Sorry it has taken me so long to update you on our time here in Cambodia. It has been somewhat of a crazy month. It feels as if we've hardly settled in to ministry here and yet we have less than two weeks left. Our squad spent a few days debriefing in touristy Siem Reap from May 2-6. Here's a photo of some of my beautiful friends getting ready to go out to dinner together.
We traveled as a squad to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, for a cultural briefing with YWAM and to receive our ministry assignments and set up transportation. On May 9th, my team traveled by ourselves to Kampong Cham, about three hours northeast of Phnom Penh. This month we are working with the Youth Development Center (YDC). Our host, Cecil, pioneered the center three years ago. It is an English literacy center, but it's main focus is to share the Gospel with its students. Ninety-three percent of Cambodians are Buddhist. There are three classes each day, and the class I am teaching is a mix of brand new students who speak very little English and students who have been in the program over a year. They range in age from 14-32 and are a pretty shy group. We are teaching them about identity and worth.
We are living on the top floor of the YDC. There's no air-conditioning, no Internet, regular power outages, and frequent rat, frog, lizard, and bug sightings. The first week we were here it was extremely hot, but thankfully it seems to have cooled down a bit with the start of the rainy season. Luckily we have fans, a somewhat Western bathroom, and amazing food. Our host Cecil is from the Philippines and she cooks some of the best food I've had on the Race so far. Apparently fried tarantulas are a delicacy in Cambodia. Some of my squadmates tried them at a rest stop.
Our first day here we were able to take a tour of the city. Pakva, one of the YDC staff members, took us to Boy Mountain and Girl Mountain, the site of temples that had been built over killing fields from Cambodia's mass genocide at the hands of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. On display in one of the temples was this pile of children's skulls, and there were also a couple of mass graves you could still see.
In addition to teaching, our ministry this month includes outreach to a Vietnamese floating village, a Muslim village, and a prison. A few days ago we visited the Vietnamese floating village, where approximately 200 families live on the Mekong River because the Cambodian government won't allow them to buy land.
Just getting down the steep, slippery hill to the river was a challenge in itself. I was the first to go and fell in the mud, only moments after predicting I would wipe out before the end of the day.
Here's another ridiculous photo of me trying to avoid falling in to the river as I crossed the tiny plank into the home of one of the families. Once two or three of us got across though, they realized their house wasn't steady enough to hold all of us so we had to turn back. We ended up walking around at the top of the hill handing out candy to children instead.
Last weekend we had four days off for the King's birthday, a national holiday. We decided to head to Vietnam for the weekend, but learned a little late that you could not just buy a visa at the border. We rerouted to the beach instead. We spent three nights in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, in the Gulf of Thailand.
The highlight of our trip was supposed to be a one day boat tour and snorkeling trip to three different islands. As usual in a thirld world country, things didn't go as planned. I've never been so motion sick in my life, or seen so many different people throw up over the side of a boat. Because of a storm in the morning we were only able to visit one island and didn't get to snorkel. But all in all, it was a fun weekend at the beach.
Thank you for your continued prayers!
Love from Cambodia,
Beth
My squad has spent the past four days relaxing and debriefing at a hotel in Siem Reap, Cambodia. It has been a time filled with rest, worship, enjoying air-conditioning for the first time in four months, and sightseeing. A few of us girls got up at 4:00 a.m. today to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat. The temple is either the 7th or 8th wonder of the world, depending on the list. My friend Kathryn said it best, man may have made temples, but God made sunrises.
The past few days have also been an opportunity for me to process my last month in Thailand. If you haven’t been able to tell from my blogs so far, Thailand was hands down my favorite country, although I already get the feeling Cambodia will give it a run for it’s money.
Lessons learned in Thailand….
I love Thai food. Pad thai, cashew chicken, mango sticky rice, smoothies, rotee, fried rice, coconut water, meat on a stick, spring rolls, crazy fruits. I love it all. It was such a blessing this month to be able to choose what we ate and when we ate it, something I had certainly missed the first three months of the race.
