January 25, 2008

Before I begin to tell you we’ve arrived safely in Phnom Penh, please allow me to digress about our July 2007 trip to Cambodia.

Before leaving we neglected to check our seat assignments. As we boarded our plane in San Francisco for the first leg of our journey to PP ( a 13 ½ to 14 hour flight), we noticed in horror we were smack dab in the middle of those dreaded seats in middle of the fuselage…window aisle…middle row of four….aisle window seats. We were those 2 in the middle of The Four…oh no this is not good. Some of you who know me well, (this will be too much information for some of you) but if I feel I cannot easily access bathroom facilities, I feel the urge to go every 5 minutes. This was bad.

I turned to my poor husband Don and said, “Oh fix this, I cannot sit here like this in the middle, you know how I am!” He looked around. “It looks like it’s fully booked. There are no empty seats, and you know how many would just love to trade their window- aisle for this!”…OHMYGOSH…OHMYGOSH…….”Do something, Joe!” (His dad’s name is Don also, so as not to confuse the two, he goes by his middle name Joseph or Joe when we are back East. Back in the day in upstate New York…..Donny Joe). I flumped down in the seat, rather heavily, behaving like the chubby four year old I was back in the ’50′s. I could feel my face flushing, my throat was closing.” I cannot possibly sit for the whole, entire flight jammed in like this…I always have to go to the bathroom…I cannot, I will not!!” Quietly my husband leaned over and whispered, “Stop behaving like that right now.” He never spoke to me that way!! Apparently I was getting louder and more obnoxious, compared to the calm, cool and collected I thought my behavior was. I pulled the provided blanket over my head and remained like that for the first two hours of the flight. I was 54, not 4….what a sight.

After about 2 hours and 2 minutes, I pulled the blanket slightly down to glance over at Joe, whose eyes were closed, his head turned way from me, and his chest was gently rising and falling in a light slumber. Are you kidding me?! He wasn’t sitting there, looking my way, hopeful, adoring, and relieved when I emerged from my tantrum?! He fell asleep whilst I was having a Three Mile Island Nuclear to the Core Melt Down?! OH…I’ll fix his wagon later I thought……nice, huh? I didn’t though. God fixed me.

So, this last time we were home, we had a false early return back thinking we had to bring 5 of our girls to testify at their perpetrator’s trial in Los Angeles in January. I had to call the airlines and spent an hour changing our return date. An hour lost on the phone in translations and a myriad of other logistics. A week later, the trial was postponed until April. Had to change the flight again, another hour lost. Then, we were informed Dateline was doing a follow up article to the first one they did about Svay Pak 5 years ago, and they might be interested in filming our community center located there. (Please refer to our past newsletters on our website www.aim4asia.org if you are having trouble following me). So I had to call once again to change our seats, another hour lost. We had to leave in 5 days. There were no two seats together in that vast economy area. Great. Well, it’s for the kids. Pull up your boot straps, girl.

The Saturday before we left Don went to go to our weekly prayer group’s hour of prayer. I have a very difficult time with good byes; this came on so suddenly, I just couldn’t go. I’d be crying like Niagara Falls. Don went with my apologies. I prayed at home, did laundry, and some work. He came home and said the group was praying for us and Adrianna was praying fervently hard for our seats. “Aw, that’s so sweet!” I said as the last seat debacle was running on a loop in my head.

We checked into SFO at 1PM Monday January 21, 2008. As we knew all along, no 2 seats together. That’s ok; we’re on the same flight. I’ll stop by and say hi every 15 minutes as I’m …well, you know. We’re sitting together as the pre board announcements are being called and we hear, “Donald Brewster…Bridget Brewster, please come to the front desk.”…OH NO… probably overbooked and just one of us can go…….quickly we go up and THERE is the miracle…..TWO SEATS TOGETHER IN THE EVERGREEN CLASS. The Evergreen class you have to sign up for, pay a little more for, but you have a bigger seat and much more room between you and the other person!! We struck gold!! God gave us the Miracle of the Seats!!! We both burst into tears. Our God cares about even the littlest of things in our lives. He knew (for Don’s sake) we needed those two big seats together and He got them for us. (Thank you, also prayer warriors, esp. Adrianna!). He cares about everyone’s everyday needs, frustrations and concerns. He is listening!

It gives us and even greater encouragement for the months ahead. We are currently operating with a month and a half of expense money in the bank. There are a number of girls needing a place of refuge. So, we’re making room available at the house we rent next door. We are planning on God to provide the Miracle of Provision. We are praying and moving forward in confident expectation that He WILL provide the funds for our expansion to protect and restore young girls ravaged by evil for the pleasure and profit of others. We know He cares much, much more about young girls satan tried to destroy. He gave us SEATS! Why not sanctuary and healing for traumatized girls, continued provision for the 39 we have and for His Word to be spread throughout the country?

We know Jesus Christ through His church will crush the sex slave industry in Cambodia and around the world.

Psalm 55: 22-23

Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous fall.

But you, O God will bring down the wicked into the pit of corruption; bloodthirsty and deceitful men will not live out half their days.

But as for me, I trust in you.

God bless you and thank you for your prayers, support and encouragement.

Not signing my name to this….The AIM team…..just guess who was behaving so abominably….