Women’s Ministries

Adventures in Cambodia: Part 4 December 27, 2011

The last post in our series from Keirstin Hammond and her year-long internship in Cambodia:

Where was God’s provision most evident?

I felt like God was very present—there were many times that I begged for his presence and He was so faithful to show himself to me.  There was so much provision in pruning me, comforting me, revealing Himself to me.  He protected me physically, always keeping me safe and healthy.  He was in everything.

About three nights before I left I ran into a girl who lived a couple of doors down from me.  She didn’t look well, so I asked her how she was.  She replied that she was really struggling.  When I asked her what was wrong, she proceeded to explain that her husband had not come home for two days.  She had no idea where he was and he wasn’t answering his phone.  She was completely distraught and said she just wanted to die.  Then she continued to pour her heart out to me and shared her life story.  This girl had a very rough life growing up and had many disturbing things happen to her.  But that night I was able to share Jesus with her.  It was so incredible!  I asked her if she had ever heard about Jesus and she said she had, but she was scared to accept him or trust him because she was Buddhist.  I asked her if she wanted to know more about Him.  She said yes and we began from the beginning.  A couple hours later she wanted to accept Jesus as her Savior!  First I prayed for her, then I prayed with her and she became a believer that evening.  It was such amazing timing; I could see the hunger in her eyes for hope, for something she could cling to.  I promised to find her a Bible so she could learn more, though I wasn’t entirely sure where to find one.  I started by asking a CHO staff member.  He told me that sponsor money for Khmer Bibles had just come in so CHO had a ton of Bibles!  Impeccable timing.  I gave her one and she clung to it, telling me shoe would take it everywhere with her and read it when she could.  I went to bed that night in tears, not believing what just happened.  It all came about at a time I was least expecting and I was so humbled.  I knew my Khmer was not up to par, but I trusted that God was imparting any information and clarity that I could not.  Our God is SO awesome, and I’m amazed at how He uses us!

Photo: Keirstin with her English class students

Adventures in Cambodia: Part 3 December 20, 2011

More from Keirstin Hammond on her year-long internship in Cambodia:

What did daily life look like?

The first half of the year I lived in a hotel, and the second half I lived in a flat (a tiled room with an attached bathroom).  I hand-washed my own clothes and cooked my own meals.  A lot of the CHO staff lived right next to me in the same building.  We’d often hang out in the evenings and sometimes cook together.  I really enjoyed living here because I was able to walk to work everyday and spend quality time with my Cambodian friends.

The culture made language learning easy.  They are very open and want you to learn the language.  I had one friend who would have me over almost every day, Monday through Friday, for a language (Khmer) lesson.  Then she would teach me to cook a Cambodian meal.  This gave me an hour of conversational practice at least five days a week.

Anyone who has lived in another country knows that you have to have a sense of humor—including the ability to laugh at yourself—in order to survive.  Here’s one example:

Over a holiday weekend, my friends Piron and Saohim invited me on a trip to visit Piron’s parents and extended family in Phnom Penh. Piron and Saohim had just started dating and his parents had not yet met Saohim. After arriving, we decided that the very first night we would stay with Piron’s relatives (and not his parents.)

That night, while Saohim and I were getting ready for bed, we were discussing how glad we were to be together because we were feeling so awkward about staying with these people that we didn’t even know. What made it even more awkward was that the relatives had earlier been discussing how they should accommodate the “Tom Barang,” (aka Big Foreigner).

We finally get settled, the mosquito net is up and we have pillows and blankets all laid out on the wooden bed frame.  Saohim climbs into bed. Then, the “Tom Barang” (aka ME) decides, “Okay, she is settled, now it’s my turn!”  So I climbed on, very, very carefully. I didn’t “jump” into bed, like you may have imagined because, to be honest, I was sort of afraid the bed couldn’t hold the weight.

And then it happened, just like I imagined it. CRACK!!!  The bed broke!  Both of us fell to the ground, tangled up in the bed frame, instantly busting up in laughter! We were so embarrassed! But, it was also quite humorous considering the circumstances. Of course, this loud cracking noise left everyone else in the house wondering “Hmm, what the heck is going on up there with the guest and the Barang?!”  Mind you, it’s already about 10:30pm and everyone else was ready for bed.  So, they had to send a crew up to fix the bed while we changed rooms and slept on a different bed…a bed that they had just finished mending, and one both of us were afraid to sleep on.  Moral of story: maybe next time the “Tom Barang” should just take the floor!  :)

Adventures in Cambodia: Part 2 December 13, 2011

How did this experience change you and change your faith?
It strengthened my faith in a big way.  We all struggle trusting God in some area, and for me it was trusting that he had a good things for me in my life.  I always feared that I was missing out on God’s good.  I used to have the perspective that everyone else’s life was better.  Because I had so much time in Cambodia, I did a lot of journaling and through that, God opened my eyes to all of the lies I had believe for a long time.

