This is Dream. She is thirteen, loves to run and play sports, and absolutely dominates in tickle wars. Two of the girls in the group and I had the opportunity to live with her and her family for a couple of days and in that time she showed me the beauty of the Thai culture and of her own sweet and innocent spirit. She took us around her village and introduced us to her neighbors and family. She played with the animals with us. She helped me along as I ate my first potato bug. The four of us slept on the floor of her bedroom beneath the coolest giant mosquito net and awoke throughout the night to the roosters in the backyard. Her parents both work as farmers and she has an older brother. It kills me to think of young girls like Dream falling into the evil of the sex-selling industry and I know I’m going to spend every day for the rest of my life praying that this doesn’t happen to her. Dream is learning English and loved to show us what she knows. She also did her best to teach us Thai, and laughed at our mistakes. She was cracking up when her parents let me try to drive their motorbike and I almost crashed into the bathroom, which was a little shack in their backyard with a squatty potty. God touched my life through this little girl who is quickly becoming a woman.

The rest of the day yesterday, our group helped out the SOLD project to fix up their resource center. We painted the walls, laid out a cement floor, and cleaned out the pond. I can’t tell you how much my arms hurt today. It was wonderful, though, to see the cement floor at the end where there was dirt when we first arrived, and to see the walls become colorful, and to eat the live shrimp we caught as we cleaned out the pond. I got to talk to the locals and some of the people that work SOLD and they shared their testimonies and told me of how God brought them here. I’m learning more and more about how life is a faith journey. Please pray for Dream, and for all the other children we met today who have touched the lives of the members of our group. This place is beautiful. And the more I’m falling in love with this land and the people, the more I’m falling in love with the God who created them.