I don’t handle the heat well. Thailand was HOT. Over 100 degrees most days. I felt tired constantly because of the extreme heat and humidity.
The Lord has unexpectedly given me a heart for human trafficking victims. I like the way the film Nefarious defines sex trafficking as the exploitation of vulnerability. Sex trafficking is the fastest growing industry in the world. My heart broke for the women I met and I know that this is not the end of my work fighting human trafficking.
Our world has taken what was supposed to be a beautiful gift from God, and turned into it something so sick and twisted. Imagine how many of the world’s problems could be erased if we just followed God’s formula for sex? No more prostitution, no more AIDS, no more trafficking children, no more abortions, no more affairs and broken marriages.
Real men don’t buy girls. I realized this month how blessed I am to be surrounded by such strong men in my life. I am thankful for my Dad and for Caleb and for all the other male role models in my life who have set such a good example of what it means to be a man of God.
I never could have imagined how much I would love being on an all women’s team.
I will be back to Thailand. Not sure how or when or why, but I promise you, I’ll be back.
Spiritual warfare is real. There was a lot of darkness and evil in that place and we were fighting a spiritual battle that could only be won in prayer.
This month was a preview for what re-entry will be like. We had beds and hot showers (although I rarely took one) and McDonalds and Wifi and plenty of distractions to keep us busy. And it was hard to prioritize time with the Lord. I easily filled my free time with elephant riding and shopping and Skyping or Facebooking. And oftentimes I slacked in spending time with the Lord. It was a wakeup call for when I finish the race.
I’m not as adventurous as I once thought. I am with some CRAZY fun people. My teammates have eaten bugs, jumped off high cliffs into way too shallow water and gotten spur of the moment tattoos and piercings. I did go with them into a tiger's cage though.
Everyone deserves love. Even dirty old men in bars buying girls. The Lord showed me a lot about grace this month.
And my biggest lesson this month was that my family is everything to me. It has been tough not being able to be by their side this past week but the Lord has proven that He is so faithful and that He truly does answer prayers. Thank you Jesus! I love you Dad!
Wednesday night was one of our last nights of bar ministry, so we went out with the hope of setting up some dates for this weekend. We stopped by a few of our favorite bars to visit our girls, played some pool, and by the end of the night, we had not one, but two dates set up for Thursday.
I spent most of the night talking with my friend Wok. She speaks really good English and is a total sweetheart. She told me more of her story, and it's heartwrenching. Several years ago she was married to a Thai man. He became sick with kidney disease and they couldn't afford his medicines. So she got a job in the city working at the bar, selling her body to other men to save the life of the one she loved.
He died two and a half years ago. She's back working at the same bar. She sends most of the money home to support her parents and her 13 year old son. She told me how much she hates her job.
I was looking forward to the opportunity to talk to her more on our lunch date to see if she'd be interested in the change program. Unfortunately, I never got that chance.
Wok never showed up. When we called her phone, she said she had just woken up and would meet us in an hour. An hour later, no Wok. I called her back and she quickly handed the phone over to her "friend." Presumably the man who bought her last night. He rudely told me it was his birthday, so Wok would be spending the day with him instead. We would have to see her another time.
As we rushed across the city to meet up with Na, we got caught in a full on downpour. Soaking wet but laughing, we arrived at Roger's Bar excited to take Na to the movies.
We never made it to the movie. Na also bailed on us because she had to go see a customer. I guess when it rains, it pours.
The one bright spot of the day was we got to take Sugar, a girl we had just met the previous night, out for lunch and foot massages. She has only been working at the bar for a week. She has two small children and she came to the city looking for work to support them. She spoke very little English, but enough to get her point across that she is very unhappy in her new profession. She told us how the same English guy has bought her every night since she started. Each night he pays her bar fee of 400 baht, roughly $13 (half goes to her boss and she gets to keep the other half) and then the negotiations as far as what he wants to do with her start from there. For the price of an Olive Garden dinner, you can buy a girl for a night in Thailand.