My time there gave me a good perspective on life.  I learned to live in the present.  I’m still on the journey but I’m learning to trust that he has good planned for me.

From the moment I saw Kanha, I knew I wanted to be her friend.  As it turned out, we lived just a few doors from each other.  She taught me so much about Cambodian culture, the language (called Khmer), and was truly an honest friend who supported me along the way.  Shortly after I arrived in Cambodia I heard that she had recently had a miscarriage.  I could sense she was discouraged and really wanted children.  I decided from that day on that I would pray that God would give her another baby.  I gave her a verse to encourage her.  Soon after I found out that she was pregnant again, so I continued to pray for protection and that the Lord would grant her this child.  A few months went by and she hadn’t been to the doctor yet because she couldn’t afford it.  I told her how important it was that she sees a doctor to make sure everything was okay.  I even offered to pay for the visit.  She continued to refuse.  She also admitted that she was afraid to go.  I encouraged her and told her I would go with her, and I assured her that everything would be okay.  Finally she made an appointment and she and I went together.  That day was a very special day because she found out that she was having a healthy baby boy!  The Lord had answered my prayer and I was able to share this incredible moment with her.  I will never forget the joy we shared together.

Adventures in Cambodia: Part 1 December 6, 2011

I’d like to introduce you to Keirsten Hammond.  Keirsten spent time in Cambodia and had some amazing encounters with God.  I’ve asked her to share some of her experience with us over the month of December.  I had the chance to catch up with her over coffee, so my questions are in bold.

Tell us about your big faith adventure.
In the fall of 2007 I had the opportunity to take a yearlong internship with World Concern in Poipet, Cambodia working alongside the Cambodian Hope Organization (CHO), which Northshore supports.  I cannot believe it has been 4 years since my return.  My main purpose was to teach English to the CHO staff, but I had a special opportunity to get to know the Cambodians on a very personal level.  Looking back at the journey the Lord led me through amazes me.  There are still some days now that I feel like I’m trying to make sense of it all.

Why did you choose to do the internship?
God’s leading.  I have been called to missions since I was in 8^th grade.  After spending a year with YWAM in (where were you?) I was working (in Washington?), but my spirit was unsettled.  I prayed, “Lord, What am I supposed to do?  I feel like I’m supposed to be overseas.”  And God said, “Go.”  But I doubted hearing him because it seemed too vague.  Then I found out about Women of Purpose, and got together with Sharme Hettinga.  She was leading a trip to Cambodia.  The purpose of the trip was giving hope to destitute women, something the Lord had really been putting on my heart already.  So I took a leap of faith and agreed to go.  I raised $2800 in 2 weeks—when I only needed $2200!  During our time there, I continued to pray to God for direction.  World Concern partnered with Women of Purpose for the trip and that’s how I found out about the opportunity for an internship.

How would you describe your experience in Cambodia?
To give you a glimpse of my experience I’ll be sharing a few stories, along with some things the Lord taught me along the way.  For starters, I was one of two ‘foreigners’ working with the organization; so the feeling of isolation rarely escaped me.  The Lord taught me a whole new meaning of what it means to fully rely on Him.  The majority of my days were spent in an office working on lesson plans, while the rest of the staff did ministry in the villages.  To say that I had some down time is an understatement.  But, it was in these quiet, lonely moments that the Lord began to open my heart and teach me many things.

Here’s an excerpt from my journal I kept during my time there:
“From one simple truth, the Lord began freeing me from believing that He doesn’t have good things in store for me or that I’m somehow always missing out on something, which is what I had subconsciously believed since I was young.  I’m beginning to grasp how little disappointments from our past can turn into lies, which affect the way we hear the Lord’s voice clearly.  It is pretty incredible, the grasp the enemy can have on us and we do not even realize it.  He is so good at deceiving us, yet we CAN conquer through Christ!!  If we are willing to dig deep and figure out what those lies are, the outcome is incredible!!  God is so faithful in renewing our minds and drawing close to us when we are willing!  I’m learning so much about His character and His will in and for my life.  My prayer is that I become aware of these things, that I am faithful in making a choice in saying ‘no’ to the lies and saying ‘yes’ to God’s truth so that my mind can be transformed into His likeness.  Someone once answered the question, ‘How do we become more like Christ?’ like this: ‘One choice at a time.’  Every ‘no’ to the enemy and ‘yes’ to God makes us more into the likeness of Christ.”

Watch for more from Keirsten every Tuesday this month!

“Grace in Person” July 19, 2011

Here’s a great picture that goes with a previously submitted article about a group of Northshore Women and their selfless work with prison inmates. It’s worth a read…or re-read!

