Bantey Meanchey Summer Trip 2012: The Fast... in Dallas...‏

Bantey Meanchey Summer Trip 2012: The Fast... in Dallas...‏: This past weekend our team was able to get away for an incredible weekend away in the mountains.  While we were all looking forward to the w...

Change of Direction - Going to Cambodia!

This letter is somewhat bittersweet to be writing.  Exactly a year ago I was writing to tell you that I was going back to Ngaamba, an amazing place that had captured my heart.  Today it’s because I have been selected for a team to go to Bantey Meanchey, Cambodia ~ July 18-30th.  It is so much easier to write a letter when I can clearly express why I’ve been drawn to a trip.  Experience is everything.  Yet it’s in the unknown that I find that God grows, stretches & allows life changing moments....

The journey of the past 3 years is one I never imagined I would be on yet I can see how God has been working behind the scenes of my plans to lead me down his path.  After my first adult mission trip to Romania in 2009 - I really felt drawn to Kenya & Cambodia.   Honestly I would have never had those two places on my must travel vacation places but rather for the need in these countries.  

This year Cambodia has been on my heart more than ever.   Recently I have had the opportunity to volunteer with some local Atlanta organizations involved in fighting human trafficking.  It has been eye opening to me.  So amazing what goes on around us that we don’t even know about.  Adoptions have been banned between U.S. & Cambodia since the early 2000’s.  While some stories ended up happy many ended up as another case of human trafficking due to corruption in a broken country & government.  This country experience massive devastation in the 1970’s.   The Pol Pot Regime murdered 1 to 3 million people. The 70’s - This is within most of our lifetimes or right before.  The devastation has impacted everything about their world it’s not something you recover from quickly.

Honestly, unlike returning to Kenya, I have no idea what to expect.  I know this is a country in desperate need of encouragement & rebuilding.   My church, NorthPoint, partners with a local church that runs 3 orphanages.  We have teams going to all three.  I’m grateful to be part of a team of returners & newbies like myself.   We will be working in an orphanage that is home to 21 children.   

Our team is in the beginning stages of preparing for our trip.  We are currently praying for the “what” of the trip.   How God wants to use us ~ we will be working in the orphanages & spending lots of time with the kids.   I have heard amazing stories about these kids & can’t wait to meet them!  I’m so looking forward to what God has in store for this trip, this team & these kids this summer.  

I know that I won’t always be in a season of life that allows me to travel across the globe.  I deeply appreciate all your prayers & support for these life changing trips.   I wish each one of you had the opportunity to see these faces in person, hear their stories, have someone you just met grab your hand and not let go.  But they know about you.  They know that there are people across the world thinking about them, praying for them & giving so others can be there in person.  It means more to them than you will ever know - just to be thought of & remembered. 

I would love for you to be part of this new journey with me.  Our team will have a blog updating our trip which I will send out when it starts.   In the meantime if you would keep our team in your prayers as well as the ministry & kids we will be serving.  

As always - our team needs to raise at least $24,800.00.  It’s only $3,100 per person.  Anything over that goes towards supplies & other things for the orphanage.  If you would like to donate towards this trip details are below.   

Thanks in advance for keeping our team, Cambodia & these kids in your thoughts & prayers!!!! 

love~
Maureen

1. Online:  https://ssl.northpoint.org/ssl/globalx/

Under Trip Information:

Country:  Cambodia - Bantey Meanchey

Trip : Bantey Meanchey Orphanage 7/19-29/12

Individual: Maureen Brink (you will have to type that in :) )

Kenya... 2010

So I just had to share some of my favorite photos from my first trip to Ngaamba in 2010...   Stories to follow...   Every time I look at these it feels like I was just there...  

Enjoy!!!

The students of Marwa Primary School

Loved this reminder in the secondary school

Just Beautiful...

This is moments after Brigid, Limah & I all made the connection...  

Everyone gets involved to get projects done.... 

Building the Pit Latrine...

