Your thoughts and prayers are needed!

"In a dry and weary land, You are my water." Fitting that I have spent the last two weeks in the Gobi and Talamakan Deserts, this song has been playing through my head for days and during this time I have found myself taking comfort in these words. For the last seven days I have found myself not in an actual desert but a spiritual one where I faced one hurdle after another, each larger then the last. Needless to say it has been an extremely difficult and stressful time. Now is not the time or the place to share the details, but I am asking you all to keep me in your thoughts and prayers: currently I am physically and emotionally exhausted.

At the moment I am in Chengdu, Sichuan with a roof over my head and amazing people who are planning and working on my behalf in Seattle. Keep them in your prayers as well that God will continue to open doors and heal my body while I rest.

In times of despair it is important to be thankful... so in no particular order: I am thankful for my mom, who talked me out of the bottom of the hole this afternoon when I didn't know what to do; my father for his swift action, worry, and for paying my phone bill; my blackberry for working in China; the hostel staff who said I could pay for my room at the end of my stay; the Americans on the plane who reassured me that it would be alright; the Wongs, Lynne, Jeff and the entire Overlake Community who is rallying around me thousands of miles away; the stranger in the Urumqi airport who gave me 300 yuan; and the girl in the hostel who also gave me money to get to the airport, and the two Israelis who bought me dinner. Finally for God, for quieting my heart, for planting the seed for help before I ever left Seattle, but mostly for opening the way to a refuge from the storm.