How You Can Pray for the Trip to Asia

Here are some prayer requests for our trip to work with anti-trafficking ministries in Asia.

Hi Everyone,
Thank you so much your interest, encourage, prayers, and support for this trip to work with anti-trafficking ministries in Asia. I am so thankful for each of you!!

We leave on tomorrow! I can hardly believe the time has already come. Here are some ways that you can be praying for me and my time if you'd like. Our trip is Nov 13-23, so please think of those during those dates.

HUGE Praise!!!
All of my financial support came in! So thankful for God's provision in this.

Prayer Requests:
One member of our team was in a car accident this past weekend. She's fine but suffering from whiplash and soreness and the doctor has said she shouldn't travel which is disappointing for all of us. She'll be missed on our team, so please pray for her healing and comfort during this time.

Good health - that we would be protected from stomach bugs and colds and be able to participate fully in the trip.

Focus - the topic we'll be dealing with is hard, and I would love your prayers to help us focus on what we're there to do. Pray that logistics would go smoothly, that things would be fine on the homefront, and that jetlag wouldn't set us back, so that we can be fully engaged in what's ahead of us.

Logistics - one of our appointments with a ministry has fallen through (IJM - sooo disappointing), so please pray that we would trust God with the schedule and we would participate in exactly what He wants us to do.

Open hearts and minds for each of us as we process this difficult issue and what it looks like for each of us to be involved in the issue of human trafficking

Relationships - we're putting 10 women together who don't know each other, so please pray for good friendships to develop and for us to enjoy one another.

Host teams - our amazing MTW teams in Cambodia and Thailand have put together great schedules for us - we are so thankful for them and all the work that they've done in preparation of sharing their labors with us.

For truth and light and hope to prevail. Please pray that there would be freedom for captives - those being trafficked, those who sell trafficking victims, and those who buy them.  All of these groups need hope in their lives.

Thank you so, so much!!

Love,
Jen.

P.S. Two great resources for those who are interested in learning more

1. In Our Backyard by Nita Belles is a book I'm currently reading and seems to be a great Christian perspective on all the different types of trafficking going on throughout the US. She also has some great resources for getting involved - no matter how little or much you want to be engaged.

2. When the Saints by Sara Groves is a fantastic song that is always such an encouragement to me, particularly about this issue.

More on Anti-Trafficking Trip

Hi Friends & Family,

The other day at the office we were discussing reports out of Syria and Iraq about what ISIS is doing to women. As horrible as the many ways these women are being abused are, it doesn't change the reality that women are treated exactly the same outside of war zones while we often stand by silent and complicit. 

Across the globe women from villages to highly developed cities are being forced into prostitution. Whether they're forced by family members, war, drug dependence, kidnapping, violence or simply a lack of viable alternatives to earn a living, the fact remains that these atrocities are a reality of our world. 

Two centuries ago, abolitionist William Wilberforce said "You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know." This is one of the driving goals of our trip to Asia - to increase awareness of this issue so that the women participating in the trip can return home and be influencers within their own communities and that we'll no longer dwell in ignorance of how people are being treated around the globe. My prayer is that together we can actively work to end this evil in our world.

THANK YOU so much for being a part of this endeavor whether it's by your prayers, your financial giving, involvement in your own community, or just asking about the issue and what's going on. To have you on board with me in this journey is an extraordinary blessing. Thank you!!

Prayer Partners

Please let me know if you'd be willing to take a specific day of our trip to pray for the work we'll be involved with in Cambodia and Thailand. We would love to have this trip absolutely covered in prayer. 

Prayer Requests

Ways that you can be praying now include:

Finalizing logistics - visas, flights, lodging

Good health for everyone before and particularly during our trip

The teams that are hosting us as they do much work to prepare for us

For our hearts and minds to be open to what God wants us to see and participate in while there

Giving

Once again it has been an amazing blessing to see how God continues to provide the funds for his work. Of the initial $2750 I needed to raise by November 10, only $500 in needed giving remains. Thank you for being a part of this!!

If you would like to give to help meet the remaining $500 need, options are available below.

Please let me know if you have questions about anything!

Much love,

Jen Miller

Giving Options: 

1.     Click this link  https://donations.mtw.org/donate/AddDesignation.aspx?No=14901 to donate online to account 14901.

2.     Send a check to the following address with 14901 in the memo line

Mission to the World

PO Box 2589

Suwanee, GA 30024-0982

It's Been Awhile...

