This is a land of great darkness, but more than that, it is a land of great need of the light of God’s love. Our ministry here has focused on sharing the love of God to the people of Thailand and also to Jason and Sarah Ricketts, who are missionaries here.

I have walked the streets of Pattaya where there are thousands of prostitutes and hundreds of bars. Men come here from around the world for sex. Young girls and boys sell their bodies in order to make money. They are often illiterate and have no marketable skills other than their very body. The damage to their souls is beyond measure. Yet there are some here who are endeavoring to share God’s love. They teach free English classes. They teach marketable skills. They provide counseling for the trauma; most of the young girls have been raped more than once. So many have come here in order to honor their families by providing financially for them. That is important in this culture. Most families know their girls come here to work in the bars. They know their girls will become prostitutes. It is an acceptable means of employment. However, most know nothing of the horrors these young girls will experience. And once the girls experience the horrors of prostitution, instead of honor, they find intense shame and feel unable to go back to their families. Isnt’ that the enemy’s classic strategy? Empty promises and bondage in the very place you thought would bring freedom.

And of course, there is the slave market which is another story entirely. Behind closed doors, there are young people and children, yes children, who are sex slaves. These did not come here on their own choosing. Their parents have been offered education and jobs for their children, but the reality is they are either tricked or deceived into this lifestyle or many are kidnapped, and then smuggled across national boundaries, raped and traumatized in order to gain power over them, threatened, and then enslaved. They don’t speak Thai or English. They are afraid and powerless. And in the midst of all this, prostitution is illegal.

It is more than I can explain to you. I strongly recommend you order Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade – and How We Can Fight It by David Batstone. It will trouble you. It will disturb you. It will awaken you from any illusions you have that slavery is a thing of the past. It will inspire you to care, to speak on behalf of the weak. It will bring forth an abolitionist spirit inside you. It will change you if your heart is alive. The message is God’s message: Justice is for all. Would you submit your heart to God and just ask Him if you should read this book? For me, it was a point of realizing I had had my head stuck in the American illusionary sand and God had said, "Wake up!" We are inexcusable when we experience God’s love and refuse to share it. Not all are called to travel, but most are called to give, to support, to encourage people like Jason and Sarah. All are called to be informed. As God awakens our hearts, may you and I be faithful to care in tangible ways for anything less is cotton candy. And although denial may be our preferred mechanism of dealing with the hard realities of life, it is the truth that will make us free and our freedom should always call us to fight for others to have the same freedom.

Arise, O Sleeper!

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. Bull all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light. For whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says, "Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light." Ephesians 5:21

And remember, the truth brings freedom when it is acted upon.

I look forward with anxious anticipation to the land before me. Thailand – a land of contradiction. From the beauty of the ocean to the oftentimes empty eyes of the people. What God has in store for me there I can only know in part, but I know I feel called to touch the lives of the people there. And I find that the language of the heart is universal. The language of the heart is a one size fits all and is spelled L-O-V-E, and it flows down from my heavenly Father and touches us all.

Yet the ways of God dictate that His love flows primarily through human containers. So in Thailand, I hope that love will flow through me. The river of His love is a powerful force. As it travels from God’s heart, through my heart and your heart, to the hearts of others, it cleanses, heals, restores, renews, encourages, saves, energizes, brings hope and life everywhere it goes, touching the vessels through which it flows in the same powerful ways as it touches those onto whom it rests.

The love of God is always focused on the nations. In a church service in 1983 as I listened to a missionary speak of his work, God’s heart collided with mine and I knew God wanted to use me.

Such a thought was overwhelming to me! I certainly didn’t feel qualified or worthy for such an assignment. From that moment forward, I have sought to follow God’s path for my life and throughout the years, a thread has always been woven throughout my heart for the nations of the world. Yet that tapestry hasn’t developed as I thought it might back in 1983 but I have never forgotten it.

I hope you’ll join me on this journey. Join me through your thoughts and prayers. Travel with me in heart and spirit as I post my experiences here.

Bon Voyage!

Mikki

Part of the intrigue of a diary is both the power of the writer to lock away their secrets and the risk of someone else finding the diary and reading the author’s most treasured secrets.

To me, there was always something mysteriously wonderful about my diary.  For one thing, it was a place I could write my deepest secrets and thoughts in safety. Secondly, there was the beauty of the lock itself. The lock was power. My power. The power to tell my story and then hide it away. I always kept the key hidden far away from the actual diary. My diary could not betray me as long as I kept the key.

There was always the potential for a power shift. If someone else found my diary and my key, opened my diary and read it, then they would have the power of knowing my innermost thoughts.

Of course, diary keeping is quite different today. Online diaries and locked away passwords are the storage places and keys for today’s world, but the dynamics are really the same.

As I mused about the power of a diary this morning, I thought of the irony of it all. We all have a longing to tell our story, the longing to be known intimately, yet to do so is risky so we try our best to keep our story locked away. We don’t feel safe to share that story with just anyone.  I remember one occasion in elementary school when I saw the horror on another little’s girl face when “the boys”  found her diary and read her secrets, which amounted to who she was in love with that week. They taunted her and sang, “Na, na, na, na, na; we found your diary. You’re in love with Roger,” (or Mark, or whoever it happened to be that week).

And then there was always the possibility of reading about yourself in someone else’s diary. Perhaps they would tell of unfeigned love for you, or maybe they would say they hated you! It was all part of the intrigue.

Our stories are powerful and we often use them as pieces in a chess game. If I hide my story, I have power. If you discover my story, you have power to use it against me.

Perhaps the greatest power is when we are willing to purposefully share our stories.  Sadly, this involves great risk, for to share our innermost self with someone else makes us vulnerable. Perhaps they will not treasure our story. The results can be pain and betrayal.

Our stories must first be written for our own hearts to acknowledge their beauty, purpose, and pain. Only then can they be safely shared with those whose lives our stories are destined to touch. And timing is important; in the Bible Daniel was instructed not to tell part of his story at that time and John gets a revelation that can’t be understood yet.

I recently read some research that indicated that in the telling of our stories, whether verbally or through writing, our brain is able to heal from past experiences that have left, as it were, scars on our lives. The right and left part of the brain reconnect in ways that actually bring healing to the brain.

And this morning I thought of how The Bible is, in a way, God’s diary. It contains His innermost thoughts and feelings. He continues to work so that everyone will have a copy of His story, and Jesus is the key that unlocks the story. So God gives us both His diary and His key. He gives us the power to know Him intimately and He models for us the power of story. We sometimes call that the power of testimony. Scripture teaches us that overcoming power comes through the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.

So today may we all listen for God’s whisper for perhaps He will speak to us to share our story with someone else and through the telling of that story, we can invite them into the wonder of God’s story for after all, stories are meant to be read.