A Mighty Flood of Justice

This weekend our church has been fundraising and talking about the global sex trade, in our support of Serve Nepal, part of the SA Foundation, who are working with women who are coming out of the sex trade and giving them a safe place, new skills and restoring dignity. And as we were singing this morning God was speaking to me about His call to justice. Certainly not new territory for me, but a knowledge that has lain somewhat dormant lately. And especially in this place of working for a local church, in relative comfort and wealth, I am convicted.

We were singing, "You are the God of the broken/The friend of the weak/You wash the feet of the weary/Embrace the ones in need/I want to be like you Jesus/To have this heart in me/You are the God of the humble/You are the Humble King." And also, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is/There is Freedom", "I'm free/Free/I'm free/Free/I'm free."

And the Spirit reminded me - God is the Father and Protector of the humble and broken, something I think we all love and say "Amen" to. But there's that line, "I want to be like you Jesus/To have this heart in me," how can I sing that, and not be asking Christ to change me? How can I sing this song and not then go out to the humble, broken and weak. A simple revelation? For sure, but I don't think I've ever noticed that line in all the times I've sang that song. I've been moved by who God is and still never asked Him to make me Christ-like! At least not with that song.

And then we sang of the Freedom, and I was somewhat subdued and somber. How can I sing, "I'm free" when they are in bondage and suffering? What good, what gospel is there if I am free and that's just for me to enjoy and dance in and celebrate and cling to? The words fall empty and meaningless unless I bring freedom in word and in deed. But I didn't fall to despair because of that line, "Where the Spirit of the Lord is/There is Freedom," because I know that the Spirit is within me, is within all of His people. And His presence brings freedom. So yes - if we are not bringing freedom when we see injustice we are denying the Holy One within us. But also - if we will go to bring freedom, it is the power and character of the Spirit of God who will accomplish it! It is not by our might or strength or will. It is by obedience.

I was once told, "We are not free, until we are all free." And in worship of the King this morning the Lord reminded me of that. We in the wealthy Western church need to commit ourselves to stomping out injustice, whether it lies in our own cities, or in third world brothels. Whether it's in vogue or not. Whether it's safe or not. We have resources to serve the victims, and we make choices that are contributing to the demand! I pray that we will not deny the Holy One within us, and speak nice words of commitment when our actions prove our selfishness.

The Irresistible Revolution

Have any of you read "The Irresistible Revolution"? I'm working on it, for the 2nd time, and it's kicking my butt, again! Maybe this time my life might be changed to the core. If not, I'll read it again!
The basis of the book is this:
Isn't there a whole lot more, perhaps a completely different "more" to the call of Christianity, than what the North American church is living and teaching? Are we not called to know and love and serve the poor, "to place them among the princes of our own people" (Psalm 111)? Was our Saviour not a homeless man, who didn't make friends with the good religious people, but sought out the "sinners" and the suffering? And if He knew and cared for the poor, and we claim we are following Him, shouldn't we know the poor? Did He not care for others imaginatively, curing blindness with a mud/spit paste, and zapping 5 loaves and 2 fish into enough for thousands? Did He not invite us into a new family, and way of being where global Christians are not like family, but are in fact our very brothers, sisters and mothers? Did not the early Church reject the way of the Roman world, sharing everything with each other, even fasting so that everyone might eat? Didn't Jesus say to "love our enemies", and wouldn't that mean we don't bomb them? Isn't there a big difference between giving to charities and actually knowing the poor? Didn't Jesus say that the world hated Him, so they would hate us too?
That's it, my synopsis of a 300-something page book, which is far more elloquent, far more butt-kicking and sure to wreck your life. Perhaps the Bible is already speaking these things to you, and you don't need another book to point out the things you've already heard. Or perhaps you are easily forgetful, and culturally stuck, and you can easily skip the "tough" words of Jesus. Perhaps you're like me.
So if you are, if you are wondering if you're missing something, if Christian faith is supposed to be more than what you're living right now. Then buy, borrow, whatever, get the book! And read it. And ask God to give you the courage to read and hear all the words of Christ, not just the ones that would our lives happier, easier, nicer. I don't think Jesus is in that business!

(The Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne)

Child - Sex - Slaves

"The boss is introduced to me by my local contact as "the chairman" - and half-jokingly "the underworld king". At this, the chairman smiles tightly - and it is hard to tell if he is flattered or angry...
He is disarmingly open about all this - explaining how he lies to the families, buys the girls, and then forces them into brothels....
He agrees to show me round his patch. A maze of dark crowded alleys, throbbing with karaoke music. Young girls hover inside the bars - some smiling, some not....
I met one girl who was 11. And another 14-year-old who believed she had been hired as a waitress, but ended up being raped by a Korean tourist who had paid for sex with a virgin."

