My month in Thailand quickly came to a close. On our last day at Rember Nhu we were asked to take a seat in front of all the kids. They all started singing a good-bye song to us. This is when the gravity of what we had done for these kids over the last month began to set in.
We showed them what true brotherly love looks like in a way that they had never seen before. All we had to do was play with the kids and show them that we cared. It may not seem like a lot to a typical American but it meant the world to these kids. Check it out.
P.S. Currently I am living on a rural village in Cambodia teaching english and bible stories to the local kids. It is a very rewarding ministry but the conditions are very rough. I will update everyone as soon as I can with another blog.
P.P.S God has provided in amazing ways and I wanted to thank everyone for their support. As of 5/10/12 I only need 700 more dollars to be fully funded!
After a long and draining three months in East Africa I was ready to move on. April 4th rolled around and I got on a flight to Southeast Asia where I will spend the last 4 months of the race. For the next month I will be working for Remember Nhu.
Remember Nuh is a sex trafficking prevention organization. They take young adolescent girls and boys off the market right before they will be sold to a sex trafficker. Currently there are 120 children that live in the home. Without Remember Nhu 85% of these children would be working in the bars as prostitutes.
All of these children have incredible stories and it is a joy to be around them. They are some of the happiest kids you will ever meet and now thanks to Remember Nuh they have the opportunity to do anything they want to in this world. While I stay here I will be spending time with these kids showing them what a true older brother is. I will also be helping with odd jobs around a new property so Remember Nuh will be able to expand and take in more children.
I will keep everyone posted on what is taking place with Remember Nuh and myself over the course of the month. I also have my last financial deadline fast approaching and I still need 2200 to finish out the last 4 months so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Sorry for the lack of blog posts. I spent last month in Busia Uganda a boarder town tucked away in the middle of nowhere with little to no internet. Last month was one of the most challenging months of the mission trip and I am glad to say that its over. Even though last month was a challenge there was some good that came from it and one story comes to mind above all others.
Kyle and I were told to go to the church at 9 am to help with some construction work. We showed up and waited around for an hour and a half playing with local kids. We had seen these particular kids before. How did we know we had seen them? All the kids look similar, since both boys and girls have no hair and many wear similar looking tattered clothes or no clothes at all. We knew because one of them is albino. He has bright white skin and a crinkled face since he has to squint because of his eye sensitivity. He came close to us, and while he never looks happy, it was clear that something was extra hard for him this morning. He was sobbing, doing his usual squinting look. All the thoughts about how tough my month had been washed away as my heart went out to him. This poor kid gets made fun of constantly for looking different, is always sunburned, and can hardly see. After seeing him my entire outlook changed and all I could think about was how could I help him.
After talking to his friends we discovered his name was Brian. We gave Brian a pair of our sunglasses to try on and see if they made a difference. The second he put on the glasses he lifted his head up and cracked a little smile. He could see!
Brain guided us to his house where we asked his grandmother if we could take him to the market to get sunglasses and a hat for Brain. She was over joyed and led us directly to the market. On the walk to the market we discovered that Brian’s mom died while giving birth to him and his dad took off when he discovered that Brian was an albino. During that conversation I realized once again how good I have it and how all of my little problems in this world really don’t matter.
After we got Brian a hat and a pair of sunglasses we where invited into the family’s home. Where they thanked us and we got a chance to pray over the entire family.
It doesn’t matter where you are in this world or what you are going through you can always bring joy to the people around you.
P.S. Thanks for everyones support thus far, as of April 7 I still need 2,200 to be fully funded!
As of Feb 23: I need $3900 to be fully funded Thank you for your support thus far
Coming on the Race, I knew that raising support was going to be a challenge for me. I am usually independent, and often self-sufficient. I like being able to do things myself. However, I knew that I couldn’t raise this money on my own, and that I would need the help of people around me.
Though it took me a few months, my attitude about raising support changed. I came to see that it’s way more exciting than I would have thought. God has blown my mind by his provision so far, and it has been incredible.
I have my final support raising deadline fast approaching. I need $3,900 more to finish out the final 5 months of the race. God has done amazing things through the first 6 months and I can’t wait to see what he has in store for the next 5 months.
Things you can do to help:
1) Financially support me**
2) Pray for provision, for me and my squad as a whole
3) Pass this along, repost it on FB, email it to people you know who would consider supporting me. Get the word out.
**Please let me know if you are planning on supporting me. Pledges count towards the support goal, but I need to know if you plan on doing so. Please contact me if you would like to financially support me.
Thank you.
2) Make a check out to Adventures in Missions with my name and WR in the memo and send it to:
Adventures in Missions
P.O. Box 534470
Atlanta GA 30353-4470
3) Email me at spencer2618@gmail.com for other details [specifically, if you would like to donate monthly, please email me]
ALL DONATIONS ARE TAX-DEDUCTABLE!
THANKS AGAIN AND GOD BLESS
My last week in Tanzania was eye opening to say the least. Eight women from my squad went to the hospital to pray for a member of the church that had just given birth, I thought nothing of it. The next thing I knew the women they prayed for was pronounced dead and the baby was still alive. The house we were staying in became the center piece to a real life drama that was unfolding before my very own eyes.
