We sit across the table from each other at our common meeting place in Cincinnati, Ohio. Half full Starbucks coffee sits between us at the table. We’ve talked tidbits here and there tonight about life, family, and the latest Facebook updates. I lean back in my chair and balance myself on the back two legs – my mind deep in thought.
Value. Worth. Hope. Vision. Destiny. Potential. Belief. Honor.
It’s what makes you and I move and breathe.
No worth. No hope. No Vision. What is there to life?
That word from a teacher or coach that says, “I knew you could do it.” The text from a friend encouraging you to keep going. That parent or best friend who believes in you – it’s at times been the last one last string of hope and strength you’ve held to.
If I could only tell you the lives I’ve been apart of. The faces I’ve stared into. The stories I’ve heard of individuals who have had their budding dreams come crashing down because hope, value, and belief where lost.
My heart breaks all over again every. single. time. I hear or see those who have the incredible power and capacity to bring life – to be a dream builder — only to be the extinguisher through words or actions (or lack of) to a maybe small, but ever burning fire.
But oh gosh. What an explosion can happen when you pour out hope, LOVE, life, and honor on someone with the courage to dream. Think about that, it takes courage to dream. It takes courage to pursue something that is not yet happened.
I zone back in, after almost tipping over in my chair. (That would have been HILLARIOUS.)
Across from me sits a lifelong best friend. Across from me sits a world changer. A leader. A warrior. Someone with amazing abilities and talents. Someone who has been through a lot of hurt and rejection on many different sides – but who has found Jesus! And in that, has found freedom, forgiveness and strong community.
These last six months have been at the extremes of both for me. Because love and truth ALWAYS win, I am in Cambodia because someone (no, actually, HUNDREDS) where apart of being dream builders. Hey, potential spoken over me, landed me half way across the globe.
This month my team and I have been working with a mission called Transitions Global. Their mission is absolutely amazing! I think their motto sums it up perfectly; “Freedom without a Future is Just another Form of Slavery.” The goal of their work is to empower girls who have been rescued, to heal and be restored though the help of council and therapy. But more than just healing – the girls are challenged to learn life long trades, to get a solid education, and to give back in society, making them strong and independent adults, able to pursue dreams of their own with hope and passion.
When we where told last week about our ministry, I was thrilled. It would be like God to place me in a ministry that hits so close to home. I have not been even remotely close to where these precious girls have been emotionally and physically. But the journey to see beyond a body, beyond a past, beyond what first meets the eye, beyond what isn’t yet but is to come, yes. God’s timing and work in all this, blows me away.
I am so excited to see what God’s doing here this month with Transitions Global – and in my heart and life.
And that’s the absolute best.
So today…
Speak a word of TRUTH over someone. Be a part of building someone’s dream. Tell someone you believe in them. Share my blog with one friend.
If you’d like, I invite youto come and follow me through these pages this month in Cambodia as God humbly uses me, a crazy redhead to bring life to lives in this country – all for His FAME.
Elizabeth Anne ~*
