Just say, “NO”.

How many times have you taken a day off and said, “today is my day”. And then you pick up your phone…. And the day is no longer yours. In order to have time to give away, you need to make time to get away. 
We live in a world of busyness. REST is just missing a few letters to read as STRESSED. We add too much to rest and then it becomes stress. Stress is DEADLY. Many evidenced based studies show the negative impact of stress on our life. Rest is the easiest cure yet we never get enough. 

We need rest. Sometimes when we get away from everything we take a vacation and we take our friends with us. This is not getting away from everything. This is taking your life with you and you are not truly getting away from it all. There is a difference between traveling and vacation. 

So many times, we find our identity in our work. This is not who we are. The problem is that we feel as though people need us. That’s just it. People don’t need us. Everyone is replaceable. That’s life. We can give more of ourselves when we are fulfilled and recharged as opposed to just being and constantly draining ourselves. How can you be inspiring and of use to somebody if you are no different and no more passionate than before, because you never stepped away to learn more and get rid of the old and allow yourself to receive the new. 
On the 7th day of creation, God rested. How in the world do we think that we don’t need what God wanted. We need rest. Sometimes we need to simply learn to just say, “no”. …. And when you say, “no”….. Be okay with it. Otherwise the stress from your regret or saying “no” will eat you alive and ruin your rest. Set boundaries in your life. 
We live in a world that doesn’t stop. We work so much and push ourselves so hard that we are literally killing ourselves. 

You don’t have to have the answer for everyone, everytime, everywhere. Take time for YOU. 

Thailand days 1,2 &3 …human trafficking

Day 1 So!! I am in Bangkok and it has been an amazing trip from the start!! So many breakthroughs …. Today we focused on local people during the day and went around praying over people and we saw blind people healed in order to see and people with chronic pain healed and people who couldn’t walk, walk. People were healed and it was powerful! Some people on our team even began to speak in Thai when they were praying over people and the Thai people understood and fell to their knees in tears… It has been a miraculous trip!!! I cast a demon out of a woman who was twitching and pouring sweat and heavily afflicted and walked up to me asking for me to pray for her… And in the name of Jesus I cast it out and it latched on to my arm and my arm was moving uncontrollably and it was intense pain. Others from the trip laid hands on me and got rid of it. It sounds unbelievable … But it was intense and it was like nothing I have ever experienced before.  
People did not understand what we said half the time but they knew we came to bring love. So many lives were touched and this was only our day ministry on the first day. We are now cautious and aware of the battle we are fighting here. 
The spiritual battle is intense here! The sex industry is big and it is furious! We walked the red light district at night tonight and saw the grounds we are going to do ministry in tomorrow. There are so many broken sad faces. The children are everywhere and they are right in the heart of it. The people are selling their children!!!! We are going to be trained tomorrow during the day by those who have been here laying the groundwork for us, and then going out with our teams and translators tomorrow. I am with a strong group who has been awesome and I have learned so much already and my heart is breaking and changing. I am experiencing things that I thought were only on TV. There is going to be restoration… Justice… Freedom and revival … I can barely put into words what I have experienced… It is supernatural … Unfamiliar and intense … But it is real and it is a battlefield. 
Crazy thing that happened … When we got to our hotel the group leader told us to pray over our rooms since we are in a hotel in the middle of the red light district where so much evil goes on.. I was tired and said meh.”. We are fine.. I got this” then I got into the shower and I looked down and the tub was filled with blood and I realized my nose was bleeding uncontrollably. I saw visions of death and pain and things that have happened in this room. It would not stop bleeding for 5 minutes and then finally I began to pray and I prayed over the room and when I said that there will be no more blood shed in this room and that the blood of Jesus is powerful and covers me, my nose stopped bleeding instantly. Bizarre!!!! And when I left my room a girl on my team said, ” so I feel like we need to go out prepared and claim the blood of Jesus because that is the only power we have!” I told her what happened to me minutes before and it was amazing! 
Then when I went into my room the closet had handprints and marks on the smoky glass door that were multiplying from the inside. ( sounds crazy ) I was freaked out but then I asked God to show me why this was happening and if it was a spirit or a sign… And I saw children and faces in the glass. And I opened the door and my roomate walked over and said ” what just happened, because I just saw a little boy skipping out of the closet like he was just freed” God told me that he wanted me to open the doors that nobody is willing to open out of fear because if I don’t, then who will.  

