Slavery still exists,
and we have to do something about it.

Training on the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children at New Song Church Saturday, April 26th, 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.  Let me know if you'll be there!

Read up on it at these websites, then spread the word.
People are waiting for us to set them free!
http://www.freetheslaves.net/
http://www.humantrafficking.com/
http://www.madebysurvivors.com/
http://www.abolishhumantrafficking.com/
http://www.stopthetraffik.org/

two weeks ago a curtain was pulled back
to reveal to me a sinister world of black
souls selling bodies not belonging to them
stealing lives for perverted lies and deeper sin.

in me an alarm is ringing and won't stop singing,
the silent voices of stolen people bringing
me face to face with the thing i must do,
to move and fight and commit my life to.

i am ashamed of my ignorance
but won't miss this chance to make a difference
in this now that was tomorrow
as a girl still waits in fear and sorrow

i am an abolitionist.
i stand with indignant fist.
i battle the evil ones that freedom steal
and ask that they would salvation feel

the healing hand of One who is strong
Who knows each touch in a pressing throng
Whose love is high and deep and wide and long
Whose grace will cover the darkest wrong

my God, You hear the whimpers and cries
you are the One Who gives the breath to sigh
set them free by your mercy, power, and might
give us strength to rescue them from their plight.

i am an abolitionist.
i stand with indignant fist.
i battle the evil ones that freedom steal
and ask that they would salvation feel

the healing hand of One who is strong
Who knows each touch in a pressing throng
Whose love is high and deep and wide and long
Whose grace will cover the darkest wrong

a heart rank with complaints
bows before a holy God.
unworthy of grace
overwhelmed by love
this rebellious heart
      humbled.

unable to clear the stains,
I submit
to the cleansing blood of
   Perfection.

Breath of righteousness
   stirring the air
  my cheeks brightened in Your presence,
stir in my soul -
      in me
           Be.
~

"When the Lord brought back the captive ones of ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Zion, we were like those who dream.  Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with joyful shouting; then they said among the nations, 'The LORD has done great things for them.'  The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad."  -Psalm 126:1-3..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

In February, Edwin and I made this Psalm our psalm.  It was at the beginning of the most amazing friendship of my life, one that is going to last a lifetime. 

 

We got back from a trip to the Philippines on Tuesday, July 24^th.  Our time there was amazing.  It affirmed to us the power and joy of our partnership in Christ as friends and ministry partners.  The following Saturday, July 28^th, was to be the first of several prayer events at our church.  Implemented by Edwin, this event involved many people, including me.  Before our trip to Asia, we laid the groundwork of the plans for the event, and our friends completed the majority of them while we were gone. 

 

This was the plan: Go to the San Luis Rey Mission across from New Song.  Have a person read a monologue at each of the 14 stations of the cross.  At the end of the prayer walk, we were to go to the top of a hill, where a huge white cross overlooked the valley of Oceanside.  There we would worship the Lord.

 

This is how it was carried out: Edwin had me stay at the church to gather together and lead the readers of the monologues.  He went on to the site to prepare things.  When we got to the mission I got a little stressed out because I wasn't sure where to have people go.  Edwin sure loves me, because he overlooked my stress (which displayed itself as frustration with him) and continued his initial plan (read on…).  The group traveled the stations together, listening to monologues and praying. 

 

At the end, we walked up to the huge white cross on the top of a hill, where we could see the city lights glowing.  Our friend, Brett, was home from his camp job to lead worship for the event.  He sang with Fallon, while Sydney ran a powerpoint of worship songs.  I looked around for Edwin, but couldn't find him.  Then I realized he was going to speak, so was probably getting ready.  After two worship songs, Brett started playing a Beatles song, "Eight Days A Week."  Done acoustically, the song is even better and more romantic than the Beatles version…but why was he playing a love song, and why was everyone there not more shocked that the worship set was interrupted?  I soon found out…

 

After a few bars of the song pictures of Edwin and I began to play on the screen.  I was pushed forward to stand apart from the group.  Tears began to flow as I realized what was happening.  The pictures were precious, and all the world melted away as I watched and waited for what would come next.  After the song was over, Edwin came from behind the screen, dressed in a tuxedo, a Bible in hand.  He had been preparing to speak, all right, but not what I had thought.

 

He came out reading our Psalm, Psalm 126.  The tears began again.  I was told later that the look on my face was pure happiness.  Edwin then turned to the group (there were about 20 people there) and told them how much he loved me, and that he couldn't think of a better way to propose to me than amidst prayer.  Then he turned to me, this man I love so much, and got down on a knee, and asked me to marry him.  I didn't let a space of breath pass before I said, "Yes!"  And he slipped the ring I'll wear forever on my finger. 

