Over the past 8ish months I have lived in one small space with 4 special people who have worked their way into my life. Since every story you will here when I get home in a few days will involve these four I wanted to give you an introduction to my family.
Haden is the most joyful energenic loving little brother anyone could ever dream up. He is so passionate and on fire for Jesus and will share the Gospel with anyone who he meets. Haden is the one who pushes me far out of my comfort zone, he drags me along places when I don't want to go and pushes me when I feel like giving up.
Elisa loves. and that is just how you describe her. I have watched her heart break for every injustice we have seen. She has ran out of the room sobbing when we see pictures of places that have touched her heart. Elisa is a worshiper. She has this longing desire to understand God and everytime He reveals more of himself to her- Elisa brings it all back in the most beautiful expression of worship.
Anna is the beautiful gentle spirit that comforts me when I need a hug, a hand hold, or just a friend to listen. Anna is the type of person anyone is drawn to. She shines Jesus out of every pore in her body. Anna has made deep friendships in every country and often is the one driving our prayers.
Jacob. our prophet. Jacob has grown more than I have ever seen a person grow in the past three months. He digs and longs and prays and desires the Bible and God. Jacob has changed from the 18 year old boy who left on this trip not knowing what to expect into a real Man after God's own heart.
So this is my family. We fight, we argue, we annoy each other, but in the end- they are the thing I am going to miss the most when I go home. God has molded our hearts into one- all desiring Him.
To my new little family- I will miss you, and I love you.
I was taken aback last Sunday when after teaching Sunday school, eight- 10 year old boys walked up to me and asked this very question.
Last week our team helped Delierance Church put on a huge crusade, we were busy from 9am till 11 pm from Tuesday till Saturday. To say we were exhausted getting up to teach Sunday school this week would be an understatement.
We were going to talk about Moses- a quick easy story- not much thought and it would take the whole time to tell. But it is funny how that isn't how things turn out.
The children were dismissed to us after church, just like every week. We crowded into our 20x30 classroom, and our normal 80 children flooded in, and I started to get concerned when I couldn't see the end of the line of children waiting to get in. By the time they all got situated in this tiny tiny room- most sitting on top of each other- I was shoved against the front wall with my translator.
Well Moses got thrown out the window.
All of a sudden I was preaching. Not nice American pastor preaching, raising my voice yelling the truth type preaching at all 140 children packed into this room. I told them that they were responsible for telling their friends about the Truth of Jesus, I told them that the Kingdom of God belongs to them. That the Holy Spirit lives inside of them and can perform miricles. I told them their prayers were powerful and needed. I told them Americans needed missionaries, and they should start praying hard that God would provide a way for them to come. And before I knew it, I gave an alter call and lead these children in a salvation prayer.
It was about then that my mind caught up to what my body has just done. Honestly if one of my teammates had not recorded me, I would not have even known what I said.
I finished the prayer and my voice hurt from my 'preaching yelling'. I was unsure what just happened, I was kinda freaked out about how out of control I had just been. I thought 'well whoops that wasn't the plan we had set up.'
I walked out of the classroom and let my teammates take over.
But I looked back in and saw a sight and sounds I would never forget.
A twelve year old street boy, in ragged clothes, the only pair he owned, was standing in front of 140 children- leading worship.
It was beautiful and brought tears to my eyes. I said "Okay God if you had to take control and use me for this, fine."
But then God blew my mind even more. Those 10 year olds walked up to me and asked me flat out
"teach us about the word of God."
I sat down with them. Ran through the entire story of David. Then 4 parables from Matthew. I explained and they sat wide eyed. About an hour later I needed to go home, and these boys were upset.
"Kayla, Meet us this afternoon with your bible. Teach us more."
... and I did, and after that they asked when I could come to their house and teach them more. They sought out other memebers of my team begging them to teach them about God.
I am so rediculously humbled by this whole situation. You see, I have been afraid to let God use me. So finally He just took over.
At my most tired, most fed up moment- He showed me through these children a passion and desire for God like I had never seen.
Beautiful, teachable, passion for the Word of God.
Oh what we can learn from the children....
But Jesus called them to him saying, "Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the Kingdom of God.
