I have made it a goal for me as much as I can to share my experiences as time allows. Right now, I am at a local internet cafe 10 minutes away from where we are staying in Battambang. After spending 3 days in the city of Phnom Penh, our team of 12 took a van 6 hours away to one of Cambodias little big cities Battambang. It is much smaller than the city, and has many villages in and around the area. As soon as we began to drive, and I saw the rice fields, and all the huts & businesses on the side of the road with mangoes and coconuts...It became reality. I am in Asia, and more than that, I am home. To me it is like discovering a whole new world that is my own, a language I can perfectly understand. I feel like It has been this huge hole in my heart that I have been missing this whole time, I truly feel I am discovering a whole new side of me. It is absolutely Gods annointing the language that has stayed with me, and that I can communicate and translate with everyone that I meet. It has been such a blessing, one that truly brings us together when we meet. I feel like I have known all these people for years, yet I had never met them!
We are staying in Pastors house, and the wife has been the base cook for YWAM for the last 8 years. Yesterday we walked home hand in hand and she talked about how she always wanted a daughter, but only had 2 boys. She began to just chat with me, and tell me how excited and blessed she was that I was here and could talk to her! It warmed my heart , and I know God has sent me to be in relationship with her! Her boys are 14, and 16.
Something that I love love love about this YWAM base is that the majority of staff and students are of the Khmer people. WOW, I have never seen so many young Cambodians on fire for God and that have a heart for their country before, it is amazing what God is doing in this Nation and what is happening!
I am so happy to be apart of the big plan that God has for this country.
Short and sweet! Our lunch is at 12:30, and we will be doing ministry in a village later with some children. Please continue praying for us!
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
A Heart Returning Home
Matthew 6:21
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Ever since I was a little girl, I had such a hard time understanding why my family was so different. The pressure of being young and accepted in school was hard. Suburban America welcomed me, but not exactly with open arms. We never had as much money, I didn’t have what everyone else have. I worked with what I had, and made the best of it all. After years of learning what it meant to be a first generation child, I began to see the blessing that it was. I guess that is what you do when you are young and your searching for yourself. The thing is I never found it, and that is okay...I found something better, and understanding of Who I was in the family that I was given, a family that I absolutely love more than anything.
I am so thankful to God that the Lords hand was on my family in the terrible time of the Pol Pot regime. The genocide that over took the country of Cambodia was one the world had never seen before, and what makes it so different is that it was their own people, against their own people. It grieves my heart to think of the pain, and agony that we as Westerners will never fully understand and grasp. I am so thankful that my family had made it to America, and alive and well. In this understanding, I have wanted to spend a portion of my life...No matter how big or how small going back to where I came from.
My mom escaped from Cambodia and came to America in 1980. She traveled with her family, and came to a country that was free. She learned English on her own, and began to work in places that had other Cambodian refugees. My mom is absolutely the most amazing and strongest woman I know. Her travel to America and new found life is an absolute testimony to me everyday. It teaches me that in Life, when you are given an opportunity to take it, if it changes your life, let it. That when you are given a chance to make something out of nothing, it is really a miracle. My mom took her life, and made something of it even though she had nothing. I can never complain about the lack of what I have in my life, knowing that halfway around the world I am richer in $100 than anyone else would ever be.
Tomorrow, I embark on a Journey back to where I have always wanted to go, a place where the hurt and heart of the people is very much apart of who I am. I am so beyond blessed that God has gifted me with the language of the Cambodian people, that I will for the first time be able to communicate with the people I am serving. We will be working with children in orphanages, visiting prisons, and safe homes for young girls that have been rescued out of human trafficking. My heart is here, and will always be. There is absolutely nothing that makes me different from any of those little girls. I am one in the same, and the Lord has blessed me with an amazing life, and I am so honored that he would allow the opportunity for me to go back and give back to my own community, my own people.
Please pray for me as I embark on this new journey. It is truly a dream come true and I cannot wait to see what will happen while I am there. I know that there is something so special that awaits me! I will be going with an open heart, open arms, and an open mind to totally love and understand the people of Cambodia.
