Time Sure Does Fly...

So if there is anyone left who looks at my blog I guess you should be updated on some very HUGE and recent events in my life!

On March 26th Adrian Martinez asked me to be his wife and I very happily accepted. We very quickly decided that we wanted to start our lives together as quickly as possible so we started planning.









I finished school and graduated with my bachelor's on May 3rd.

Four days later I turned 22! whoo hoo

Three days after that I became a Martinez! Some may think that I'm crazy but looking back at it all I would have only done it faster!







So now... Adrian and I are living in Riverside, and currently looking for a home! Adrian still sells tires and I still watch two sweet babies.

I hope to do this again soon!

Much Praise

Much has happened since my last post, and much is about to happen... life truly is exciting here.

First of all I have a few prayer requests, they are kinda last minute but here they go:
*3 girls from NightLight are being baptized today - praise God
*Sophia our house momma is sick
*Tisha (my roomate) flys home early Tuesday morning
*We go on outreach tonight (every tuesday and friday night)
*For our family at New Song church
*For the constant ministry of NightLight

I have been meaning to write about an amazing time of outreach that I was able to be a part of last week...
Women came from Saddleback church with a large ministry budget... so we decided to go into the bars and pay the bar fee and take out about 15 women. We split up in groups so we would not be super obvious... then we all met together and went to MK a resturant that is loved by Thai people. When we arrived tables with food awaited them, they were all decorated with gifts for the women and we all sat and ate together. It was amazing. I was able to sit with two Thai girls, we can call them B & O ... they were such sweet girls... they even knew enough english that I was able to have great conversations... man God was so present in our time with the girls... Praise God that it was all possible. Since our time with these women we have been able to visit some of them in the bars, we have taken some of them out for lunch and dinner, and some have even expressed a desire to leave the bars and come and apply to work at NightLight. What an amazing God we have.

I want to share more but i have to go to the Baptism... I will try to update again...

October

My new hair cut...

I know I haven’t posted for a really long time, forgive me, I have been trying to figure out what to write about for the last few days and I finally am able to just sit down and type it all out. Much has happened in the last month. Car and I went to Singapore and got 60 day visas, I’ve worked a lot, we have done outreach many times, said goodbye to volunteers, and much more. While all of these things have been a huge part of my time here I desire to share more about what is happening in the ministry of NightLight.

In the last month the Lord has really been working within the ministry. While there have been a few girls leaving NightLight, there have been many new girls that have chosen to leave prostitution and join us. For most the decision to leave prostitution is a costly one in the sense that they typically have to give up around a week’s pay in order to get out and find a new job.

Yesterday I was able to talk to the CEO of NightLight and she was able to share with me about a girl who came in yesterday morning, heard the gospel, and accepted Christ. Praise God. Today was her first day working for NightLight. Now that she has chosen this life she will be fed through a daily morning bible study and a weekly deeper study. She will have encouragement from staff and other workers. Lord willing she we constantly be learning about God.

Praise God that all of this was able to happen. As I have been learning, most women have been here for over a year attending a Bible study, but have never chosen to follow the Lord. Typically it is a very slow process, so praise God that this girl was able to choose life, especially so quickly.

The more I learn about NightLight the more I appreciate my time here. The Lord has been teaching me so much about serving on a personal level. I came with certain expectations, and the Lord has shown me His plan. My work here is valuable, whatever it may be, because it is to the glory of the Lord. So as I sit in an office and complete jewelry orders, or count and separate beads, I have complete joy knowing that my work is in service to NightLight and to God.

Here are some pictures from around the bars...

The Lessons In Life We Learn

So I know that it has been a while, and I’m sorry. I really want to post all of the time, but I don’t have internet access where I live and I have to find time to go to the internet cafes to answer email, and post blogs…

In the last two weeks many things have happened. I have gone out on outreach and talked to women, I have worked in the office, visited new churches, and experienced the Thai culture.

The past few weeks here have been hard for me, because I hadn’t found my place in NightLight, and because I was to connected to home. This past weekend the Lord truly broke me of my selfishness and of my desires. It was and continues to be a very hard lesson, but a lesson well worth the pain. Through this I am learning what it truly means to be a servant. I have realized the importance of giving all of my desires to the Lord not expecting anything in return. I look forward to seeing the Lord glorified in the rest of my time here.