She just kept repeating, "No like, no like." And when we pressed her for why she was doing it then, she said "No boom boom, no money."
With the help of a Google translator app, we tried to tell her that we could help her find another job. She seemed so thankful that we wanted to help her. We made plans to take her to Wongen Cafe the following day to meet with Emmi, the director of Lighthouse in Action.
As much as I'd love to tell you there was a happy ending, Sugar didn't show up yesterday and we were unable to reach her.
The past few days have been really discouraging. I've been struggling to understand and trust God's timing. This month got off to a great start, but as we wrap up our final few days, it's easy to feel like we didn't accomplish anything. None of the girls we developed relationships with seem to be in a position to leave the bars. None of them will be joining the change program. None of them have accepted Christ.
YET.
The amazing Bethsaida, a former World Racer who moved back to work with Love Acts full-time and is serving as our contact this month, shared some encouraging words with us during a late night debrief.
Our role is not to save these women, it was to plant a seed. There will be other teams that will come along to water and harvest that seed in God's timing.
She told us not to take the rejection personally. We have NO idea what these women go through. I want to believe that each of the women that stood us up would have met us if they could have.
God is simply showing us HIS heart. Think about how often God gets rejected by us. No matter how many times we turn away from Him, He loves us the same. Even when we ignore Him, when we stand Him up or put the things of this world ahead of Him, He continues to lovingly pursue our hearts.
So I won't give up on these women. Even though I have to leave them, I'll continue to fight for them in prayer and patiently wait for the day God chooses to save them.
NOTE: Names of girls and bars have been changed to protect their privacy.
Over the past two weeks, I've gone on several "dates" with Thai prostitutes. It has been so much easier and more rewarding than I'd ever expected, and I am growing quite attached to these beatiful women. They are all longing for Jesus and they don't even know it. As a part of our ministry here at Love Acts, we go out each night into the seedy bars of Chiang Mai's Red Light District and attempt to build relationships with the women who are working there essentially selling their bodies night in and night out.
The first night, I was nervous. I've never met a prostitute before, let alone befriend one. Immediately seeing these women, in their short dresses, attempting to allure men into their bars, broke my heart. They are young, they are beautiful, and they trapped. Many act like they are having fun, that they even enjoy this life, but they are decieved. I know that not one of them likes their "career," but they feel they have no other choice to provide for their families.
(Erica about to eat some gross bug with Dao. Fried insects are a popular snack in Thailand.)
There was no judgement in my heart for these women. I only wanted to show them how much they deserve to be LOVED. I wish I could say I felt the same for the men I saw in the bars. Instead of empathy, my heart was bitter and angry and resentful and just disgusted with them. Many of them openly admitted to having wives and chlidren at home. They groped these young girls right in front of us. And they were surprisingly OLD. Old enough to be some of these girls' grandpas. But the Lord is teaching me about grace, These men are BROKEN too. They need Jesus too. God loves and cares for them just as much as he does for the prostitutes, just as much as he does for ME.
So back to our first night. We intended to head to Roger's Bar, which had been on Dura's heart that week. But at the bar next to Roger's, which we'll call the Sports Pub, a bunch of girls yelled to us to come in. They were all a little drunk and dancing and celebrating one of their birthdays. They instantly started hugging on us and opening up to us right away. The night flew by, and by 10:30 we had a couple phone numbers and plans to see them again the next day.
Over the past two weeks, we've been so blessed to hang out with our new friends from the Sports Pub. They text us regularly, we often go out for lunch or go by their bar to play pool or darts. They've taken us dancing at their favorite Reggae bar and shopping in the market. Tonight they even bought a birthday cake for Dura. They tell us they've never had friends like us. We believe that it is the light of Christ inside of us that they are attracted to.
