Imagine this: You see a tall older man in an orange button-up shirt with a young Thai girl entwined in his figures leaving the red light district. You see a Thai woman with her arms ending a couple inches below her elbows, a partial foot, and a leg ending at the knee trying to sell gum to those walking down the road. Imagine the man watching her making sure she does her job and doesn’t leave ‘til her items are gone. You see bar girls dancing on poles on the bar with numerous lustful men watching. You see an empty bar fill with grey haired men after you sit down to talk with the girls...

It’s 8 a.m. which means I’ve been up for almost 5 hours. Though I have not missed jet lag, I didn’t mind being awake so early. It gave me a lot of time to think, to pray, time to reflect – in silence. Silence doesn’t come so often in community, so I embraced the early morning. By 5:40, the sun was coming up. I grabbed my journal, bible and iPod to head downstairs. I walked up to the window and opened it to breath in the fresh air, one word came to my mind. Freedom. I had this overwhelming sense of freedom and with that began praising the Lord...

It's totally surreal, as mostly everything attached to this trip has been. Getting here, living here, loving here, and now leaving here–all challenges in different ways. Yet the Lord has proved his faithfulness each time.   As my ministry team and I prepared to walk off Bangla Road for the last time, we decided to pray over it. On our last way down, I felt led to speak Jesus' name quietly over the street and the people so I did. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. There is such power in his name. It unnerves and disrupts the heaviest pockets of darkness. It changes the atmosphere. Walking...

Home is where the heart is. It’s an old saying, but I know that it is true. I know my home is back in America, at least for now. But I think, in a way, Thailand has become my home now too. There is no way I can leave this place and not leave part of my heart here. I think one of my teammates described what I’m feeling right now perfectly when she said “I think growing up means learning how to leave pieces of your heart in different places.” I do miss home a lot, and I have the whole time I’ve been here. But at the same time the thought of leaving this place soon...

“So you’re back from the dead and instigating the masses?” If you haven’t gone to see Snow White and the Huntsman yet, you’re missing out on some awesome Jesus moments.  Basically, it’s a grown-up twist on the classic fairytale, with true love and beauty conquering over evil.  No surprises there. But sitting in the theatre Jesus smacked me right in the face with the reality of what I was seeing on screen.  We were on our first date with a beautiful new friend from the bars and I realized: this battle is real. See, the whole story is a battle...

                As I headed into this summer, I was secretly hoping that God would reveal answers about my future to me. Well maybe not so secretly, most of my close friends can tell you that I would say, “My time in Thailand is going to hold a lot of answers.” See I’m a planner, and I graduate in December. I have no idea what is next after that, because God hasn’t exactly let me in on that. Although there aren’t any specifics of what is next, He has shown me what He desires for me. He just...