...plenty of hope :: part 2

  My first post called "There is hope...plenty of hope" started out as sharing a video that encouraged me greatly. But I kept thinking about "Maria" & I put myself in her shoes as I often do when I hear stories. And from that place I realized what a beautiful picture her rescue is of my own rescue from the Kingdom of Darkness.
  You see I was, we all were, born as victims of sin. And there we would have stayed for eternity but instead our magnificent rescuer came all the way into that skanky, dark, back ally brothel of sin, selfishness & pride to say "NO, not on my watch! She's mine! He's mine! I want them all!" And He brought us out into light, into freedom & into a place of restoration.

"He sent from on high, 

He took me; 

He drew me out of many waters. 

He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity but the LORD was my stay. 

He brought me forth also into a broad place; 

He rescued me because He delighted in me."

Psalm 18:16-19

There is hope...plenty of hope

In my post earlier this week I mentioned a lady named Laura Parker & the organization she helped found with her husband called Exodus Road. Yesterday she tweeted this video footage of a rescue mission by their Bravo Team in India. http://vimeo.com/72370568
The video brought tears to my eyes and made hope swell in my heart. Human trafficking is not just rapidly growing, ugly statistics. Human trafficking is ending. People are standing up to say "NO, Not on my watch! I won't turn a blind eye to this evil, I will fight it!" And those people aren't just white people from first world countries. Nationals are standing up to fight for freedom in India, in Cambodia, and in Thailand (to name a few). And victims are not only being rescued & restored for more to come in and take their place. Traffickers are being arrested & prosecuted. A message is being sent that it is unacceptable to treat God's beautiful creation this way. There is hope...plenty of hope.
But don't just watch the video & cheer! Ask God how you can be a part of more rescues like this one! If you need ideas, check out my post from Sunday.
Love & Blessings!

End It

I started learning about human trafficking in 2008 as I was preparing for my internship in Thailand. Since then, my eyes have been opened more & more to the size of this issue & the urgency of it. Some days I just want to jump on a plane and go bust into a brothel Laim Neeson/"Taken" style or SOMETHING! (No really, I actually thought about that one day during my run).
Then the Holy Spirit & common sense show up to remind me that doing something like THAT probably wouldn't be productive for anyone but there are things I can do right now. So for anyone else out there that is learning about this issue & getting mad about it like me, here are some ideas:

1) Pray: Why do we leave this as a last resort? Our prayers as children of the God of the Universe are powerful! "If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it." -Jesus in John 14:14
Pray for trafficking to end. Pray for courageous & just authorities around the world to have their eyes opened to what is happening in the back allies. Pray for hope, healing & rescue for the millions of men, women & children enslaved.

2) Give: Unlike Laim Neeson's character in Taken, those out on the field doing these rescues don't have unlimited financial resources. Maybe ask God if you can find a couple extra dollars to give to an organization fighting trafficking on the ground like the Hard Places Community or The Exodus Road.

3) Learn: Since I'm dreaming of someday being on the field in person doing something about this (don't worry mom, I have no plans to join a swat team or anything), I am doing a lot of reading.  Once you start digging, you find there are a lot of organizations working to end this atrocity. That is encouraging and it means we don't have to reinvent the proverbial wheel. We get to learn from people that have gone before us about what works and doesn't work.  The International Justice Mission is a great starting place to learn more about trafficking & some very practical work being done to end it. Another great resource is the Nefarious Documentary just know it is a very real picture of what is happening so it is painful to watch at times if you are like me. Individuals like Laura Parker are also great resources; she began The Exodus Road with her husband & blogs about their rescue missions. Following any of these organizations & resources on Twitter is a great way to find more of them. I love using technology to change the world!

4) Tell all your friends: I think a lot of people know that this is going on, but not a lot of people know there are literally millions of slaves in our world or that there is anything they can do about it.  If you follow me on twitter (@heathergrace717) I may have already blown up your twitter feed with my re-tweets about abolition, justice & such. I want everyone to know that this is happening and that anyone can help end it!

The 100th Note from the Sojourn

I've been writing "Notes from the Sojourn" since 2008; 100 posts in five years is nothing amazing but I think this blog is accomplishing what I set out to do in 2008. Even though physically, I am in the same geographic place I was then, so much has changed in these five years. I started this blog as a way to tell stories from my travels & adventures in far away places. As I told those stories & shared my heart, I processed them & learned from them. Through one of the hardest seasons of my life, I learned that it's not only in far off places that adventures happen & experiences change us. So I kept blogging, even though the people I started writing this blog for were living across the hall & across town and probably knew way more about my "adventures" then they wanted to know.

  I love looking back and seeing how I've grown & changed in five years. God has so beautifully woven people, experiences, places, pain, beauty, hope & love together to make me more like His Son in five years. If you asked five-years-ago-me where she thought she would be on July 14, 2013, her answer would be quite opposite from the reality I am living. Yet, these last five years have been full of more than I could have asked, hoped or imagined in 2008.

