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I got this in the mail from International Justice Mission.

That girl in the picture is called Lisa (not her real name, but the name she’s called by IJM for her protection). Lisa lived in Phnom Penh along a river with a bunch of other children. Homeless. Orphaned.

A man abducted Lisa and sold the 14-year-old girl to a foreign tourist who took her to the beach city of Sihanoukville where he raped her repeatedly.

Lisa was then given over to a local woman and became one of several girls kept in a local guesthouse owned by a Russian businessman. Four times he sent for Lisa to be brought to his home where he sexually assaulted her.

She could bear no more.

She managed to escape the guesthouse and went to the police for help. Lisa testified against Alexander Trofimov, her abuser. Trofimov was sentenced to 14 years in prison and is awaiting trial for the same crimes against 19 other victims who, because of Lisa’s bravery, have come forward.

Now, Lisa is attending school for the first time in her life and has completed two grades in an accelerated program.

When the verdict of ‘guilty’ was announced, Lisa leaned over and whispered, “I used to think I wanted to be a hair-dresser. Now, I want to be a lawyer, so that I can help others just like me.”

For more stories of how IJM brings hope and justice to people like Lisa everyday, check out http://ijm.org. You can help.

Each week during the summer I meet with the girls one on one. We talk about how they are feeling about life and check up on their progress. During these meetings, I give them a new verse from the scriptures to be memorizing through out the week.

This week it’s Psalm 37:4.

Me: Here you go, Rachelle. Write this verse down in your notebook. It’s the verse of the week for you to memorize.

Rachelle: Ok.

[Rachelle pulls out her notebook and starts to write. A minute goes by.]

Rachelle: That’s bribery.

Me: What?

Rachelle: Bribery. What this verse says. It’s bribery.

Me: What do you mean?

Rachelle: It says that God will give you what you want if you love him.

Me: . . .

Eventually I was able to get my thoughts together and help her see this verse (and hopefully God) in a non-coercive, non-manipulative context. Just another slap in the face reminding me of the type of relationships in which these girls have been conditioned to function.

I know. I know. I push Compassion International incessantly. That’s probably because I’m completely convinced that God is using this organization to bring relief, hope, joy, and life to the most marginalized and broken in the world. Basically, the same thing Jesus did when he was tromping around the Middle East.

Compassion sent a group of bloggers to Uganda to tour the work that the organization is doing there. They are transmitting the faces and stories back to us. You can see the list of bloggers here.

Watch this video. Not so much because I want you to become a rescuer of one of these kiddos, but because I want you to fall more in love with our King. Watch it and you will.

. . . and thunder too. I’m not exactly sure why, but storms always awaken something in me. An excitement or anticipation. The feeling that somethin’ is a’ brewin’.

I feel hopeful right now as I sit in the dark of my kitchen with my 18-month-old snoozing a few feet away and the thunder and lightening showing off outside.

I feel hopeful that I can do something today that will change lives and make Jesus smile. I feel hopeful that I am not alone in this and that I can live life abundantly!

Things have gotten kind of tough. It’s just hard to live with a houseful of pregnant teens day in and day out and not get totally exhausted and burnt out. This is really the hardest thing we’ve ever done. And, truthfully, we’ve wanted to give up at times. We’ve wanted to call it quits and go get a ‘normal’ life. I could go find a 9 to 5 job. We could buy a house. We could have some more kids. Amanda could be a stay at home mom. Not that there is anything wrong with that . . . but, Jesus hasn’t given it to us. That’s not what he wants for us right now.

I can do all thing through Christ. I never practically understood that sentence from the scriptures until I became a housedad. For the first time in my life I must remind myself and choose to believe on a fairly regular basis that I can be a housedad through Christ.

What are you doing through Christ?

Melissa Faye Green relates this story as she began her journey of orphan rescue in Ethiopia. Thought I’d share it.

A happy little girl caught my eye: she flounced about barefoot in gray sweatpants under a frilly, puffy pink dress and, on top of the dress, a too small boy’s winter coat. I watched her seat herself upon a flat stone with pride of ownership and was reaching around as best she could in her winter parka to smooth the stiff tulle. I saw her cast her soft eyes around to see if anyone was noticing how pretty she was today.