The best part of this all, I not only get to go on my own in this journey, BUT I get to play the part in leading a team of 16 amazing students from all over the world to Cambodia on some of there first Mission Trips overseas. They have the most beautiful hearts I have seen in young people, and I am so excited to share this experience with them. What an absolute honor to follow my dreams, and to lead others to pursue theirs as well.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Ever since I was a little girl, I had such a hard time understanding why my family was so different. The pressure of being young and accepted in school was hard. Suburban America welcomed me, but not exactly with open arms. We never had as much money, I didn’t have what everyone else have. I worked with what I had, and made the best of it all. After years of learning what it meant to be a first generation child, I began to see the blessing that it was. I guess that is what you do when you are young and your searching for yourself. The thing is I never found it, and that is okay...I found something better, and understanding of Who I was in the family that I was given, a family that I absolutely love more than anything.
I am so thankful to God that the Lords hand was on my family in the terrible time of the Pol Pot regime. The genocide that over took the country of Cambodia was one the world had never seen before, and what makes it so different is that it was their own people, against their own people. It grieves my heart to think of the pain, and agony that we as Westerners will never fully understand and grasp. I am so thankful that my family had made it to America, and alive and well. In this understanding, I have wanted to spend a portion of my life...No matter how big or how small going back to where I came from.

Tomorrow, I embark on a Journey back to where I have always wanted to go, a place where the hurt and heart of the people is very much apart of who I am. I am so beyond blessed that God has gifted me with the language of the Cambodian people, that I will for the first time be able to communicate with the people I am serving. We will be working with children in orphanages, visiting prisons, and safe homes for young girls that have been rescued out of human trafficking. My heart is here, and will always be. There is absolutely nothing that makes me different from any of those little girls. I am one in the same, and the Lord has blessed me with an amazing life, and I am so honored that he would allow the opportunity for me to go back and give back to my own community, my own people.
Please pray for me as I embark on this new journey. It is truly a dream come true and I cannot wait to see what will happen while I am there. I know that there is something so special that awaits me! I will be going with an open heart, open arms, and an open mind to totally love and understand the people of Cambodia.
The best part of this all, I not only get to go on my own in this journey, BUT I get to play the part in leading a team of 16 amazing students from all over the world to Cambodia on some of there first Mission Trips overseas. They have the most beautiful hearts I have seen in young people, and I am so excited to share this experience with them. What an absolute honor to follow my dreams, and to lead others to pursue theirs as well.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
A Journey from Pro-Choice to Pro-Life
A pro choice conviction upon a pro life movement
Abortion. A topic that can bring friends to enemies, religion to division, and just plain anger. My heart is never to anger, oppose one’s opinion in superiority, or even divide. My opinion is just this, simply my opinion. One that comes from conviction and truth from who I know that God is.
I am in total understanding that my conviction, may never be anyone else s at any point in life. See that is what makes us all unique, we are all gifted with a freedom to believe, a freedom of speech. What a gift, as life is such a gift, a gift that I believe 39 years ago today was placed in the hands of man.
When I was growing up, I was way too consumed with myself to ever care about what was going on that didn’t affect me. Until, it began to affect me. At the age of 15 when I began on a downward spiral, I found myself in the place of safety with the idea of abortion. Not only did I believe in it, I depended on it knowing that my choices were my choices, my consequences were my consequences, and that it was MY body. I could do what I want with it, and no one had a right to tell me what I chose to do with it.
I was on birth control for months, took plan B whenever I needed it. The cultural norm had me in a place of desensitization towards the aspect of the value of life. Life to me was this....It is my life, I will let it change when I want it too, and I sure am not bringing a baby into the world when I don’t want it....I was too consumed with sex, less consumed with responsibility. I was enthralled with passion & lust, not realizing that slowly I was conforming to the ways of society that was once convenient, a place of justice for women's right. In all that was in me, I thought I was right.
