I dedicate
this blog to YOU: our readers and supporters.
I pray that
you know how valuable you have been to our journey.
This past
year we were safe, healthy, and joyful because of your prayers.
We had
everything we needed to survive: water, food, roof over our heads and even some
luxuries (like internet) because of your financial support.
Just knowing
that you are reading our blogs, watching our videos and commenting on our
pictures blessed us immensely. You have no idea how much we were encouraged with
every comment, reply or email we got from you.
So from the bottom of our heart we say: Thank You!
You need to
know that this journey has been yours also. Through every conversation we had,
every hug we gave or received, every house we painted, log we moved, life God
touched through us...you were there.
There is no
way we could have done this without your help. We pray that you know the impact
you had around the world and in our lives.
Please
continue to keep us in your prayers as we still have a few travel days ahead of
us. We are currently in Pangkor with the rest of the
leaders, the teams will join us in a few days for final debrief, and the bitter sweet goodbyes
will commence.
We'll be
home in June! I'm excited to rest and spend lots of time with our families. We
hope to have the opportunity to share this journey with all of you at some
point this summer.
Looking
forward to seeing what God has in store for us in the future!
Here (finally) is the last video from China. In China, many universities have "English Corners/Clubs" that give opportunities for the Chinese students to practice English with one-another. We went to different English Corners nearly every evening, we got to meet a lot of people through them and we ended up having a few parties at "our place" on the weekends. Through the English Corners, house parties and subsequent visits with students, we personally saw 5 people welcome Jesus into their lives!
Our contacts, Jake & Steph, have had many people come serve alongside them, so they know where to go on the "Off-Days". One of the first days we had off we ventured to the Harbin Tiger Park which was, in a word, INCREDIBLE! You can pay for the basic tour, but you can also pay a bit extra to provide a meal for the tigers (which we did, sorry PETA, it's not wrong if we're feeding the tigers, is it?).
Our month in China was incredible and God taught us a lot that month. We continue to pray for the ministry that Jake & Steph are a part of and we look forward to hearing more about the growth of the Kingdom in Harbin!
First and foremost, I'm no wordsmith however I married one. So without further ado here's my Mother's Day Blog (stolen highly inspired from Cinthia)
God has blessed me immensely over the past year and over the course of my life, but he began blessing me even BEFORE I was born: He picked MY MOM!!!
You made all the delicate,
Inner parts of my body
And knit me together
In my mother's womb
Psalms 139:13 (NLT)
I've learnt countless lessons from my mom, including (though not limited to) true forgiveness, affection, and selflessness. Thank you mom for putting up with meencouraging me throughout it all.
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Now if that wasn't enough, I've got another mother, there are a lot of stereotypes about "mother-in-laws" but this woman proves them all wrong. She's caring, selfless and serves everyone as though she's serving God.
I can't say it better than Cinthia: "I thank God for bringing you and your family to my life!"
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I'm so blessed to know so many great moms. I learn something every time I see you. You know who you are! Miss you all.
To all the moms reading this: you brighten our darkest days. You are loved by an almighty God . Even when the kids don't tell you, or it doesn't feel it, you are doing God's work and I'm sure you're doing a great job!
We've now entered our final month of ministry. Thailand was tough as Cinthia and I were separated, but it also gave us the opportunity to connect more with others. It's amazing how God kept us strong throughout the month and how He aligned our thoughts for what's to come after the race.
We're now in Penang, Malaysia working with YWAM. There are 3 teams here and we're doing various activities. Some are helping a hospital raise funds while the others (including Cinthia and I) are helping at a homeless walk-in center. We'll hopefully get some great videos and pictures to share with you from this month!
Last month I was unable to work on videos but now that I've had access to a decent computer (thanks Amanda!) I've finished the 2nd video from Month 9, China.
In March our squad was in China. Thank you for being patient to hear about updates as communication was severely limited.