One of my favorite dates so far was when we all went out to this beautiful lake outside of the city. We ate fried fish and had races in our inner tubes and spent a lazy afternoon just hanging out and talking with them.
Each of these women have their own story. Loni (in green), is 'married' to an Australian man. He is 55 and still lives in Australia. When we asked her if she loved him she said "He's a good man. He supports me and my sister."
Lu, on the left, is such a sweetheart. She's our closest friend of the group and I am praying so hard for her to leave this life behind. She has both an Australian and a French 'boyfriend' who send her money, and she is hoping to get married to the Frenchman this year. One of my hardest moments this month was walking in to the bar and seeing Lu with a customer.
We eventually did make it back to Roger's Bar, and have also become friends with two of the girls who work there. Na (below) has stolen my heart. She is a bubbly little thing and loves to show us a good time. Last night we stopped by Roger's to visit Na and sadly Dao told us she was out with a customer. I can't even stand to think about it. I am praying so hard for her to leave the bar! Here we are below getting traditional Thai massages. That was an experience!
Posing in our silly massage outfits: Dura, Erica, Na, Ada and Me).
Ada is a little quieter and unlike Na, seems to be miserable working in the bar. She only works to support her two small children, as well as her parents. She has a boyfriend in Texas who she wants to marry soon. See a pattern here? Most of the women working in the bars are from rural areas of Northern Thailand, and their families send them to work in prostitution in the city in order to meet a white man that will marry them.
After our massages, we ate dinner at an amazing Thai buffet. It was in this huge warehouse with endless tables of food. There were hot pots at each table to cook your own food. Best meal I've had in a long time, especially since I got to try so many Thai fruits.
Shopping seems to be another fun date activitiy. Our favorite place is the Chinese market, where everything is super cheap. Most of the outdoor markets are open really late at night. Dura, myself and Ada couldn't resist buying matching dresses.
These girls have become friends I care deeply about. Please pray for each and every one of them to come to know and accept Christ. Many of them are Buddhist and it is sad to see how their religion leaves them empty and resting so much of their hope on "luck." Love Acts is starting a Change Program next month, which will provide discipleship and Bible training along with job skills training to women who are ready to leave the bars and change their lives. It is my prayer that each and every one of these women we've been hanging out with will realize that we have something that they want, and they will ask us about our God and about Jesus. They are all daughters of the One True God, and they CAN and WILL be redeemed.
Yesterday was the 100th day of the World Race! Hard to believe it was already 100 days ago that we left the States and flew to El Salvador. It has been a wild and crazy ride but I have loved it! I have laughed and cried and sweat A LOT. I have ministered to everyone from children to prostitutes. I have learned to use a squatty potty and take bucket showers and eat plenty of mystery meat. I have been to the beach and mountains and waterfalls and volcanoes. I am still learning to live with 42 other people and am getting better at falling asleep with my eye mask and earplugs regardless of what's going on around me. I grew to love my first team as family, and I am already building deep, Godly friendships with the women on my new team.
Team ARISE, minus Helena
For the first time consistently in my life I am spending alone time with the Lord every single day, in prayer and in the Word, and through that God has done so much in my heart. I have learned that my identity is found in Christ alone, that I crave Christian community and I desire to grow in boldness in my faith. As much as the World Race is about making a difference in the lives of the people we meet, and I truly hope I have impacted people, I'm realizing that the World Race is just as much about God wanting to do a new work in me. I am learning valuable lessons about grace and forgiveness and patience. I am walking in His joy and peace and trying more and more everyday to become the woman of God He has called me to be.
Thank you so much to all of my supporters for making this journey possible! I am so grateful for your gifts and hope the Lord continues to bless you for your sacrifice.
So to celebrate the 100th day, 19 of us took off yesterday for a day of adventure.
