Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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This past weekend my team & I had the opportunity to go to the beach for a day. Warm water, sandy beaches and time to relax – sign us up!



 

I got to do a morning run on the beach. The ocean water (Gulf of Thailand) was warm. We had delicious food for dirt cheap, like this grilled tuna for $3 and a coconut for $1.



 

Relaxing can be hard to do though, when you constantly have people coming up to you trying to sell you things from fruit to bracelets to hair threading. One person came up to us trying to sell us crabs – like, a whole crab, legs and all.

 


Relaxing can also be a challenge when your day takes an unexpected twist. One of my team members went to find coffee in the afternoon. He found a small shop that sold it and struck up small talk with another customer, an older Australian man. My teammate soon learns it was a business opportunity that brought this man to Cambodia. His business of choice: a guest house. This man invites my teammate to come check out “the only guest house on the street.” He tells my teammate, ‘it’s like Heaven; you can get whatever you want. Lots of girls to pick from, real young and real cheap.’ He tells my teammate he makes hundreds of dollars a night because customers pay for an hour to use the room then leave.


I wish I could say that one incident was the only sex trafficking encounter we had during our beach trip. Truth was, we saw it all around us. We overheard conversations of woman selling themselves to men, “you can get both of us for tonight.” We saw pairs of people walking around that were clearly part of the sex trafficking. We heard how our ministry contact was asked by someone at our hotel if his wife was ‘a girlfriend,’ which was a way of asking if she was a prostitute (our ministry contact is a 23 year old American guy who is married to a Cambodian woman he meet while he was doing missions work in Cambodia years ago). We had this sign in our hotel room



 

and this sign in the hotel hallway.


 

It makes me so angry that stuff like this even exists. My heart breaks for the men, woman and children who are involved in all forms of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation.

God, I pray that your love and mercy falls like a heavy rain. God let it destroy places that need to be destroyed and may you rebuild cities with a foundation of your truth. God let your justice reign. Let truth vibrate throughout the Earth.


Habakkuk’s Complaint


　2 How long, LORD, must I call for help,
　　　but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
　　　but you do not save?
3 Why do you make me look at injustice?
　　　Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me;
　　　there is strife, and conflict abounds.


The LORD’s Answer


　5 “Look at the nations and watch”
　　　and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days
　　　that you would not believe,
　　　even if you were told.