 

Sigh.  We are going to be Edwin and Amy Samson.  We're planning on a December wedding.  God is so amazingly good and has blessed me with a man who is in the living of his life making my dreams come true.  He is an answer to years of prayers (from around the world!), the fulfillment of a lifetime of dreaming, and the ministry partner I have longed for.  I find nothing lacking in him…I have found the one my soul loves (Song of Solomon 3:4).

four years ago at this time i had just graduated from college.

FOUR YEARS AGO!

to think of the changes that happened in my heart, life, and spirit during those four years, and now the changes that have happened in the past four years, i am just amazed at life.  i thank God that he has never left me alone, and through all the changes that have occurred and will occur he is the constant that keeps me stable, even if he doesn't make life easy.

four years ago i hadn't lived in the home of a family in chile.  four years ago i hadn't helped plant a church in ecuador.  four years ago i hadn't been engaged and almost married.  four years ago i hadn't experienced God's faithful love and presence in the midst of deep hurt.  four years ago i hadn't known what being taken really low in life and then building up from the bottom was like, only to discover a better and happier life on top of leaving the pain behind.  four years ago i hadn't begun theological studies on the way toward a masters degree.  four years ago i didn't know i'd love preaching and teaching.  four years ago i hadn't been to africa, or india, or singapore, or honduras.  four years ago i hadn't moved 2000 miles from my family and made a life for myself in California.  four years ago i hadn't fallen in love with a filipino man.  four years ago i didn't have a dream for where i would be going and certainly had no idea my life would be this good.  four years ago...

four years ago i may have received a degree so that i could move forward and work on a career.  but four years ago i was on the way to the best education of my life...the testing of my faith in a world of uncertainty.  God has been educating me.

i am so thankful for these past four years.

I prayed for Jesus to meet me there, on that dusty road walking away from Jerusalem.  He did.  He asked me to tell him my story.  I did.  In that intimate way that I've missed so much lately I met with the Lord.  He broke bread for me, and I saw his face. 

It began with music.  Alone in my apartment waiting for the dust to settle after tears and heartache, I requested, "Jesus, let me hear your voice."  The very next moment I heard from a nearby apartment a Beatles song; the words that jumped out were, "...and I love her."  And my heart, having been suspended on a tight wire trying to balance itself in the elements of emotional moments, settled into the arms of Jesus.  I told him my story and gave it to him to make it his.  He did.

I began that night my walk back to Jerusalem, where my healing heart could share with others the way Christ revealed and reveals himself to me... the Healer of brokenness, the Hearer of my story and the Author of my life.  Since then I have been seeing his love-letters written on branches and wafted in aromas on the air.  I am healing, and in being in that process, I am healed.  It is simultaneous, and it is lovely. 

I am so glad to be walking home on the path of settled dust, the destination in sight...on my way to Jerusalem.

It's so strange when you know where you're going, and who you're walking with, and you still find yourself confused and frustrated.  The dust on this road of faith is all stirred up, preventing me to see what's in front of me.  And I seem to have this lock on my spirit that keeps me from opening up to the healing and change that might just make the dust settle...or at least calm my heart with the hand that I hold.  Or perhaps I should say, the hand that holds me.  My grip has been loose of late.

Maybe Jesus is asking me to tell him my story, just like he asked the disciples on the road to Emmaus to tell him the things that were going on.  I have been talking aimlessly and pointlessly, in many ways, to others, but not to the One who could truly enlighten me to the events of my living.  Jesus was the one around whom the two disciples' discussion centered, yet he still asked to be told of the events of the prophet who had died and risen.  Jesus chastised them, "O foolish men and slow of heart ot believe..."  It is this word today that I hear.  My heart is so slow to believe.

But Jesus continued to walk along the road with them.  He stayed and ate with them, revealing himself in the breaking and blessing of the bread as they reclined at the table.  The passage says that "then their eyes were opened and they recognized him..."  I am still walking on the road, having been told to believe but not understood fully who is talking to me.  I long to understand, to really get it, so that I can live the belief that settles the dust on the road.  But today I am still walking, and Jesus is walking beside me.  I can feel him, and I hear him.  He is holding me upright, I know.  I am hoping that there will be a place to stop soon, a place of refreshment, where Jesus will break the bread of understanding for me, and I will see in faith the road before me once more.

the REALITY of UN-RIGHETOUSNESS
"The fool has said in his heart, 'There is no God.'  They are corrupt, and have committed abominable deeds/injustice, there is no one who does good.  God has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there is anyone who understands (acts wisely), who seeks after God.  Every one of them has turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one."  -Psalm 14:1-3 and Psalm 53:1-3

  "There is none RIGHTEOUS, no, not one."  -Romans 3:10

the HOPE of RIGHTEOUSNESS
"I count all things loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a RIGHTEOUSNESS of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the RIGHTEOUSNESS which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."  -Philippians 3:8-11

the CHALLENGE of RIGHTEOUSNESS 
"Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.  You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.  No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.  Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices RIGHTEOUSNESS is RIGHTEOUS, just as He is RIGHTEOUS."  -1 John 3:4-7

The Chinese character for RIGHTEOUSNESS is composed of two characters combined to make one.  The  top character represents "lamb," the bottom character represents "me."  Thus, the very symbol for the word     RIGHTEOUSNESS in Chinese speaks the truth of the Gospel: Christ, the Lamb of God, covers me (you, us) with His blood, and IS our RIGHTEOUSNESS. 

