I had come to a point before The World Race where it was just me and God and I was truly unsure of how to let other people in to my life because I was afraid of failure; them failing me or most importantly me failing them. I knew that on a daily basis I made a lot of mistakes and the thought of not having space was hard because for some reason having space for me meant I had a place I could run away and hide how afraid or timid I really was. The World Race didn't allow me to have that space. I was an open book to everyone around me and my timidity and my mistakes came out. I cried a lot during my time on The World Race. I cried because all my insecurities and hurts were coming to the surface and everyone could see them. In Nairobi, Kenya during month eight I finally broke down in tears in front of my team and said "can you just love me, even if I have nothing to offer, can you just love me?" I was so broken. Ultimately I found I don't need to have it all together for people to love me! I don't have to be perfect for God to love me either! The World Race was a safe place for me to learn how to be loved. After returning home at the end of The World Race honestly I felt completely lonely without people around me all the time. I could see how much I had changed. I went from wanting to run away to wanting to run into one of my friend's arms so they could hold me while I cried. During The World Race I learned to depend on people again. I will rejoice in the work God did in my heart this past year. He purified me like gold. He brought all my insecurities to the surface and he gave me a squad full of people to love me through it. The day I came back to America is the day I moved to a new town. I know that I need support and people to lean on so I am praying for those people to come into my life here, and although at this time I am struggling through the let down of always having people around I trust that I am never alone! I have God but I also know I have people I can depend on for a lifetime even if we are states, or worlds apart!   

Below is a video of my squad sharing who they were before the race and who they became after. Mine was at the start I felt rejected and by the end I felt LOVED!

Right after that night the El Salvadorian government passed a new law that only family was allowed to visit the prisoners. I wanted so badly to do prison ministry again. While in Uganda we told our pastor that we wanted to go visit the prison one day and he found a way for us to go. It was a Sunday afternoon when we finally got the chance.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but I imagined it would be close to the same thing as El Salvador. I thought perhaps we would be visiting them while they were behind bars just like the first time I did prison ministry. However as we walked into the courtyard of the prison the prisoners were walking around freely, no bars, no chains. There were about 10 women prisoners at the front of the courtyard all dressed in yellow jumpsuits one woman with a baby in her lap. Then I noticed a group of about 70 men all dressed in the same yellow jumpsuits sitting on the steps at the far end of the courtyard just waiting patiently for us.

"One of you is going to preach" the pastor told us. "I'll do it" I said eagerly. I was so excited to be in the prison and to be doing prison ministry again. Yet after I said that I realized I had only a few minutes to figure out what I wanted to share with 70 prisoners who were all waiting to hear what I had to say. "God just give me the right words" I prayed and then I decided that I would just share the same message I had taught the kids in Sunday school at the church that morning. It was the story of Jesus calming the storm and Jesus walking on water.

I wasn't sure what my message had done that day but I knew it was God who had given me the words and the love to stand in front of them. It was one of the most rewarding moments of my life. I have always tried to live by Isaiah 61 and that day made me feel like I was truly living that out.

"The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness the prisoners..."

Two days later pastor was driving us to church and he said "Suubi (my name in Lugandan) I am so encouraged by your evangelism. 17 men accepted Jesus at the prison on Sunday!"

I had no idea that 17 men had chosen to accept Jesus that day. All I knew was I had loved that day. I had loved sharing good news to those men and women. I loved being there in that prison. I was so happy God had anointed me to preach the good news, to bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim freedom for the captives and set the prisoners free from darkness.

I just wanted to share this story to show you that God is changing lives and setting the captives free from El Salvador to Uganda and he is letting me be a part of it and you are a part of that for helping support me in getting here so thank you for all of your love and support, you are helping bring people into the kingdom!

He dances with me. He leads me. He is simple. He is elegant. He lets me rest when I'm dizzy from twirling. He waits for me. He pursues me. He takes my hand. He laughs because he is joyful around me. He doesn't expect anything from me but he is pleased when I bless him with my attention. He thinks like a child. So simple. "Will you let me twirl you", "will you let me dance with you" "will you let me lead you" "will you let me sit by you when you are tired" "will you?"

All Sam needed to do was look at me and smile and I knew he was asking me to keep spinning, and I knew God felt the same way when I smiled at him saying "I want to keep spinning and twirling and dancing".

God had used Sam to remind me to be like a child, to love like a child, and to be loved like a child.

I realize it has been a while since I shared stories of what I have been doing. So I decided that I would spend some time and share a few of the stories I have from Thailand, Kenya and Uganda.