Our month was absolutely incredible. We were in Harbin, China which is pretty far north. I hope to eventually make 4 videos of our time in Harbin but this month I'm unable to work on the videos.
This first video depicts the freedom we encountered in Harbin. Most Christians in China live in a state of fear, but in Harbin, God encouraged our contact to be more open. This was a shock to us but we accepted it and love the freedom it brought.
Note: If you have any issues with the content of this video, please feel free to contact me. Please note that our contact and his wife, who are a full-time missionaries in China encouraged us to upload this video and share it.
This month we're in Thailand. Cinthia and I are separated since normally in Thailand the women to women's ministry while the men do men's ministry. I'll share more of this later!
Though it's tough being apart we know that God is using this time to strengthen us for the future (and God's got some pretty awesome plans in the works!!)
Here's a video of some of our ministry for the month of February. Our main ministry was relationship building so it was difficult to grab clips but hopefully this gives you a good idea.
Note
We have just finished our 8th month on the race (only 3 more to go). We're with our whole squad in Manila, Philippines for the week having some debrief before we go into month #9.
If you haven't heard, Cinthia and I will be out of communication for the month of March, so we look forward to updating you all in April!
Before I begin, this post 'gets real'. If
you're not prepared to learn the realities of unjust actions taking place
around the world, then skip to another blog, or go watch something happy on TV.
If you want to see why Cinthia and I really left our home for 11 months then
continue reading...
As you've previously read, this month The
A-Team Remix is in the Philippines. A beautiful country in South-East Asia made
up of over 7000 islands. Our ministry this month is on the amazing island of
Mindoro, just a short ferry ride from the main island.
One of the things that the Philippines is
best known for is their tourism industry which brings countless 'wealthy' (by
Filipino standards) foreigners to their beautiful white beaches for a
stress-free vacation. What you may imagine when you think of this is bellow:
Unfortunately 'wealthy' foreigners and poor
economy has also introduced a horribly widespread sex industry.
What you see above is barely scratching the
surface of the amount of cases we have seen in our few trips to the nearby
beach. What you need to understand is that here this is the norm.
The Women
If you've ever travelled somewhere
tropical, I'm sure you've seen the people on the beach selling various
goods/services such as bracelets, picture frames, cigars, massages, etc. As
foreigners we often assume they're just trying to make a quick buck off us,
sometimes we oblige for that "must-get" souvenir other times we shoo them away
and continue basking in the sun. Our team this month has learnt that (at
least here in the Philippines) the women earn their living by selling
bracelets, and if sales aren't good, they reluctantly turn to the industry they
see bringing in the money: prostitution.
There are also families that see the
financial potential in prostitution and begin to prepare their daughtersor sons from extremely young ages.
The young girls have grown up and now see themselves as worthless, unwanted,
and used pieces of meat; while the young boys have grown up and are now
extremely sexually confused (for a very informative read, check out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakla_(Philippines)).
The ladies on the teams here have had the privilege of
talking to many women who are in this "area of business" and have shared with
them how much God loves them, and we've been able to let them know that He
see's their beauty no matter what they've done in their past. Through this
simple testimony we saw one girl leave her "job" and return to her family after
being here for only a few days. Through similar acts, Threads of Hope (our
ministry this month) has seen hundreds of women saved from similar fates.
The Men
Now it's really easy to look at the women, and feel pity for them (trust us,
our hearts break every time we walk down the beach) and at the same time look
at the men and want to rip their genitalia off; however God's been working in
us tremendously this month and He's allowed us to see more of the full picture.
Above, I mentioned a girl who we saw
leave the sex industry, the same day some of us began to build a relationship
with the gentleman she was "helping" (2 completely unrelated meetings, God's just
that good that He made the 2 stories overlap like that). This gentleman shared
with us his loneliness and his inability to find a wife for over 40 years. You
may be saying to yourself "of course He's
going to say that" and maybe your right, but there's something more going
on here, trust me.
