Why go to another country?

Lately, it seems as if I have a lot of questions concerning why I am going to Africa. No, not about motives or the importance of what we are doing in Ghana or anything like. But WHY go away from your family and home to help when there are lots of people to help right here.

It is a complicated matter to explain my exact feelings on this but I am going to try my best.

It is about "The Big Picture" for me. I think so many Americans really have no real idea how people in the rest of the world live. Yes, we have poverty here. Yes, some kids are going hungry. Yes, some kids have abusive parents. Yes, some children live in filth and horrible neighborhoods. I am not disputing those things even one bit. I am also not saying that we don't need to help in our own back yard! I have a lot of goals and ways to help in my own community and country. I am passionate about education and our public education system and food in schools and making sure children are getting good nutrition when they eat 2 meals, most days, at school.

But when I went to Mexico after I got married... my perspective was permanently altered in a way that is hard to describe. We traveled down through Mexico on a bus to Comitan, Chiapas from Cancun. Cancun was like a very fancy and nice tourist area. UNTIL we got to the bus station where the people who live in Mexico and are not attached to the tourist industry were. We saw our first glimpses of poverty. And as we began our journey southward, we saw more and more severe poverty. No running water, homes built with wood and cardboard boxes, children playing in the dirt and helping with chores instead of going to school. Many meals skipped, many begging children, people in literal rags. No system to help orphans, the elderly, or the disabled. Many proposals of marriage to escape a life of extreme poverty. It is both soul breaking and extremely encouraging.

Why is that? Well because it HURTS to see so many people suffering. It is uncomfortable. It is odd having people look at you like you are wealthy beyond imagination. It is sad to get marriage proposals from young women and men wanting a better life. But, through the experience you learn a ton about humanity. About selflessness and hospitality. We built water tanks in Mexico for 2 months and every time we were with a new family, they would sacrifice their own meals to make sure we were fed well and taken care of. They would offer their very best with an extremely grateful heart. It made us feel thankful for our own comparative wealth and realize that even in very dire situations in the US, we are still very well taken of. It opened our hearts to other people and cultures. Gave me a love for travel and a heart for people.

A heart for people. God's heart for people being made clear. The BIG picture of what putting action to your words looks like. Before I experienced time away from the United States, I was very self-centered (certainly, I still can be). I cared about others but cared about myself and my own needs being met much much more. The people we came into contact showed me how to love people when it didn't directly meet my immediate needs. With no expectations. Just to care and to love and to help. These are things that *I* probably would have had a hard time learning without that experience. Now I have such a heart for people, especially children, that I feel positively convicted to go and help these children in Ghana. I am one person with 2 friends and a big and Mighty God. Maybe I can't change the world but I do feel like we need to do our part to change what we can change. And that is why I need to go to another country. Because I have been given the opportunity to make a difference somewhere and in a way I am passionate about. That is God! I can't speak for everyone else but this is where I need to be for me to pursue a passionate love of people and receive a passionate, pursuing love from God.

Me with a precious girl in Comitan the week we led a VBS

We can't do it alone though. We have had so much help along the way and are praying that we continue to get more help going forward. This school needs to be built. It will allow George and his NGO, PACODEP, to rescue more children from slavery and a hopeless existence on Lake Volta. It will provide education to these children who will then have the knowledge, power and redemption to change their country and be advocates for the children on the lake. It does more than just help 60 children who use the building to learn in. Much, MUCH more. Education is powerful. We don't think about how powerful it is sometimes because we just have it. Our kids turn 5 and go to school just like we did. Oh but education changes nations. And it will change the culture in the Volta region to educate these beautiful children. Christ and Education are their hope and vehicles for change.

Please consider making a donation to the school. I will be money that will never be thought to have been unwisely spent. It is money that, with every "brick" placed, will live on and do good, positive work for years and years and years to come. It is an investment in the lives of children who are going to grow up and change their nation. THAT is amazing.

Children who have been rescued from child trafficking on Lake Volta. A new life and a  renewed hope.

Convictions of starting kindergarten

I am sure you didn't miss the memo because I have hung it like a banner... my son started kindergarten a couple of weeks ago. He is in love. Three recesses a day! Oh my :) Rules teaching him how to be respectful of himself, others and property. Art class, library time, and parent volunteers. Reading new stories that hes never heard before or seen and illustrating his very own book (with an amazingly drawn American Flag. Backwards but awesome effort!). Looking like a tiny boy with his over sized bag on his back but proving that he is anything but a small boy when he comes home each day and tells me about his day. Community, friends, fun, learning. This is what kids in the United States do at age 5. Nervous parents usher their children out the door to school everyday with the promise and hope that they will learn the things they need to know to be successful, informed adults.

