Hello family & friends, I trust that you all had a relaxing holiday season

and are keeping warm during this cold winter. (Un-less you are lucky enough to be someplace warm, in which case enjoy

your blessing!) I apologize for how long it has taken me to get this update out, if you would like more frequent, but smaller, updates please feel free to add me as a friend on Facebook.

As you may recall I began my work with the organization Youth With a Mission (YWAM) last spring. I participated in a Discipleship Training School (DTS) from April through September, based out of Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, with an out-reach in Mexico and Central America. I then worked as YWAM staff for the month of October in Kailua-Kona, as-sisting with preparations for the organization’s big 50th anniversary gathering. I returned home to Maine in No-vember due to a parasitic illness which began while on outreach. Maine was the best place to seek medical at-tention and rest. While regaining my strength I have been working with (and indeed living at) my parents’ family support center, Hope House, in downtown Lewiston, Maine. I plan on continuing my work with YWAM this year, this time at one of their bases in Great Britain and Ireland. God has given me a passion for that region of the world, and for social justice work.

sarah willsonFebruary 2011 Update

PhotogenX DTS in Kailua-Kona

& Tijuana Red Light

during the day

Miguel & I in Mexico City

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Now that you’re up to speed please continue to read some highlights

from my DTS experience… My DTS was a partnership between YWAM and the NGO PhotogenX, focusing both on reaching a deeper personal relationship with the Lord and using photography to raise awareness of important global social justice issues such as: prostitution, human trafficking, and systematic poverty. One of the greatest things I learned during DTS training was the understanding of how God speaks to me, and to trust what He says. I had only managed to collect a quar-ter of the funds needed for my DTS before it began, but the Lord assured me it would all come in as I needed to pay it, and to trust Him for it. He kept His word! Though I confess there were times when I didn’t understand what He was playing at, stressing me out like that! In the end all my necessary funds came in, and largely from people I’ve either never met at all, or only met once I was at DTS. The Lord spoke to me a word of truth that I held onto during the waiting: Money is man-made and does not confine the Lord.

My DTS outreach was a unique road trip from San Diego, California down to Panama City, Panama, and back up. Our team of twelve drove our big white van and trailer through seven countries (eight if you include America, our starting and ending spot)! We spent significant ministry time in: Tijuana, Ensenada, and Mexico City, Mexico; San Jose and Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica; the northern mountain region of Panama with the Ngobe people, Panama City, and Colon, Panama; and Guatemala City, Guatemala. Most YWAM out-reaches only focus on one or two locations, and our unique format brought with it unique challenges to overcome. Everything ranging from daily finding new safe lodgings while on the road, to getting twelve people from five differ-ent countries through fourteen border crossings (side note: we didn’t always make it all through together), to having our van hit by another driver, sending them to the hospital. We joked that each day brought a new crisis, and even YWAM founder Loren Cunningham himself sent a word of encouragement and advice our way. It could have been a time of great despair, but we chose to lean into God and felt His strong presence with us giving us the courage and trust to walk as He directed us.

God’s influence upon our outreach was evident. A man literally named Angel helped those of us who were very sick receive free medical attention in Mexico City. A beggar at the Panama/Costa Rica border sang Psalm 91 over our team. When we were forced to leave two members at a border crossing with a phone and some money (they weren’t allowed into the next country, we weren’t allowed back into the previous) they ended up being able to arrive at out next destination of Costa Rica by plane a day before the rest of us. I decided that sleeping on the cement floor for two weeks in Mexico City was actually a treat because it allowed me to have something to talk about with Jesus. ‘You slept on the ground? Me too!’ (“Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.’” Matthew 8:20) We were warned by many that traveling north through Central America is more difficult than traveling south, and to expect to be held longer at the borders. Our

longest border crossing traveling south had been a grueling eight hours. Our longest border crossing traveling north? Just two hours! Yes, I believe God was surely with us.

Our outreach focused on Red Light Districts, home to prostitution and a place usually only visited by people taking part in the activities offered there. Sometimes we would just walk

around praying, being God’s physical presence in that dark place. Human sex trafficking is real; I saw minors, young teen girls, selling their bodies on the streets of Tijuana, Mex-

ico. Prostitutes are not all ‘loose, immoral’ women. Most of them are actually

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Visiting the Ngobe in Northern Panama

forced into it, either physically or by their poverty. 89% of all prostitutes want to escape from their work. While visiting Red Light Districts it was often difficult to talk to the women because their pimps and madams, who man-age and control them, would stand nearby. Guatemala City’s Red Light District was run differently, though.

