Weird that I am in the 10^th month of the race. How the heck is that possible?!! I can officially say that I will be home next month. Gaaaaahhhh. That is surreal.

Anywho, this month is the long anticipated MANistry and WOMANistry month. All of our boys are together goat farming in northern Thailand, while all of us ladies are spread out through Thailand. I have the amazing privilege of working with 20 other amazing squadmates and sisters down in the gorgeous, island area of Phuket (poo-ket). We are working with SHE ministries (shethailand.org) and will be going out into the bars on Bangla Road, in the Patong District, building relationships with and ministering to the girls working in the sex trade in the bars of the red light district. We will also be encouraging the women who work for this organization, helping build a new facility, and hanging out with the children who live in the local community.

This is going to be an emotional, hard, and stretching month, and I count it such a blessing that I have such an opportunity.

Please cover us and the people we are going to encounter in your prayers this month, because we will really need it. Please pray for the softening of the hearts of these girls and for the lowering of their defenses. Please pray, in the grace of God, for the men who solicit these bars, and pray for their freedom and for their redemption as well. Please pray for divine appointments, and that the Holy Spirit would guide each of the conversations we have.  And please pray for us, for spiritual protection from the climate and spiritual attack as we take the frontlines on such a heavy spiritual warfare, and for perseverance as we continue to go out.

Thank you all for your prayers and support, and I cannot wait to share testimony of God's work in this place and the redemption granted to the people we encounter. 

So, its about time I write a blog about China :)

Our month there was not filled with an incredible amount of ministry, but it was full of a whole lot of testimony. We were in the Northern city of Xining, in an area that used to be a part of Tibet. While there I got a unique opportunity to learn a lot about the Tibetan people, as well as their plight, culture, and religion.

Tibetan Buddhism is one of the most demonized religions I have ever heard of, and because of that the whole area has a heavily dark spiritual climate. Their form of Buddhism mixes traditional Buddhism with their ancient religion. According to their religious history, they believe that the Tibetan people were birthed from the sexual intercourse from a fallen angel and a demoness, and because of that belief they worship many idols and supposed deities, which are nothing more than glorified demons.

All of that is a lot to take in, and can have the possibility to damper a person's hope for the Tibetan people. But the most important thing to remember is that God is bigger than any false belief, and the Tibetan people are His beloved, His creation.

I knew before getting there and knowing the extent of darkness in that area, that my team and I would be going into one of the darkest spiritual climates we've experienced yet, but I never would have dreamt that I would leave there with more hope for a region than I have felt before.

While there, we had no real ministerial plan. We just knew that we would be praying a whole lot. But within a week we began to have some amazing divine appointments happen which shaped our month. First we met a couple who run an English café there and had the blessed opportunity to fellowship with them, and hear testimony after testimony of God's purpose for their lives and working in China. Then we started going to the English café twice a week and got to meet and practice English with the Chinese and Tibetan students there, getting a unique opportunity to build friendship and get an intimate view of the dynamics of that area.

Then while we were there we met two girls, who are now very good friends, there doing missionary work as well, and spent our month fellowshipping with them and be encouraged as we encouraged them. They do not get to be around many other Christians their age while in China, so it was a blessing getting to be a breath of fresh air for them, and being so encouraged by God's movement in that place through them.

We even got to hang out with their leaders, an amazing married couple living there indefinitely with their children, who God has purposed an amazing outreach to the Tibetan people through. Being around all of them, and getting to hear about the plans the Lord has for that place, and the Tibetan people was such an amazing encouragement for me, and granted me such an immense hope for them.

I know that this is a pretty vague blog, but I can't really give too many details. I can however urge you to pray, having given more than enough to pray for. Please pray for the Tibetan people, of whom there are NO Christians, and who have never had missionaries there, and are a largely isolated, and nomadic people. Please pray for the people there, in China, just on the border of what remains of Tibet, who the Lord has called there for such a great purpose. Please pray over the land, pray over  the hearts of the people, pray against the bondage that has generationally held these people to a false belief. Please pray for the spiritual freedom of Tibet. 

Before humans existed and decided to make it their own, music existed. Music is a heavenly creation, made for the sole purpose of worship. The angels sing of the glory of God eternally. It is commonly believed that it was in that very gifting that Lucifer excelled in Heaven.  How then can we ever separate from that purpose alone?

A car's sole purpose is to drive. It may be used to transport, it may be used to carry all of someone's stuff, it may ever be where someone lives, but it will never cease to be a machine created for the purpose of driving. Music is the same. We can use it however we claim, but it is, and will always be a machine for worship.

