Its been a long time! I should've done this months ago when I got home, but I wanted to post to explain the loooonnng silence. Somewhere along the way the government overseas decided they didn't like certain blogs and websites and mine - either directly or indirectly - was one of them. Here's a most recent journal from just before I left Cambodia in May 2012: Well, we did a lot of work that God ordained that reached hundreds, but I’m also one that was changed. I’m one that encountered God. Millions are lost, but that’s a faceless #. Thousands of orphans. Thousands starving, 10s of thousands don’t have water. Millions dead at the hands of genocide. These are easy to keep a distant statistic. And then I met them. Orphans Wani and Sokal, my neighbor's kids that kept me awake crying because they were hungry, my friend Sarom has scars from being beaten during the Khmer Rouge and Viesna doesn’t know his dad because he left him and his mom to be a soldier. Now its real. And so these millions don’t know Christ - never even heard of him even on his merits. Aside from salvation itself Christ alone brings things they don’t know exist. Peace inside. Or hope. Or comfort. Provision. Leading. We tend to take these for granted – sure a little turmoil now and then – but the Spirit is in our heart and working us to sanctification. What spirit here? I’ve said before that sometimes I forget the desperation and emptiness I had when I was lost and so I tend to subconsciously downplay the urgency. But to those lives it is desperate. Its critical. And they don’t know how to fix it. On a daily basis I’m so unaware of how rich and astonishingly wealthy I am. We are. How can 2 so different places co-exist? We have 1 Father with 1 heart, 1 desire for his people – yet most Americans are simply incapable of understanding the enormous need elsewhere. God, help me convey it. Yet still most days sure I’d rather be comfortable. At least I have that option. I don’t have to contemplate selling my oldest child for $50 to make ends meet. Why do I want to be entertained and entertaining? Why can’t I just enjoy silence seek God? Why is my radio or TV on even when I’m not listening? Its like I’m trying to escape a guilt I can’t yet identify. All the while my friends here are dying faster than we get to them. You know, brokenness - even though I sing about it lightheartedly - to know brokenness, is painful. To see people as god sees them? To hurt for them? To feel helpless as you watch them go down the wrong path because they don’t know a creator wants to communicate with them. Shew. Its rough. I’ve cried for them. When have I ever done that before? God’s heart is beating through mine. Missions is so new, so foreign to a lot of people. I keep thinking What will it take to do this? Oswald Chambers said ‘I can’t cause people to find what I’ve found but I can cause them to have a desire for it.’ I’m rich – In conviction. In awareness. In having a government that actually issues passports. In the ability to travel wherever I want. In my questions. Why are 85% of Bibles printed in English when its the rest of the world that needs them more? Why are we taught that retirement savings is more important than to be a Biblical Christ follower? Maybe there’s suffering in the world so that the rest of us can learn compassion and serving. Lori, you didn’t give up anything that wasn’t worth giving up. All I know is that God is bigger than I'd ever experienced, He speaks through dreams, and that the harvest is plenty. My time there was challenging and hard to say the least, but I emerged more in love with the lord and with a deeper character. I'm praying and seeking what going back might look like.