While we're used to living here in many ways I still frequently have moments where something clicks and reminds me of just how different my perspective is than that of the people from this area.

A couple of nights ago we were getting ready to go have dinner with some of our foreign co-workers.  I walked to a little shop nearby and plunked down the cash for a couple of 2 liter bottles of sodas/fizzy.  While it's something we don't purchase often here just for ourselves, I thought it was a perfectly reasonable contribution towards the nice dinner that was about to be provided for us by our friends.  After all there were five of us coming from our house (we have a young Kiwi guy living with us).  The drinks cost $1.09 US each.

I turned around to walk home with a bottle dangling from each hand. As I passed people living in our area I suddenly wished I had brought a bag to bring my purchase home in because I realized that what I was carrying could come across as extravagant.  For many of my neighbors what I had just casually spent would be a good wage for a day's work........

Perspective.

Earlier today Rachel and I were walking home from the Metro and saw a little 1/2 naked boy toddling around and trying to whack people who came past with a stick.  It looked so cute and harmless and reminded me of my boys playing 'pirates' when they were younger.  I smiled at the ladies standing there and told them how cute he was in their language.

As we arrived home I was still thinking about that little boy and my perspective changed.  I realized that he probably wasn't sword fighting and that the motions he was using weren't of that kind.  He probably was mimicking things he had seen in his home, someone giving someone else a beating.   It happens a lot.

Then I remembered last night walking home from the bazaar and seeing a woman who used to work at FS.  She was given a couple of extra months to try to complete her 3 months training program but finally quit after not showing up on time, etc.  She's one of the minority who have expressed interest in freedom but are so emotionally trapped that freedom seemed too hard.  She went back into the trade.  She has a little boy who used to come to the nursery while she worked.  The last I heard of him, however, his mother has basically abandoned him to live with a group of kids who scavenge at a nearby dump for survival.

At least the little boy who was whacking people had a well fed tummy, a place to sleep at night, and someone to look after him.

Not a good one, but perspective.

First Family Hug

My favorite photo from four years ago today!  

People We Love

Taken a couple of weeks ago.  Heather is in the middle to the right.
(Just look for the hair that doesn't belong!) 

Joy and Pain

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. 

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? 

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? 

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. 

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

                                                                                                 ~Khalil Gibran

I read these beautiful words yesterday on a friend's Facebook page and immediately resonated with them---yet found them painful at the same time.  

I've felt 'hollowed out' over and over in recent years, yet last night at a friend's 39th birthday party I could reassure her without hesitation that my 40's have been the best decade of my life so far.  

There's a mystery in the marriage of joy and pain......

A lot of the excavation of my soul the past few years has been living in a neighborhood where hard things far outweigh the joys in my neighbors' lives. It's also brought more into focus than ever the depth of joy that can exist when someone has experienced profound pain.  

I was prepared for hard things when we came here.  I knew that poverty and injustice would change me, and they have.  

But the loss that's cut me the deepest and made me reel is one that you don't have to move to an exotic land to feel and it has to do with this:

Letting Aaron go to boarding school was a huge thing for me with months of fairly agonizing preparation in my heart beforehand.   It wasn't a 'normal' thing to let your 13 year-old go, but I knew it was what's best for him so I worked hard at dealing with it.  I was still adjusting to that when Hannah's departure seemed to sneak up without warning.  I told myself, "It's time.  She's ready.  This is a normal part of life.  It will be good."  I gave myself a couple of weeks when we got back here to grieve and then told myself to pull it together and get on with it.  In hindsight I didn't give myself very good advice!  

Since then I've had friends from all over tell me how agonizing it was for them as children started to leave home.  Some experienced depression or started experiencing panic attacks and needed medication.  Obviously it's not an easy thing to do!

I'm so happy for both Hannah and Aaron.  I love how they're growing and couldn't be more proud of them.  I wouldn't change their current experiences for the world.

But having them away from us for long periods is an adjustment and a grief and I wish I'd been more rational about that a few months back so I would be further along in the process now.  Live and learn!  And next Mother's Day Rachel will have left the nest as well.

Children are a ble3sing and oh so precious!  They are one of the brightest spots in my life and I look forward to ongoing, adult relationships with them in the future.  I want to be their biggest cheerleader as they strike out in the lives they're being prepared for even though they won't be as physically close to me.  

There's lots of joy ahead, but sometimes first:

"When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight."


I've got to say as well, however, that the more things that are stripped in my heart, the more I'm finding my deepest delight in Him!

Why?

Rachel and I had an interesting conversation in the back of a taxi just like the one above today.  As we crept along in traffic watching the city roll by (and trying to ignore our sweaty backs sticking to the seat!) she asked me questions like, "Mom, is it wrong for a mother to get into prostitution if she's watching her children starve otherwise?"  And in this context the answer just wouldn't come off my tongue quite so quickly.

It's easy to say, "Of course." and move on to the next subject from a First World perspective, but it's not so easy here.  Extreme, intractable poverty and starvation aren't concepts here.  All you have to do is look out the window as your taxi rolls past.

Hard things don't change morality but they make you say things like, "I know it would be wrong, but since I've never been put in that position I sure wouldn't want to judge."  Things often just don't seem quite as black and white anymore.

