Chicago 2014

Chicago…… the windy city! Actually when I left Ft C we were having 100 mile hour winds and so it made me giggle to think going from one windy city to the other…. Would my flight be shorter w/ all that wind… no it was right no time. Just like God he’s right on time. 

TIDBITS…….This is the word I have come away with this week. 

Here is how my Tid bit started… Kari, Michelle and I are walking around the conference(Christian Alliance For Orphans) along with a thousand other people and as we walk by this guy I tell Kari,  this guy looks so familiar and I am not sure why. I didn’t want to point at him so I said the gentleman in the blue plaid shirt.  We continued on our day and each of us went our separate ways to a breakout session. After the conference was done we headed out to the car and by this time it is late and we see that we have a flat tire. I start to take out the spare and get going on the exchange, mind you I have injured my tail bone and after sitting all day I am pretty sore. Kari had gone in to go get someone to help us. She said she asked the 2 guys out in the front smoking and neither one of them knew how (I feel that odd isn’t that in the DNA of a man… car stuff). So she said I asked God ok then who should I ask as she was not seeing anyone that she should ask and then she sees the guy I had said I knew him somehow. She went over to him and asked if he would help out. She said he really looked at her oddly(this will make since).  She had a conversation with him on her way out to the car and she called him sir and he said not to and so she asked what to call him and had a strange conversation with him.  So they show up to our car and meanwhile Michelle the nice person she is saw how much I was struggling w/ my pain and went and got a few guys so know we have 5 guys who are helping us… But as Kari showed up with Ohad I saw him and it is when he reached out to shake my hand and speak I remembered exactly who he was.  Since the other gentlemen were working on the car I asked him if I could walk back w/ him. (I didn’t want to say anything in front of the other guys) As we walked away, I said this is strange but I need to ask, he looked at me like with a yes face because he already knew what I was going ask him. I said you’re the gentleman from Nefarious and he said yes. I gave him a huge hug and said it is so neat to meet you. (Nefarious is a documentary that was filmed about human trafficking in many countries and what it looks like for so many.) He is in the documentary because he himself use to traffic woman from Russia to Israel. We then exchanged info and arranged to meet for coffee the next day.  Before he walked away I told him that I wasn’t sure why I had come to the conference you always wonder what it is you’ll learn or take away from them. I felt at that moment I was to have met him and God was giving me a divine appointment. I came back out and in the car told Kari and Michelle who he was. We all were so excited about this God moment and what it would bring the next day. We were excited about our flat tire and how God is on time.  A shout out to the gentleman that changed our tired what a blessing he is.

That night as I lay in bed I remembered the days leading up to the conference. I had watched Nefarious when I was in Uganda and had come home and ordered it and wanted to show it to friends but had not been home long enough to set a date to show it. I had been in New Bern NC were I met Viorcia from Moldova who also is a part of the documentary and there center is linked to helping in the film. So Tuesday night I stayed up late to re-watch the film because as I am working w/the Pearl ministry I felt I need to get more acquainted with the film. How timing is perfect because then on Thursday I met Ohad. In my alone time w/ God laying in the hotel room, I had started out by praying to him thank you for this divine appointment and this God connection and I was thanking him about me me me…. And then I became silent and I was like no Sarah this isn’t about you this is about Ohad. Tomorrow when you are talking w/ him listen to him, pray for him and hear his side of how he changed his life. Support him and those efforts he is taking to make a difference in this monster we call trafficking. There are not many on that side of the story that talk or change. 

So the next day I was like a little kid and so excited to hear his story. I went and met up w/ him and 3 other woman from the community near Willow Creek who are working in local trafficking joined us. I learned how his life got him to the point of trafficking and how he was on a huge binge from alcohol drugs and broken and found himself at a missionaries home who when he opened the gates, He said I have been waiting for you. It was for this missionary whom changed his life. ( short version of his testimony) He is still in Israel and is married and has one son and is taking care of 8 foster children. He was going to be going to talk to over 200 young college aged men on Saturday about Trafficking and pornography. He is doing what God called him to do from the past that prepared him. He and I related a lot on that level as neither one of us has had formal education, but life experience. We were able to connect and share about what we do with our organizations.  He gave me great advice and the realities of helping girls and that you may talk to 200 girls and 10% come for help but you really only have 1 who gets completely out and away from it. He said it’s not us but we still give because we know at some point that she may hear it again and it sinks in that time. He said we also know the brokenness we had and how we needed to get to the same point that we wanted God in our lives.

So the moral to my meeting Ohad, was not a divine appointment, but to me a TIDBIT…. God gave me another TIDBIT to the journey I am on and it is just the thing I needed to keep me moving forward.  I hope that I can be a blessing and that the friendship will continue to grow and that I can watch him grow in his ministry back home in Israel. It made it real for me from the other side of the monster. Not just from the point of the girls I work with but who’s trafficking them. It made me realize I need to be praying for them just as much as I pray for a girl to get out. God call’s us all to love everyone and it brought that home in my heart that I pray for all to come to know him. ALL

The other thing I would really like to talk about is adoption/foster care. I have so much more appreciation for those who adopt and foster and I learned how biblically we are called to take in the orphan. We were all orphans until God took us in. I thought WOW that’s pretty powerful. We all have fathers and mothers on earth, but really we are orphans and God is our father.  I went away from this conference with the mindset that even if I am not called to adopt or foster. I am called to help out and support those who do. It’s in the bible a lot of times to help the window and orphans. I think it may be something we want to listen to if it’s in the BIG BOOK that many times… 

Please also in light of the recent events in Nigeria can you please all pray for the 200 girls, there family and the men who took them. I am not sure if I am like many of you I am pretty angry and feel like my hands are tied in this situation, but to be honest we can choose to allow the devil to make us feel that way or we can do something that is more incredible than anything hit your knees and ask for prayer for everyone involved. I ask not just a nation, but all nations will come together against what plagues every part of this world. So many times I feel overwhelmed by the sadness in our world, but then after asking God to lead I feel so much better.