Stop Sex Trafficking! Prevent it!

This is what we get to do but let me be clear, we are not here in Asia because it is fun.   It seems everyday takes more than 24 hours from my life.  It is sometimes rewarding.  Most frequently depressing.  Everyday we see struggling people seeking hope and often looking in the wrong places.  This is what God has prepared and given us to do.  We are his hands and feet mentoring the next generation to become the changers in their own world.

Here is our story.  The motivation and commitment have only grown stronger.  One life at a time we see change.  We see hope rising.

This is Thoeun Chanta who has emerged from extreme poverty to build a sustainable business to support his family and become influential in his community.  He loves God and credits Him for showing the way to become a community light.  He makes jewelry from brass ammunition parts.  Discarded brass.  Truly a “waste to riches work”.  Check FB at Angkor Bullet Jewellery Cambodia for sample photos of this beautiful work.   Support for him like support for us, advances the Gospel in Cambodia.

Please consider becoming a part of our team.  Help us advance with greater vigilance and intensity.

The work is not done.

Life marches on in the midst of the mess

The sun rises and sets, the rivers and lakes rise and fall with the rains, birthdays and anniversaries pass; many things go unchanged in a world wrestling with the fear of a war, politics and pandemics.

Children laugh and play as usual.  Until they don’t.

The threats and actual harm that come to children at the hands of adults who should be guarding and nurturing them is an atrocity.  It is not a new thing.  It has happened for generations.  It is multiplied where the Gospel is absent from the lives of the adults.  Where communities value pleasure more than worship of the God who created man (and children) in his image. When the Gospel is shared and absorbed the care of children increases and thereby their safety. The Gospel has the power to change lives.

Minimization of the importance of the church and is a threat to the serious nature and necessity of knowing Christ.  This is a serious threat to the spread of the Gospel.   It is not just knowing ABOUT HIM but actually repenting of sin and knowing him.  We simply have to help native believers share in their own culture and language the hope of Christ.

Thank you for being a part of our advance into places where the Gospel is absent and children are abused.

Please stay connected as much as your life allows.

Built to be a brothel. But God……..

Built to be a brothel.  But God..,..New Vision School

What if the owner of this building had fulfilled her plan of opening a large brothel with over 40 “guest” rooms rentable by the hour?  This community is overflowing with vulnerable children whose parents work in nearby garment factories barely earning enough to sustain day to day living.  When cash is short, selling kids is frequent. The supply of victims is abundant.  The shortage of cash is constant.

What a joy to be serving God in this community!  Actively involved in the prevention of human trafficking and the restoration of victims and their families, the Livingstons (a/k/a IncurableFanatics) started and now serve as mentors in a rapidly growing (400+ student) Christian school for at risk children and their families.  Bible instruction, teacher training, life skill mentoring, parent education and leadership development are their emphasis. A community where the lights are bright on the outside but nearby the darkest of atrocities are acceptable practice.

In addition, the Livingstons are working closely with Cambodian artists helping them form profitable businesses based biblical principles.  These become influencers and form the basis for new school/church plants.

They begin to take charge of sharing the Gospel and seeing it change their own community.

Through the work of @IncurableFanatics (FB) and local Khmer leadership, a small Christian Fellowship has been planted at the school where last month 8 prayed to receive Christ and were baptized! This is why we do what we do. This is why we seek continued and new partnerships with like minded and committed believers.

We cannot express sufficiently our gratitude for the support of IOM (International Outreach Ministries International Outreach Ministries) and our own Advisory Team. These seasoned church and missions leaders believe in what we do and provide assurance of accountability to our donors.  This is an integral part of being active on the mission field.  And to our donors.  Your investment in lives is bearing fruit.  We thank you.

Blessings to you from Pete & Debbie, IncurableFanatics.org

Your donations are tax deductible and fully accounted for through IOM.  And of course greatly appreciated.

For what are we designed? For what are we saved?

