The Adventures of Darcey & Watson

Imagine a life where even before you were born, your parents didn’t want you. Because they knew you were a girl, they debated aborting you in hopes that next time they would be blessed with a son. In India, it’s illegal to get an ultrasound to check the gender of your baby because of this very reason. In fact, 50,000 baby girls are aborted every month in Asia.

Okay, so you were born. But since you are a girl, you run the risk of being murdered by your family. One story, among many, tells of a family who had twins, a boy and a girl. They rejoiced over the birth of their baby boy, but threw the baby girl off the roof of their building. How terrible is that?!

Suppose your family had mercy on you, and you were spared this horrific murder. You are still at the bottom of the food chain in the family…literally. You will be last to be fed – if there’s enough food, you aren’t really worthy of an education, you’re so malnurished that you might get sick, but since your family is poor, there isn’t enough money to spare for you to see a doctor. One of GFA’s medical teams came across a couple who brought a dying baby to them. The situation was so terrible that the staff immediately said for them to rush to the nearest hospital to get the baby treatment, even providing them the funds to get to the hospital. The couple didn’t move, and the staff asked why they weren’t rushing off to save their child’s life. They replied, that since it’s a girl, it’s not worth the trouble. That poor baby is probably dead by now…

Say you make it through childhood and you are a thriving young lady, despite all that is against you. Your parents have picked out a husband for you, and you are nearing your wedding day. You don’t even know the guy, but to bring honor to your family and obey your father, you must go through with the marriage. Once married your husband becomes abusive, and your family couldn’t give a very good dowry becuase they are poor. Your husband gets angry and it’s quite possible that you might be doused with kerosene and burned to death in your own kitchen. This happens to 7,000 women a year in India alone.

Let’s say your lucky though and your husband marries you and loves you. This is the first time you have experienced love in your life and are so happy to have the tides turned. You live with him for a few years time, and he is a stick gatherer, everyday going into the jungle to gather sticks for firewood to sell in town. Life goes on, but one day your husband doesn’t come back. A few days later, you discover that he was killed in the jungle by a tiger, leaving you and your children to fend for yourselves. The grief is unbearable! Not only did you lose the man you loved so dearly, but you are blamed for his death and shunned by society, your friends forsake you, and your family pretends you don’t exist.

How are you going to survive now? How will you provide for your children? What is there to do? You could go to the city and become a prostitute, you could beg alongside your children, you could try to find a job – but who would want to hire a widow?

This is the life for many women in Asia. But Gospel for Asia is changing this, one woman at a time through their Women Ministry. This ministry will teach women life skills such as reading, writing, and basic math. They will experience the love of Jesus through the Women Missionaries who can meet with and understand their pain. They might even receive a gift such as a sewing machine or a water buffalo, so they can provide for their families!

You can have a part in sharing love with these desperate women at the bottom of society. It doesn’t take much to share Jesus with a woman all the way around the globe. If you’re unable to give financially, that’s perfectly fine! Prayer is a very powerful tool, and those women need it. Pray for wisdom with the women missionaries, pray for the women who haven’t yet heard of Jesus who can wash their pain away, pray for the unborn babies – for their protection, most of all – Pray for the Kingdom of God to be proclaimed to the uttermost parts of the world.

Here’s a cool music video that I worked on that explains a bit more:

Broken Daughters

Thanks for listening,

Alley

Source: To Live or to Die, is the Choice even Mine?

Yesterday I had the privilege to spend quality time with my Mommy, made extra special because it happened to be a few days after Mother’s Day. She was asked to give a presentation for work here in Dallas, so she took a halfday and was able to spend it with me. We went to Escape and she experienced the goodness of bubble tea (she didn’t like it), her faces were most amusing as she tried it. “They feel like snot!” she exclaimed with a sickened expresion on her face. To which I responded “Oh, but it tastes amazing!” and happily slurped up a few of the “pearls” through my straw.

Next we went to the lake in the huge community near where I live and we relaxed near the water’s edge enjoying the gentle breeze and the mist it carried from the fountain in the middle of the lake. Soon we were joined by a few mallard ducks. There were about 6 males who were chatty and then a female appeared with her ducklings in tow. Upon seeing the female approach, the males swarmed her and proceeded to chase her as she was tried to keep her ducklings in line. It was a very funny scene to watch, and we pretended to speak for the ducks:

“Hey! Leave me alone! I’m just trying to take my kids for a swim!” – Female

“Hey! HEY!!! Look at me! Can I help? HEeeellloooooo Gorgeous!” – Males speaking over each other

“That’s it children, we are never coming back to this lake…. talk about rude.” – Female to ducklings

As we were laughing about the ducks we hear this scream “LUUUUCY! LUCY GET BACK HERE! LUUUUUCCCCYYYYY!!!!!”

We look over startled at this teenage girl yelling for a small dog that had broken off its leash and started chasing the Canada geese in the lake. The geese were none too happy and started freaking out trying to intimidate the dog. We got up and went over to the girl to see if we could help at all, but the dog was getting further and further from shore and the geese were getting angrier. I thought for a second that if the dog started to have issues, I would jump in after it, but only if it got that bad. I didn’t want to see a dog drown or get killed by a goose.

We tried to help calling for the dog, but then a teenage boy comes up near her and takes his shoes, socks, shirt, and hat off, takes his phone out of his pocket and dives in after the dog. He doesn’t have much luck as this little dog was booking it. So the boy came back to shore. By this point in time, the dog had made its way over to a dock that was nearby and the girl ran over to take it out of the water. That boy sure got some major brownie points.

Over all it was a rather eventful day and I thankfully didn’t have to jump into a lake.

Source: I Almost Jumped in a Lake!

This past Saturday a group of us GFA peoples went out to have a nerf war at a playground near one of the familie’s house. It was a great form of exercise, and I rediscovered some muscles that have long since been dormant in my body. Pushing through the pain, I must say that playing with nerf guns outside when it’s slightly windy is a challenge. I had near perfect aim… when we were inside… but then add the element of teams, adrenaline, and wind… I was lucky if I could hit one person each round!

Though I did find out that Tim and I make a pretty good team. We played where if you were shot, someone on your team had to come and tag you to unfreeze you, but if both of you were shot, then your team was out. So much like how a medic in Team Fortress 2 stays right by a heavy so you can annihilate your foes without much harm done to the dynamic duo, I was Tim’s medic and we made a really good team! (see you can learn practical applications from video games! Like…. how to survive in an all out Nerf war!)

I’m looking forward to the next nerf war, and I’ve even brought my nerf gun to my desk at work, and it’s already played a big part in the sanity of our little web department. Here’s the story:

Adam came by to work on my computer and while he was here, I was playing around with my nerf gun. Natalya sees Danny down the hallway and says “aw! Danny was just in the hallway… I know! I’ll email him!” So she proceeds to email Danny (the vice president of our organization). Her email was something along the lines of “I need you! unless you’re doing something really important”. A few minutes later, Danny comes into Web and I release a stream of nerf darts at him. To which he says “I knew there was something up, Natalya never emails me that, I should have come around the other way so I could have seen you too! (referring to me standing near my desk out of view of the door)”

You know you work in an awesome place when you can shoot the vice president of the organization with a nerf gun and he thinks it’s cool.

My weapon of choice

Source: Nerf Wars!