Worship Changes Things

Have you ever been in a funk? You know, when it seems like nothing is going right and the enemy takes hold of your thoughts and you begin to believe the lies he is telling you? I am going to be really vulnerable right now and am going to tell you that's where I have been. The past few weeks have been really hard on me. It all started on the night of my birthday. You know that ONE day where everything is supposed to go your way. Satan sucks like that.  We came back from being out on Bangla and that's when the attacks started. I began to feel useless and that I was a disappointment to my Daddy. I began to doubt everything He had been doing through me. I felt like He had run out of grace for me. I was so frustrated with myself for believing the lies. All I wanted to do that next day was to stay in bed and cry. I might have actually done that... That night, just like every night, we had a worship service. I was torn. I wanted to worship but only half out of anguish and half out of my praise. Then something unexpected happen, and I don't remember what song it was, but the Lord told me to get off the ground and to stand up, and the Holy Spirit took over. Something changed in me. You see, it's very hard to worship the Lord when you are feeling sorry for yourself or beating yourself up for things you did or didn't do. See, I worship a good God. A God who is full of GRACE and MERCY, and FORGIVENESS. So when I turned the focus off myself and onto God, my countenance changed. I was full of His joy. Worship changes you.Worship changes the atmosphere around you. Our worship changes how we see Bangla. Worship will change Thailand. Worship is the fuel of missions. We all exist to worship Jesus Christ and to live a life that is glorifying to Him. We are to glorify Him with our thoughts, actions, words, and lives.

There is this picture/painting in my parents house that says, "Don't let the turkey's get you down," and Satan is one big,old, fat, ugly turkey. So I say to him, "Get behind me Satan," and I worship.

Innocence Restored

While driving to Georgia for training camp a short 2 months ago, my mother asked me, "What do you want to get out of this trip?" My only response was restoration. I wanted to see restoration in my girls and in Thailand. 

One of my favorite songs that we sing during worship is a song called "Zerubbabel"  by Rick Pino. The lyrics are pretty simple, and repetitive, but oh so deep and prophetic. The words, "When I'm with my Daddy, my innocence is restored" are repeated throughout the song. Little did I know just how prophetic that song would be as it would be the theme for the next few nights of bar ministry.

While walking down Bangla I saw a father walking through the street with his two daughters. One of the girls was bawling. I can only assume it was because of what she was seeing on Bangla. It would be very overwhelming and frightening to a young child. It's very loud and there are so many people. Instead of getting angry at her father, I prayed that she would feel her Heavenly Father's arms around her, protecting her.

Then when we walked back to the mall and waited for the other teams to get back, a young girl approached us. She was probably around 7 or 8 and came up to me and put this flower necklace around my neck and kissed my cheeks and then asked for 100 baht. I told her that I couldn't buy her flowers and tried to put them around her neck. She took them back and angrily walked away.  My heart instantly broke for her. She has to work and sell these flowers before she can go home. But the profits do not go to her, they go to either her parents or her owner. As she walked away I heard the Lord whisper to me, " I am going to restore her innocence." Her childhood has been taken away from her, and she is growing up way to fast. All I could do was pray that He would protect her.

The next night that I went out, we went to visit one of my friends. We played jenga and had so much fun. I noticed that several people had written on the jenga pieces. Words like "Beautiful Creation" "Jesus is real" and "Jesus Loves You" as well as various names had been written on the jenga pieces. I knew the Lord was prompting me to write something on a jenga piece. I had no idea what to write until it hit me, "Innocence Restored" so that exactly what I did. I asked my friend if I could write on the jenga piece and she handed me a marker.




The Lord has been so faithful. I have seen Him restore the innocence in my team and He is restoring the innocence of all those on Bangla Road.

God in a Box

Thailand is a  very broken place. The people that are here are looking for something, but what they are looking for won't satisfy in the end. While we were prayer walking at the Big Buddha, I saw this depiction of Buddha. He was in a glass box. I was immediately reminded of the other glass boxes I had seen in Phuket, the ones on Bangla Road. In these glass boxes women from Russia dance with the intention of enticing the male tourists to enter into the closed bars, where only God knows what happens. Both Buddha and the girls are idols and are on display. 
Now, the girls don't want to be there, but their bosses require them to and they are forced to do their job. It's heart breaking to think about what these girls are forced to do, and I am righteously angry at the men who force them to do it. Their bosses know that the tourists on Bangla are searching for some adult entertainment for the night, and want to provide them that service. Those bar owners are preying on the men and are objectifying the women. To be frank, most of the men on Bangla worship sex, and their god is in a box. 
As I passed this Buddha in the glass box at Big Buddha, the song "God's Not Dead" by the Newsboys came to mind:
Let love explode and bring the dead to life
A love so bold to see a revolution somehow
Now I'm lost in Your freedom
And this world I'll overcome

My God's not dead
He's surely alive
He's livin on the inside
Roaring like a lion


Buddha was a good guy who lived a good life but when he died, he stayed dead. However, there is only one man who ever lived, who died, arose from the dead, and NEVER died again. That man, my friend, is Jesus Christ, the living God. The first born of all creation. Phuket, Thailand is full of people who are spiritual DEAD. I am here to show them the new LIFE they can have in Christ. The true FREEDOM, in which they are slaves to sin no more.