It's certainly been awhile, and while I've had lots of thoughts of posts (and even started a few), they've obviously not made it to being posted. However, as slack I'm feeling as a blogger, this is still one of the best ways to get info out to folks who may be interested in learning more about an upcoming missions trip I'll be participating in.

Let me know if you have any questions or if you're interested in learning more.

She was 12 years old when her grandmother sold her for the first time. She spent three days locked in a hotel room in Cambodia with a foreign man. And last week, she came to our office, a beautiful college-aged student with a beaming smile, to share the story of her freedom. Now she's a spokeswoman for an organization that bears her name, Remember Nhu. 

 

Nhu now travels the world sharing her story - how after her grandmother sold her again she demanded part of the money and took herself to hair and nail school, how she was adopted by a missionary couple, and how together they've started homes for at-risk boys and girls across the globe so that other children don't ever have to find themselves in the same place Nhu did. 

 

Last year I was privileged to co-lead a mission trip to Eastern Europe to help 10 women from across the US learn more about this issue and more about how, together, we can proactively fight the global issue of sex-trafficking.  While what we heard was extraordinarily difficult to take in at times, it's been amazing to see how the women who participated in the trip have been at work in their own churches and communities to further awareness of this cause. 

 

This year, I've been asked to co-lead a similar trip, but this time to a different region of the world. We are taking 10 women to Cambodia and Thailand November 13-23. This time, we're going to "my" area of the world. For five years I lived in Asia, but so often I turned away from the blatant sexual trafficking because it made me uncomfortable. I never again want indifference to be my response. 

 

To that end, we'll be working with ministries that intervene at all stages of the trafficking cycle. In both countries, we'll be visiting with ministries like Nhu's were they work to prevent the vulnerable from being sold in the first place. We'll meet with ministries that are reaching out to women sold in brothels and bars to try and reach them with hope and freedom. And we'll meet with ministries who are engaged in the long, hard work of restoration and healing for these girls and of providing them with job skills and training for a future free from being sold. 

 

Once again, I need your help. I need prayers desperately because this is hard and big. And it's been easy to look past how hard and how big it is by hiding in the minutia of schedules, and budgets, and visas. 

 

Another way important way to help is by giving financially towards the cost of transportation and lodging. I’ve been asked to raise $2750 to participate in this trip, and having your partnership in this endeavor would be an enormous blessing.  Knowing you are united with me on this mission to those who are immersed in such darkness will bring hope and courage to a seemingly overwhelming situation.

Thank you for prayerfully considering how you can be involved.

Here are the options if you would like to give financially:

1.     Click this link  https://donations.mtw.org/donate/AddDesignation.aspx?No=14901 to donate online to account 14901.

2.     Send a check to the following address with 14901 in the memo line

Mission to the World

PO Box 2589

Suwanee, GA 30024-0982

What's New?

Some of the very good reasons I've been a distracted blogger this year. Here's what I've been doing this summer. 

What I've Been Watching -
The World Cup - Well, watching as much as I'm able to, what with this whole work thing that gets in the way of Euro-centric game times. And also the lack of cable. Having been overseas for two World Cups (China in 2002 when Korea/Japan hosted and then Argentina in 2006), I caught World Cup fever from countries where the world stops when your team in playing over a decade ago. Also, I have a long history dating back to high school of supporting (stalking?) soccer players.  A little creativity means I've been able to catch a good number of games - ESPN at the gym, Univision live streaming (should so have taken Spanish instead of French), friends' Watch ESPN logins, data plans, more time in sports bars than any time other than when I worked in one. The whole sports bar thing has been detrimental to both my wallet and waistline this month, so that's a silver lining of the US being out. Here are a couple of fun world cup links.

Faking It Through the World Cup - has some language, but funny
The Definitive Ranking of the Hottest Guy from Each Team - don't agree with all their choices (Two words: Graham Zusi)
Which Team to Cheer For

Here's this little gem from Glennon Doyle Melton over at Momastery:
You guys. I've been watching the World Cup for a few days now. I have a question. I cannot ask my husband this question for reasons that will make themselves apparent in a moment. WHAT THE SAM HILL IS GOING ON???? Is there some sort of attractiveness test that these people must pass before they are issued cleats? If so, after they pass the hot test are they placed onto some sort of factory conveyor belt thing where they each get hip haircuts and the ideal amount of stubble and perfectly placed tattoos and then their real normal eyeballs are removed and replaced with PIERCING, HURT YOUR PRECIOUS HEART SOCCER MAN EYEBALLS???? I repeat... WHAT THE SAM HILL IS GOING ON?? And for how long are we supposed to just pretend to be watching the ball HERE???