I noticed. I stepped over and stroked her warm little head, her hard dry little braids, and murmured an incomprehensible compliment in English. I startled her, but then she understood: her lips turned down in a pleased, flustered smile.

I didn’t know who took care of this little girl in pink — maybe a grandparent, maybe a not-much-older sister or brother — but I saw that she remembered being mothered. A longtime orphan would not expect anyone to compliment her pretty dress.

Mellisa Faye Green, There is No Me Without You, p. 32.

Our prayers for you are always spilling over into thanksgivings. We can’t quit thanking God our Father and Jesus our Messiah for you! We keep getting reports on your steady faith in Christ, our Jesus, and the love you continuously extend to all Christians. The lines of purpose in your lives never grow slack, tightly tied as they are to your future in heaven, kept taut by hope. Colossians 1:3-5

God redeems. He brings beauty out of dirty, messy, broken places. It doesn’t get much more broken than Cindy Beall’s marriage. Cindy’s courage alone to share her story is amazing.

The story is shattering. That’s really the best word I can think of for it, because it shattered some things in me: my heart, some stereotypes, notions of forgiveness and grace, and my weak understanding of God’s redemptive beauty. Read it for yourself:

Our Story. . .

The Day Everything Changed

What Now?

My Word From God

Let the Healing Begin

Better Than New

She posted it on her blog over a six day period. You can click on each of the links of the story above to read it day by day. Or you can just go to her blog.

I think that I have officially overcome my Christmas cynicism. Christmas just didn’t have any meaning for me. I mean, yeah, it’s Jesus’ birthday (actually, it’s not really), but the whole deal to me felt messed up. And, truthfully, it is. But, it doesn’t have to be for me and my family. I’m still not buying into the super-sized hype (and I hope I never do), but I do believe this time of year is an important season of refocus and refreshment.

Anyway, I started looking for a tangible way to get at the heart of what Christmas is all about. That’s when I discovered the tradition of the Advent Calendar. The whole idea behind advent is anticipation. Anticipation for the coming of the Messiah (as opposed to the coming of the Wii). And why was/is the Messiah anticipated? Because he was/is going to bring justice. He was/is going to set things right. He was/is going to wipe away the tears.

So, I built this advent calender (below). Nothing too extravagant. Just cups hanging from a string across our kitchen. Each evening we take down a cup and read the verse that is in it. The verses are centered around God bringing justice, healing the broken, and making things right. We read them with anticipation that he is coming (again) to do all this and also with the attitude that, in the mean time, we are to be laboring along with him to those ends. As the cups become less, our anticipation becomes more. Anticipation for the coming of the righteous one, who will make all things right.

Living as we do in a world that suffers so much, two opposing possibilities can easily tempt us: either to turn our backs and live oblivious to the pain or to allow the pain to overwhelm us and despair to take up residence in our hearts. The truly faithful option is to face the pain and live joyfully in the midst of it. Those who suffer most remind us of how tragic and arrogant it would be for us to lose hope on behalf of people who have not lost theirs. They are teachers of joy.

- Joyce Hollyday
Then Your Light Shall Rise

It has almost been a year since I wrote this post (I love that picture of Amanda). We were very excited as we prepared for the next phase of our lives. That was almost a year ago and I would have to confess that the excitement is gone. Like the time I got a gameboy for Christmas. I thought I would be happy for the rest of my life. I thought Tetris would, from then on, be my life. But, the newness wore off, the excitement left, Tetris got boring.

That initial excitement of being at the Promise House is no longer there, but it has been replaced with a deep-connected joy. Not the kind of joy that keeps a goofy grin on our faces 24/7. It’s the kind of joy that gives us the strength to stick it out over the long haul and take part in everything bright and beautiful God is doing.

We know that this is where God wants us right now. That could change, and we’ll follow. But, for now, God wants us laboring for him here. There is peace in knowing that. And it helps us through the times we feel discontent about our current situation.