Random things people prophesied to me today: 
A girl who didn’t know me and didn’t know about my brother committing suicide last week came up to me and said ” God wanted me to tell you that it’s not your fault and you need to stop blaming yourself and put your focus back on the mission he has you on” I told her that was crazy that she said that because I have been struggling with self blame with my brother’s death. 
Another guy came up to me who didn’t know me.. Said that God gave him a vision that I had been working on a farm and God is preparing me to protect people at this farm .. I told him I’ve been working on Kendelton Farms in Houston, Texas and I have been houng there on safe house for women and children survivors of human trafficking. He was amazed.. As was I …
Then another girl came up to me and said that God told her that I have been struggling with a rough past and a lack of family but that He will bring people into my life to become a new family and He has me where I am for a purpose. 
Then Daniel (a pastor preaching at the church in Bangkok we visited) pointed to me in the middle of the service and said he had a vision and declared it before the church about how he saw me standing in the middle of the street and having headlights come straight at me and I was just staring into the headlights… And then the car didn’t hit me and I survived and that God is doing some deer in the headlights moments in my life recently (which He clearly has) and that I am going to survive even though it looks like I’m about to be hit. 
SO needless to say … This has been a powerful trip and it’s only day one. These are just a few things on my heart that I can remember from today… I started off being freaked out and now I just realize that I am protected and purposed.
~~~~~~~~~~~<<<
Day 2 

This is the second day and the miracles have not stopped. From the moment we walked up and saw rain in the forecast and gray skies above us, we knew God was going to do great things. We left the hotel and walked to a local human trafficking rescue chapel. As soon as we all took off our shoes outside of the door and went inside the rain began to pour down. Service itself was awesome. God did amazing things. When we left, we went outside in the rain stopped. The ground was wet and our shoes were dry. We walked back to the hotel and when we got inside the rain poured down again. The forecast said that it was supposed to rain every day, and we have not gotten wet yet. 
While we were in the church our leader told us to go over to the women and start praying for them. We don’t speak the language so we don’t know what they need prayer for. But we believe that when we pray in the Holy Spirit that their spirit will understand our prayers regardless of the language. The women that came up to me I was given visions of different things to pray for them for. As I would pray over one girl for forgiveness of her abortion she finally let go and began to weep even though she didn’t understand my words. The next girl I prayed that God would give her the husband and children she has been desiring. She began to weep and nodded her head yes. Over all of them I prayed that they will feel security and the love that they were never given will be given to them in new ways. and I told them that their families would be taken care of back home, even though they felt that they were abandoning their families by not sending money from prostitution back home to support them. I prayed these things not knowing anything about them. Later the leader who works in Thailand told us that these women have the biggest need for security, love and that their families will be taken care of back in the villages. God told me what to pray for before I even knew. 
Early in the morning, when we were preaching before a group of these trafficked women, our leader that spoke the message was sharing a message of love. The whole time that she was speaking I was amazed at how she was glowing. I saw her shirt and how late it was and it seemed like the white was glowing. I even thought to myself, “I could never get away with wearing white without spilling something on it.” Her message was powerful and pure and brought many of the women to tears. After the service we went to lunch, she sat across from me at the table. I looked at her and she looked different and when I looked at her shirt it was a camouflage dark shirt. I told her that I could have sworn she was wearing white. I told her that she glowed and that her clothing turned white as she was speaking. That message spoke to me that even when we try to camouflage ourselves God will show forth his might.
The whole day the theme that people kept talking about was a spirit of adoption. There are so many young girls who have been taken from their families and feel alone. We told them that they had been adopted into a new family. And that Jesus was their father and they are loved. I resonated with that message since I was adopted and felt alone and I was able to reach women in different ways because of a deeper emotional understanding. 
Different people from the team came up to me and prophesied to me and told me of visions they saw for me… 3 people came to me at different times who didn’t know me or each other and they all spoke the same words and had the same vision. It was eye opening and confirmed Gods power to me. Again, this is something that’s hard to explain if you did not experience it yourself. But it’s real. 3 people told me that they had a vision of an onion and that the layers needed to be peeled back and that there were tears inside that wanted to come out but the process of us peeling had not been done yet. They said I needed to do that in order to cry. They said that I spend so much time helping others that I never give myself time to he. Then a friend back in Michigan messaged me and said he just woke up from a dream where he was holding two onions in his hands and he asked me if I was ready to peel them yet? When he shared that with me I was overwhelmed. 