Luke 18:16
I was talking to my teammates this past week about the Kony 2012 movement. How all of a sudden, you see his name, his face, his story everywhere. It flooded our facebook pages, the paraphernalia raided our conversations. Many of my friends this past week attended an event put on by this organization. And I am sure he was mentioned.
We all have this undeniable feeling. This feeling deep deep down inside our very essence that we are just missing something. That there is more than mundane school or work. That there is more than just this ‘church thing.’ We want to help the world. We have some sense that even from thousands of miles away, we are supposed to care about the pain inflicted in this society.
And here is how I know. All of a sudden, Invisible Children gave us a reason. They gave us a passion. Something to fulfill that emptiness inside our soul that longs for something deeper and better than life.
My friends, Christian and non-Christian alike, jumped on the bandwagon to stop Kony from their comfortable American living room.
And maybe Kony will be stopped this year. Maybe all the injustice he inflicted on children and the countries in Eastern and Central Africa will be reversed and those children and families will live in peace again. They won’t live in fear any longer.
I hope and pray for these things.
But here is the thing, in a few months the Kony fad will be over. And you will be back where you were before it all started.
Empty.
Because Kony is not going to fill the void. Helping children in Africa is not going to heal your heart.
I don’t tell you this because I want you to stop caring about injustice- I tell you this because I thought caring about the world would heal me.
I thought caring for these orphans, loving prostitutes would heal my own heart. I thought that my purpose in life was to serve others. To be a ‘good missionary.’
But let me tell you- doing good hasn’t fulfilled me.
We can chase injustice around in a circle, we can ‘fix world problems’ but all the while we miss the point.
Jesus.
Jesus heals, Jesus loves, and Jesus wants you to fight injustice.
But don’t miss the point- know that your desire for more, it is what you were made for.
You were made to have your heart broken for the children in Uganda and the Congo. You were made to cry when you hear about 6 year olds being sold into the sex trade.
You were made to love and honor Jesus with your whole heart.
I want you to fight injustice, I want you to love the oppressed.
But instead of making the name Kony famous,
Make the name of Jesus famous.
Make the concept of unconditional love famous.
Then go change the world.
________________________________________________________________________
An extra note for my Christian friends:
Most of you already know Jesus is the healer of our hearts, so here is my challenge for you. In the book of Matthew, Jesus tells us to “Go and make disciples.”
Here is a challenge I know you might not want to hear, making disciples doesn’t mean reposting a youtube video, it doesn’t mean supporting missionaries from your couch. Making disciples means going out and loving, living and giving of yourself.
You don’t have to go to all nations to make disciples- do it today.
I wasn't going to blog today, but I had to go to internet with a teammate and while I was here God whispered,
"Michaela, just tell them how you feel."
Earlier this week, our pastor told us we were going to be working with the street kids. We were all so excited, we had heard about these kids and how hungry they are for God! Fun ministery, with kids that despiratly need Jesus, this is what I signed up for, this will be so awesome, Right?.... wrong.
The street kids were told to meet us at the church at 10 am for some food.
But first let me give you some background. Street kids in Busia, Kenya/Uganda live in a place called "No Man's Land" It is a small strip of land between Kenya and Uganda with no law, no police. People are killed their daily, and no one is ever notified. Women and beaten and raped daily. Yet people stay there because if they cross into the country they will be arrested, or they are addicted to the drug that are readily available their.
The 40 young boys that showed up at the church fall into the latter category. When I walked up to greet them I was literally knocked back by the intense smell of paint thinner on their clothes. These boys dip their clothes in turpentine so they can constantly be getting high.
They could not string together a coherent sentence in Swahili, let alone English, the drugs affected their ability to look at anything. They made fun of each other for being drunk when they laughed to much. Several of the them even started grabbing at my body. One young boy was bold enough to try and pull down my skirt when I shook his hand.
I don't tell you this so you worry about my safety, I tell you this to complete the picture of how totally lost these boys are, these children of God are so surrounded by lust and drunkenness they cannot get out.
I read this morning in Isaiah 59.
The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice. 16 He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene;
God is displeased. These boys have no justice, there is no one for them, no one to intervene for them.
And now I know. Knowledge leads to responsibility.
One member on my team is working to collect money to purchance a farm to grow food for these kids. Eventually it will be the location of an orphange for them to live.
I have seen the faces of a 7-year old homeless young boy.
