Growing up, my sister and I always eagerly anticipated summertime.  Ashley and I would line up large garbage bags, squeeze out a whole bottle of dawn dish soap, and leave the hose running for hours as we reveled on our homemade slip ‘n slide.  Alabama summers consisted of frequent visits to the snow cone vendor in the Delchamps Grocer parking lot, swimming in our neighbor’s pool, and dancing in the neighborhood sprinklers with blades of grass sticking to our ankles.  Ashley always came up with the cleverest ideas- from homemade...

“I come to Your Word because I need to hear a word from You.” My pastor from back home said this last semester about reading the Bible. For many people today, the Bible is just another holy book—much like the Qur’an, Bhagavad-Gita, or Book of Mormon. Or an old book collecting dust on a shelf somewhere. Or simply just a collection of fables and fairy tales with a good moral at the end.   And I understand that. Why in the world would someone believe that a book well over 2,000 years old would have any relevance to the ears and life of a 21 centurion and what makes...

The past few weeks have been crazy, with stuff going on at home and God pushing me in ways he has never pushed me. I was beginning to feel discouraged, but God showed up big time in the past few days.  First was through a 12 year old girl, Cola “like Coca-Cola”, My Bangla group (Austen, Mrriah, Alexa, and I) were praying when we look up and see a child, arm full of flowers, and all she says is Jesus, in Thai, she then explains how God told her to come talk to us, and that she saw him in the middle of our prayer circle, and then points to her hands and feet where his scars are....

My constant prayer for this trip has been from the song “Hosanna” by Hillsong, the line where it says “break my heart for what breaks yours.” I don’t want to go out into these bars, and be angry, or let satan get in my mind. I want my heart to break for these people, and it has broken, for the women who are dancing, and are so stuck in greed, and wanting to send money home, that they won’t get a different job because this one pays better, for the girls who are stuck in the industry, but can’t get out because they were bought by a man....

Well here we are FINALLY. After months of preparing Thailand is literally one day away. Something God has been teaching me over the last month or so is that I am incapable. It's a thought that I shared with my team on facebook a week or so before we even met, and a truth worth repeating here. So here we go. The truth is: We are not adequate or capable to do anything on our own. It's in our weakness that Christ is most glorified. We aren't capable of "saving" these girls. But God is! His power, not ours. My dad recently said to me: "God doesn't call the equipped,...

The most beautiful orchestrator. The most relentless pursuer.   My God is so big. So powerful. So beautiful. So loving. So giving. So willing to reveal things to me. I can’t even begin wrap my head around His immensity most of the time, and I think the thing that blows my mind the most is that He has the most beautifully orchestrated plans for each and every one of us. Even me. He orchestrated the trip to the Dominican Republic I got to go on last summer, He orchestrated my move to Bloomington, He orchestrated my stay in Thailand…and He’s beginning to show me how...