Thailand is known for elephants so the first part of our tour was to go on an elephant ride. We fed them bananas and they repaid us by spraying us with water.
After a delicious traditional Thai lunch of pork, rice, vegetables, fried egg and fresh pineapple, we stopped by a local market in one of the villages to buy some handmade goods. Then we escaped the heat by jumping into a swimming hole at the bottom of a waterfall.
The last part of our tour was supposed to be bamboo rafting, but the weather changed our plans. As we were getting out of the water, storm clouds rolled in and during the drive to the rafting launch, we had to pull over to wait out the storm. It just appeard to be raining hard, but once we started driving again we realized how bad the brief storm had been. Now I'm from tornado alley, but this might have been the worst storm damage I've ever seen, or at least ever drove through immediately afterward. Cars flipped over, roofs blown off houses, flooded streets and down trees and power lines everywhere. We drove over trees, or had to get out and move them, did some off-roading, and more than once I thought the rushing water was going to sweep us off the road.
At this point we all assumed they were just taking us home, but to our surprise they actually pulled down the muddy road to the rafting place. For 20 hilarious minutes they actually debated whether or not they were going to let us raft, while we nervously tried to decide whether we should go if they were crazy enough to say we could. It was still raining, the river was moving faster and there were presumably trees down everywhere. Eventually they decided it was too unsafe (duh) and we headed home disappointed. All in all it was an awesome day though! I feel like every single day we have been in Thailand so far I have had to pinch myself and ask "Is this really my life?" I am going to be so sad to leave Chiang Mai in 10 days. I have enjoyed our ministry so much and can't wait to share more about that with you all in a future blog.
The past week has been a complete whirlwind, and by far my favorite week so far on the World Race! My new team is blessed to be in Chiang Mai, Thailand, working with Lighthouse in Action. I love our ministry, I love the food, I love my new team and I absolutely love living in a city and all the things there are to do here.
Our ministry, Love Acts, involves outreach to prostitutes in bars in Chiang Mai's Red Light District, as well as a lot of intercessory prayer. Our role is to simply show these women, ladyboys, children and even the male tourists, the love of Christ through our actions. We are not preaching the Gospel (at least right away), we are not expecting to "rescue" women within three weeks, we are simply caring for them and showing them that someone loves them. Buying them a coke, playing pool or Connect 4 with them, asking about their families, inviting them to hang out with us outside the bar and speaking life into them. If Jesus hung out with prostitutes, so should we. We want to remind them of their worth and of their value and begin to plant the seed within them that they are daughters of the Most High King, who has a plan and a purpose for their life that is so much bigger than selling their bodies to Western men night after night.
We expected to be working with human trafficking this month, and in a sense we are. Most of the women caught in prostitution here in Chiang Mai went to work in the Red Light District voluntarily, but the majority of these women feel they have no other way to support their families. In the rural areas of Northern Thailand, many parents send their daughters to the cities to work in prostitution to be able to send back money, as well as for them to hopefully meet and marry a white man who can provide a better life for them.
Erica, Dura and I getting ready to go to the bars for outreach
There are three teams from E Squad, one team from A Squad and a married couple with YWAM all working together this month. We are split into groups of two and three, and each afternoon (Monday-Thursday), half of the groups do outreach while the rest of us stay behind to intercede in prayer for them. Then at night the second half of the group goes out while the others worship and pray, and everyday we switch. The Lord is already showing me a lot about the power of prayer this month.
Our ministry is pretty intense, but luckily we get Fridays and Sundays off to soak in the beautiful Thai culture. So far we have been to several of the huge outdoor markets, got a $2 30-min. foot massage, swam at a fancy hotel bar, and took part in Songrakn. The Thai New Year was on Friday, and they celebrate with a four day all out water fight. It was one of the craziest things I've ever seen. You could not walk anywhere without getting soaked. Check out the video below I found on YouTube to see for yourself! The food here is amazing and so cheap. I've been eating lots of pad thai, cashew chicken and fresh fruit smoothies. There's several smoothie stands not far from the guesthouse and I have at least one a day. Why not when they're only about 60 cents each? There's also 7elevens everywhere here so I've had my fair share of slurpees to combat the extreme heat and constant sweating.