Most people that come here ask questions like, "How could G0d let this happen?"

I read an answer this morning:
"But do not forget this one thing, dear friends.  With the L0rd a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The L0rd is not slow in keeping his promise (to come back and set things right), as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.........So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.  Bear in mind that our L0rd's patience means SALVATION." (Caps obviously mine.)    ~2 Pet. 2: 8-9, 14-15a

He doesn't want any one to perish.  He watches his creation struggle in a sin filled world that breaks his heart every second and waits-----out of love.

Dignitaries

This weekend some of the FS staff had the opportunity to be part of a small group of organizations in the area focused on trafficking/freedom from the sex trade to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit here.  The two day event consisted of setting up tables about the work that each org. does or displaying products in the case of FS and being available to meet with those who were part of Sec. Clinton's group or were invited to come and see her. I can only imagine the security nightmare that this city would present so her staff decided to bring the city to her instead of taking her out into the city.  

The photo below is of her holding a sari blanket made by one of our sister businesses.  She purchased one of our bags, too!  

The event was organized by the current US ambassador who has been to FS and has a heart for our area. Hopefully it raised awareness in the State Department and helped them to understand the idea of using a business for social justice instead of just the NGO model.

I hope it made an impact not just in their heads but on their hearts.

While I understand the difficulties of bringing dignitaries into the area (Apparently it was quite unnerving for the Ambassador's bodyguard as Kerry took him through the lanes a while back!),  I wish they could have come anyway.   There's something about seeing a place with your own eyes that personalizes it and leaves a more lasting impression.  People who come and experience both the horror and the joy of this place themselves are those who become the best advocates around the world for the girls at FS and sister businesses who now have hope-----and for the thousands who are still trapped standing in line.

Loving Each Other

It's been quite a while since I've written!  I mentioned that I was sick a while back and I'm still not 100%.  Every week I'm better than the week before, however.  I really haven't been sick much since we moved here so I guess I finally got my turn of something nasty from this part of the world.

As I've recovered and have added back in the parts of my day that I can do I've noticed that the hardest thing is interaction with other people.  I can do chores, pick up Adam from school, go to the bazaar (all of which are fairly involved tasks here) much easier than I can sit down and have a good conversation with a current volunteer.  I normally LOVE having people around, but lately it's been harder.  When I expressed this to a friend recently they observed, "It's just harder to be nice when you don't feel good."  True!

Time after time lately the verses I keep turning to to soak into my soul are:

"Therefore, as G0d's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with  (I pause and consider where I'm at with each word in this list.) compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.   Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.  Forgive as the L0rd forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.


Let the peace of Chr1st rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.  And be thankful.  Let the word of Chr1st dwell richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to G0d.  And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the L0rd J3sus, giving thanks to G0d the Father through him."      ~ Col. 3:12-17

So much good stuff in there about attitudes and how to love each other and live together in community!

This morning I read:


"..as Lewis once stated, that 'there are no ordinary people' and that 'it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit.' Once we tune ourselves to this reality, Lewis believes, we open ourselves to imaginatively transform our lives in such a way that evil diminishes and good prevails.  It is what Chr1st asked of us in taking on our humanity, sanctifying our flesh, and asking us in turn to reveal G0d to one another.......it asks us to recognize that the great relig1ous struggle is not fought on a spectacular battleground, but within the ordinary human heart, when every morning we awake and feel the pressures of the day crowding in on us, and we must decide what sort of immortals we wish to be."   ~Kathleen Norris in the introduction to 'Mere Chris.' by C.S. Lewis


I think like in the Psalms I need to say, 'Selah'!  This is worth pausing to consider!

Slavery

I just finished reading Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (free on Kindle!).  Wow, what a book especially knowing it's place in history, the fact that it brought awareness about the slave trade in the US and is credited as an influence towards the Civil War.  It was the most purchased book of the 1800's after the B1ble!  I learned things I was never taught in History at school.  The high school that I graduated from was probably 60% African American and to think I really hadn't been properly educated about what their ancestors had gone through.  I wish I'd read this back then.

Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated a month before I was born so I missed out on most of the Civil Rights Movement in the US, too.  Even my high school friends' parents had been through a lot that I didn't really know at the time as well.

The book had a few overly long speeches in places but was powerfully moving in others, a great story inspired by real life events that the author knew of.  The chapter directly from the author at the end of the book was one of the most passionate speeches that I've ever read.  Here's just a fragment:

"The Writer has given only a faint shadow, a dim picture, of the anguish and despair that are, at this very moment, riving thousands of hearts, shattering thousands of families, and driving a helpless and sensitive race to frenzy and despair....... Nothing of tragedy can be written, can be spoken, can be conceived, that equals the frightful reality of scenes daily and hourly acting on our shores...."


I wonder what it would have been like to read this book at the time!  Probably not very comfortable.......

As I read it reminded me of the slavery that takes place not far from where I live.  That, too, is something that the people of this city don't want to talk about as well as the occasional person in our homelands.  They don't really want to know.  It's just not comfortable.

Because once you know, then you're responsible to respond.