Patong, Thailand. Our ministry in Thailand was spent going into the red light district of the resort town Patong. We were living in Phuket about 15 minutes away from Patong. Phuket is a small island off the southern tip of Thailand, and yes it was breathtakingly beautiful. However the night life was not. The first night I walked down the streets of Patong I was hit by the reality of "the night life of Thailand". Our night consisted of going to the bars drinking cokes, playing connect four and Jenga with the bar girls trying to see if any of them wanted to quit working in the bars. We built really good relationships at a few of the bars so we would go to those bars every time to build on the relationships we had made.

Walking down the main street became much more challenging and heartbreaking as we began to notice one ladyboy prostitute that would always stand in the same place every night. A ladyboy for those of you who don't know is a man that has surgically turned himself into a woman. In Thailand there are many ladyboys and the reason these men turn themselves into women is because prostitution is a way for them to get money. On night we saw the same ladyboy but this time there was a tourist talking to him, propositioning him. We stood nearby praying, feeling sick, hoping that maybe what we were seeing was just a friendly hello or small talk, but we knew it was much more than a simple hello or small talk. As the ladyboy and this man began to walk away I felt like I could throw up because I felt so sick to my stomach. They disappeared into the crowd of people. I couldn't stop thinking about it all night. I felt hopeless for this place and for the prostitutes and for the tourists. I spent the next few days just thinking and asking God about my hopelessness for this place. Then I felt God speak to me that he always has hope for this place, for the prostitutes and for the tourists. So I began asking to see through his eyes and made a decision that I was going to have hope. 

I began to feel sad for the tourists, the couples who came to "spice up their relationship", the bar girls, the prostitutes. I felt sad not out of hopelessness but out of seeing their desire to be loved. As I sought to understand why they were there I began to see what was generally behind it all; the need to be important, either through love or through money and sadly for the men, the need to feel like a man, and the need to feel wanted.

One night while we were at one of our regular bars I notice a tourist man in his late 40's talking to one of the bar girls at the bar. It was different than most of the things I had seen. I had seen so many men at this bars not being able to keep their hands off the girls. This guy however was looking at the bar girl with longing in his eyes. I almost felt him begging her "please love me and notice me. Tell me I am important." It struck me. I felt saddened for him and his desire to be desired.  I wondered if all of the people here in the red light district of Thailand, all the bar girls, prostitutes, tourists and ladyboys knew that they were desirable. Desirable as in loved not desired as in attractive.

Then it got me thinking. How many times in the United States do people dress provocatively to attract attention to feel desirable? How many men and women go out to the bars in the United States looking for someone to "hook-up with" for the night? Isn't it all for the reason of wanting to feel desired, to feel loved or important, beautiful, or for the men, to feel like they are "men"? It all made me sick but I was slowly seeing that the same problem is back in the United States, and around the world. I was burned with this pounding in my chest, with this deep sadness that overcame me for them. Don't they know God desires them? He desires them just for who they are. He sees them beyond the façade, the clothes, or lack thereof. His desire, his love; is pure, is holy, is lasting. Sadly many of them didn't know that. The world had plagued them with lies "you're important if a man looks at you and is attracted to you", "you're a man if you sleep with lots of women", "you need money so go sell yourself". It was all so heartbreaking.

For some reason the thing that stung me the most that month were the men. The men who had believed the lie, the lie that told them they were only men when they could get all the women. The lie that they were men if they did "manly things" like get trashed with their friends and "pick up chicks". I felt outraged as I saw young boys probably about 18 years old going into a topless bar completely trashed. I felt so angry as I watched another group of college aged boys at one of the bars. For some reason one of the boys in particular caught my attention. I felt like I could hear him screaming "I don't want this. Is this the best life can offer me? Is the best of life a bar full of empty beer glasses, a bar full of empty friends with nothing to offer me, a bar full of empty promise of feeling better in the morning, a promise that I will feel more like a man when I can prove to my friends that I am their standard of man!?"

For all of my male friends and family members I just want to say that is not what being a man is. I have learned that a "man" is a man who stands up for what is right, a man who isn't afraid of what his friends will say but rather what God would say. Man was made to stand for virtue and honor. A true hero is one who stands in the front lines because he knows he is standing up for what really matters. Who he is isn't defined by what others say about him. He knows that he is up for the task and that with God's help and army behind him he will not fall. As a sister in Christ I just wanted to encourage all the men out there that God is the one who gives you substance and honor.