Prostitution (as we know it in North
America) is (speaking from my knowledge fully based off movies such as Pretty
Women) primarily a 3-stage process, you pay, you receive, you/they leave. Here
in the Philippines however, the men spend the entire day with the women, sometimes even weeks, we're
talking meals together, walking hand-in-hand, buying clothes/jewellery, etc.
While we've been here we've heard some men try to use this as an excuse, saying
that the women are using them just as much as they're using the women. I wont
go into that debate at all here because the truth of the matter is that the men are hurting just as much as the
women are. The men are either alone, or they're relationships are so broken
back home that they feel a pressing emptiness, an emptiness that they choose to
fill with what their physical bodies turn to first, sex.
Both the women & the men are victims in
the sex industry. In the one corner we've got women who need to provide for
their families so they feel pressured, or are forced into the sex industry;
what they really need is to turn to God for their strength and boldly choose a
better lifestyle for themselves despite what others might say about them. In
the other corner we've got the men who are so empty that they're trying to fill
themselves with physical pleasure when what they really need is to feel God's
presence in their lives since it's only by his love and grace do we
feel fulfilled.
As a group we discussed it a few days ago,
it's a two-sided problem, we have wealth on one side, and poverty on the other,
and nothing will change unless both
sides do something about it.
If
you want to help women get out of the sex industry, and at the same time give
them an amazing opportunity to learn about & build their relationship with
God, please support Threads of Hope by buying bracelets that we've sent back to
Mississauga; or just go straight through Threads of Hope. You can comment/reply
to this and I'll help you get in touch with Cinthia's parents, who are in
charge of the sales.
We've just begun Month 8 (meaning 4 more to
go!) which brings us to the Philippines!
If you remember our last intercontinental
transit day (flights from Bucharest,
Romania to Johannesburg, South Africa, followed by a 67 hours bus ride and a 12
hour bus ride) you'll be glad to hear that our travel day from
Johannesburg, South Africa to Manila, Philippines went by relatively smoothly.
Note: All things considered it went by well. We had to wait around the airport
for a few hours (10+) but we all got
to fly together and Qatar Airways kicks butt!
Anyways, we arrived in the Philippines
around 4pm and made it to the base here around 6pm. The main ministry here in
the Philippines is KIM (Kids International Ministries). The ministry is huge
and so this month our squad of 10 teams has been split into 3 different
locations.
Before going to our locations, some of us
participated in the KIM 5k Fun Run! Cinthia and I did pretty well considering
we haven't run in...lets juts say a long time!
5 teams have flown to the island of
Mindanao to work with the KIM base there; 3 teams have stayed in Manila to work
with the KIM Headquarters; and 2 teams have taken a ferry to the island of
Mindoro to work with Threads of Hope. Each location has its own unique focus,
ours, here in Mindoro is that we can experience God's creation first hand while
building relationships with the locals.
The ministry we're directly a part of here
is Threads of Hope. Our contact, Alex helped start Threads of Hope, they
basically redistribute the bracelets made here in the Philippines around the
world. They began with only one hundred dollars and one bracelet maker, and now
they're ordering thousands a week and helping 500 women, men & children
from making poor life decisions. Threads of Hope allows the individuals to earn
an honest living and it allows women to work from home & take care of their
kids, children to go to school and not sell bracelets on the beaches, and men
to help support their families.
Our ministry this month sounds exciting, we
have opportunities to do manual labour, evangelism through a basketball
tournament, working with the bracelet makers, leading youth groups, beach
evangelism, and most importantly to show the village what it means to live in
Christian community.
Living "in Christian community" might not
make sense back home, but we're living the way God has called us to, we're living
in groups of at least 6 (at times as high as 47) and we're working together. We need to figure out how to
time manage together, budget together, prepare meals together, and work through problems together. In North America we're so
focused on individuality that we have lost the sense of togetherness, luckily for us on the race, we've been "forced" to
learn this important lesson. That in itself is one of the most important things
we bring with us into a new ministry location.