The baby was taken to our house to be cared for. The Dad of the baby was off working in another town and would be back in 3 days just in time for the funeral. Just moments before the funeral the father arrived at our house where he was told that his wife was no longer alive and now he had a baby boy. Before he could even react to what he had just been told he was carted off the funeral where hundreds of people had gathered to pay their last respects. This is when it hit the father - his life had just been flipped upside down in a matter of moments. I watched him as he went through every emotion possible from disbelief to despair.
All he had left to cling to was his faith in God and his new baby boy that he hadn’t even met yet. He spent the next week living with us at the pastor’s house. We did our best to encourage him throughout the process. We never really knew what to say and for the first time in my life I think the language barrier was a good thing. Our presence seemed to comfort him in the fact he was not alone and that mzungus (white people) from the other side of the world truly cared for him.
Within a few days we would occasionally see him smile. His smile lightened up the room and was a sign that everything was going to be ok. This father put is faith in God in his weakest moment and it became evident that he would come out of this tragedy stronger than he has ever been before. When I said bye to him a few days later to head to Rwanda he strongly shook my hand and looked me in the eyes as to say thank you from the deepest part of his heart. That’s when I finally realized that God put me in Mwanza Tanzania for a reason. That God put me on the world race for a reason, to provide hope to the hopeless.
Good question.
In the last 6 weeks I have been to 4 different countries on 2 different continents. I left India just after the 1st of the year then spent around a week in Nairobi Kenya. Nairobi is a very modern city with some if the friendliest people in the world. Everyone wanted to sit down and have a conversation with me especially when they discovered I was an American. Then it was all about the election and Obama since his dad was born in Kenya.
After my time in Kenya was over I took an 8-hour bus ride to Mwanza Tanzania. (When they say 8 hours in Africa they really mean 24 hours with a 5-hour stop at the mechanic to make sure the bus will make it) Once we arrived at the pastor’s house it became clear that Tanzania would be a memorable month with many ups and downs. There would be 16 of us living in 4-bedroom house with no running water on top of a hill accessible only by walking. The 1st few weeks in Mwanza were a good time to settle in and see what sub-Saharan African life is all about. My teammates and I were the only white people for miles and we were always the center of attention. It felt like we were movie stars. We were so far out of our element that we would make babies cry because they had never seen white people before. Overall the first few weeks where eye opening but nothing to eventful happened until hospital ministry started. I hate being in hospitals but I thought it would be fun to check out an African hospital and it never hurts to pray for the sick. Once we arrived I was put into a group with a future doctor and another teammate that has a much stronger stomach than I do. We were directed to the most dismal room in the hospital the noxious infection room. When we entered the room I was overcome with the stench of rotting flesh. I looked around the room for about 15 seconds and I was sick to my stomach. I couldn’t handle it; I got out as soon as I could. After sitting outside the hospital for 2 hours on the verge of either throwing up or passing out I began to ask God questions that I will most likely never find the answer to. Questions like; how can God allow these things to happen and why am I so fortunate. Knowing that if any of these patients were in an American hospital they would be fine. That 15 seconds I spent looking around that room turned into 2 weeks of praying and searching for answers. I came to the conclusion that this world isn’t fair for anyone. We will all face insurmountable challenges. In our weakest hour will we rely on God as our refuge our place of safety our will we rely on ourselves and the uncertainties of this world?
P.S. Now I am in Kigali Rwanda and I will update you on what is taking place here as soon as I can.
Since the last blog God has confirmed that I am in the right place and I still have a lot more to learn over the next 6 months. God provided funding when I was ready to pack my bags and head back to the states. I was at a church service when I got a feeling that I should give all the money in my wallet to the offering. At first I resisted but in the end I knew that I had nothing left to loose. The amount of money I had wouldn’t put a dent in what I needed in my support account to stay on the race, so I gave it all away. The next day I was talking to a friend and my friend said if I couldn’t raise the full amount to reach the deadline they would donate the difference. When I heard these words I was speechless. God really does answer prayers! It came down to me realizing that I couldn’t raise the money on my own. I had to give up everything that I had and rely on God and he provided!
My time in India has stretched me in ways that I cannot fully comprehend or understand. I have to put my full faith and trust in God knowing that he will provide. For my entire life I have been able to rely on myself for all the answers but now I must rely on God.
For the last 2 weeks I have been fortunate enough to work with an organization called Jireh Children’s Home. Jireh is an organization that provides for the needs of 11 underprivileged kids. Their eminence faith in God as a provider blows me away every single day. The name Jireh comes from Genesis 22:13-14 “Abraham looked up and there in the thicket he saw a ram caught by his horns and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place Jehovah-Jireh” (the lord will provide). And to this day it is said, “on the mountain of the lord it will be provided.” The lord has provided everything that Jireh Home has needed to stay afloat. Staying true to their name. The Lord has provided in numerous ways when it looked like everything was going to fall apart. Shortly after the main supporter for the children’s home died. Jireh Home was in dire straights completely out of money. It appeared the children would have to go to bed hungry. When all hope seemed lost a man that no one at the house had ever met appeared with a 25-kilo bag of rice. There prayers where answered and God provided.
Now I am at a similar juncture. I have to rely on God to provide funding so I continue bringing his glory to the nations. I have provided all of the funding that I have to reach a financial deadline, but I have fallen short. Now I am putting my full faith and trust in God, the one and only Jehovah-Jireh.