The women of La Linea (Spanish for ‘The Line’) in Guatemala City, so named because it is situated on an aban-doned railroad track, generally work independently of a pimp’s surveillance, so we were able to visit and have con-versations with them. Our team split up and spoke to different women. These are some of the stories of the prosti-tutes of La Linea. Allison is 26 years old and has three children. She had previously left prostitution and opened her own restaurant. Her business was broken into, though, and she lost everything. She is now back working as a prostitute. Carolina does not know for sure how old she is, but she reckons she is about 17 years old. She has been working as a prostitute since she was a 10 year old child. The money she makes goes to sending her sister to school. Rosa was human sex trafficked from Nicaragua. She was promised a job in a pet store in Guatemala, but when she arrived she was forced into prostitution.

The first woman I spoke to was very ashamed and refused to have her photograph taken. When we asked her if she would rather  have a different job she answered, “Yes, anything else.” All three of the women I personally spoke to wanted to get out of prostitution. The woman I spoke to that day that personally stood out the most to me, and whom I will never be able to forget, is Lorena.

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Lorena is a 40 year old grandmother raising her

three grandchildren.She is originally from El Salvador, but moved to Guatemala as a young woman. I am glad that at this point in the outreach I had passed through El Salvador twice and could tell her how beautiful I found her home. Lorena told us how she wants to leave prostitution in a year or so and open her own vegetable stand. I am trying to stay optimistic for her, but the truth is I don’t know if she can take the financial risk that is starting a small busi-ness. Prostitution is the best reliable money for a woman of her age and education in Guatemala. Lorena told us how she prays to Jesus Christ

daily, but that people have told her that God doesn’t listen to her prayers because she is a prostitute.

She has virtually no earthly reason to believe in God and choose to pray to Him everyday. Her life is riddled with ex-treme hardship and she lives as one of the lowest of the low in the world. On top of this, people try to discourage her by telling her that she is worthless, that God doesn’t love and listen to her. Yet she has faith. Miraculous and beautiful faith.

There are people out there hating in the name of our Lord, preaching an anti-Gospel. It is vital that we combat this and actively love and spread the Good News. “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” (John 15:12) “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possession and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:16-18)

Lorena is one of the strongest women I have ever met, both in her will to survive and care for her family, and in her unquenchable faith in Jesus Christ. It would be difficult to blame her if she hated her lot in life and cursed the name of the Lord, but almost unbelievably, she loves God and chooses to worship Him. I feel so honored to have not only been chosen by God to encourage Lorena, but to have met her at all. Lorena’s faith remains a huge encouragement to me in my own relationship with the Lord.

Lorena

You do not need to travel to Guatemala to meet your own Lorena; sadly prostitution and human sex trafficking are major issues in America and the rest of the western world. 300,000 minors are bought and sold yearly in the United States, and the average age of entry into prostitution is 12 years old. Federal action against traf-ficking is limited, though, and at this point it brings in more profits and less prison time for those involved than dealing cocaine. Thankfully this issue is making its way forward from the back of our society’s mind through the work of advocates, increased news coverage, and celebrities taking a public stand (Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher have founded DNA, an anti-human trafficking organization). The campaign to raise awareness recently made great head-way during the time of the NFL Superbowl. The annual event is already America’s largest for human sex trafficking, but this year the game was held in Texas, which is already the state with the highest rate of trafficking (Texas accounts for nearly one third of all reported cases in the US). In the weeks leading up to the Superbowl news coverage of the issue was heightened and Americas were encouraged to take steps of action against it. Please keep this issue in your prayers, and visit Not For Sale (notforsalecampaign.org) for more infor-mation and ideas for how to take practical action.

Thank you for taking the time to read this account of what I have been blessed to witness God do over the past year. We serve a mighty King who can truly do anything!

Prayer Needs

I would be grateful for your prayer in the following areas…

Health: I have slowly been recovering from a para-sitic illness contracted in Central America, but I still

experience daily  nausea and fatigue.

Specific Direction: There are numerous projects and YWAM bases whom I could next serve with.

Provision: While I am emotionally ready to pack up and head out tomorrow on my next mission, I

lack the funds to leave Maine.

dernhelm@gmail.com -- facebook.com/sarahwillson

163 Elm St. Mechanic Falls, ME 04256 USA

How to Give

Paypal.com recipient dernhelm@gmail.com

Check made out to Sarah Willson, or Hope House (with directions to give to Sarah noted). Send to 163 Elm St. Mechanic Falls, ME 04256

USA

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A little Nogobe girl in Panama