Being pro-life meant nothing to me except that you were way too conservative. Conservative Christians today are a horrible representation of what the church is meant to be. I did not want to ever been seen as “one of them”. The church is meant to be a place of acceptance and love. Instead, we have become the face of judgement and condemnation. I sincerely grieve what the American church has become, because I know in true relationship with knowing who God really is, it is the opposite of judgement & hypocrisy. We as Christians need to rise up, and really walk in the way that we preach. Not in perfection, but in forgiveness and humility.
So what was the big deal? A women's right to her body is a right to her body. In these past years I have been wrestling with the idea of abortion, with the grey lines, the debates, the scientific explanation. The what ifs? Well, what about rape, incest...All these things that can bring a very thin line in the area of right and wrong. In my own selfishness, why does it even matter? Then God began to speak to me about how it isn’t about what I think...It is about what he thinks.
Psalm 139
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
I can’t debate the revelation in my heart that life is life, and that abortion is murder. I can’t , and that is not my heart to argue my conviction to others. It is not my job to bring the revelation of truth to anyone, it is Gods. However, I do know that in my heart through my years of being pro-choice, is a deep place of grieving for my selfishness and carelessness of the unborn.
I think of 54 million babies that have not been given the chance to live, and although it is the woman's choice, and there are reasons upon reasons of the choice to give life. I cannot help but think of the genocide that is in my generation right now that we all see as justice, that I once saw as justice, but it is truly not.
So in that, is an open public prayer to God. That everyone can see, that is not me arguing, not me trying to outsmart those that have their own opinion. This is just a piece of my heart that God has been bringing the light to the dark place that once was my own deception that it is my choice to play God in bringing a life into the world.
Lord,
Thank you for giving me your heart for the injustice of 54 billion babies in 39 years that have not been given a right to life. I thank you for the fact that you Lord are so gracious, so merciful, and that to those that have struggled in the area of abortion you offer such freedom and forgiveness, and that there is absolutely no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. Forgive me for the years of believing I had the right to choose whether or not I would allow you to bless me with new life. Lord, be with the women that are abused and raped and taken advantage of, Show them justice and love & bring them to a place of peace. God, I pray you would begin a miraculous work in the hearts of America, that we would not see this as a debatable issue with the one right answer, the one right way to look at it. But instead God you would give back the value of life to the baby, to humanity. That they would see that every good and perfect thing comes from you, and that even if it is a bad thing at first you make it good. I love you, and I know that my view is unconventional, it is not understood, and it is argued, but God I give it back to you, and say this isn’t my opinion to have anyways, its yours.
Thank you lord for allowing my mom to choose life, that I may be a voice to the voiceless.
Abortion. A topic that can bring friends to enemies, religion to division, and just plain anger. My heart is never to anger, oppose one’s opinion in superiority, or even divide. My opinion is just this, simply my opinion. One that comes from conviction and truth from who I know that God is.
I am in total understanding that my conviction, may never be anyone else s at any point in life. See that is what makes us all unique, we are all gifted with a freedom to believe, a freedom of speech. What a gift, as life is such a gift, a gift that I believe 39 years ago today was placed in the hands of man.
When I was growing up, I was way too consumed with myself to ever care about what was going on that didn’t affect me. Until, it began to affect me. At the age of 15 when I began on a downward spiral, I found myself in the place of safety with the idea of abortion. Not only did I believe in it, I depended on it knowing that my choices were my choices, my consequences were my consequences, and that it was MY body. I could do what I want with it, and no one had a right to tell me what I chose to do with it.
I was on birth control for months, took plan B whenever I needed it. The cultural norm had me in a place of desensitization towards the aspect of the value of life. Life to me was this....It is my life, I will let it change when I want it too, and I sure am not bringing a baby into the world when I don’t want it....I was too consumed with sex, less consumed with responsibility. I was enthralled with passion & lust, not realizing that slowly I was conforming to the ways of society that was once convenient, a place of justice for women's right. In all that was in me, I thought I was right.