There was a girl in church I prayed for in the morning and I laid my hand on her stomach and prayed over her baby without even knowing she was pregnant and without speaking my language she began to cry. Later I saw her making jewelry and she put down the jewelry and came to me and just hugged me and wept. 
Later, there was a girl on my team who I didn’t know that came to talk to me and started telling me about her vision for Detroit and a human trafficking ministry….her visions lined up with mine and she talked about a year that God was preparing her for and I shared my heart with her and we both saw the same vision. I told him about how I’m praying that God would bring somebody with that vision to Detroit for this year because I was going to be spending a year dedicated to Houston to prepare myself to better Detroit. She was that girl. This girl also has a desire to be a nurse and to be a sexual assault nurse examiner. She shared that with me and I told her that that is what I specialize in. That was a divine appointment. Before she knew who I was, she added me on Facebook because she felt like she wanted to connect with me. My Facebook was private and she didn’t know what my specialty was but for some reason she felt she wanted to connect with me. I told her that I had been reading the chapter in the bible, Isaiah 61 and that I felt she needed to read it to. She said that she has been meditating on that same passage for weeks. 

ONE OF THE BIGGEST MOMENTS OF AWE- we were walking from the red light district back to the hotel. While walking there was a man walking beside us. He was wearing an Australian shirt. Our group was in a hurry to get back to the hotel because we were late. But I thought that I was supposed to talk to this man. I asked him if he was from Australia. He told me that he was from Sweden. He said that he was here for word and to do some diving. We did not get to talk for long because our group had to turn at the next street. I shook his hand and walked away. In that moment, I’ve prayed that God would bring somebody into his life that day to pray for him. I feel that I was supposed to pray over him but I did not have time. So I asked God to be bigger than the time constraint and to send somebody to pray for him. Later that afternoon, Ryan one of the men on my team came up to me and said that he wanted to hear more of my story. He said that he was intrigued by the power I carry and wanted my insight. He said that he saw me talking to this man and wanted to know more. I told him about my burden for the hearts of the men that buy the women for sex, I told him about my heart for the traffickers. About how I feel that they are filling a void and that they have an addiction and they are struggling too. He commended me for stopping to talk to that man. Later that evening we went out on a night mission on the streets. When we got back from the red light district we shared stories about what happened. Ryan stood up and told us about man he stopped in the street in the red light district. He said that he got the chance to pray over a guy that he walked up to because he was wearing an Australian shirt and asked him , ” are you from Australia.” Then the guy told him that he was here from Sweden and was doing diving and his name was Stefan…….. He got to pray over the man and he told us about it. It was amazing that God used him to reach the guy that I saw earlier that day, especially in a city as big as Bangkok!!!! That right there is divine intervention.
When we went out in the red light district and went into one of the strip clubs it was eye-opening. The strip clubs that I minister in, in Detroit are much different. Here in Thailand the girls are sent in from the villages to work in the strip clubs. They send the money back to the family and is considered honorable. When we walked into ours we looked at all the girls on the stage that have numbers on them. You are supposed to choose a number for the girl and they bring her to your table. They get paid based on services and the amount of drinks you buy them. As the woman danced, I prayed for the Lord to open my eyes to which girl he wanted me to bring to the table to pray with and show love to. I asked him to show me the child in the room. There was a girl on the other side of the dance floor that was facing away from me. It was almost as though God shined a light on her. And I decided that I wanted to choose her. When she turned around and looked towards our table I could see that she was only a child. The mamason (lady pimp) brought me to her and I led her back to my table. She spoke very broken English. She was about 11 or 12 years old. She said that it was her first day. She was very timid and scared. She had blisters on her feet from it being the first time she wore high heels. The shoes were much too big for her tiny feet. She was barely wearing any clothing. When I ordered her drinks, I told her that I was not going to buy her alcohol and that she was safe to sit and drink with me. And I sat there with her and just hugged her and told her how precious she was and that God was going to take care of her and make a way for her to be free. She said that she loved singing and that she wanted to go to school and finish someday to be a singer. My heart broke for her. And it reminded me of my purpose. It reminded me of why I do what I do. To go in, rescue, and love these girls who are being forced into sex slavery. There were Buddhist shrine’s everywhere in the place. They believe that this is honorable to their god. That sacrificing their daughters for sex is an honor to their gods because they are providing for their family. This is the perfect opportunity for me to tell them about Jesus and that they can choose a God who loves them regardless of where they have been or what they’re about to go through until they find freedom. And that they are already forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Jesus. That they have hope for healing and redemption. And that they still have worth. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Day 3 forgive any grammar errors. I’m exhausted!! 😊 

Many people think that women in prostitution have a choice and they do it because they want to… Well… That’s a lie….