The primary purpose of man, of the life of man, is to glorify the One who created it and saved us for his purpose.

That thought is certainly not new to me, so I claim no authorship or bright insight to have expressed it.  But…..

This thought has so captivated me that it has altered the course of my life, my work, my joy.

So, in believing this so deeply, I cannot carry it simply as an academic or intellectual truth.  It compels me to think and dream and plan for how I can use my life each day to spread the greatest joy to the hearts of those who have not yet discovered this for themselves.  It drives me to act every day.

Debbie and I share this passion and this in itself is a joy.  To share a vision with your covenant partner in marriage adds both excitement and ease in decisions.

In April, we will return again, as the government permits, to our beloved friends (family) in Cambodia to walk with and beside them in the work they are assuming to change their communities.  Make their communities where kids are safe because the value of human life is viewed thru the lens of Scripture.

Cambodia has not embraced the Gospel for a long time but just a few weeks ago celebrated the 100th anniversary of the first Christian movement in the country.  Awareness at present is very high as there was a country wide celebration and major event in the capitol, Phnom Penh.  The opportunity to press into this culture is at present, uncharacteristically open.  We want to sieze it more deeply with expanding our work to increase educational opportunities through opening strong academic Christian schools.

We have a working model.  We want to seize the expansion opportunities now open to us.

If battling human trafficking is more than a fight against an atrocious social injustice, if it is a sign of broken people, broken families, and broken societies where the Gospel is absent; join us in this fight.

We are not slowing down. We are not giving in. This is our God given purpose and passion – helping families live for the Lord.  Where communities become safe for children. Thru micro businesses and education we help local leaders and believers change their own world.

If you can, donate to this work on a monthly or one-time basis.  DONATE here.

or by check to:
IOM (International Outreach Ministries) memo P Livingston
PO Box 2140
McComb, MS 39649
IOM contact info for help:  601-684-0558 (ask for Karen for donor support)

We are not slowing down.

Pressing Into Disrupted Lives

When plans are disrupted.  When the ability to plan around those disruptions goes away.  When that inability extends on and on and…….on.

Familiar?  Who isn’t.

So it has been during Covid days (and months and years), but doors are opening again.

On the first of February this year, Debbie and I were able to return to Cambodia for a planned 30 day stay.  Long term visas have remained just beyond our reach but we were able to stay for almost 60 days as we both tested positive for Covid near the end of February.  We experienced very minor symptoms.  We were able to continue working right up to the hours before our departure in late March.

At risk kids.

We were able to get a great picture of the continuing great need for the Gospel in the communities suffering from financial, educational and spiritual poverty.  We are excited that the work we have continued is addressing these three factors head-on and by addressing the first two, folks are more open to the spiritual truth we get to share.  It is beautiful to see transformation.

When these things happen in a community already brittle because the default setting of life is not rooted in the Gospel, a disruption of this magnitude is vast in breadth and depth.   Children are frequently lost in the wake or disruption, “trampled” by those who should care for them.  I am not being dramatic.  This is real.  This is the rolling effect of increased poverty following Covid around the world.

That is where we enter in!

We will return again to our field of work in November.  How long this time?

At this point 30 days is our visa.  Now there are new challenges emerging and new opportunities to help our team of Cambodians change their own community.

We have a full schedule of training and mentoring planned and prepared. The schedule looks daunting but the Lord has given us these days and we find so much joy in seeing the work advance while we encourage, enable and empower these great young leaders.  We will continue to build on a firm foundation.

During this period of being more in the states than in Cambodia, we have found new ways to encourage and train. We meet weekly with our team leaders by Zoom etc., and while this has been effective, it is not the same as face to face.  We need the face to face, arms wrapped around each other kind of encouragement.

If you have been a supporter of IncurableFanatics, we thank you and invite you to join us again.  If you have not previously been in a position to donate to this work, please consider it now.  All donations are tax deductible and so very much appreciated.

Rebuilding our support base is critical to the expansion of this growing work.