~submitted by Carry Mattocks

Varied reactions are expressed when telling people you are involved with prison ministry… running the gamut from “that’s so neat what you do” or “I could never do that.” Many images are conjured up when thinking of women in prison… are they hardened, rough women with attitudes? Are they different than us?  Yes… and no…

Yes, they are different – they’ve committed a crime and they’ve been “caught.”  It’s been said “the only difference between us and them is that they got caught.”  They live in a place like no other – an environment with lots of women in a confined area; many struggling to figure out how this happened to them and how they can better themselves and not let it happen again.  They have to dress like everyone else, eat what’s given to them, sleep and live with whomever is assigned to them, obey lots and lots of rules and try to live with many other struggling women.  Most have dysfunctional family backgrounds, parents who were bad role models, or abandoned or abused them.  As Pastor Jonathan puts it – they are one of the “least, the last and the lost.”

No, they are not different - every woman in prison is someone’s daughter, maybe a sister; most are mothers, some grandmothers and they are each valued by God, just like us!  Some of the inmates we have visited have been our neighbors, gone to our churches and were family friends.  Most will be let out and be part of society again.

Romans 3 says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Would Jesus care about these women in prison, or should we despise them because they did a bad thing? Zacchaeus was a tax collector. He was despised because he was a deceitful man, cheating people of their money and resorting to false accusations to get what he wanted.  One day, Jesus visited him. The Bible makes no mention of Jesus rebuking him for his dishonest lifestyle the whole time they were together. Instead, Jesus showed him grace and honor by spending time with him.  A moment with Jesus completely changed Zacchaeus’ heart.  A moment with “grace in person” — without accusations, condemnation or judgment — caused an inward transformation in Zacchaeus.

Grace in person – There are women at Northshore doing just that – being “grace in person” to women in prison.  Can you do it? If you know how to be a listening friend, you can do it!  The women’s prison visitation ministry matches an inmate in Purdy with a volunteer who commits to visiting once a month for a year.  NSB women carpool together one Sunday afternoon a month to visit with our inmate; showing Jesus cares by encouraging them in their relationship with the Lord and helping them make good choices to better themselves before they get out of prison – “grace in person.”  If you’d like join us for a trial visit to see what it’s all about, contact me at carrym@nsb.org for more information or go to http://www.m2w2.org/.

‘Manna’ June 22, 2010

Read the story of this beautiful piece of art done for Chumno -a Cambodian  man of God who has dedicated his life to helping the children of Cambodia. The drawing is of Chomno’s adopted daughter, ‘Manna’. Click on the picture to go to the artists website and read about the picture.

Art Gravity and Grace Blog

Does a Beast of Burden Care If It Has a Name? December 9, 2009

article by Paula Guest/photo by oOlemon

Listening to a missionary in from the field talk about working with the women in Nepal broke my heart.  In Nepal, a woman has no value.  Quite often she doesn’t even know her own name.  The missionary went on, “She was probably given one at birth, but has never heard it spoken.”  A woman is called, “wife of…” “daughter of…” “mother of…” She has no value other than a beast of burden, and does a beast of burden care if it has a name?

In Nepal, a woman’s only worth is in the number of sons she bears.  Each son will bring home a wife – to work the fields, carry the water, cook the meals.  The more sons, the more wives, the more status the mother-in-law has.  A woman with no sons has no value.  A widow with daughters has even less.

Listening to the story of the women as they learned to write their name, and for the first time saw themselves as having worth, was enough to break even the most callused heart.

How blessed we are to know the Creator God, who not only knows our name, but has it engraved on the palm of His hand. Each of us. It is beyond thinking. Each of us has intrinsic value, because we are created in the image of a God who knows us, and loves us.

Our value comes, not from what we accomplish.  Not from what we do.  Not for who we are.  But from who He is.

Did you know that God thinks about you??  Another translation for the well known verse from Jeremiah “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord,” is “I know the thoughts I think for you.”  God is THINKING about us. EACH of us.  Individually.  By name.

How awesome is that??

Under the Bridge November 10, 2009

article and photos by Paula Guest

Thailand is across the bridge.  To a people who have nothing, that bridge looks like hope.  But under the bridge is where greed and poverty intersect, and exploitation begins. And a steady stream of human tragedy flows.

When I went to Cambodia in October of 2007, our team was the first to set foot on the land purchased through the efforts of Northshore, working with World Concern. To set foot on that property was to set foot on Holy Ground.

Ps 18:16,19   He reached down from on high and took hold of me.  He brought me out into a spacious place, He rescued me because He delighted in me.