So You Think You Can Dance - So very happy it's summer and this show is back. It's the only reality show I watch and I LOVE it. Already the dancing is phenomenal! And even if Niles and Mary get a little annoying at times, and even if the guest judges are sometimes only there to promote an album or raise ratings for the evening, the dancing is still so good. I may actually watch more for the choreographers than the dancers - Travis Wall, Stacey Tookey, Sonya Tayeh, Nappytabs. They're fantastic!

Friday Night Lights - I've heard such great things about this show and decided it would be what I watch on Netflix over the summer. I've prepared a little spot in my heart for it on the same shelf as West Wing (best. ever.) and while it hasn't quite earned a spot there yet, I am still really enjoying the complexity of relationships on the show and the goodness that undergirds most of the characters. Only on season 2, so we'll see. 

What I'm Reading?
This summer started with a bang in the book department, but hours devoted to World Cup viewing have thrown off my pace. 

Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman - I'd read a lot about the Netflix show and really didn't have any desire to see it. I'm not prude when it comes to TV shows, but I do have limits. However, a friend read the book and said it was quite different from the show, and it really is. I loved the book. I found it laugh out loud funny and ultimately heartwarming as well. I also found it made me pretty infuriated at the US penal system. 

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green- It's rare that I read a book where teenagers come up to me and comment on my selection. However, at the beach over Memorial Day more than one teen passed by my beach chair with a "Oh my gosh! That is the best book!! I just love that book!!! Don't you just love that book!?!?" It was a very good book and I did cry when I finished sitting in my beach chair looking over the Gulf. This was a deliberate choice of setting on my part. If I'm going to read a book that's ultimately horribly sad and where crying is likely, then I choose to do so in a beautiful location (see also: The Kite Runner, My Sister's Keeper, The Book Thief). Also, I found the movie to be one of the most faithful book adaptations I've seen. 

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn- A friend on vacation was totally sucked into this book, and since I'd seen it around a lot (my mom and step-dad each gave it to the other for Christmas a couple years ago), I thought I might try it. It will completely suck you in. It is so fascinating. How everything is constructed is amazing. Also, it's horrifying, and may make you never want to get married. And then the end. That end. Ugh, it's hard to say anything without spoilers, but...really, just, eh, ugh. Maybe don't read it. Wait for the movie. I hear they're changing the ending for the movie.

The Expats by Chris Pavone- I started this on the flight back from Australia (that was an interminable 43 hours), but got distracted by other new, shiny books and needed to finish and get it off my goodreads list. While the premiss is totally different than Gone Girl, finishing one right after the other brought out a number of similarities. Mainly about duplicitous marriages and endings that I do not enjoy. So, you know, this isn't a glowing recommendation or anything. It is kind of interesting about spies, though. 

A Company of Swans by Eva Ibbotson - This book combines two prominent themes of what I've been watching this summer - dance and Brazil. It's a book that takes place early in the 1900s about a girl who runs away from an oppressive British home to join a ballet troupe traveling to Brazil. When they mention traveling to Manaus I actually have a frame of reference for that now (thank you, World Cup). The author wrote 5 lovely novels that take place roughly around the World Wars. She's passed away, so these are the only five stories we'll get from her, but they're precious. Today they'd likely be classified as Young Adult, and they can be dramatic and you can generally see where the plot is going, but they're also sweet, and have lovely details about European culture and the arts, and romance, and bad guys getting thwarted, and other things I tend to like in books more than bad marriages. I recommend starting with The Countess Below the Stairs. It's still my favorite of the group and has kind of a Downton Abbey vibe with the upstairs/downstairs component. 

If the weather stays nice, and I get some quality pool time in, here's the rest of what I may be reading this summer- 

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear -British lady detective between World Wars
Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost -Travel book on China that I've read before but LOVED. Troost sees China almost exactly the same way I did.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs - It has pictures and images that are part of the story, so kind of a different premise
Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan -Don't know much about this one, but really, this title is so right up my alley.
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson -Fictionalize North Korea
An Unmarked Grave by Charles Todd - Nurse/detective novel during WWI but the writers are a mother/son team which is interesting to me