Being pro-life meant nothing to me except that you were way too conservative. Conservative Christians today are a horrible representation of what the church is meant to be. I did not want to ever been seen as “one of them”. The church is meant to be a place of acceptance and love. Instead, we have become the face of judgement and condemnation. I sincerely grieve what the American church has become, because I know in true relationship with knowing who God really is, it is the opposite of judgement & hypocrisy. We as Christians need to rise up, and really walk in the way that we preach. Not in perfection, but in forgiveness and humility.
So what was the big deal? A women's right to her body is a right to her body. In these past years I have been wrestling with the idea of abortion, with the grey lines, the debates, the scientific explanation. The what ifs? Well, what about rape, incest...All these things that can bring a very thin line in the area of right and wrong. In my own selfishness, why does it even matter? Then God began to speak to me about how it isn’t about what I think...It is about what he thinks.
Psalm 139
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
![]() |
A Picture Worth A Thousand Words |
I think of 54 million babies that have not been given the chance to live, and although it is the woman's choice, and there are reasons upon reasons of the choice to give life. I cannot help but think of the genocide that is in my generation right now that we all see as justice, that I once saw as justice, but it is truly not.
So in that, is an open public prayer to God. That everyone can see, that is not me arguing, not me trying to outsmart those that have their own opinion. This is just a piece of my heart that God has been bringing the light to the dark place that once was my own deception that it is my choice to play God in bringing a life into the world.
Lord,
Thank you for giving me your heart for the injustice of 54 billion babies in 39 years that have not been given a right to life. I thank you for the fact that you Lord are so gracious, so merciful, and that to those that have struggled in the area of abortion you offer such freedom and forgiveness, and that there is absolutely no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. Forgive me for the years of believing I had the right to choose whether or not I would allow you to bless me with new life. Lord, be with the women that are abused and raped and taken advantage of, Show them justice and love & bring them to a place of peace. God, I pray you would begin a miraculous work in the hearts of America, that we would not see this as a debatable issue with the one right answer, the one right way to look at it. But instead God you would give back the value of life to the baby, to humanity. That they would see that every good and perfect thing comes from you, and that even if it is a bad thing at first you make it good. I love you, and I know that my view is unconventional, it is not understood, and it is argued, but God I give it back to you, and say this isn’t my opinion to have anyways, its yours.
Thank you lord for allowing my mom to choose life, that I may be a voice to the voiceless.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
When you find what you are looking for...
We all spend our whole lives searching. I don’t want this to be a post that says I have found the man I am going to marry, so it makes life complete. You see....Life with just MAN was never made complete, because you will always be searching for more.
So what exactly are we looking for?
We are looking to be loved. needed. wanted. admired. adored.
We want to make a difference...we want to be beautiful. something different. remembered.
We strive for. greatness. value. success. happiness. joy.
We are made in the innate imagine of God, and God himself...knows each and every desire of our heart, for he has that same desire for us.
Lets flash back to May of 2009.
Life was good. College was easy, friends were overflowing, money was coming in, and I was what you would consider...definitely on the “right track”. I found myself at the center of everything, and what at the time was my greatest desire, became my biggest downfall. I spent all the time loving myself, pleasing myself, doing what made it me happy, what made me look good. Truth is, I was selfish, and I was in a season of destruction, a season of void, a season of looking for all the right things, but in all the wrong places. I could not stop for directions, because I didn’t even realize I was lost.
I found my value in the eyes of man, which in an honest way....led me only into what I wanted the arms of man. In the midst of this, I stumbled into the arms of someone that will forever be remembered as the person that with Gods help started my life.
In life, you’ll find yourself meeting that person that divides it. Life before this person, and after...and when you find that person. The journey to what your looking for will never, ever be the same.

My journey to johno, begins with tyler. At the time, I did not believe I could fall in love, or that it was necessary. I believed in having fun, and doing whatever I wanted at the moment I wanted too, not really caring who it affected in the process. I was carefree, I was on my own, I was looking for something I didnt even know was missing.
Tylers eyes were blue. His smile contagious. His heart of Gold. In a short amount of time, he became my best friend, my exception to EVERY rule I had put on my own heart. I found him to be everything I always knew I wanted, and I wanted him to be mine.
