As you may know Terra Nova Church is deeply involved with an amazing organization called Love 146 . Love 146 works to end the horror of child sex trafficking. Even As long as I have been engaged on this issue it still stuns me to put those words together …child … sex … trafficking. Our church holds an annual event
designed to raise awareness of the issue and raise funds to support Love 146. To date we have raised over $10,000 and a number of Terra people have made smaller scale individual efforts to the same end. In addition to this relatively visable effort, I work locally to knit together a network of groups and churches who work with Love 146 called “The 518 Network”. The network is currently planning a fundraising dinner on May 8th and the second annual “Ride 4 Love”, a charity bike ride scheduled for September 19th amongst other local events.

For a couple of years our friends at Love 146 have been encouraging me to travel with them to South East Asia. This spring the time was finally right and on April 20th I will leave for a whirlwind 8 day
trip to Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines. We will be visiting the “red light” districts to witness the trafficking of children first hand. We will be meeting with Love 146 partners on the ground who
work in the fields of prevention and aftercare. We will be visiting safe homes where children who have escaped or been rescued from trafficking are cared for and protected and a healing process can take place. I will be honored to be there for the opening of a brand new safe home in the Philippines that Terra Nova and the other 518 Network churches helped fund.

Beyond gaining a deeper understanding of the issue by first hand experience, I have a very specific goal for the trip. I’m hoping that through a combination of circumstances … the time away to focus on Love 146 … the people working in Southeast Asia … and my travel companions… that I will find ways for the people of Terra Nova to be more involved working on this issue. To go beyond a once a year event and have a deeper level of engagement for more people on a more
regular basis.

You can participate in my trip a couple of ways. Please pray for me while I travel. Pray for safety and good health. Pray that I will be a good servant leader to the people I come into contact with. Please pray for my mission to find deeper ways for Terra Nova to be involved in the fight against trafficking. Also as you may have figured out … while the timing is good for this trip in many ways, our current budget shortfall makes this trip more difficult than we anticipated. If you are led to and capable of giving above and beyond your regular tithe to the church your financial support would be
greatly appreciated.

I will look forward to sharing my experiences with you upon my return.