LOVE these Girls... Stella & Janet

Limah's Classmates

A home.... the picture below is what was written above the door

tiny little feet....

Limah & Her best Friend Lillian

My Ngaamba Family - The Joel's

Manis & Pedis...  The women loved them...  such a great moment

A view of the community from our mountain hike

Last Day with Limah - Before she found out

Last Day with Sweet Brigid

The Sun Broke free on our last drive out of the community- the picture doesn't do it justice

The Story of Limah & Brigid

In June of 2010 - my Kenya co-leader Nikki asked if I would be willing to "help" her at The Walk (which is a summer retreat for the high school ministry at all of North Point's campuses).   She told me it would be soooo easy....  She had it all under control...  No problem...  Well until she had to cancel the night before due to a family situation...

Seriously - I am now headed to the beach with 12 freshman girls...  That I only met ONCE before.   Did I mention there were thousands of kids at this retreat?!  It was VERY challenging!   I'm not to proud to admit - I laid on the couch the first night in tears - wondering why the HECK God would want me to hang out at the beach with a bunch of girls.  I figured it was payback for the craziness I put my parents through in middle school & high school.  Unfortunately for them - I was mischievous when I was younger so they didn't get away with much...   :)

One of the days the Daraja Choir was there.   It's a choir made up of students from Kenya.   They were amazing.  It immediately got me even more excited about going to Kenya the following month. Afterwards I went to the table to sponsor a child.   I had decided awhile ago I would like to sponsor another child & loved the idea of getting to meet them when I was in Ngaamba.   I really wanted to sponsor a girl...  Since most of them have shaved heads due to hygiene issues - I picked the only one that I was pretty sure was a girl based on her picture.  I didn't want to sort through & select one (other than gender) because they all are in similar situations. Done - her name was Limah Joel.  :)

Seriously - look at this face!!!!  Loved her from the moment I picked up this photo...

Fast forward to my first day in South Ngaamba.   The first woman I met as I got off the bus was a woman named Brigid.   My sister Jen had been to Kenya a month before & encouraged me to really seek out the women.  Kids bombard you but the adults are looking for the friendships as well.   So I immediately made a mental note to remember Brigid. I got to spend quite a bit of time with her we didn't chat much just ate together, helped clean up, get the church ready for Sunday & we sat together during the students welcoming ceremony.

The next morning I went to a different church with part of our team. (21 people are a lot to go to one church so we break up into smaller groups & go to multiple churches).   On the way back to Marwa - I asked our host Lucy if she would introduce me to Limah.   She found her pretty quickly but of course she was super shy & we didn't really interact much just about 10 minutes or before she ran off to find some friends.

Don't you just love the kid in the corner's expression...  :)

 I looked for Brigid but couldn't find her as we were mainly there to hang out with kids since they didn't have school.  As we were called to gather everyone up to head back to the bus to head out I heard someone call my name.  It was Brigid.  I was so excited to see her catch up. She immediately grabbed my right hand a we started chatting on the way to the bus.  She had been looking for me all day.   As we were approaching the end of the field I felt a much smaller hand grab my left hand. I looked down & it was my shy little friend Limah.   Brigid looked down and said "Oh Maureen, meet my daughter Limah."  WOW... even as I'm typing this the feeling of joy is overwhelming.  We immediately made the connection between us all...   And there was a lot of hugging, joyful crying & laughing of course.

This photos is moments later...  It all happened right behind that gate near the pole in the upper left corner.   

I was so excited & surprised!!!   I love how God totally orchestrated this moment.  It was so incredibly special & I will treasure it ALWAYS.  

And to think....   this story was in the works while I was in tears on the couch at "The Walk"wondering why the heck God had me there....

There's always a reason - sometimes we never know the outcome - other times God lets us in on a surprise!   He was working on this surprise just for the three of us!!

Why????

Blogging...  Something I'm pretty sure I said I would never do... so we'll see how this goes.  (sorry this one sure ended up long...)