Greetings from Thailand! Sorry I haven't blogged lately, we have been traveling for the past week and a half. Last week my team wrapped up month three of the World Race and the end of our time in Central America. We spent two days back in Granada, where we learned about our new team changes. I am now leading an awesome all girls' team, ARISE. I miss my old teammates dearly but know the Lord is going to push me even more in this new season of leadership.
To get halfway across the world, our squad spent 67 hours traveling through five different cities in four countries. We had a two day orientation in Bangkok with a YWAM base and then rode 11 hours in vans to Chiang Mai, where we'll be in ministry for the next three weeks. We are working with LighthouseThai, http://www.lighthousethai.com/Welcome.html, a ministry that reaches out to prostitutes in the Red Light District. Chiang Mai is home to over 5,000 female, male and child prostitutes.
I LOVE Thailand and will be sharing lots more stories in future blogs, but first I want to wrap up our month in Nicaragua....
I’m now totally used to sleeping in the same room as multiple lizards. I only slightly cringe when they make that awful smacking noise.
I’m quite tired of lizards, spiders, ants, bats, and scorpions. I have a feeling it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better though. The worst was two bats falling on my teammate Bethany in the middle of the night.
I would be perfectly happy if I never had to eat rice and beans again.
There was no such thing as a balanced meal. We usually had a big fat plate of starches, and a bit of mystery meat if we were lucky.
I’ll never complain about public transportation in the U.S. again. In Nicaragua it’s either crowded school buses, or even more crowded microbuses. The microbuses are 15 passenger vans and it’s typical to squeeze 25 or 30 people into them. There’s zero sense of personal space.
Very few people drive cars in Nicaragua. It’s much more normal to see oxen or horse pulled wooden carts.
There are dogs everywhere in Latin America. One Sunday we had to stop church in the middle of the service to get all the dogs out that had wandered in. Once while walking through the barrios we witnessed a dog eating part of another dog.
I was not so fond of my Spanish name, ‘Betania.’ It doesn’t help that there are two of us on my team, so all we ever heard was “Betania, Betania, Betania” from little voices outside our window until we let them in.
One Saturday afternoon we spent a few hours at the beach. Not only were there stray pigs walking around the beach, but we rode horses for less than $1.
One night a strange man showed up outside our door asking if we wanted to buy a log from him. Naturally Katie bought it, and then proceeded to pray for salvation for him before our host Erika came and told us he was a thief and kicked him off the property.
The police appear to do very little here. Our only real encounter with them so far is that our tuk tuk driver had to pay one off with a 2L of Pepsi since we had 4 people in the back.
Most of the “stores” here are really just people’s homes. Totally normal to set up a stand of chips and sodas and leave your door open all day, or to make your living by setting up a table of fruit out front of your house, lemonade stand style.
We regularly walked for an hour to get Internet and ice cream.
Laundry is washed by hand in the sink, then hung over the barbed wire to dry. I highly dislike this entire process, so this month I resorted to just paying our cook to do mine for me. Unfortunately this ended with my favorite pair of shorts going missing.
The things we count as blessings would have seemed real strange to me a few months ago. This month we had plastic chairs to sit on. Huge upgrade from having to sit on the hard floor all last month. We also had a mattress, nevermind that it was just stuffed with old rags.
Taking a shower was an accomplishment. When you’re thankful that the water is actually on at the moment, it helps you forget that it’s freezing cold water.
Napkins and ice are luxuries reserved for nice restaurants.