Last week I was writing about our local brothel street, but as sad as that is, this story opens up a deeper and sadder reality. This is human trafficking, this is sexual slavery and we are talking about children! Read this article from BBC about sex slavery in the Philippines, but be ready, because it isn't for a moment vague about the world it is describing.
You may not have wanted to know, but I'm sorry I don't think not knowing is any ones' right. Please people - ask God, or examine your conscience, and decide what you can do, what you will do. And then determine to makes steps toward that goal TODAY! To read the article, click HERE.

Visayas' Secret

Just around the corner from our neighbourhood is a street called Visayas, a normal, Quezon City busy street. During the day Visayas is nothing special, but at night she tells a secret. A half dozen innocuous little shops turn on their lights, set out tables and populate them with pretty girls in skimpy outfits. The Blind Tiger, the Lavender, kind and pleasant code words for "brothel". This isn't the red-light district, this is my neighbourhood, next to the market and fast-food restaurants.
During the day the people of this land are Catholic, but by night it seems "we are losing our religion." Solomon's words are still true, "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." Do you know of a country that doesn't share this darkness? Rich, poor, Christian, godless, modest, brash - in each and every one there is the worship of instant pleasure, profit, power.
And my heart is sad; sad because these women are my sisters. If I was born on a different day, or if I hadn't been given the opportunities I've had, who's to say that I wouldn't be one of them. That your sisters, friends, daughters wouldn't be among them.
Pray for these women who are simply going to work, and pray for the broken, empty and dissillusioned ones who pay for their time. Everyday I am reminded of the secret Visayas keeps, and I can't carry that burden, let's remember to bring it to Jesus. And also make room in your hearts for the hundreds of thousands of women and children who are sold for this work every year.
For more info check out these links:

• Justice for Children International
• International Justice Mission
• I Am Coming
  

Tsunami Dollars and You

The Tsunami tragedy of 2004 has always been particularally heart-wrenching for me, I feel rather connected to it and the work being done in it's wake.
There's news out yesterday from the BBC that is quite distressing - only about half the money donated to the relief/rebuild effort, has actually been spent. The rest is sitting pretty in bank accounts, some 3 billion US dollars! And about 10% of all the money that was promised to the effort by foreign governments has never been given! (China, Spain and France promised 301, 60 and 79 million respectively and have each given only 1 million!)
This is a problem, a big problem! Of the millions of people left displaced only 1/3 of their homes have been replaced - that means 2/3 are still living in temporary shelters - like tents! And that isn't acceptable.
The Red Cross in particular was given 2.2 billion for its efforts and has only used half of that total, and built (to completion) 8000 of their promised 50,000 homes. In response to criticism and questioning the Red Cross has made some valid points:

1. They knew and reported from the very beginning that their efforts would be long-term and rebuilding was a 4-5 year process, not an instant deal.
2. They talk about the efforts necessary in figuring out land claims and proper ownership before homes can be built.

Obviously they are right - this is a long-term response. The question is how long is appropriate - how long can we wait to give people back their homes when the money is in the bank? What do you think?? Check here for an article on the BBC report and a movie clip of the BBC news itself. Check em out and see. Do we have a responsibility to say something about this??

Hidden Tragedy - Fistulas

I just finished reading The Hospital by the River - by Dr. Catherine Hamlin, which is one of many books I'm reading for school. And this book is just amazing, I mean it isn't going to win great literary awards, but the story, the facts, the truth that it unveils are all just enormously important. And to most people probably just shocking!
Dr. Catherine Hamlin and her husband Reg are two Ob/Gyn doctors who moved to Ethiopia in 1959 to start a midwifery school. And soon after arriving begin to see an enormous tragedy going almost completely unnoticed - the lives of women with fistulas.
For thousands of women every year a fistula is the result of a prolonged labour and birth without medical care. The woman (or girl) may come away from 4-7 days of labour with a stillborn child and and hole from her bladder and sometimes from her rectum, into her birth canal. This makes the women completely incontinent and means that she is always wet, dirty and smelly. Her husband leaves her and her community ostracizes her. She is alone.
This is the horrible truth for some 2 million women around the world - mostly in Africa. In North America, medical care is such that fistulas are virtually unheard of, and if one did arise it would be quickly cured by surgery. But for these poor and forgotten women it becomes their reality, defining their lives, or lack there of. And most of them are never cured.
I realize that this might be shocking or even uncomfortable for some of you, but I won't apologize. I've tried to be as discrete and polite as I could given the subject matter. But I want you to know that this is real, its a modern day tragedy, and it is vastly ignored! If you are shocked - let that emotion quide you to prayer and to action!
Fistulas are 100% curable in more than 90% of all cases. That means that almost all women who have this conditon can be given back their lives, if only they could get treatment. Dr. Hamlin and her husband started a Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa which today treats some 1400 women a year, serving them out of Christ's deep love. And for the sad few that can not be cured, they still receive as much care as possible and are welcomed in to help within the hospital or become a part of a new village full of similar women, where they can learn agriculture, farming and handcrafts.
But there are thousands of women who can not afford or manage the trip the Addis Ababa, there are women in other countries, all of them are in need and the fact is that they can be cured! And they deserve to be cured, and loved and accepted! Then there is the Hamlin's fistula hospital that offers care completely free, and needs to fundraise all fo its expenses every year. Could you get involved and begin to help meet these needs?
Alan was speaking on Sunday about getting the info and then praying. Well folks I hope that you will apply that lesson to this news as well. What you've just read is a start - hopefully enough to make you aware, or give you a kick in the pants if you needed it! But I hope that you take the time to become fully educated - there is the book I mentioned above, there are many websites. There is lots more you can know, there is lots that you can do. Please - DO SOMETHING!