To put that in perspective, that is my 7-year-old cousin, Brooke. With her sweet innocent eyes and joyful spirit, that is her homeless, crawling on the ground trying to pick up rice her buddies dropped, addicted to drugs, and watching other people have sex. That is her.
And now I have to move. I can not longer sit idle hoping someone else will do God's work. It is my job. I have to do something. I have to give until it hurts. Because no one is intervening and God is telling me.
I have to pray like the street kids pray.
Remember how I said the street kids were searching for God... here is how we know...
The first day we fed them when they were about to go home, my teammates yelled,
"Okay we are going to pray for you before you go."
We bowed our heads and folded our hands, hoping they would copy and stop being rowdy for one minute.
But when I peeked to see what they were doing I was shocked.
40 homeless African children lay facedown on the ground. Literally bowed to the King of Kings whispering prayers to Him in the most humble position, we can be in.... And I thought I would teach them something...
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for THEIRS is the Kingdom of Heaven.
if you would like to help my team raise money for the farmland please contact me at michaela.irene.finn@gmail.com. and please please please be praying constantly for these boys.
“Being bold does not mean being aggressive and being loving does not mean being passive.”
I’ve been in leadership really all my life. Ever since I can remember I was leading an FCA meeting, holding positions in clubs, making the decisions for my friends. I hardly ever followed. I was just used to taking on a position of leadership, so I just jumped in whenever a leader was needed. If I am being honest, I didn’t want to follow- I thought I could do everything.
But these last few months have shown me, I have no idea how to lead.
I am actually really really bad at it.
In my first three months on this trip I realized a ton about myself. And because of how, well, sinful I found myself, all my pride was stripped down to nothing.
That sounds awesome in theory, ‘Oh yay I am more humble now’ but it sucked. A lot. I realized that I had been living a false life. I had been relying on myself so much. I didn’t know how to follow. I didn’t know what not leading even looked like.
I didn’t even know how to follow Jesus, because I was so used to being the leader.
So after a few months of brokenness and learning how little and useless I am without Jesus, I was finally learning to follow Him, relying on Him for my every move.
But I had no confidence that I could do anything, especially lead again.
So of course it was about that time that I was asked to step into leadership on my team. I was placed in leadership over 4 other people on my squad.
Then I was thrown out of the field, just the 5 of us, and I was supposed to lead.
My whole life I lead rather… aggressively. I was demanding, bossy, basically it was my way or the highway- even though I never would have said it. And now I knew that was wrong, so I took it to the other extreme. I was passive, noncommittal, and I asked, “well what do ya’ll want to do?” more than I ever made decisions.
That wasn’t really good either.
These past few weeks I have spent a lot of time talking to my leaders about how I should lead. The quote above is what one of them told me.
I want to be loving- not passive. Bold- not aggressive. In theory that sounds nice- but I found myself drowning because I didn’t know what that looked like.
That is kinda the point. Even through all I learned in my first few months, I was still trying to lead.
But I am small, and I mess up so much. I am a sinner, most of the time I’m a wreck. I can’t lead on my own.
But Jesus is the best leader.
He was humble, but others wanted to follow Him.
He was loving, but got angry and yelled.
He had so much grace, but told people boldly to stop sinning.
I have been putting of writing a blog about this. It hurts too much, It makes me cry. It makes me not want to continue on this trip sometimes. Every once and a while God brings someone into your life who completely changes everything. How you view yourself, how you view the world, and how you view God.
Here is the story of Lin….
3 weeks ago my pod and I were lead to this bar. Captain Kirks. Unknowingly, my whole world was about to be rocked.
Lin came up and served us our drinks. We asked her name and she asked ours. Really the rest is history. That night we shared with her about ourselves. We learned she has a 2 year old son, and that her heart had been shattered by his father. We learned her own father abandoned her after her mother died when she was 2 years old. She was raised by her grandmother. She had to leave her son in Northeast Thailand to move to Phuket to work and make money to support her son, Phil. We learned she feels insecure working in the bars, that she is constantly comparing herself to the hundreds of other prostitutes working on that street.
We invited her to come out to lunch with us that night. Her eyes clouded over as the fears that we may hurt or traffic her flood her mind. She looks defeated as she tells us she gets off work at 3 and we can come back and buy her for the night. A firm reality of this beautiful woman's life smacked us in the face.