Here's a peek at some of the randomness of our month in Nica...(apologies that the sound is messed up)
Last month I read the book Radical, Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream, by David Platt, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. Never have I read a book that has made me think so much about my life, and about the life Jesus wants for me. Here’s some of my favorite excerpts from the book I want to share with you, and I encourage you all to read the full book!
Ultimately, Jesus was calling the disciples to abandon themselves. They were leaving certainty for uncertainty, safety for danger, self-preservation for self-denunciation. In a world that prizes promoting oneself, they were following a teacher who told them to crucify themselves.
At first as I read lines like this in the book, about the importance of giving up everything we have to follow after Christ, my thought was “Check. Isn’t that what I’m doing?” But the more I thought about it, I realized just how much I’m only looking at this way of life as an 11 month commitment. This is something I can check off my list, consider myself good with God, and return to a life of comfort living the American dream. Right?
We have started to redefine Christianity. We are giving in to the dangerous temptation to take the Jesus of the Bible and twist him into a version of Jesus we are more comfortable with. A nice, middle-class, American Jesus. A Jesus who doesn’t mind materialism and who would never call us to give away everything we have. A Jesus who could not expect us to forsake our closest relationships so that he receives all our affection. A Jesus who is fine with nominal devotion so that it does not infringe on our comforts, because, after all, he loves us just the way we are. A Jesus who wants us to be balanced, who wants us to avoid dangerous extremes. A Jesus who brings us comfort and prosperity as we live out our Christian spin on the American dream.
I hate to admit how nice this version of Jesus sounds. I’m only in month three and I already daydream about returning to a simpler life in the States come November. Find a job, attend a good church, get married, buy a nice house, have kids, the whole nine yards.
While Christians choose to spend their life fulfilling the American dream instead of giving their lives to proclaim the kingdom of God, literally billions in need of the gospel remain in the dark. American Christians need to wake up and realize there are infinitely more important things in your life than football and a 401(k). There are real battles to be fought, so different from the superficial “battles” we focus on. The purpose of life is deeper than having a nice job, raising a nice family, living a comfortable life and tacking church attendance onto the end of it.
Thanks for the major conviction, God. That’s everything I just said I wanted.
Good intentions, regular worship, and even study of the Bible do not prevent blindness in me. Part of our sinful nature instinctively chooses to see what we want to see and what we want to ignore. I can live my own Christian life while unknowingly overlooking evil. There are 4.5 billion people in the world today without Christ. More than a billion of them have never heard the gospel.
Thousands of children around the world die everyday because they go without food and clean water. Orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. It’s easier to pretend that they’re not real before you hold them in your arms.
My prayer for the remainder of my race is that my eyes continue to be opened to the poor, the lost, the broken and the unloved. That I begin to see my entire life calling to be to spread the gospel, not just for the next eight months. That going home to my car and my closet and all my luxuries won’t seem quite as appealing anymore.
The war against materialism in our hearts is exactly that: a war. It is a constant battle to resist the temptation to have more luxuries, to acquire more stuff, to live more comfortably. But where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
I don’t know about you, but I want my treasure, and my heart, to be with Jesus.
My thoughts from Nicaragua are pretty jumbled, but here goes….
One of the highlights of our time here with the youth at La Quinta was last Saturday night. We were cleaning the church, and it turned in to a giant water fight. We all left soaked!
Honestly one of the hardest things on the Race so far has been missing March Madness. Anyone who knows me knows I am a huge Jayhawk basketball fan. I haven’t been able to watch any of the tournament games so far, but luckily I’ve caught the scores within a day or so. The anticipation is almost too much for me to handle. Even though we weren’t able to have a watch party, I did honor my beloved Hawks during one of the games by sharing my love for KU with some of the little boys here at La Quinta. Hoping for a Hawk victory over Roy WIlliams and the Tarheels tomorrow!
We have less than two weeks left in Central America, and I for one am ready for a change of scenery, or at least a change of food. We eat A LOT of rice and beans here.
Exhibit A: Beans for the week. We’re talking three meals a day. Pad Thai here I come!
