Freedom in the year of our Lord.

In 6 days I will be boarding a plane for Paris, France! I am beyond excited. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, you need some background.
Let me start off by saying that from a very young age I have been obsessed with Asian children. I know that sounds weird, just hang with me. I think they are the cutest things on the face of the earth - I am just drawn to them! If I'm in a group of kids and there's one that's asian, you bet they'll be my favorite. It's come to the point that my family and friends will even point them out to me when we see them in public. They're just so cute! The only explanation I can come up with is that the Lord decided to give me a special heart for them.
Next thing: I have always wanted to go to Paris. My room has been decked out in eiffel tower decor for years. So much so that now when I bring stuff to school my roommates go, "Really? MORE Paris stuff?" Yeah. More. I've always wanted to go so bad.
Next thing: The Lord used Passion conferences this year to open my eyes up to the horrors of human trafficking. As I sat in session after session hearing about modern day slavery I felt the impression that I needed to do more. More than give money. More than pray. I needed to DO something. I didn't know what. So I asked the Lord to reveal that to me in His time.
Shortly after Passion, I felt the need to pray for China. I had no idea why. It just kept coming up. I would meet international students from China, hear about it in random conversations, hear about trips that my friends were going on to China. It was everywhere. So I just prayed.
In February I went back home to work my home-church's Disciple Now weekend. Before our last night session I told my girls, "Hey. Let's pray for China. I don't know why, and you probably think I'm crazy, but let's pray for China today." Thankfully, they agreed and prayed with me.
That night during the session the Lord blew me away with His power. All weekend at the D-now we had been doing a spin-off of Passion, educating the kids about human trafficking and raising money for a project to help the victims. That night, they showed a video explaining what the money was going towards.
My dad is the missions pastor at my home-church and his face filled the screen that night. I knew he was currently in Paris, France planning a mission trip but I didn't know the details. I started crying as he shared that he was in Paris planning a trip to help the Hahn Chinese people group that has migrated to Paris, France. A lot of them are living terrible lives in China, and are promised by the mafia that if they pay them money and move to France they will have a better life there. Once they arrive, the men are forced to work in restaurants, the women are forced into prostitution and the kids are often neglected or forced to work as well until the family pays off their "debt". The debt does not exist. They are slaves.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I realized that as I was praying for the people of China, I was praying for the people my dad was in contact with that week. I ran over to my girls after the service who immediately started freaaaaking out the same way I was with several exclamations of, "IT WAS CHINA! WHAT THE HECK?!?" I love when God blows our minds with how He orchestrates things. I think he sits back and laughs as we see how He's carried us to this point.
With all that said, I had only 2 weeks available the whole summer as I had already committed to work and be a part of my dance team's camps this summer. I called my dad to find out when the trip was, praying, "Okay God, if you want me to go on this trip, it's gonna have to be one of these." And guess what? It was option 1 of 2. My plans < God's.
With alllll of that said, in 6 days I will be boarding a plane for Paris, France! I am beyond excited. My dad and our team will be working with a church plant that has started in an apartment in China Town, Paris. We will be having VBS for the kids in the mornings, training the church leaders in the afternoons and having an outreach service for all the people we can squeeze into our limited space each evening. I am so excited to get to love on so many precious asian babies and speak truth into the lives of these people. Even though they are physically not free, I pray that they would become spiritually free through  the power of Christ.
 Frederick Buechner writes, "The place God calls us to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." I am absolutely blown away at the way the Lord has orchestrated petty desires of mine like wanting to travel to Paris and combined them with His work. Please pray for me as I go to "bring good news to the poor, bind up the brokenhearted, and proclaim freedom for the captives in the year of our Lord." (Isaiah 61:1). I know God's got something big planned, can't wait to share it when I get back!