• Fistula Hospital - Addia Ababa, Ethiopia
• Fistula Foundation
• Amazon - Buy the Book!

Taking It To The Streets

Sitting around Saturday night we tossed out idea after idea - what are we going to do tonight? Nothing seemed to fit.
Until we came to a thought that really blew our others out of the water! We decided to take the truth about maternal and newborn health and our mission to help them - to the streets! We made many signs with:
- health stats (every 6hrs a Filipino women dies of childbirth related causes, diarrhea kills over 1 million children a year, breastfeeding could save 1.5 million babies a year!),
- catchy sayings ("Send me to the Slums", "I Want to Save the World"),
- and a list of what you could buy with $50 (100 prenatal visits, 15 hot meals for pregnant women, 1 birth with proper care).
And we gathered bouqets of wild flowers, a globe, some music, a birth ball, pamphlets on Mercy In Action, UN/WHO Facts for Life books, bumperstickers - oh the things we thought of! And then the cherry on top - we all blew up balloons and wearing them under our shirts - created our own pregnant bellies!
And then we headed DOWNTOWN! There's a street downtown (8th street) that is lined with cute shops, restaurants, coffee shops, and every Saturday becomes a huge morning market. And at the head of 8th street is a large courtyard with a fountain in the middle, and on a Saturday night the street is full of people coming and going and enjoying life and the warmth of a Boise summer night. So that is where we set up shop, laying out our materials and talking to everyone who went by!
I am telling you that we had a fantastic time! Before we headed out we gathered up and prayed, asking God to send us opportunities to talk with people, to protect us (we still aren't sure if this was legal), and to be with us. And it was clear through the response we got, and some of the conversations we had, that God really honored that prayer!
- we talked to hundreds of people in 2hrs, many of whom had previously been unaware of the issues of maternal health, and who were really interested.
- when it got too dark in the courtyard we were given permission to move under the lit awning of a restaurant.
- 6 different policemen went by on foot or by bike and not one stopped to ask us to leave/arrest us! (YAY!)
- we ended up raising $170 from people's donations!
- a fellow Albertan and I had a 45min conversation with a businessman who works all over Asia, and did know about maternal health needs! It was a fantastic conversation, we really enjoyed it, in the end he gave us his card and told us he'd like to send a check into MIA!!
- then on Sunday morning a women we had met the night before talked to one of the girls, she had come to our church for the first time (!!) and she wanted to give us some money!
So folks that is how I spent my Saturday night, in the company of some wonderful women talking to some very interesting people downtown, and seeing God move! With that last donation yesterday, our total increased to $210! And now we are all praying about how we should invest that money (give it to one particular midwife, buy supplies or equipment?).
The Fair comes to town next weekend, and we're thinking about setting up there!

4th of July, A Rally, Updates, Classes, God

It has only been a week - but I really feel like it has been forever since I have posted! How are you all? Life here is good - continuing at breakneck speed as is usual! I am overwhlemed to think of all that we have covered in classes so far - there is so much information - so much of God working in us and so much further to go!
After just over 1 month we have begun to study LABOUR - woohoo! Up to this point we have been studying pregnancy, which has been really good, so much information, and just seeing how perfectly and wonderfully God created pregnancy and birth to be the beginning of families, the perfect cocoon for a baby! It is absolutely stunningly amazing - (you can insert an Amen! here if you like, or just nod and smile, if you'd rather just take my word for it!).
But now - the real fun begins - LABOUR! So although the homework is shocking, and sometimes I think I don't want to answer another question or pick up another text - we keep keeping on - because we are being prepared and so soon in the future we will be putting all this book-learning into use and start catching babies!
So - some of my recent adventures, or things I've learned, or classes we've taken... here they are:

• Breastfeeding - the best gift any mother can ever give her child, it is an absolutely amazing intersection of the physical and emotional! In a 3rd world country breastfeeding alone saves thousands of infant lives - and with more education and encouragement could literally be saving thousands more each year!
• Abortion/Pro Life - we had a class last week with Brandi Swindell who is at the church here in Boise, she started an organization called Generation Life here and she is involved in the pro-life movement all across the States. Anyway, the class was absolutely awful - no one wants to be confronted with the grossness of injustice and murder. We'd rather not go there, but we faced it last week and two things hit me - one, it doesn't matter to the baby about to be aborted if I say I'm prolife, it matters if I'm doing something about it (whatever that looks like in my life), and two, Women Deserve Better! Women are really being lied to about abortion, the pro-choice side states that they care about women's health and empowerment, but by the way they act they are proving that they have other motives (MONEY). I know that the whole culture of pro-life/conservatism/political right is different in the States then Canada - but on both sides of the border we need to engage this issue. We need to get God's heart for women in crisis, for the unborn and then we need to act.
• Rally - since then we attended a pro-life rally, its was pretty small, our school made up about half of it! But we spent 3 hours worshipping God and praying and asking Him for change. Being a part of a rally was definitely a first for me! But it was good and I hope we can watch God move, and Idaho make steps towards choosing Life, and better options for women.
• 80's Night - we had an 80's night on Monday - as you can see from the pics - it was pretty special! We had a lot of fun, and went downtown for coffee and ice cream - but downtown Boise - well we kinda fit in!
• Prayer Updates - as far as my two recent prayer requests - the clinic is still shutdown, we are still waiting and ready to see what God will do. And Suzette is still waiting, her babysitter went back home this week and Suzette has pulled out of class. We want her to be able to return and be a part of school full-time, please keep praying. There's a chance a girl could come out here to help out starting in August - and that's better than where we're at right now.
• God in My Life - through our discipleship classes God has been really moving in my heart this week - and I am handing a lot of my "masks" and "idols" over to Him. It is an experience that is both humbling and freeing. I want wholeness and righteousness more than I want to look all put together for you, or anyone here in Boise. So I'll seek God. Right now I am trying to learn what it means to be real with God and before others, I don't want to hide, and I don't want to pursue anything in life other than Him (even good things). Please pray for me as God shows me how to change and teaches me how to live.

So for now, I sign off, homework calls. (OK - the pics aren't posting - I promise they're coming really soon!)

Life in Midwifery School

So much is happening here and life is so busy, that I don't know where to begin, but I want to let you in on some of the things I'm doing, some of the details. I could never express to you everything I'm hearing, learning, doing, feeling, etc. But here's a glimpse:

- every week we study Facts for Life a textbook put out by WHO and a bunch of other groups - basically its life saving info that might be common sense to many people here, but has the power to save lives if taught and put in place throughout the developing world. So each week we topple a new topic and then take Tuesday nights to put on all manner of creative productions to teach this information to each other. We get to practice what it would be like to teach this info to a crowd. And out come skits, puppet shows, songs, mimes, game shows and who knows what is to come. This particular puppet was learning about how to stay healthy during pregnancy.
- as a part of our education we are constantly learning about the needs of the poor around the world - which at times feels overwhelming, from watching Invisible Children (please do what it takes to see this movie!!), to other movies on vaccines and world health crises, girls education, refugees, child labour, and more to come. The topics are often heavy and difficult, but we are seeing that there is a world in need of care, and that as we are trained and go out in the power of Christ can we make a difference. Today we had an excellent presentation on HIV/AIDs by a local doctor - it was very very good.

- we also take part in exercises like one last week where 10 of us girls role played as though we were women born into 3rd world situations, as we "grew up" we learned our fate at each step and waited to see if life would give us the chances to move off the road to early death. In the end 6 or 7 of us won the lottery, the others moved through life suffering at each step and finally falling victim to Maternal Death, young, uneducated, uncared for, without a fair chance. I made it off that road - but at each step as we were routing for those still walking it, and I realized that it was entirely real. Infact the odds in real life are not so good. Women and girls, do not have the care, respect and treatment they need and deserve and thousands of them are dying each year because of it!
- every week we have tests and assignments in our specialities (for me that'd be Midwifery), these are hardcore assignments! This is real school, let me tell you - I honestly lug around a entire suitcase of texts, it weighs around 50-60lbs! I'm proud to say I got my first test back today and earned a 90% - I guess that's encouragement for every other late night!

- so every chance we get we try to take a break from studying and throw some fun in - like last Saturday a handful of travelled to the mighty town of Weiser, ID and enjoyed the Fiddle-Fest, we ended up at a makeshift campground where at every trailer people were playing country and bluegrass and we had ourselves a dance - what a fantastic end to a stressful week. We also invited everyone over to enjoy a Newsies Night - we all dressed like turn of the century newspaper boys and watched the wonderful musical - Newsies.

So we keep on, today we wrote another exam and now we begin a new topic again - its feeling rhythmic already, and I can't believe how quickly all of this will pass!