Three of our roommates in the house where I live are Thai girls who now work for NightLight and who were in desperate need of housing. One of the women is pregnant and due early December. Last Sunday night we had our first Bible study and she was involved, everything had to be translated to her, but she was involved. She has only been working with NightLight for over a month now, and she was in the bars far into her pregnancy. In less than two months time she has become a believer and strongly desires to know the Lord. She has decided to keep her baby, and to be responsible, even though she (it’s a little girl) was conceived with a man whom she will never know or meet again. She is seeking right now, she desires to know the Lord, she desires to love this child that she has been given, she is amazing and a huge encouragement. I wrote this so that you can pray for her. Pray that the Lord gives her wisdom as she seeks Him in the Word. Pray that she will be discipled and that she will be cared for. Pray that the Lord will provide for her and her baby girl.

I’m not sure about how much information has been provided about the issues of Carly’s and my visas… but it has been taken care of. When we got here we learned that our visa would expire the 15th of this month. So now to get them extended we will both fly to Singapore on the 14th and Lord willing we will enter Thailand again with visas that allow us to serve the full three months.

So that’s pretty up to date… I will try to write more often…

If anyone wants to get a specific response write to me at pookieinmypants@hotmail.com I love keeping in touch through e-mail.

What a Weekend

These are the Girls that I live with... Sophia, Kelly, Carly, Me, Tisha

I cannot believe that I have been here for a little over a week now. Sometimes it feels way longer and sometimes it feels way shorter. While I miss home terribly I really am enjoying my time here. I am blessed to be working with amazing women. My housemates are amazing, and the Thai girls are amazing.

On Friday I worked in a room with Thai women making the bags that the jewelry is sent in. I made friends with two of them, Fon and Am. They are 21 and 20 ... and lots of fun to be around. Their english is very limited but their desire to learn is very strong. So I was not able to have a great conversation with them, but I was able to build a relationship with them through teaching them english. I am very excited to work with them again.

Friday night we did outreach in the bars again. It was a bit easier this week, i suppose because I knew what to expect. Almost right after we entered the bar a girl came up to Carly and started talking to her. A little while after that I started talking to a waitress. I couldnt hear her name over the loud music, but she was 22 and she had two children who lived in a village with her mother. She moved up here to make more money working in the bar. Praise God that she has only been there for a month. Hopefully I will be able to go back and speak with her again. Pray that I will have that opportunity.

On saturday we went out into a more rural area almost three hourss out of Bangkok. We went to the floating boat market. It was amazing. We went on a boat through the water and traveled from shop to shop. There were other boats in the water selling fruits and foods as well. Hopefully we will have time to go back again ... it was quite the culture shock.






On sunday I relaxed and prepared for the week that was ahead. We went to our first service in english. It was good to finally be able to understand what was being taught. But more than anything it made me miss Norco. After church we are MEXICAN food ( it was actually pretty good) and then we went home and rested for the rest of the day. I watched a movie last night called "if only" im pretty sure that it never made it to
theaters... but that didnt matter to me because I still cried like a baby.

Work went well today. I will write more about my week later.

Did you get a perm?

YES ... but it didn't really work out to well. I got one. I swear.

See... they put the roller things in ... lots of them... then they poured chemicals all over my head....

Then ... they wrapped me up in a blue towel...
After that they washed my hair and put tons of product in it...
and ... it was kinda curly...

Then Car and I went out to eat ... in this picture I am in a park that we walk through a few times every day. It is beautiful.

Worth of Lives

Now that I have had a little more time to adjust I was thinking it would be a good time to post a blog. At the moment I am waiting in a salon with chemicals in my hair. Carly and I got massages the other day and while I was at the salon and I decided that I would have to come back soon to get a perm… why you ask? I have no idea. I hope I don’t regret this … I also hope that I still have hair in an hour. I will post pictures soon.



After work the other day Carly and I wen with Sophia... one of our Thai friends to the mall where we got cell phones... and shoes and McDonalds!

So anyways… My time here has been great so far. A little different than I thought that it would be, but it is getting better daily… no doubt because of prayer. So thank you to all who are remembering Carly and I as we are here … it seriously makes the hugest difference.



Last night we went and did outreach for our first time since we have been here. Outreach means that we go to the redlight district and try to become friends with the girls … who are prostitutes. It was a night that I will never forget. The girls there were so young, so bare, and so innocent. The men were old, foreign, and animals. The more I thought about the lack of respect the men had for the girls as human beings the more I cherished knowing the men that I know. I am so blessed to be able to know so many men who treat women as God’s own children. What they should be treated like. I did not have the chance to talk to any of the girls last night, but other workers did, so I would have to consider that a well spent evening. These girls and men are so lost. Pray that I will be able to understand where they are coming from, their thoughts, and reasons why they do what they do.