As i write this I can feel my heart pounding inside my chest. We leave for Thailand tomorrow morning, and I say goodbye to Africa. I can’t believe I’ve been here three months now and I will never forget this place. I plan to come back to Africa which makes the leaving part not so terrible, but it still feels strange to be moving on to another continent. God has slowly been preparing me for Asia, however, and I am so excited for this next stage in the Race.
When we get to Thailand we will go straight into Debrief and cultural training, then head out to our ministry sites on April 10th. This month will be very different because we got to pray into our ministry as individuals and not as teams. With that said, I am going to be with a new team just for this month and then I will go back to leading my old team for the last two months of the Race. I am so excited because not only will I get a break from being team leader but i am also looking forward to the ministry in Thailand!
I will be going to Phuket with a team of girls to work with an organization called SHE Thailand that helps get women out of the sex industry and into a better environment. I have never had an interest for this kind of ministry before, but since being on the Race God has been growing a passion inside of me for broken and abused women. I don’t know what will happen this month, but I feel that God has been leading me up to this moment for a while now. Please continue to pray for me as we head into a new culture and intense month of ministry. I know that this is going to be a hard month, but I want it. I want my heart to break for these women; I want to feel their pain; I want to give them hope and a better life.
Being team leader I haven’t been able to invest in the ministry as much as I’ve liked. Instead I’ve found my main ministry being my team and being way more logical and responsible than I’ve ever been in my life. I’m ready for God to give me my heart back, for my emotional and passionate side to come back out. I need to learn how to mesh my leadership with my sensitivity. On the Race you lose your identity, you forget who you used to be, and you just get confused about who you really are sometimes. I’m ready for God to put me back together and be myself again. I’m ready to feel again, to cry again, to love again. And I want to do this with the prostitutes and sex slaves of Thailand. It will not be easy, bu I’m finally ready.