"No we don’t want to buy you we only want to be your friend."
Two days later when we arrived back at Captain Kirk’s, nothing could wipe the surprise and happiness off Lin’s face. She could not believe we actually wanted to be her friend, enough that we came back to her bar. We scheduled an afternoon date for her the next day.
For the next two and a half weeks we met with Lin at her bar every other night, and we had several lunch dates with her. We talked about her son, her broken heart, her desires and hopes in life. We became instant friends. We had that moment that beyond all odds you find someone who is nothing like you- but somehow just fits perfectly in your life. We bowled, drank coffee, got pedicures, jet-skied in the Indian Ocean- we were just friends.
We often talked of her dreams, what she wanted to do. But what broke our hearts is we had no practical solution to offer her. She worked at a good job before coming to Phuket to prostitute herself, but she didn’t make enough money. She hates being used by men- but she feels like it is the only way to support her son. And she hopes someday that a man will fall in love with her and take care of her.
We told her about Jesus often. We prayed with her numerous times. We told her she is worth more than selling herself. We even told her that it is possible to have another job, and even her son could come down and live with her.
All too soon, our friendship came to a halting stop. Rachel, Bekah and I were headed to Africa, and Lin was headed back to the bars.
On paper we did everything right.
We made friends, we asked her about her heart, we shared Jesus, we prayed and prayed for her. But she is still miserably living in the bars, hundreds of miles away from her son and every life she has ever known.
But I guess what I learned Jesus doesn’t work “on paper.” That sometimes what He wants is for me to trust Him. That everything doesn’t work out according to the plan, that someone finding Jesus isn’t a formula to fill out.
So here is the unfinished story- I am still broken, Lin is still a prostitute, and thousands of people are still flocking to Bangla Road every week.
Please pray with me that Jesus will redeem this road and this women, because right now- I don’t know anything else to do.
3 months ago, my determined mind decided I was going to learn how to play guitar. And tonight I lead worship for the first time.
Wait, lead is the wrong word.
I played wrong chords at the wrong times. I sang loud and often off key. But Jesus heard and He loved it.
But here’s the best part. More than 500 other people heard our joyful noise.
Tonight, my teammates and I gathered on Bangla Road for the last time. I played the guitar and we sang loud praises to Jesus in the craziness. We attracted attention from the locals, and got a few death glares from the white people that recognized the popular western Christian songs we were singing at the top of our lungs.
I hope you are trying to picture what it looked like to see 12 white girls standing in the middle of a party scene road in Phuket, Thailand, worshiping.
Its loud, raunchy music blaring so hard I have to scream to be heard. Pole dancers to our right, flashing lights everywhere, trafficked European women dancing, caged in glass boxes. Drunk college men stumbling everywhere, seeing more male anatomy than I wanted to. Seeing more female anatomy than I really wanted to.
But in the middle of it all- Jesus got His praise.
Yes, It looked weird. And Yes, it was awkward.
Yes, It changed my life forever.
Because tonight, a Christian Thai women who could not find a job in Northern Thailand who moved south to make money, got to be encouraged and worship while at work in a dark place.
Because tonight, a twelve-year old girl, selling necklaces heard the songs and told us how sad it makes her that her country doesn’t believe in Jesus like her.
Because tonight, a Thai man, who was trying to sell women to me, who had no idea what he was saying, tried to sing in English praises to Jesus. And underneath it all- the devil understood was he declared, and he better have run.
Because tonight, “our battle was not against flesh and blood but… against the spiritial forces of evil.” And tonight, for a little while, we brought in light in a place that rarely sees it. (Ephesians 6:12)
Tonight in the middle of bars- I joyfully sang:
So let your love resound
Whereever our feet touch the ground
I've finally found my voice and I'm free
May the whole world shake
With every song that we make
Our enemies tremble and we just sing-
VICTORY.*
*One of my teammates wrote this song, called The Victory Song, about our team after training camp, (She is incredible by the way, her name is Angela Winsor- look her up).
It is beautiful outside. The sun is shining bright, beautiful clouds appear from behind the rolling hills. A warm breeze blows gently across our faces. The hustle of busy tourists brush past us as we slowly walk down the street.
I look down the road where we are supposed to turn. It is pitch black. I could not see 10 feet down the road. It was dark. It was scary. So we walked in.