We spent our summer nights staring at the stars, then each other, then the stars again. We found ourselves on the beach in the middle of the night in sleeping bags, on long drives to no where, backyard BBQS, ambulances, and even a funeral. Tyler in the midst of our love story, reminded me that death is always the spring of new life. He cried with me, laughed with me, cuddled me, fought with me, and completely brought me to a place of peace. He told me, “ You have to go after what your dreams are, You have to fight for them “ I fell in love, and I could no nothing to stop it.
God on the other hand, tried everything to stop it, and I didn’t listen. I lost myself with Tyler, the way a lot of people do when infatuation happens. All caught up in the affirmation, believing that truly identity could be found in another person. what a lie, identity..true identity would never be found in the arms of man, but instead in the heart of a father, a heavenly father.
God spoke to me in September a night I drove way from Tylers in tears, he said it’d be the last time I’d see him. I couldn’t believe God would take away something that I thought was sent to me from him. I confused, hurt, I knew it in my heart. GOD you sent me Tyler, why would you want me to walk away from him? especially into the arms of HER.
Tyler broke my heart, and when he walked away, I couldn’t help but let him leave. my pride was my barrier, my wall, and I shut down. I cleaned up the mess I made for myself, and told myself I would never...ever fall in love again. I told God I just didn’t understand, and my pain didn’t let me do much else. The next couple months I found myself numb, alone, and angry. Memories remained, and my heart stayed the same.
6 am came too early Halloween morning. In a dead sleep I was awakened abruptly by my phone....seeing that it was Tylers sister on the phone. As soon as I saw her name, heard her voice, and heard the voice of God even before she could say anything....
I knew Tyler was dead.
LIFE. you just truly never know what it will bring you. Even writing this right now, all I can think is...MY GOD MY GOD...
you are oh so faithful.
I entered into the most devastating season of my life. A season of sleepless nights, days without eating, tears that I thought would never stop. A heart that was so broken, I didn’t ever think I could be whole again.
But in that season...I found God like I never had before, I found life, I found true love in the arms of my healer, in the arms of my father, in the arms of my Jesus. He turned every mourning moment into dancing, and showed me that in his faithfulness was his protection. A protection I never thought could come from a loving God, while I was too busy being selfish, he was busy being selfless. My god My god. your so faithful.
Tylers death brought a brand new understanding to my life, and it was in that moment that I absolutely knew that I had two choices, I would either choose to walk in the pain, loss, and desperation for love in the path to destruction....Or I could choose to understand that ALL of GODS ways are good, that he knows what he is doing, and that it is only him that can bring healing and comfort through any storm...and I wanted to dance in the rain...I really did.
You never find what your looking for in MAN, you find it in God. It is through God that he brings you into the right arms of a man. A man you know he has knitted together in his mothers womb perfectly created to be the representation of Christ that he has called him to be.
I was so lost in myself, that I was too busy to even think of what he was doing in a man 3,000 miles away that he would have for me a year later. That year, although the hardest year of my life, brought me to such a place of deep intimacy with Jesus I could never ask for more, and when I finally found what I was looking for in the Lord, he introduced me to an amazing man named Johno, who absolutely turned my world upside down...while teaching me to love again. My God, My God you are so faithful.


So what exactly are we looking for?
We are looking to be loved. needed. wanted. admired. adored.
We want to make a difference...we want to be beautiful. something different. remembered.
We strive for. greatness. value. success. happiness. joy.
We are made in the innate imagine of God, and God himself...knows each and every desire of our heart, for he has that same desire for us.
Lets flash back to May of 2009.
Life was good. College was easy, friends were overflowing, money was coming in, and I was what you would consider...definitely on the “right track”. I found myself at the center of everything, and what at the time was my greatest desire, became my biggest downfall. I spent all the time loving myself, pleasing myself, doing what made it me happy, what made me look good. Truth is, I was selfish, and I was in a season of destruction, a season of void, a season of looking for all the right things, but in all the wrong places. I could not stop for directions, because I didn’t even realize I was lost.