The stereotype the world has placed on men, on women, on how to find true love or worth is so distorted. And where I was, the red light district of Thailand was certainly distorted. The selling of sex was blatant and in your face. One night we saw the same ladyboy standing in the regular place dressed in next to nothing waiting for someone to choose him. We decided that we needed to talk to him and at least find out his name. My teammate Sarah and I walked over to him and introduced ourselves. His name was Nas. For some reason as he began to tell us about himself he handed me his license. His license showed him as a man, rather boy. He was 19 years old. In the license picture his hair was long; he looked like any other teenage boy. He then began to tell us that he had gotten a nose job and breast implants. We asked him "why did you decide to become a ladyboy?" He then began to tell us how his mother had gotten into a bad accident and had to find a way to pay the medical bills so they sent him to Patong to prostitute himself to get money to send home. Then he began to tell us how his family now disowned him for being a ladyboy prostitute yet they still take the money he sends home to support them.

He was 19. He had surgically turned himself into a woman so that he could stand every night on the street waiting for someone to "desire" him enough to buy him. We asked if we could pray for him but his English wasn't the best and he though we said "we want to pay for you" he asked where we could go and my heart sank. Did he really think me and Sarah wanted to buy him? I couldn't imagine a conversation with two innocent looking girls and thinking they wanted to buy you. We then had to leave because as he put it "he had to go back to work".

Keep Nas in your prayers and all the tourists, prostitutes, bar managers, couples, women and men who are seeking for desire. Pray they will find the one who desires to love them with a pure love; Jesus!

Lights blur past. The wind blows my hair all around me. The street is filled with people. I walk past thousands of men and women who are all trying to fill an empty void. I think to myself "do they know they are worthy of more"? Music plays loudly as if trying to drown out their voices. I think to myself "do they know their voice counts"? I sit down at one of the countless bars. I see the women trying to make their way in a world that sees them as just another pretty face. I look at them and all I see is a woman who was made in the image of God. The first time I went to the bars of Thailand I felt an ach in my heart that made my entire body shake in brokenness. All I saw as I looked at the crowd, at the women, at the men, was hopelessness. God reminded me that there is hope. They are his creation. He changed the way I loved them. He changed the plan I had when I first walked into Thailand. It was simple, so simple. He gave me the eyes to see hope within them not the darkness looming all around their lives. They are more. There is hope. There is joy. There is a light in the darkness that can guide them out.

The flame burns. The smell of incense clouds the air. My lungs take in the perfumes of sacrifice. My hand is on my camera. The ancient beauty astounds me and makes me cry all at the same time. I don't want to take pictures of these places. I don't want to glorify something that is keeping people from the freedom and love of the one true God. I feel an aching inside. The muddy river flows besides me as I stand holding onto the boat. All I can see are ancient temples. Holy places. Idols. I take my shoes off at the door. A gold statue blinds me. I hear the chiming and clinking of something. Money. Sacrifices. My eyes fill with tears. They ring the bells. They burn the incense. The pick up and offer beautiful things. They turn and look at a statue built by the hands of men. If they would only turn their backs from their idols they would see what the one true God has made. Creation!

Their God is built upon the mountain the he made. Look out. See the ocean below. Feel the presence of the Lord. He made the earth and all that is in it. They build with their hands things that can shatter. God made them. Who can create something more beautiful than life? There is hope. There is life. There is joy. There is redemption. The price is already paid. There is victory. There is God!

When you look at his smile, you probably think exactly what I thought when I first met him..."this boy is something special."

And he is.

I met him our first day in Nicaragua, which marked the beginning of two months of unfiltered relationship and community building in the tiny town of Candelaria. Our only directive for our time at New Song Mission was to build relationships. Disciple. Bring the Kindgom. And so that is what we began to do. I think it took about 5 minutes for our entire team to fall in love with Anthony...because he was one of those kids in the youth group that EVERYONE loved. His spirit just invited you to a place of joy and acceptance. He was a light, and he shone. He just attracted love.

It was about two weeks later, on our way back from a trip to a neighboring city, that our team received the call. Anthony and some of the other youth had gone to the beach to celebrate Holy Week and, despite their fear of water, had gotten in to swim. Before long, the current became too strong and several of the kids were fighting for their lives under its grip. Many were pulled to safety, some by each other, some by strangers, but Anthony was lost. Slipped through the fingers of one of his closest friends. 

What followed next is hard to describe.  I guess it always is when the unexpected comes. Search parties were formed. Vigils were held. Mourning came in waves and droves. We cried out to God. We held each other. We believed for his miraculous discovery. Whether he was dead or alive we didn't know...all we knew was that God held the keys to life and death, and we were pleading and believing for life. We prayed. And we cried. We asked for a miracle. 

And God brought it.

Somehow, against a sea of impossibilities, Anthony's body was found within two days.  Given the recent rains (a miracle in itself considering our teammate Char had just prayed for rain...during the driest, hottest part of the year), the resulting rising water levels, the lack of resources or manpower, and the manner in which he was found (by his estranged father), God's hand was clearly all over it. But still, we kept hearing this whisper over and over and over...."Life."  