Ministry has been pretty low-key. Most of the time we work on the property, hold church services with the youth, or visit the surrounding barrios to pray for people. Yesterday we had the opportunity to visit The Mustard Seed, a special needs children’s home. Sometimes it’s easy to get frustrated thinking that we’re not doing enough to help, but God sends us little reminders He has right where he wants us.
Today, as we were walking through one of the nearby communities inviting people to church, Katie felt led to stop and talk to a group of young guys. She ended up preaching to them for almost 45 minutes, and at the end one of the boys, Daniel, accepted Christ into his life as his Lord and Savior. It’s moments like this that make the World Race so great! And then on the way home we got to watch Farmer Elmo milk his cows, so that’s always fun too.
Earlier this week I was extremely blessed to be able to go to Costa Rica for a few days. My teammate Zach had a friend staying in Playa Conchel, so we decided to hop on a bus to go see him. The ride was only supposed to be a few hours, but as usual on the World Race, it ended up being a nine-hour travel day on the way down and 12-hour travel day on the way back to Nicaragua. So worth it though!
We went to Costa Rica without hotel reservations, without an agenda, and without much money, but God provided for our every need and then some! Every time that we missed a bus, God sent a cab driver to offer us a decent price. When we missed our stop and the Tica Bus dropped us off in the middle of the highway, a local bus came along and took us back to town. When we realized the bus wasn’t stopping in Jinotepe, God sent a man who spoke English over to us, who somehow knew where we were headed, and he took care of us. Countless times over the course of our travel days, things could have gone very badly for us, but our God is a God who provides.
But by far the biggest blessing in our trip was the generosity of the Papuga family. They purchased wristbands for us to stay one night at their all-inclusive resort, right on the beach. We enjoyed World Race paradise: an all-you-can-eat buffet, air-conditioning, hot showers and a soft bed. Thank you Papugas!
My prayer request for ya’ll today is that three of my teammates are still in need of funds to reach the April 1 deadline. If they don’t have $11,000 in their account by next week, they will be sent home. Please pray for them, and if it’s possible, you can make a donation to them through their blogs. I love them all so much and can’t imagine any of them having to leave the World Race. Thanks!
tatumpomeroy.theworldrace.org zachcobos.theworldrace.org evanbates.theworldrace.org
This month my team is staying at La Quinta Esperanza in Diriamba, Nicaragua. The property we’re staying at actually used to be a zoo at one time, and most of the buildings were built by prison labor. God will be stretching us this month as far as our accomodations. We don't have running water in our bathroom (I haven't showered since Tuesday, no big deal), and the food has been interesting, to say the least. Our team is full of joy though and really enjoying being with just the six of us again!
We’re working with Ministerio Mateo 5:16, under Glenn and Lynne Schweitzer, a couple from Maryland who have lived in Nicaragua for 11 years now. They live in Jinotepe, and run Casa Mateo, a 40 room hotel/missions house, along with multiple churches and ministries.
In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.--Matthew 5:16
Our day-to-day host is Erica Espinoza, the director of La Quinta. She is only 22 years old and has a LOT on her plate. There are 14 children that live here, ranging from five to 20 years old. Not all of them are orphans, but their parents were either too poor to care for them or they were taken out of abusive situations. Glenn shared with us that it is common in Nicaragua for young children (boys and girls) to be passed around and sexually abused within their own families.
Paola, Emy & Estaci, three of the girls that live at La Quinta with us.
This month we’re going to be working with the preschool and church here on site, as well as visiting local barrios and a special needs children’s home. It sounds like we’ll be doing a lot of painting and working around the property. Toward the end of the month, during Holy Week, we’re going to put on a camp/Vacation Bible School.
Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, after Haiti.
The female to male ratio is 5 to 1. Since the civil war 30 years ago, 75% of the population is under 35 years old. Please keep this beautiful country in your prayers!