In other parts of the world though, things are not at all like this. Parents are trying to figure out how to survive and get enough food for their family. They need their kids to stay home and help them make money or they just live too far from school and can't get their children there. Unfortunately in some areas of the world, these families are exploited because of their struggles. This is the case in the Volta Region of Ghana. Tricky masters come in and convince parents that if they sell their children to them and allow them to work for them that they will make sure their child is educated and learns job skills to help them be successful. The money isn't great by our standards... about $20/year for the service of a child. But the promise that their child will be fed and educated and the fact that they can use this money to feed their other child is, unfortunately, a pretty promising offer. And so children are sold.

Children, the same age as my sweet son, are sent to work on Lake Volta for 14+ hours a day. They are made to dive deep into the lake and face drowning, eels, crocodiles and various other dangers of life in the fishing industry. These 5 year olds are the size of 3 year olds from malnutrition. They are beaten for making mistakes. And often the very young boys do not know how to swim but are forced to learn or never again rise to the surface of the lake. Refusal to do these things yield boat oar beatings or sometimes beatings entangled in embarrassment at the hands of other trafficked children. There is no hope. Their families don't have the money or resources to get them back or visit them. And they genuinely think that they are helping their child by giving them an opportunity for schooling. It is a lie and manipulation but desperate times make parents choose what they think is best for their kids using the resources they have.

And then the days start blurring together. Children on the lake don't remember what village they come from after a while or their birthdays. Little sleep, little food, work that adults find excruciating and difficult, no time for being a child. My heart breaks.

No, I can't change the world alone. But I believe that God calls each of us to use our lives and experiences to serve Him wherever we are and however we can. I am being led to Africa this November and my heart has already fallen in love with the children on the lake and with the kids at The Village of Life. I keep telling their story so more people fall in love with them. So that ignorance is no longer an excuse. The burden is now on all of our shoulders. We KNOW the horror of child trafficking and we all have to figure out what to do with that. I would ask for your prayers both for the trip and for how you can be involved in loving on OUR children.

The truth is, that since my son has been riding up on kindergarten and then beginning, the more I have thought about and mourned the fact that there are so many children who do not have access to the same things our children have. That has rocked my world. Absolutely to the core. And I can't just leave it at thinking because that feels so wrong. And that is the conviction of kindergarten for me.

What this auction is all about!

In November I will be traveling with 2 of my friends to Kete Krachi Ghana for a smidge over 2 weeks to work with trafficked children at The Village of Life and on Lake Volta. We will be loving on them, learning their stories, telling their stories, and prayerfully furthering the effort in releasing more children from modern day slavery on the lake and in the homes of these masters. More info about our trip can be found here.

This auction is a fundraising effort for our trip. The money raised will be split in half and used for two purposes. Half of the money will go into my travel fund to help make sure I am on the plane in November! The other half will go to The Village of Life school fund. We need to raise a total of $30,000 to construct a new school on The Village of Life campus. This project will allow George Achibra and the staff of PACODEP to continue rescuing and educating the children on Lake Volta. If less than 50% raised will finish off my trip expenses, we can give even MORE to the school fund!

If you do not want to or do not have time to or any other reason there is not to participate in the auction... PLEASE consider donating. There are donation buttons on the right side of this blog. One of the accounts is for my travel fund and the other is the school fund. Every dollar helps!

Thank you all for dropping in and participating in this great auction. I look forward to seeing the action unfold. Have fun!

Auction will open at 5:30pm CST on Thursday June 16 and will close 24 hours later at 5:30pm on Friday June 17.

He can make anything new

I love music. Sometimes it says exactly what my heart is feeling but what my brain doesn't know how to form into it's own words. One song that has been speaking to my heart lately is called "Redeemer" by Sanctus Real.

One of the verses goes like this and then the chorus:
"Sometimes I just wish we could say
All the things that are easy to hear
Ignore the injustice we see
And explain every unanswered prayer
But I’d rather speak honestly
And wear a tattered heart on my sleeve
Cuz in the middle of my broken dreams
Redemption is here

And I’m still a dreamer
A believer
Oh, I lost my faith in so many things
But I still believe in You
Cuz You are the answer
The Redeemer
Oh, I’ve given up on too many things
But I’m not giving up on You

Cuz You can make anything new"

To me this is what our trip is about... God is the Reedemer and HE can make anything new. But sometimes we have to be part of that. Sometimes He asks us to humble our hearts and be a part of something we never expected to be part of. He whispers to us and says "you CAN'T ignore the injustices anymore. You need to wear the heart I have given you." So that is what I am going to do. I am going to take the Redeemer to the children of Ghana. Because he can make anything new. He IS changing this country every day. He is using George and his team and Touch of Life to change the hearts of people who had previously thought it was okay to own children. And he wants to use us to do this too. To help these kids escape injustice and find Redemption. I am proof that redemption is out there and these kids can be proof too. That is what it is all about. The song will follow because the whole song is absolutely powerful.

You are the answer, God. You can make anything new.