So we asked God for what only he could do. We asked him to raise the dead. To command there to be life where none was present. After all, he'd done it before. At creation. With Lazarus. With his own Son. Easter was just a few days away. Resurrection power seemed to fill the air around us and shake the ground beneath us. And we believed.   So we asked.

My heart still trembles to think of the size of God's presence during that time.   Anthony did not wake up that day. We buried his body at sunset, still believing that the God of the Universe, should it be his plan, would raise him even from the grave.   Yes, he has the power. There is no doubt in that. And yes, he is able.   But God had a different life in mind for Anthony. A better life. An eternal life, free from pain and struggle and the prison of flesh. God had freedom in mind for Anthony, and that is what he gave him. 

And want to know the craziest part? God is STILL bringing life. Life from death. I've always known this was a reality of the Kingdom, but now I have seen it in a whole new way. I've seen it in the stirring spirits of the youth at New Song. I've seen it in the way their hearts are desperately turning to God. I've seen it in the way they are coming alive with purpose and passion, refusing to settle for less than what is rightfully theirs as children of God.  I've seen blinders come off and lives changed. And there is more...SO much more, to come.  

"I am the Resurrection and the Life," said Jesus; "he who believes in me, even if he has died, he shall live." - John 11:25

Psalms 139 says that he has searched us and that he knows us. Yet do we really KNOW that he KNOWS us? Do we realize how much he ADORES us? He LOVES us because we are his creation. Does the clay say to the potter "What are you making" or "Why did you make me this way. You could have done better."?

Slowly I am learning that I don't need to be anything other than who I am. I have a lot of confidence but there has always been ways I have compared myself and desired to be different in certain ways. I'm finding out though that LOVE has ransomed me. A few weeks ago I started to see an image of myself in a mirror. Every time I compared or had a thought that wasn't true about myself God would show me that image of a mirror. I would look in the mirror and see things I wanted to change about myself. I decided I needed to study beauty so I could know what God's idea of beauty was. As I was studying I found this verse:

" Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of fine jewelry and fine clothes. Instead it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is of great worth in God's sight." - 1 Peter 3: 3-4

I began meditating on this kind of beauty and also found that I didn't KNOW that Jesus loved me because I didn't see myself as being completely beautiful or respect and enjoy the beauty he had created in me. I continued seeing the image of the mirror and as I started to love the tings I had seen as faults in myself I began to see in the mirror reflections of myself when I was younger. I knew the mistakes I had made in those times in my life and saw that I needed to forgive myself for making mistakes.

A few days passed by we were now in Antigua, Guatemala. I was singing one morning during worship when one of my friends walked up to me and started to tell me "Jesus loves you. He loves the way you get up in the morning, the way you breath, the way you put your hair up. You can't do anything to make him love you more. It doesn't matter what you do with your life or what you have done. He just loves you." I was crying because it finally made sense; he just loves me. He loved me not for what I do and he didn't love me any less because of the ways I have made mistakes. It doesn't matter to him what I look like or if i have it all together. He just loves me because he created me and because he created me he marveled at his work.

Shortly after this I began to see the image of the mirror again. This time I knew it was time to forgive myself for making mistakes. I looked at every version of me in the mirror. I looked each one in the eyes and took their face into my hands and said "I forgive you. I love you." Once I had forgiven myself I realized that I was more than a reflection in a mirror. I was imprisoned behind the mirror. I knew I had the key to pulling myself out. My hand reached towards the mirror and I grabbed my hand that was slowly coming out of the mirror. As I grabbed my hand I yanked myself out. The side of me that had been imprisoned behind the mirror fell to the ground crying.I looked back into the mirror and I saw Jesus standing where I had been standing. He was wearing white and staring at me with his beautiful heartwarming smile. I leaned over to pick myself up of the ground so I could show myself the glory and beauty of Jesus. When I stood back up I was whole again and Jesus was standing right besides me. He took my face into his hands and looked into my eyes. He didn't say anything but I knew in my spirit that he was telling me he was more than a reflection behind a mirror. He was alive and he was holding me in his hands; he was beside me! He told me without words to take myself away from the mirror and forget myself by looking at him instead.

I can say now that I KNOW Jesus love me. I get to stare at his face and gaze into his eyes everyday. I can read his love letter to me, the bible, and be reminded of his love for me. I can sing "Jesus loves me this I know. For the bible tells me so" and believe it. It doesn't matter what I do or don't do. I have been created as God's beautiful masterpiece and I KNOW HE LOVES ME!