No one should be bought or sold. Ever.

Even if there is precedent.

Even if we are desperate.

Even if the person consents to it.

Even if the transaction is legal.

Even if the person doesn't see themselves as being bought or sold.

Even if one calls it a "job".

This is not what we were made for. This is not part of the plan. It has come about over time. But, it doesn't have to be. Nothing has to be the way it is just because it is. We can always dream. Always hope. Always persevere. Faith is the belief in things unseen.

Jen-Kha

It's been almost two months since our dear friend, Jenni B, passed away. She passed Sunday evening on August 15th after a long battle with cancer. Her family was around her and a group of friends from church were able to gather and worship and pray with her in the final moments before she passed.

Jen hadn't been able to join us for over a year at GLO or at Warehouse as her physical health deteriorated each month. We made many attempts to visit with her and bring Warehouse to her over the months; some of these visits worked out and produced lasting memories for those of us given the opportunity to fellowship with her and her mother, Sharon. Many of our plans did not work out as she was sleeping or sick or not up for visitors.

Jen-Kha was a servant to the end - one of our last visits as a GLO group to see her in the hospital in July had her telling us about ministering to a patient in the room next to hers - a mother with terminal brain cancer and 3 young children at home. Jen was always on the lookout for how she could serve others and how she could show them His Light. Even when she was struggling herself.

We had the opportunity to be a friend to her and of her and serve alongside her and learn. Jesus showed up in some amazing ways this summer. As we embraced the idea of breaking bread together, praying and worshipping and seeing God show up, He did. He showed up and He moved in our lives, the Bloch's lives, and in ways that won't be revealed to us for a long, long time. He taught us about waiting and about asking in faith and about worshipping in the face of the confusing and about loving and serving together and about letting go of control. He is the one who heals, not us and our amazing prayers.

Her service on Tuesday night was a testimony to her life. Her mother was so moved by God that she spoke compelling all to heed the call of Christ to be fishers of people wherever we are and passionately desire to do so. To seek Him and be filled with His Light so that wherever we go, others see that light.

Four Years Later, A Reflection

These photographs were taken by Rachel Snodderly, who is now working with refugee children and their families on the Thai-Burmese border. She was born with a big heart that gets bigger every day.

In 2006, a group of us went to Cambodia for the first summer of the World Relief Cambodia-U.S. Church partnerships Summer ESL Program. We went to serve as English language instructors for the World Relief staff in the provinces of Kampong Cham and Kampong Thom. There were 10 of us from our church and at the end our Global Outreach Pastor and a video team joined us in Phnomh Penh to create a video storybook for our church back home.

Part of our journey that final weekend was to the Tuol Sleng Prison in central PP and then on to the Killing Fields Memorial site outside of town. The photograph you see is from Tuol Sleng- a former school turned detention facility that the Khmer Rouge army set up to imprison and torture people they believed to be traitors or enemies of the new regime.

These are children. Some of them were the exact same age as I was when they died (2-4 years old). Most likely brought here with their parents/family members. The KR took photographs of all detainees that came through their facility. Most of the people are believed to have died there, at the hands of the KR or by starvation, disease, and malnutrition. Those who died were then taken by trucks out to the site of the Killing Fields memorial, Wat ???, and buried.

Today, you can pay a small fee to have a survivor take you on a tour of either site. They will show you pictures and tell you stories in graphic detail about what one human being did to another, in the name of some fabricated ideology.

That day we went by van outside the city on the bumpy dirt roads, we encountered a young boy, one who looked like the many children in this photo. He was trying to sell us soda, all in Khmer of course. He had no shoes on and was very thin. But, he was smiling. At one point, one of the team members suggested we form a prayer circle. This young boy came up behind us, staring quizzicly, when two of the team members quietly unjoined hands and rejoined behind him and then we prayed in English for this boy. Another woman on the team, who had survived that period in Cambodia with her family and made it to the U.S., slid off her sandals and gave them to the boy who smiled at her.

We then headed off home, my teammate rode piggy back across the field on another teammate, smiling at the young boy, sharing the bit of Khmer that we knew with him.

This photo and this memory are what came back to me this morning and prompted me to write. For it is in those moments of connection, of looking in to the eyes of another person, and knowing that we are joined together, we are unified, sharing a common bond despite all those things which seemingly separate us. And, in the simplicity and quietness of our connections, we are powerful beyond measure because we have the one who created us all holding us together, connecting us, unifying us.

May we continue to seek to be fishermen, who go about their duties with familiarity and loyalty and consistency and know that the one who first loved us loves all of His creation. He even loves that which was in those KR soldiers that was not corrupted, that part of their heart no matter how small or broken.

Cambodia: From Killing Fields to Living Fields - Pasadena Prayer & Praise Walk

Join Lake Avenue Church as we pray for & celebrate the work God has connected us to in Cambodia since 2004!

PRAYER (& PRAISE) WALK THROUGH PASADENA!

Take a short walking journey with us. We'll pray for the Cambodian people and nation at symbolic places throughout Pasadena, and conclude with a Worship Celebration and Cambodian Meal together! Meet up in FL 202 at 9:30 am.

After we walk we'll gather in FL 202 for worship and lunch.

April 17th marks 35 years since the people of Phnom Penh walked out of their own capital city on the promise of renewed life, only to experience death and destruction. Since then, God has been rebuilding thepeople of Cambodia, as we’ve witnessed through our partnership with World Relief.

Please RSVP here for the Walk so we know how many for lunch. For more information contact Global Outreach at globaloutreach@lakeave.org or 626.844.4887.