If you already support your local church and have it in your heart to do more, please consider a tax deductible donation to Incurable Fanatics.

Uncomfortable with the new normal

Greetings from the heat of SE Texas.   I could be saying SE Asia because the temp and humidity is quite familiar to our life in Cambodia. While the weather conditions are familiar, new normal is not.  For me new normal is is not comfortable.

There is a remarkable tension for us in being grateful to our Lord for new and very meaningful work of church restart/rejuvenation at Westway BC in Huntsville.  I certainly remain humbled at what I see God unfolding in this place and these wonderful people. The tension comes to me as I ponder the enormous difficulty being faced by our teams in Cambodia as they continue in intense poverty brought on by continued Covid related restrictions.  We so long to be at their side day by day to encourage and lift their weary hearts.  It seems so wrong to have the comfort of our homes when our beloved family there frequently goes without food.

Then the tension flips as we see the developing faith of our Cambodian teams, the trust and hope they have in Christ and each other as brothers and sisters in the Lord in spite of their trying conditions.

We love the people in both places.

Daily it seems we search for new alerts that travel might open for us to make a return to Cambodia to be the encouragement our friends so long to experience.  How many times can they say, “we want you to come mom and dad” and we have to say “soon”?

I feel the days passing by.  And Zoom, while we do this nearly weekly with our Cambodian families, is an extremely poor substitute for real touch. They and we long to embrace and move forward with the Gospel spreading plans now delayed since January 2020.

We continue with events and desire to schedule more.   Always well received and helpful when we do them here in the US, they provide both education for those here and a source for selling the goods our teams make in Cambodia and send to us to sell.  For several it has  been significant income over the 18 months.  I believe Cambodia has been set back easily 50 years.  We continue to send financial support needed for subsistence living during Covid restrictions.

The church, not permitted to meet and assemble, is struggling to find underground methodologies. We coach them in the ways adopted in so many places where the church has been underground for generations.

We will go back.   If God will open the door we will go back.  And we will continue our work at Westway as God has given us those people to shepherd.

For your continued interest, prayers, and support, we express our most sincere appreciation.

May we see you soon (in some way other than Zoom). Face to face would be great.

God bless you

Yes, Child exploitation in the US is on the rise.

©271 EAK MOTO/shutterstock.comWe are hearing more about human-trafficking in the US due to the flow of lives across our southern border, many are children who are accompanied to the border from the south and are abandoned as soon as the “adult” transporting them can flee into the US.

This is human trafficking:

“the unlawful act of transporting or coercing people in order to benefit from their work or service, typically in the form of forced labor or sexual exploitation.”

The purpose of this post is not political.  It is protective.  The children being exploited as “tickets” to cross into the US in a presumed family are frequently exploited sexually along the way to our border and then abandoned without education, income, safety or guardians once they get across our border.  Such children are then prime for another round of exploitation after arriving in the US.

Be against human-trafficking.  For the safety of the children,  be against it.  Don’t pretend it isn’t happening or is just a handful of cases.  It is dominant and the success of exploiting children in this way increases the number of people who do it.

Stop it!

Join us in the battle.  Invite us to hold a Human Trafficking Awareness Event in you church, school, business or neighborhood.

You alone can make a difference.

 

Same same, but different.

“Same same but different” is a phrase used in the markets in Asia.  When you want something red but they only have blue,  the seller says “same same but different”.   Or if you want something in a large size but they only have small,  again, “same same but different”.  The sale is more important than you getting what you want.

While 2021 is almost upon us, 12 new months, the same as any year, let’s pray for a big difference and not so much “same same”.

Angkor Jewellry
Facebook: Made27

For six years we developed outreach and strategies for strengthening the local believing community so that their testimony grew in impact.  We returned to the US confident that the Lord had begun a good work.  Then Covid brought the strangest and strongest challenge – and we were concerned.