On day two we went to the local ministry here where they give the women who have been rescued from human trafficking jobs making shirts and jewelry and the sales fund their rescue program and give them a salary and a way to make money outside of prostitution. I bought one of the shirts that said “light up the darkness”. Today at the church I was sitting in the back and in the church was all of the rescued women who have been taken in for shelter and restoration. I felt led to go up to the front pew and lay my hands on a girl and pray over her. The act of going to the front of the church made me very uncomfortable but I began to pray over her in English and she only spoke Thai. As I was praying over her she began to laugh uncontrollably. I was praying in English that the childhood that she was robbed of would be given back to her and that she would have the joy and laughter of a child. Her laughter would not stop and it was contagious. People around her began to feel that same joy and began to laugh uncontrollably. It was beautiful. She looked at me with tears in her eyes after I finished praying.. And In broken English she pointed at my shirt and said, “that’s shirt is that I made”. I knew in that moment that God called me from the back of the room to the front to pray over her for a purpose. 

During breakfast in our hotel lobby our pastor stood up and started telling us what we were going to do for the rest of the day … There were other people in the restaurant eating and my eyes were turned over to a man sitting on the left side of the room and I started praying for him and sensing anger in him. He was facing away from our group and was on the other side of the room but I saw spirits of darkness and anger around him. Once our pastor started praying for our team at our table, when he said “Jesus” the man across the room turned around and waved has hands around and yelled out in anger, ” shut up, just shut up, shut up” the waiter came to him to calm him down and I prayed that God would calm the man and remove the spirits of anger surrounding him. The man immediately stood up and walked out of the restaurant. It was intense! The name of Jesus is powerful. There is so much going on in the spiritual realm that we do not see. And this confirmed that for me once again. 
In a village that our team went up to a miracle happened where a lady had a giant cobra come towards her and when it raised up to attack her, she said, ” If this Jesus that my sister believes in is really the one true God then leave form me and let me live. The cobra dropped down and went away. This was so symbolic. The fact that it balled is amazing in itself but I’m not completely shocked because God is so powerful…. But it’s symbolic as well because in the bible it talks about how satan was a serpent. The things that are happening here in Thailand are beyond belief and I am being stretched so much in my faith!!!
As we left to head to a new place in Thailand, we went to the airport to catch a local flight. I asked God to show me the men in the room that I needed to pray for and I asked him to point out the men who were about to fly to the villages and buy the girls and bring them back to work in prostitution. As I looked around the room I saw cleat the men who were getting ready to do so. I saw it in a supernatural way that was hard to explain. Usually when I go undercover to collect intel it’s all about using my skills to collect information. This was the first time that I actually asked God to point them out to me. I am learning!! 
Then when we went to the food courts I was shown a man that God wanted me to talk to. I walked towards his direction and before I could even say anything to him he said, “you are so happy and it’s like you are glowing, why are you so happy?” And I said, ” thank you I am very happy! I’m in Thailand and I have been able to share the love of Jesus with so many people and I have watched healings and miracles for the first time … So even though I am exhausted, I am so happy” I sat down at the table that he was eating at and asked him if he was happy and he to me that he was right now. When I asked if he was happy with his career he said no, it is very stressful and tense and that he has to leave and go on vacations to get away from the stress of it all. I asked him what he did and he said that he runs the night clubs in London. I told him that was very ironic because I was in London last year and was at the main club that he runs an I met somebody that I gave my business card to that read my books and sent me an email that when I came in he saw light and happiness that he has never felt and that even though I am back in America he will never forget how I made him feel. SMALL WORLD!!!! Without being too specific in order to protect myself in case he was a head trafficker, I simply told him that my mission is to be in nightclubs in order to be a light in a dark place and to show the love of Jesus in the dark places where many go to fill voids and end up feeling even worse after making bad decisions because they were looking in the wrong places. He told me that he appreciated me coming and doing that and that it is a heavy place and he feels so much tension and darkness while he is there but he has to be there to run it because he makes so much money and that he travels as much as he can to get away from the noise. I told him I had to get to my plane but that God pointed him out to me to walk up to in this huge food court for a purpose and that I would be praying for him. He said, ” please, please do and pray a lot especially early in the mornings” that moment was such a reassurance of how God prepares divine appointments far in advance and uses things in ways we will never fully understand.