We ‘helped’ them build a road into the property – one stone at a time, with the help of one ancient wheelbarrow.  We ‘helped’ them make bricks for the first house – one brick at a time.  All by hand.  No electricity.  (And I am quite sure they could have worked much faster without our ‘help.’)

I was privileged to return eighteen months later, April 2009, for the grand opening of Safe Haven.  And grand it was.  No human will could have accomplished this in so short a time.  God is working.  He is ‘arising.’  Four houses ready and waiting to receive children.  With, as Chomo so eloquently put it, room for ‘rolling’.

And Hope has a foothold in Poipet, Cambodia.

But the bridge is still there.  And the lure, and false promises of a better life still attract a steady flow of victims.  Children are a very marketable commodity.  You can only sell a weapon once.  A load of drugs once.  But you can sell a child over and over again.

As we left Cambodia, and walked over that bridge into Thailand, a very young girl, maybe three years old, sat on the side of the road, cradling an infant.  She was rocking back and forth, back and forth, softly keening.  That picture is indelibly burned into my heart.  Safe Haven is open.  But we are not finished.

And neither is God.

I WIll Now Arise November 6, 2009

article and photo by Paula Guest

As I struggle to put ‘Cambodia’ into words, the feelings well up, and the tears flow.  How can you describe the horror of genocide, and the resulting devastation?

Where was I in 1975?  Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, were being driven out of the city of Phnom Penh at the mercy of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.  Did I even know??  Did I pay any attention??

Where was I from 1979 – 1999?  Just living my life, consumed by my own wants and needs.  Did I even care? And all the while a bloody civil war raged.  An entire generation of teachers, doctors, bankers – any one who so much as wore glasses – was executed. An equal number were maimed by land mines. Tens of thousands eked out an existence in refugee camps across the border in Thailand.  1999 was just ten years ago.  Ten short years of recovery, of trying to regain the soul of a nation.

Is it any wonder people sell their children into sex slavery?  Human life has very little value. Grinding poverty creates a desperation that we simply cannot fathom. If one child can provide enough money for the others to survive, is it not her ‘duty’ to do it??

Ps 11:5   “Because of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,” says the Lord.  “I will protect them from those who malign them.”

God ‘arising.’  How awesome is that??  And ‘arising’ He is. In Cambodia He is ‘arising’ in the human form of Chomno In.  Chomno was in the forced march out of Phnom Penh.  He was in that civil war.  He was in those refugee camps.  And it was in the refugee camp that he met Christ in the form of an American doctor.

God burdened Chomno’s heart for the plight of his country and the tragedy of its children.  He gave Chomno a vision, and a promise,  of a place where children could recover, and women could find a way to earn a living without selling their own bodies, or their children’s.

Chomno moved to Poipet, and began working to make that vision a reality. And so was birthed a dream, the Cambodian Hope Organization.   A place where hope begins by meeting the God of the Bible.

It was Northshore’s privilege to be allowed to partner with Chomno in his dream.  To make Safe Haven a reality.

And that is why I went back to Cambodia.

A Deliberate Choice November 4, 2009

article and photos by Paula Guest

Is there not enough frustration, disappointment, worry, stress, in our own lives, that we should deliberately take on the pain of others?  To open our eyes to the suffering of others causes emotional agony.  We feel overwhelmed by the enormity, unable to effect change, and unwilling to step out of our comfort zone.

As the burden on my heart for trafficking victims grew, I felt all of the above in huge portions.  Totally inadequate.  Totally unwilling.  “Please, Lord, let me just change the channel.  I don’t want to SEE this.  I don’t want to KNOW this.  I don’t want to FEEL this!”

But every time I opened my Bible, my eyes would land on another verse about justice.  I had long been praying that I would walk so closely to my Lord that I could hear His heart beat.  What He was showing me, is that THIS is where His heart beats.  If I want to walk in communion with Him, I have to go where He is.  I have to care about what He cares about.  And I realized that the tears I weep, are His tears.

Psalm 11:7  For the Lord is righteous, He loves justice,  upright men will see His face.

I finally surrendered, ”OK, Lord, I get it.  Show me what you want me to do.”  Kay Warren calls it, “Dangerous Surrender.”  And dangerous it is, but the reward far outweighs the pain because you get to SEE HIS FACE.

After all, He loved me enough to take on my suffering.  He was willing to let what was crushing me crush Him.  How can I do anything less?  By offering to suffer with someone else we are living out the commandment “whatever you do for the least of these, you do for Me.”

“Here is the irony of chosen pain, we volunteer to accept a pain we want to do without; we volunteer to be hurt with a hurt we would rather not feel; we volunteer to bear a burden we want very badly not to bear. . . .    We are to walk with our eyes wide open in the pain of another human being and claim it as our own.”  (Kay Warren, Dangerous Surrender, pg 153)

And so, I went back to Cambodia.