CHRIST IS OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS!  I am not righteous without him.  Because of Him I have become righteous.  Through him in me I can be righteous and do righteousness in this life.  It is hard teaching, but it is the very breath of Life.

CARPE DIEM!

   As much as I touted this phrase in high school, it is strange how absent it has become as a part of the philosophy of my life.  I have been stuck in a rut of trying to figure out tomorrow's tomorrow before it's even tomorrow, much less today.  I have become so future-oriented that I'll make decisions like not cook the balanced dinner I want because I don't want to have the leftovers sitting in the fridge because last time I had mold grow on my green beans.  Legitimate excuse, but a little OCD.  So my decisions in the now become this complicated maze in and out of the implications in the future based on the past...not a hugely significant problem when it's just concerning the food you eat (well, perhaps, but that's another running-lady-with-a-weight-belt altogether).  It is a problem, however, when this kind of maze-like thinking becomes a part of major thinking processes that you encounter.  Consider a young woman, out on her own, living her dream in reality.  She has seized the day to reach a very satisfying place in life (independence, career in her field of interest, supportive friends, etc.).  Now consider that every time she makes a decision that may affect her future, she hits a wall.  This is me.  This has been my past few months.
   But today it is changing. 
   I have recently struggled immensely with the issue of support.  I am funded to live here and do the ministry I do by other believers who believe in me and the work for God I am doing.  It is a hard way to live.  I believe it is biblical (or I couldn't do it); I believe it is legitimate; I know it is where I am in life right now.  This does not change the fact that it is humbling (a good thing but humility lessons are always hard!), it is against the typical American work ethic (not that I don't work but my job doesn't pay me, God does through his people), and it is month-by-month, faith  s t r e t c h i n g.
  As much as this way of life is not the ideal, especially for a girl who was scared to ask her neighbors to buy delicious chocolate or colorful wrapping paper once a year to help support the neighborhood school's choir program, it is my life today.  In dreading the inevitable of what being a support-raising missionary means...fundraising...I began to seek alternate sources of income.  This isn't bad, but it is not God's answer for me right now...it's my answer.  And whenever I seek my own answer, I get frustrated.  I have a dream to be a professor, something that will one day achieve a paycheck that will come from my place of employment.  Will the provider be my employer, though?  No, it will still be God.  I will still be doing what he has called me to do.  The channel of income will simply be another one.  I look forward to that day, but I cannot let it determine today.  So future, bring it on!...but in your time.  You belong to tomorrow, and I live in today.
   I've also noticed that I have hurt my own love.  I've refused to see joy in the rising sun and hear it in the voice of a friend, because I wanted to know what that sun was rising on and what that voice would say next.  "Tomorrow has enough worries of its own," Jesus said, and he says in my ear.  Yes, I can see tomorrow's worries, but I live today, and today I am warm, and fed, and happy with that voice in my ear.  I've wanted to figure out love, to know with a guarantee that each decision is the right one....I've wanted to be wise.  But in my desire for wisdom I overlooked and ignored the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, who was leading me day by day. 
   I choose to love wisely and sacrificially, and to let the story of my life be written one paragraph at a time.
One paragraph for each day that I seize.

*listening to whatever music i want, whenever i want.
*watching silly, inspiring, imaginative foreign films late into the night and getting up from them with nothing or no one to interrupt my smiling contemplative self.
*peeing with the door open.
*maintaining sole rights to decorating however you want (which means that the masterpieces of postcard art that i have collected over the years make it to my walls without any other opinion to keep them from their place of honor).
*having time to think and smile with or about Jesus, with no interruptions.
*living up the right to drink from the milk jug or eat out of the ice cream carton.
*not having to fold anyone else's socks or underwear.
*crying whenever and wherever i want, loudly.
*laughing whenever and wherever i want, loudly.
*talking to Jesus out loud and no one but him can hear my prayers.
*having no diapers to change, bottoms to wipe, or noses to coax into blowing.
*knowing my plants intimately...they are my friends and i want to see them grow!
*hosting friends and closing the door after them when they leave.
*enjoying the freedom to break into song or dance with the angels.