I found my value in the eyes of man, which in an honest way....led me only into what I wanted the arms of man. In the midst of this, I stumbled into the arms of someone that will forever be remembered as the person that with Gods help started my life.
In life, you’ll find yourself meeting that person that divides it. Life before this person, and after...and when you find that person. The journey to what your looking for will never, ever be the same.

My journey to johno, begins with tyler. At the time, I did not believe I could fall in love, or that it was necessary. I believed in having fun, and doing whatever I wanted at the moment I wanted too, not really caring who it affected in the process. I was carefree, I was on my own, I was looking for something I didnt even know was missing.
Tylers eyes were blue. His smile contagious. His heart of Gold. In a short amount of time, he became my best friend, my exception to EVERY rule I had put on my own heart. I found him to be everything I always knew I wanted, and I wanted him to be mine.
We spent our summer nights staring at the stars, then each other, then the stars again. We found ourselves on the beach in the middle of the night in sleeping bags, on long drives to no where, backyard BBQS, ambulances, and even a funeral. Tyler in the midst of our love story, reminded me that death is always the spring of new life. He cried with me, laughed with me, cuddled me, fought with me, and completely brought me to a place of peace. He told me, “ You have to go after what your dreams are, You have to fight for them “ I fell in love, and I could no nothing to stop it.
God on the other hand, tried everything to stop it, and I didn’t listen. I lost myself with Tyler, the way a lot of people do when infatuation happens. All caught up in the affirmation, believing that truly identity could be found in another person. what a lie, identity..true identity would never be found in the arms of man, but instead in the heart of a father, a heavenly father.
God spoke to me in September a night I drove way from Tylers in tears, he said it’d be the last time I’d see him. I couldn’t believe God would take away something that I thought was sent to me from him. I confused, hurt, I knew it in my heart. GOD you sent me Tyler, why would you want me to walk away from him? especially into the arms of HER.
Tyler broke my heart, and when he walked away, I couldn’t help but let him leave. my pride was my barrier, my wall, and I shut down. I cleaned up the mess I made for myself, and told myself I would never...ever fall in love again. I told God I just didn’t understand, and my pain didn’t let me do much else. The next couple months I found myself numb, alone, and angry. Memories remained, and my heart stayed the same.
6 am came too early Halloween morning. In a dead sleep I was awakened abruptly by my phone....seeing that it was Tylers sister on the phone. As soon as I saw her name, heard her voice, and heard the voice of God even before she could say anything....
I knew Tyler was dead.

you are oh so faithful.
I entered into the most devastating season of my life. A season of sleepless nights, days without eating, tears that I thought would never stop. A heart that was so broken, I didn’t ever think I could be whole again.
But in that season...I found God like I never had before, I found life, I found true love in the arms of my healer, in the arms of my father, in the arms of my Jesus. He turned every mourning moment into dancing, and showed me that in his faithfulness was his protection. A protection I never thought could come from a loving God, while I was too busy being selfish, he was busy being selfless. My god My god. your so faithful.
Tylers death brought a brand new understanding to my life, and it was in that moment that I absolutely knew that I had two choices, I would either choose to walk in the pain, loss, and desperation for love in the path to destruction....Or I could choose to understand that ALL of GODS ways are good, that he knows what he is doing, and that it is only him that can bring healing and comfort through any storm...and I wanted to dance in the rain...I really did.
You never find what your looking for in MAN, you find it in God. It is through God that he brings you into the right arms of a man. A man you know he has knitted together in his mothers womb perfectly created to be the representation of Christ that he has called him to be.
I was so lost in myself, that I was too busy to even think of what he was doing in a man 3,000 miles away that he would have for me a year later. That year, although the hardest year of my life, brought me to such a place of deep intimacy with Jesus I could never ask for more, and when I finally found what I was looking for in the Lord, he introduced me to an amazing man named Johno, who absolutely turned my world upside down...while teaching me to love again. My God, My God you are so faithful.


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