Our ability to sell jewelry which provides support to the brass artisan group ceased.  We could not schedule human trafficking awareness events where we also sell goods. Import of jewelry stopped.

We are now scheduling events again.  Contact Pete for info.  Engage your group in this serious battle for freedom.

The school was forced to close by government edict even with no Covid infections in the students or staff.  It remained closed for 7 months.  This could have been devastating.  In fact for many businesses it was.  But our compassionate supporters stepped up and helped with sustaining donations to insure the school could hold its staff and continue to work outside the school with the kids and families.  What a blessing.

The school has focused on becoming self-sustaining and the closure brought the tuition income to zero instantly.  The committed staff volunteered to take a 50% pay cut just to stay engaged and our donors stepped in.  What a compassionate step.

Now, we are back to regrowing the businesses and the school.  We are looking to expand and start another school.  We are looking to return to assist.  Even if we cannot return permanently, we plan to return to advance the work.

Covid has changed the world.

If you have been engaged with us through financial support in 2020 or earlier, we say thank you.  You have kept us advancing.

If you would like to engage for 2021, please consider well the accomplishments that we expect for 2021 and beyond and make your tax deductible gift here.  IncurableFanatics donor info

Join with us for 2021.  Give to your church first, if you want to give to additional causes, please consider this.

New Vision School extends huge THANK YOU

One of the works of Incurable Fanatics has been to train and empower local leaders, those who suffer with the bad and rejoice with the good right in their own neighborhood, to stop the circumstances of child trafficking themselves.  Say NO, and then put action to the words.

At New Vision School Cambodia this is what these young leaders are doing.  Changing their own lives and building a better future for the children in their community.

Covid 19 hit and the tuition stopped because jobs stopped.  Jobs stopped because factories closed.  Many schools went bankrupt in short order.  Many closed and terminated teachers.  At New Vision School, the work is not just about the classroom.  It is about changing their world.  So the teachers went on 1/2 salary but kept working so they could keep track of the children, their safety and provide at home lessons.  All while no tuition was being received.

But generous donors stepped up to form a bridge to help them continue on.  And they have.

And they want to say thank you.  Watch the short video.  It is a real THANK YOU.

If you would like to support the work, tax deductible donations are received DONATE HERE

 

Watch VIDEO LINK: New Vision School expresses huge THANK YOU to donors

Seeing the real message of half-time SB24

Trying to make sense of Super Bowl 54 halftime “entertainment”.

Because of the value of all human life, because of my view of women inspired by God’s Word, because I have worked in human trafficking prevention and recovery and because I have seen the entry doors to brothels with children and young slaves inviting perpetrators of evil to enter in, because I know that these invitations lead to the decay and destruction of dignity, equality, honor, respect and even perceptions of the value of an individuals life; I am appalled by the halftime show of Super Bowl 54.

Last night, for the little I watched, I was peering at the “designed to entice entry to the brothel” value of women and young (very young) girls. I have seen where this goes and it is destructive to life. It certainly debases women and emboldens an objectifying view of all women.

How many men watching in bars, homes and even in their churches last night, were pushed toward lustful thoughts? How many let those thoughts run unchecked?

It hurt my heart to see it elevated as “entertainment”.

Ephesians 5:3 my dear friends is so fitting.

Dads. Next time such a display comes to your TV take your sons and daughters from the room.

Dads. Tell the NFL, and Fox Sports you would not want your daughters on that stage (even if they were paid huge amounts of money – does the dignity of your wife or daughter have a price tag?). You don’t want them aspiring to be stars of openly suggestive behavior. That is well below the design of God for women. And this is happening at a time when there is acute awareness in the US thru #metoo.

Dads, what is your life displaying to your children?

Last night, I had to get up and do dishes. My heart aches for the lost view and value of purity in the world today.

Dads, lead the charge to restore it in your home.

You can join us in this fight by supporting our drive to grow awareness to the pressures resulting in human trafficking and the drive to end it- here, there, anywhere!  DONATE