  And that makes me excited for the next five years, and ten years and twenty years and fifty years! I have no idea where I will be or what life will look like but I'm confident that the years will hold more than I can "ask or think according to the power that works within {me}" [Eph. 3:20]. God is so good and so faithful to His kids.

  Thank you to my thirteen followers and everyone else that stops in now and then to catch up on my life. Many blessings!

 

laughing at the days to come :: photo credit to B.Hammar Photography

(being besties with a photographer has it's perks! lol)

summer is here & so am I

  I haven't posted a blog in nearly three months. Life just took off after Traffick Jam 2013 and it hasn't done much slowing down since. Summer is fully here now which gives me a little more free time, but I seem to be good a quickly filling that time up agian. Here are a few updates:

•   Our Traffick Jam event was very sucessful; we raised over $4,000 for the Hard Places Community working to end child sex trafficking in Cambodia! There will be a few changes but I'm planning to be involved again next year to hopefully raise even more funds to rescue even more children from the horrors of human trafficking.
• I joined the twitter world of tweeting! @heathergrace717
• I fell in love with dates! (The kind that grow on trees, not the kind you go on to eat food) I'll be posting a recipie for date bars soon!
• My love of running has an outlet again & this year I'm running 5K three to four days a week. I'm looking at the possability of running a half-marathon in the fall too.
• And currently the most exciting update: I have travel plans for this fall! I've been invited to join a team traveling to Bangkok to bring some hope & love to the red-light districts and potentially other parts of the city too. Since my trip to Mozambique last summer, God has been reminding me how much of my heart I left in Thailand so I'm excited to go back & see what He has for me there. I am looking forward to catching up with some friends during my 10 days there as well. I'll be posting more details as I get them so stay tuned!

The Big Day!!

Tomorrow is The Big Day! I have been planning a 10 mile walk-a-thon to raise funds for The Hard Places Community in Cambodia. The walk is called Traffick Jam and it's happening tomorrow!

Planning and organizing this has pushed me so far outside my comfort zone which is good but I couldn't have done it for a cause I was less passionate about. I've also learned heeps about God's heart for mercy and justice as well as His faithfulness. Tonight, I'm putting all worries aside and hoping for a beautiful day tomorrow! 

The Whopper

Yes, The Whopper. And I'm not talking about the candy. This is a little lesson I'm learning in humility and balance.
  In preface let me say I've been on journey of learning to eat healthy and studying the organic, gluten-free, non-gmo, vegetarian and vegan ways of eating. I grew up with a mom that educated her kids on healthy eating and did what she could on our budget to feed us organic and healthy foods. {Insert blessings on Her here! Prov.31:28} It used to drive me crazy until I studied a little on my own and began to understand what God intended us to eat when He created our bodies. But lately, the more I learn the more I feel like I can't eat anything until I move to a farm and grow my own everything...which is pretty much impossible I might point out. How does one live in a world of genetically modified, processed, corn-starch-loaded, and preservative-filled foods AND take care of the gift of health God has given them? I'm still wrestling with that one but that is only part of this lesson.
  To continue The Whopper story: I've been doing my best to eat in a way that stewards the precious gift of health He has given me. So yes, that means I don't remember when the last time was that I had a Whopper, or any burger for that matter.
Then Thursday happened. I was sitting at my desk working away with my salad in the fridge waiting for me, when my co-worker arrived, Burger King bag in hand. This is where pride comes in. I had some very ungenerous thoughts comparing the bag's contents with my salad.
  Then came the fall that inevitably follows pride. My sweet co-worker walked up to my desk and said: "I had a buy one get one free coupon for a Whopper so I brought you one! I hope you don't mind onions." I politely thanked her and let that bag sit on my desk for about 15 minutes while I tried to decide what to do. I thought about making an excuse to go out to my car and putting it in the garbage. I also thought about taking it home and throwing it away. Then I thought, it was really sweet of her to think of me, She doesn't know my eating habits, and she was trying to be a blessing. So the wrestling match ended and I ate all 670 calories of that bleached white bun, genetically modified meat and slimy, nutrition-depleted lettuce, all covered in mayo. {That is still really hard to admit.}
  After I ate it, I felt horrible both physically and emotionally. "I am a failure and a hypocrite! I just ate the epitome of everything wrong with American food!" This was my pride talking. But I still didn't see it until I went to God to repent for eating that stuff. It was like He smiled at me and said "the only one holding this over your head is you, beloved." Then it hit me. This is what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 7 when He said:
"For in the way you judge, you will be judged..."
I was holding the world around me to an impossible standard, thinking that I had it all figured out & I was the only one eating "right". But when I held myself to the same impossible standard, of course I didn't measure up! So I repented of my pride instead of The Whopper.
  I still don't know what the right thing to do was in that situation. I still regret eating it because of the stomach and headache I had the rest of the afternoon. But God used that Whopper to convict my heart and bring me to a place of humility where He can work with me. Psalm 25:9 says "...{God} teaches the humble His way." I guess that is my answer; remain humble and let Him teach me what to eat and what not to eat.