This morning at 4:30, I drove our 19 year old daughter, Jo, to the bus station in Portland so she could get to Newark to stay at a friend's house.  From there, they will be joining 10 others at JFK airport on New Year's Day to fly to Cambodia for two weeks of working with ministries that are rescuing children from human trafficking.  From there she goes rigth back to her next semester of college.

While she was home for Christmas, I read aloud to her from a text book she had to read on the topic of the modern slave trade, and Cambodia is one of the hot spots (although, just this fall, there was an arrest in the Portland area of a restaurant owner who was holding immigrants as slaves in the restaurant's basement).  The topic is heart breaking. (Read about the topic here:  http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/ )  Sue, Naomi and I, as well as a couple of house guests, were so moved and angered and frustrated by what I was reading.  And I'm proud that Jo, in some small way, is doing something about the issue.  Please pray for her.

  She's not ours any more, and, I guess she never really was.  But this beautiful woman, loaned to us by our Creator - her Creator - is now going to spend time with, and love on children who, in some cases, have been sold by their parents into sex slavery.  It's a crazy world. 

What hit me today was that this is what life as Jo's parents will be like from now on.  She will be away more than home.  There'll always be another bus, plane or train to catch.  Naomi, also in college, is more of a home body, but even she spends more nights in her dorm room than in her room she grew up in.  They're growing up, or are grown up, and that's how it's supposed to be.  It makes me proud... and very sad. 

in 1991, after being told Sue couldn't become pregnant, we prayed, along with our whole church, that God would bless us with a child in spite of the medical situation.  We now have three daughters.  Each time we stood before our church and dedicated them to the Lord.  We told Jesus the girls were, first and foremost, His, not ours.  We didn't realize how quickly 19 years would pass, of course, but they have, and God has been faithful to our family every day.  Now I might not see Jo again until summer, and she will have been to the other side of the globe during that time.  We'll probably see Naomi for one week during that same time.  We wouldn't want it any other way, but it makes me sad... and proud.