Moving Forward

This photo is of my squad, Fusion 2, back in January of this year.  It was our first month on the race together, in northern Thailand.  I spent 6 months on the field with these guys and loved every minute of it!  Squad Leading was definitely challenging and God stretched me in ways I couldn’t have foreseen.  I can tell now how much I’ve grown and I’m so thankful for the whole experience, the good times and the hard!  

F U S I O N   I I   2 0 1 6  / /  C H I A N G   M A I ,  T H A I L A N D

Now, I’m back in the US and loving being home 🙂 I’ve taken a few fun days off to rest and now I’m starting to switch gears from Squad Leading to preparing for Base Leading in Cambodia. This January I will be moving to Siem Reap for two years to be the new base leader at Overflow Guesthouse! I’ll be transitioning from short term trips to being a full-time, Long Term Missionary with Adventures in Missions.  Overflow is operating as an international base for Adventures while also functioning as a full guesthouse. I’m SO excited about this opportunity and how God has come full circle with the dreams He instilled in me while I was on the race back in 2011, the dreams that started it all!

 

 

 

 

 

  

O V E R F L O W   G U E S T H O U S E  / /  S I E M   R E A P ,  C A M B O D I A 

There’s a lot I’m looking forward to as part of this next adventure.  This is this an amazing opportunity to work in the field God has given me the passion for and God has some big plans for it!  It’s been amazing seeing everything unfold so far and I can’t imagine where God is going to take things over the next two years! 

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E V A N G E L I S M

The guesthouse will be a light on the tourist trail and a way to share the Gospel with the sojourners of this world!  Evangelism has been a growing passion of mine over the past few years.  I’ve realized the dire need for people expressing their faith in this “politically correct” culture (Luke 10:2) and how few people actually know the truth about salvation!  I’m also very excited about the opportunity to train the next generation in sharing their faith as well!  Cambodia is the most visited country by the World Race and we will have tons of teams coming through over the next two years.  In fact, while working there this past February, FOUR squads passed through within the one month I was there!  Besides reaching the tourists from around the world, we will also have great opportunities for lifestyle ministry with our Khmer staff, as well as with the local ministries we are partnering with!  

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W O M E N   M I N I S T R I E S 

I’ll share more about our staff in a later blog, but one of the girls on our team and I have received the same vision from God for the guesthouse.  We want to open a spa in the guesthouse, as a way to reach the women working in human trafficking and give them an option other than begging and/or prostitution, while sharing Christ’s love with them.  I also received an email yesterday from a volunteer working at Overflow right now who said God had given her a passion to start laying the foundation for a women’s ministry at Overflow, but didn’t know where He was taking it. Seeing these visions connect is beautiful!  We can clearly see the Lord’s hand at work!  

In Siem Reap, it is a common scam for women to have a “sleeping” baby in their arms (which is actually drugged), an empty baby bottle, and asking for you to buy them some baby formula.  The canister of formula costs about $30 and the women quickly return the formula to the store to get the money. Sometimes the store is also in on the scam and they split the profits with the women.  It is believed that the baby-beggars are run by a mafia of sorts.  Think Child Safe is a great movement that has been working hard to keep tourists from funding this operation.  Our dream at Overflow is to help these women get out of this scam and give them a greater opportunity at our guesthouse spa.  Isaiah 61 is our prayer – “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.  They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.”  We want to change their shame for a double portion, their societal disgrace for the joy of rejoicing in their Heavenly inheritance, and for everlasting joy to be theirs!  Please join with us in prayer for this mission!