I'm not exactly sure the details of where, when, or how, but I'm seeking God's guidance in all these areas. I'm excited to see where He leads. One thing I know: even though my experiences in Thailand and Cambodia were amazing, I definitely realized that my heart is in Africa. I felt so homesick for Africa the entire time and really feel that's where I belong for now.


Here is a picture of some of a baptism that Moses did in the village. About 60 people were baptized that day. Praise God!

Read at your own risk...

I’m sitting here in Cambodia in my air-conditioned room feeling totally sick to my stomach – not from the Cambodian food, but from the pain and atrocities that my eyes have witnessed these past few days. But I’m hoping that maybe if I spew out my emotions and thoughts on paper, I’ll be able to keep my actual lunch down.

I just returned from a visit to an old brothel in the city that International Justice Mission shut down a few months ago and the missionaries I’m with are renovating to become a ministry center and church for the community. Though it is about to become a place of hope, I was completely horrified as I walked down the halls. Hundreds of little girls (most ages 7-16) were sold by their parents to the owners of it and used as sex slaves - suffering more horror than my mind can comprehend. Confined in separate little prison cells just big enough for one small bed, they were only released to stand at the front door for “customers” (mostly Western men) to choose from. Once chosen, it was back to the prison cell to be raped, beaten, and tortured any other way the man desired. Most girls suffered abuse from about 10 men a night. The heat and smell in the rooms was unbearable for me (I was sure I was going to faint or throw-up), but this is what they lived in day-in and day-out. Some rooms had drawings on the walls of tears, crosses, and cries for help. And though my heart rejoices that this brothel has been shut down and these girls placed in rehabilitation homes, it breaks knowing that thousands more brothels just like this are still running in this country and millions more girls still live this horrific existence.

I sit here on my bed wondering why them and not me. What right do I have to be in this air-conditioned room while millions of less fortunate ones are suffering every type of torture imaginable right now? I don’t know. But I do know that it’s not ok and we as the church can not sit and turn a blind eye to it. I can sense God’s holy rage at the torture of His children and the evil monster that people have turned the gift of sex into. And I understand a little more his desire to vomit a lukewarm church out of his mouth in Revelation 3:15-16. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I feel the same urge right now. It makes me literally sick to think about remaining in my own comfortable little world, sitting idly by while others suffer like this. Jesus would not sit carelessly by, and we can’t either. For we are now His hands and feet on this planet- his vessels for setting the captives free, binding up the broken hearted, and fighting for justice.

This world needs more Don and Bridget Brewsters (the couple running this ministry). Just an average American couple in their 50’s, the Brewsters saw a Dateline special on child trafficking two years ago and let it move them to action. They took a scouting trip to Cambodia to visit the area of the brothels shown on T.V. and came home knowing they had to do something. Though the couple had never considered or seen themselves doing missions one day, they moved to Cambodia and started Agape – a ministry providing healing, rehabilitation, hope, and the love of Christ to girls rescued from this horrible industry. The restoration these girls are going through is truly miraculous! All because a couple of empty nesters decided to let their hearts be broken for something that deeply breaks God’s heart- and to follow Him into action. (You can read more about the ministry at www.aim4asia.org and watch the Dateline special at www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4038249/ - The brothel on the video is the one I went in.)

I sit here wondering what the world would look like if the entire Body of Christ were willing to respond to the deep needs of God’s people like this. Jesus declared His mission statement on earth in Luke 4 - “To preach the good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” and it’s still His mission today. Only today, we are the vessels He’s chosen to use to accomplish this mission. Will we respond?

Challenged, hurting, moved, and inspired,
Kierra