The ministry we are at this month is called SHE. Our main outreach is going down to the red light district in Patong, Phuket, and talking to women who are in prostitution, and showing them that there is a way out. Showing them that they do not need to feel stuck, and giving them the opportunity to live and work at SHE.
During the day, two members of our team go down to the red light district and pray over the women, the men, the bars we will be going to that night. We pray off the darkness that surrounds the bars.
As we walked into the darkness of a street called Soy Tiger. As our eyes adjusted things started to become clear. Soy Tiger is a street I have been on twice already at night. At night it is loud, so loud you have to scream to have conversations and still often cannot hear. But at 2 in the afternoon, it was quiet. There were only a few workers on the whole street. I sat down at a bar that we had been to twice. And started to pray.
Then I started to listen. In this place that is so dark, filled with oppression, comparison, guilt, pride, envy and lust, that is when I heard God.
He shared with me, in a voice more clear than I have ever heard Him, how broken His heart is for this place. He let me cry with Him over the women and the men in this place. He told me that as dark as it is in Patong, that He still sees everything. And that when I turn my head because what I see is to hard to bear, He still sees.
His love for these women and men is so intense.
So intense that He will do crazy things.
Especially when we pray.
We started to walk out, and both of us felt like we needed to pray for this random bar. Neither of us had been there, but both felt so strongly that we needed to pray over this bar. It is called ‘No Name’.
We found out later that the other group had been there already. They told us it had been full, men and women sitting at the bars. Prostitutes dancing on most of the poles that were set up. Many men flocking to see them.
So we prayed. We prayed hard, not sure what we were praying for, but we prayed.
God lead our words and our Spirits to pray for this place.
When we went back later that night, I felt like I should go back to this bar. My group walked down Soy Tiger towards No Name Bar.
But when we got there, it was empty.
Not a single prostitute was there. Not a single tourist sitting at the bar with a drink. Not a single man lusting. Not a single woman comparing her body to the other women. Not a single person sat at the dark bar.
Our ministry this month is very spiritually dark. We are learning more and more about prayer and interceding for each other. But attacks from the devil are daily for all of us. Please pray for our strength this month more than ever.
The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
James 5:16
So many times when I start to write a blog, I sit staring at this blank word document. Its not that I have nothing to write about, its that putting my heart, emotion, and thoughts onto a page overwhelms me- because once it is on this page, once I hit that post button, whatever I have been thinking officially becomes reality.
Today this is extremely hard to even think about- that this blog actually signifies my halfway point on this trip, and that it also means that I only have one week left at Sila Home.
I haven’t talked or posted a lot about Sila Home because well it hasn’t been what I would call ‘normal missionary work’. It certainly wasn’t what I expected coming in to Thailand.
Here is a quick summary of what my past two months has looked like:
3 days a week, we wake up to work, usually hoeing, digging, or farming the mushrooms. The other 2 mornings we teach English in a local school. Then the children get home from school around 4, playtime begins. From 4 until about 9 we play, help with homework, and play some more. Then we fall asleep ready for it to start all over again tomorrow. Then on Sundays we spend the morning in church and the rest of the day playing and playing and sometimes watching a movie. (The other day is our off day, even missionaries need a day off!)
But back to the point- we are down to the countdown, today is our last Saturday to play (we are tie-dying shirts) tomorrow will be our last church service and so on until we leave next Saturday morning.
One thing I realized this week, I am awful at goodbyes. I am actually writing this avoiding what is hard, starting to say goodbye in my heart. I ran away from the children playing outside to hide alone in the security of my room.
To say I have fallen in love in Thailand would be a vast understatement. I am terribly unsure of how my heart is going to handle this goodbye. As I start to type this paragraph tears are filling my eyes, how do I finish here. How to I fully express to these children how much I love them, and leave one more lasting impression of how much Jesus loves them?
I guess this is why we need Jesus so much- to cling to him when I can’t say goodbye: To turn around and bury my face into Him and cry because I’m not strong enough to do it on my own. To help me find peace in the fact that He holds these children and can hold them like I did while I was here.
But for now I am going to go pull the precious little girls onto my lap, to deal one more game of Phase 10 with the boys, to strum on the guitar with the older children, to soak up every last minute here in full faith that Jesus can put my heart back together after goodbyes.
