: just your average grain of salt :

      Just Love. That's one of Wipe Every Tear's T-shirt slogans. Along with "Mercy Wins" and "Refuse to do Nothing." (And if you want to check out their shop to get one of these awesome shirts to help support these women: look no further than HERE !)     Anyway. "Just Love" really seemed to be the theme of our trip and what God has been speaking to my heart. The idea of love in Christianity is so basic, but I'm coming to a better understanding of what pure, Christ-like love looks like actually lived out rather than existing only as an idea.       The people who taught me about this the most were the ladyboys. {This is the accepted term for transgender people in the Philippines} The first night that we were in the PH, we got to meet up with a bunch of the girls from one of the safe houses at an ice cream shop. It was loud and crowded in there, so I sat my introverted self down in a nice corner table. I chatted with the girls already sittin...

 One thing that was very difficult in the Philippines was understanding the men. Not the Filipino men, but the foreigners. The ones who were there running away from something for a little "fun." It is absolutely gut-wrenching to see a 50+ or 60+ year old man, balding with a beer belly, walking down the street with a young Filipino girl on his arm. I tried to dig deep and figure out how on earth a man could honestly feel entitled to one of these precious girls. What has to take place in someone's mind for someone to think they deserve to treat another person with such disrespect?      In some of the bars, a set of girls in matching costumes will be paraded out on stage for the men to decide who they like best. Then another group will come out with a different set of outfits and this selection process happens multiple times until the stage is full of the women who were chosen as the prettiest.       Do these guys think that this is okay because mo...

     I had the privilege of travelling to the Philippines last July with a wonderful organization: Wipe Every Tear.   So many people have asked about my trip and I have tried to put my experience into words but feel like I fall short every time of accurately getting across what Wipe Every Tear does, and what my experiences were like.      So here I am, after 3 months of trying to process everything, attempting to collect my thoughts and share some information about W.E.T. and to just share what the Lord did in my heart during this trip. It's too much for just one post, so this will be the first of a few.       First: some background. Here is a brief description of what Wipe Every Tear does from their website : "Wipe Every Tear’s dedicated staff and volunteers seek out miserable bars masquerading as joy filled places to provide women with real hope for a better future and a helping hand to leave their current circumstances. Thr...

     This seems to be a pretty common question in job interviews. Understandably employers want people who are driven to work hard, but before you're able to show them your work ethic, you have to convince them to give you a shot by telling them how you motivate yourself.      I feel like a pretty good worker. I'm always striving to do better at whatever it is I do. But when I was first asked the question, "what motivates you?" it was actually tough for me to answer...I didn't really know!  I've been thinking about that question a lot lately for some reason. What keeps me going?      I think one reason is that I was raised with the mentality that if you want something you have to work for it. "You don't get nothin' that you don't earn." I don't want anything handed to me in life. I want to earn it.There's nothing like the feeling of seeing the fruits of your labor and watching all your effort pay off!   ...

     It's been about 6 months since I moved back to America from Cyprus. When I first got home, I had really weird dreams. For a while, I thought it was a reverse culture-shock thing, but I still have them several months later. Sometimes in my dreams, all the constellations are upside down again, like they looked in Cyprus in May. That is  the biggest thing that made me feel far away from my country...it was more than being in a different climate, surrounded by different languages; looking at the night sky made me feel like I was in a totally different world!      If I'm honest most days I don't think about my time on that island a lot. I keep myself busy enough to not think back too much, but remember enough to [hopefully] keep in mind the lessons I learned. But if I ever have enough time available to let my mind wander, the memories start pouring in! And then I just miss it all so much. How close I felt to God, the community, the people w...

     That is the question I ask myself almost everyday. YWAM life is not a normal life they say and it's so true! Every day in Cyprus is just crazy, andevery time I get a second to stop and reflect on the day I wonder, "Am I really doing this?"      A few weeks ago I went on a killer hike to the top of a mountain and we just happened to find a beautiful old castle from the 10th century. It was so cool!       Last weekend we had a day off and I got to explore some sea caves and then went parasailing for the first time, so that was pretty neat.      Each week I get to participate in a prison ministry where I get to visit with a sweet girl who's only in prison because she was smuggled into the country, and now can't prove who she is. The rest of her story is too heartbreaking and sensitive to share, but I got to pray with her, and was just blown away by the hope the Lord keeps giving her through a s...