The Polish Woman-DONT JUDGE

Today I went to the hospital to drop off a prescription and when I was in the parking garage trying to park I had quite an interesting experience… There was an SUV that kept backing in and out of a space trying to get out. There was at least 10 cars behind me waiting to get past this car. Finally when the driver pulled in one more time before she reversed the three cars in front of me zoomed past and I followed around we were all frustrated. I looked back at the car and it was an old lady in there.. The remaining cars that were waiting continue to zoom past behind me. I parked one floor up and I had a feeling that something wasn’t right. I walked down to the next level in the parking garage and went up to the car door of the lady that was again trying to reverse out of a space. I went to her driver side window and asked her if she was in need of help. She said, “yes I am”. I said how about you get into the passenger seat and I drive your car out of here for you. She immediately got out and went around to the passenger side no questions asked. As I drove down a couple of the ramps I talked to her to try to figure out what was going on she said that she had eyes surgery today and it was supposed to wait but she had to get back home right away so she left the office early. Her family was too busy to drive her to her eye surgery today. I told her that it was not a good idea for her to leave right now and that she should wait. I sat in the car with her for 20 minutes while she told me stories of her coming to this country with only five dollars in her pocket. It didn’t look like her eye condition was getting better enough to drive so I parked her car in a different spot and brought her inside with me to fill my prescription. While we waited for my prescription to get filled and we had lunch and continued to chat. She was the sweetest 80-year-old lady I have met. Of course I am biased towards Polish people but she had a lot of wisdom to share and she had quite an interesting story. Once her vision came back to normal I walked her back to her car and made sure that she got out of the parking garage okay. She thanked me and told me that God sent an angel to help her today and that she was very grateful. I learned a lesson in humility today. I was so frustrated and angry at this person who could not back out of the space and was holding everybody up while in the meantime it was somebody who was struggling and needed help. I need to exercise Grace more frequently in life as much as has been given to me over the years. We are in such a hurry so many times that it’s hard to see what’s really going on around us.

The Purpose of Hurt

Light can only enter through an opening. People who go through trauma are left with open wounds. When we recover from our traumas and prove to be resilient we are enlightened. The trauma happened but now we have experience, wisdom, and insight. Our open wounds allows an opportunity for our new found light to shine through to show others what we have accomplished. Others who are struggling will see our hurt and how we react to it. If we hide our traumas and never share our stories or experience with others than the trauma had no purpose. Once we turn our struggle into an accomplishment then we can help others get through their current struggle. You cant have a testimony without a test.

We are often afraid to open up because of the fear of judgement. There needs to be a change in our society. Society looks down on those who have negative pasts. As much as we like to think that we are non-judgmental, the truth is, we are!

What drives change?  Change does not always come from an organizational level. Change comes from individuals willing to come forward with their stories and break through walls of silence in order to break open doors of freedom. We all have a story. The most prestigious people that we know have a past that they would never want their peers to know. If those who are in leadership always pretend that their life has always been great, then those who are struggling have less motivation to pursue their dreams because they don’t think they will compare to the current leaders.  Transparency is a must in leadership. The song “started from the bottom now were here”  really does prove that point. When you see a strong leader who has accomplished much in life, come forward with a rags to riches story- that will be a huge inspiration.

If you are struggling and broken, you can be helped. However, nobody will know that you need help unless you humble yourself to ask for help. When you acknowledge your vulnerability, people will be able to help you. We all go through periods of struggle and periods of prosperity. At each of those stages in life we have different tasks. When you are prosperous- help others. When you are struggling- accept help. It is a part of life. We will all need help at some point and we will all be able to give help at some point. Participate in the rotation. Build your community. Life is short- but life is good.

http://www.lavitanova.org