So, if it is not used to worship God, it does not stop being worship. And if it is not worshipping God, then what is it worshipping? In that context, in makes sense that it would be one of the greatest affecters of people's moods, mentalities, and spiritualities, whether or not the partaker intends it to be. It makes sense that it resonates in our deepest being, and why years after hearing a song we can recite it and conjure its melodies. It makes sense that with his fall, Satan would use it to manipulate us, because he, more than we ever could, understands its purpose and power.

Our words in the natural have far heavier weight in the spiritual, whether or not they are ours or someone else's. When we sing along, we are declaring those words out of our mouths and from our spirits. Ephesians 4:49 says, "do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up, that it may benefit those who listen."

James 3 talks in length about the taming of the tongue. "Take ships for example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants it to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small fire. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and it is set on fire by hell itself."

Words are DECLARATIONS, which can set terrible things in motion from the slightest of misconceptions. Take for instance the song that makes my spirit livid and yet I constantly hear it sung boldly from the purest of hearts, inviting so much in with no intention or regard. Rihanna's song "I Love the Way You Lie" declares, "Just gonna stand there and watch me burn, it's alright because I like the way it hurts. Just gonna stand there and hear m cry, it's alright because I love the way you lie." The tune is catchy, the melody is hauntingly beautiful, and that is exactly what hooks us in. He, Satan, hooks us in ever so sneakily, with melodies like these and and so many others, creating a multitude of people soaking in such lies, and declaring them out.

I wish this was the only one, but mainstream music is plagued by this coercion, this is just the perfect example. IN that reality I am convicted, and have been for a while, and realize that it is a black and white situation; a life and death situation. Music that does not edify the Lord edifies something else. Music that does not worship the Lord, worships something else. Some of it is blatant and obvious and some of it seems permissible, but is just as dangerous.

Rather than try to make exceptions, to pick and choose from what is too catchy to want to let go of, and ignore the altruism of this concept, I will see all music as worship. I will choose to see it as it was created to be, and only take in that which helps me become that which God has created ME to be. 

So yea. No planned words for this one, just pouring out what is consuming my heart.

I am in the newest and most undeniable place of brokenness I have ever experienced. It's a place I always ask God to take me to because I know through it He will break away the things which separate me from His purpose. I know that in theory, it is the place where He can draw us the closest to Him as we are forced to cling to Him, seeking the only thing in our desperation we can depend on. But in the midst of it, in the actualization of this season, I am struggling.

I sit here, frustrated at the barrenness that defines me, and yet I am sure that in this emptiness God can fill me anew, restore me completely, and take me to depths I have never dreamt of. I am learning even more, to trust God to no end, even when I have no trust or confidence in myself.

So why, Lord, do you require me to be broken? I know why it is supposed to be, I understand the process, but now, here, in this, WHY do You have ME here?

Because this brokenness reminds me of my humanity, it makes me reevaluate my flesh. Because in it I am forced to rely on You, and You alone.

 I have no strength, but I know that in You there is infinite strength. So thank you for making me aware of the ways I deny Your security and try to be my own.

I have no joy, so thank You for showing me how much I look to myself, my pride, and my abilities to find joy for the day. Thank You for making me rest in who You are to find my joy and stability, looking first to You entirely to be able to move forward in the day.

I have no confidence, so thank You for asking me to surrender my gifts, abilities, and purpose. By letting them go, I am able to see the ways that I took that which undeniably came from You and tried to make them my own.

I don't know who I am, so thank You that in surrendering the identity I was clinging to as I tried to create it, I am forced to look to You, once again, to find me, and who You have created me to be.

I feel so alone, so thank You for showing me the confines I have placed You in, and forcing me to find You beyond where I have trained myself to see.

Thank You, Lord, for this uncharted territory where I have You alone as my guide.

Thank You, Lord, for making me a woman of my word, a woman of YOUR word.

Thank You.

Break me Lord, of my flesh. Break me of me, and leave me with nothing but You IN me.

Infancy

Once I was a child

And then I got even younger

Stripped of all my pride

Awe and wonder replacing

All that I once thought I knew

Humbled to new depths

Rethinking my every conception of You

And me

And all that's in between

The more I see

The less I know

The less of me

As I grow

Infantile courage

Without my own strength

Protect me Father

Shield me with Your love

This vulnerability is frightening

But it forces me to look beyond

My eyes and my hands

This world and me plans

And look straight to You

The ONLY one who

Can save me