Growing the Seed

When you get pregnant there is a period nine months where that seed grows into a little human and takes on a life of its own. During that time you don't see it; no one else sees it, but you can see the effects of it growing inside of you - you can feel it and those who are close enough to you and care to share the intimacy of their hands on your belly can feel it as well.

It's the same with a dream that God plants on the inside of you. Sometimes it's there for a while before you notice the changes. Sometimes it's a big event where you know you just started creating a new thing, where you allowed Him into the deepest recesses of your heart and together you will birth a dream.

With a dream, as with a baby, there is a time of incubation. A time where sometimes God asks you to keep it to yourself, to take the time to pray and gather wisdom and His strategies as well as to let Him bring the right people and circumstances around you for its optimum health once it's born.

I came home from that conference in 2008 and told my husband about what I wanted to do; that somehow I needed to be a part of rescuing and restoring these children to wholeness. We had no idea where to start, so we incubated.

A while later, Kelly was visiting our pastors, Dr's George and Hazel Hill, and told them about the passion and desire we had to help abolish this crime. Dr's George and Hazel lead Victory Churches International and have started many orphanages, slum schools, sewing schools, Bible schools and micro-loan projects, all with the heart to serve the poor and needy. However this was the first time Victory was able to reach out into the sex trade.

Dr Hazel said that these children caught in slavery had been on her heart for a while and that the right people had not stepped up to take on the project. She commissioned us and said that if we were willing to do the work, she would back us.

We were willing to do the work and were honored to have the support and wisdom of her 20 some years experience on the mission field.

Even though I had never been to Asia and didn't even know where Cambodia was, I really felt like God was asking us to start a safe home there. A home where these children who had had their innocence and purity torn away from them so violently could come and just be kids. A place where, as much as we could, we would give them back their childhood. A place for them to be safe, loved and at peace. A home.

We realized that if this crime was so rampant in our world and we had only just learned about it, that awareness was lacking. We started to educate ourselves and share our findings with others. We also knew that in order to do anything to practically help others we needed money, and so the fundraising began.

People started coming to us from our church, from the community, from schools and other churches wanting to help. The more we understood about this issue, the more we knew we had to learn. We grew together, dreaming about the ways we could help these children, how we could get others on board and soon we had an amazing, diverse team around us of people who gave of their time, finances, giftings, talents and lives to share their blessings with those they may never even see.

Stay tuned as I share about the favor of God on the next chapter of our story...

xoxo J