As I sat down yesterday to write to friends about my upcoming trip to Cambodia I realized how much has happened in the past 4 years to bring me to this point.   Unfortunately it is not something that anyone outside me really knows.  Plenty of people know bits & pieces of different stories but there is definitely a bigger story that has been going on behind the scenes.

The title of this blog is from the story of Esther.   In early 2010 I was fortunate to get involved in a women's group and go through the Beth Moore Esther series. (I HIGHLY recommend it!)   One of the things that really stuck out to me over the course of it all were in these verses:

Esther 4:13-14
13 Mordecai sent this reply to Esther: “Don’t think for a moment that because you’re in the palace you will escape when all other Jews are killed. 14 If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?”

While I'm completely aware that I am most definitely NOT a queen...  (& when I forget I have plenty of people to remind me.. )  I took out the words "made queen" & replaced it with a blank.

Who knows if perhaps you were ____________  for just such a time as this?

I dare you to start thinking about what you could plug into that statement...  Warning - whatever you put it  in will probably stick with you & have an effect on your life....  It certainly did mine as well as some of the other women in our group.  Some of my fill in the blanks were ...   "in a certain job", "working for a certain company", "on a certain team", "SINGLE" (of course),  "co-leading a group of high school kids to Kenya", "unsettled", "broken", "miserable" and many others.

As I started to really process through this it became clear I wasn't giving God room to really get involved in my life.  I was managing my own chaos - juggling tons of different sized balls.  I was simply going through the motions of trying to maintain control of my unhappiness - unsettledness.  Because after all it's sooooo  much easier to live in the miserable known than to start to step out to the total unknown.  The unknown is a scary place.  It requires letting go of control & a whole heck of a lot of faith.  I was miserable but I at least knew how to survive in the misery.  I had NO idea how to survive (or if I would) in the unknown.

2010 is the year I was asked to co-lead a group of AMAZING high school students who I had never met before to Ngaamba Kenya in July.  We finished up our Esther study before I left in June.  A lot had been happening with work...  I was soooo ready for a change but I had no idea what that change would be.  My colleague was nice enough to quit 48 hours before I got on the plane ~ causing even more chaos :) .  Kenya was LIFE CHANGING for me.   There will likely be future posts on it...  But my heart was changed forever.  I started to see how God had been putting some pretty big pieces together starting back in 2002 when I graduated from college.   It was honestly the first time I really started thinking backwards to figure out how in the world I ended up in Africa.  Seriously - Africa - I am TERRIFIED of snakes...  Never really thought I would be there - maybe South Africa but not the National Geographic places...

But there I was on a dusty bus - driving through the most gorgeous place - realizing that God had been pursuing me....  down right chasing me at times...  and it took being in Africa to really see Him more clearly - how much He really loved & cared about me.  Don't get me wrong - I've always believed in God...  the whole reality of sin and the need of a Savior was very real to me...  I wasn't questioning my salvation but there are moments of growth that happen along the way & this one was a huge life changer.

I knew that if I was serious about following God's plan for my life - I needed to make some drastic steps to give Him room to work.   I quit my job the first day back.  (btw - you are NOT suppose to do that after such an intense life experience ..  :) I had some real conversations with friends & family for MONTHS & even years before going to Kenya & it just time)

The past 18 months have been amazing.  I don't regret one minute of my decision.  I only look back to see what God has done & it serves as a reminder to keep giving him more & more room...     Please don't get me wrong it has NOT been a walk in the park... tons of challenges, disappointments, hurts along the way but I wouldn't trade them for a second!

So this is the beginning... Yes I'm going back to a foreign country - a new one this time but one that has been on the radar for 5 years or so..   Cambodia...   I really hate writing the "letters for support" prayer & financially.   I can't just write a cookie cutter letter - it's not me - I want the people that support these trips to know it's SO much more than a trip.  It is a piece of my heart that is being pulled more outside of my worldview.... a place where only God can show up & make things happen.  I'm totally outside of my comfort zone & in anyway control.

Stay tuned... much more to come...