This past week I had the honor of volunteering at a for profit organization called Beauty For Ashes or Hephzibah in Nepal. This organization/business hires women who have suffered from being sex trafficked and gives them the wonderful, restoring opportunity to start working in a healthy environment and a chance to earn a living without having to be exploited. The business is ran out of this dazzling house near Lolitpur, Nepal which is a few minutes outside of Kathmandu. The women come to the house everyday where you can find sweet Glenda, who is originally from Florida and has completely given her life to God in every way and devoted her life to serving Beauty for Ashes and the people of Nepal. Glenda told us when we arrived to help here that she was scared to rent this house because it is so extravagant and then she said that God told her, "Glenda, my love for these women is extravagant." And in response to that she said "Amen."
At Beauty for Ashes we had the joy of modeling the jewelry for their website photos and facebook page photos. It was such a blast to get all prettied up and spend the afternoon with my VisonTeam mates smiling, laughing, and encouraging one another in our unique beauty that God has made us each with. We not only modeled all well but we helped Glenda and the sweet ladies with inventory. It is the end of the fiscal year in Nepal and Glenda definitely had her hands full of work to do. It was amazing and tedious at the same time to count all of the tiny beads in the house. There are over millions of beads and it was such a detailed and humbling task to weigh the bags on the scales and calculate how many were inside each plastic bag. It reminded me of all the grains of sand and how God placed each one right where he wanted them. It also reminded me of all the stars he spread in the sky and how he called them each by name. And how could counting each tiny bead not remind me of the millions of children God has created and all the millions of hairs he has placed on our heads and how he says he has counted each one. I guess since our God is so big and has intimately done so much more than I could ask or imagine, I can make time to count tiny beads for his kingdom.
I think the best part of spending the past 5 days at Beauty for Ashes was the time I spent in listening prayer for each lady who works there. Glenda really believes in the power of worship and prayer and asked us if we felt lead to spend time praying and worshiping in the house and asking God for encouraging words for each woman in the house. It was the morning of the 2nd day and while we were doing morning devotional and worship with the women at the house I felt the Holy Spirit say to my heart, "Daughter come lend your ear - I have truth to say for my beloved daughters here." I knew in that moment that God was asking me to take time out of my day of work to sit in the upper room and worship and pray to him and to simply open my ears and heart to hear what he wanted to speak to his lovely daughters at Beauty for Ashes. It was not the easiest thing to say yes too. As much faith as I do have, thanks to Jesus alive in me, I still worry I won't hear him clearly or that I will not be productive in my time spent before his throne. So as the lies of the enemy flooded my head, "You should keep counting beads, you need to get more work done, prayer and worship don't accomplish anything," I knew in my Spirit the truth. The truth is that my hands cannot accomplish anything without the power of Christ in me. My work doesn't even start to measure up to all God can do when we sit before him and cry out to him. Our worship imprints upon the Father's heart and it beckons for him to move. Our God is one who delights in our songs and our petitions that rise up as fragrant incense before him in the heavenlies when we push aside obstacles and put him first above all things. That day when I went upstairs to seek His face - our Father was more than Faithful. He gave me scripture and words of encouragement for each woman in the house by name. As I lifted their names up it was as if the Father was jumping at the chance to flip the pages of my Bible and his words were screaming off the pages to be shared. It was beautiful. These moments of hearing God so clearly are not always so frequent and I couldn't be more thankful for the chance to share our Father's heart with these incredible women. I went home that evening and made notes for each of the ladies. On our last day at Beauty for Ashes I left the notes of encouragement with Glenda to give to the sweet new sisters I have in Christ half way across the world.
The greatest gift we can give each other in Christ is love, for he first love us that we might love each other. I left Beauty for Ashes feeling loved and blessed by Glenda and her life/spiritual wisdom and from the fellowship of the ladies who work there. I hope and pray that my team and I were just as loving to them as they were to us. For this is the Kingdom.
Until Next time y'all!
Isaiah 62 and 61
1 John 4:19
Psalm 139
Galatians 5
At Beauty for Ashes we had the joy of modeling the jewelry for their website photos and facebook page photos. It was such a blast to get all prettied up and spend the afternoon with my VisonTeam mates smiling, laughing, and encouraging one another in our unique beauty that God has made us each with. We not only modeled all well but we helped Glenda and the sweet ladies with inventory. It is the end of the fiscal year in Nepal and Glenda definitely had her hands full of work to do. It was amazing and tedious at the same time to count all of the tiny beads in the house. There are over millions of beads and it was such a detailed and humbling task to weigh the bags on the scales and calculate how many were inside each plastic bag. It reminded me of all the grains of sand and how God placed each one right where he wanted them. It also reminded me of all the stars he spread in the sky and how he called them each by name. And how could counting each tiny bead not remind me of the millions of children God has created and all the millions of hairs he has placed on our heads and how he says he has counted each one. I guess since our God is so big and has intimately done so much more than I could ask or imagine, I can make time to count tiny beads for his kingdom.
I think the best part of spending the past 5 days at Beauty for Ashes was the time I spent in listening prayer for each lady who works there. Glenda really believes in the power of worship and prayer and asked us if we felt lead to spend time praying and worshiping in the house and asking God for encouraging words for each woman in the house. It was the morning of the 2nd day and while we were doing morning devotional and worship with the women at the house I felt the Holy Spirit say to my heart, "Daughter come lend your ear - I have truth to say for my beloved daughters here." I knew in that moment that God was asking me to take time out of my day of work to sit in the upper room and worship and pray to him and to simply open my ears and heart to hear what he wanted to speak to his lovely daughters at Beauty for Ashes. It was not the easiest thing to say yes too. As much faith as I do have, thanks to Jesus alive in me, I still worry I won't hear him clearly or that I will not be productive in my time spent before his throne. So as the lies of the enemy flooded my head, "You should keep counting beads, you need to get more work done, prayer and worship don't accomplish anything," I knew in my Spirit the truth. The truth is that my hands cannot accomplish anything without the power of Christ in me. My work doesn't even start to measure up to all God can do when we sit before him and cry out to him. Our worship imprints upon the Father's heart and it beckons for him to move. Our God is one who delights in our songs and our petitions that rise up as fragrant incense before him in the heavenlies when we push aside obstacles and put him first above all things. That day when I went upstairs to seek His face - our Father was more than Faithful. He gave me scripture and words of encouragement for each woman in the house by name. As I lifted their names up it was as if the Father was jumping at the chance to flip the pages of my Bible and his words were screaming off the pages to be shared. It was beautiful. These moments of hearing God so clearly are not always so frequent and I couldn't be more thankful for the chance to share our Father's heart with these incredible women. I went home that evening and made notes for each of the ladies. On our last day at Beauty for Ashes I left the notes of encouragement with Glenda to give to the sweet new sisters I have in Christ half way across the world.
The greatest gift we can give each other in Christ is love, for he first love us that we might love each other. I left Beauty for Ashes feeling loved and blessed by Glenda and her life/spiritual wisdom and from the fellowship of the ladies who work there. I hope and pray that my team and I were just as loving to them as they were to us. For this is the Kingdom.
Until Next time y'all!
Isaiah 62 and 61
1 John 4:19
Psalm 139
Galatians 5
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