The First of Many Todays.

This is my last week of work. This is my last Monday at SFP. I’ve been with the Project for about a year and half now. What a year and half it has been.

At age 14 I sat in chair learning for the first time about this injustice called “human trafficking”. I was so captivated by what the speaker, a young woman who lived and worked in Thailand, said that I forgot to breathe. As I sat there in my chair listening to tales of women and men, girls and boys being so severely exploited around the world, my heart was pounding so fast I thought it would explode. When she concluded her sharing and stepped off the stage, a thought – no, not just a thought, more like a firework of realization – stood before me: Maybe this was what I was born to do. I must and will help bring freedom to people. This is what I am supposed to do with my life.

All throughout high school I dreamed of helping women break free from exploitation. I dreamed of seeing them have the opportunity to live a life of hope. I dreamed of being a part – of doing my part – in bringing restoration to the broken.

But I think I thought it would always be just a dream. What did I have to offer a hurting world? What could I possibly do that would mean anything? How would I find my place?

A few months ago, I rolled over in bed and switched off my alarm. I opened my eyes and stared at the white ceiling. I tried to process the reality of the start of a new day. Then, all of sudden, my eyes grew wider and brighter. And I thought to myself, I’m living my dream.

All this time I hadn’t fully realized it. Yes, of course, I knew I was working with a project I loved and was passionate about. I knew I enjoyed my work. I knew I loved seeing women rescued out of exploitation. I knew I was doing something close to my heart. But in that moment the full weight of it woke me up with more gusto than a bullhorn. I am living my dream.

Maybe I didn’t recognize it fully until now because it doesn’t look like how I had seen it done before. Maybe it was because it wasn’t as dramatic or glamorous as stories I had heard about. Maybe it was because most of the time it is just a lot of hard work, and not very many results. Maybe it was because I was so busy. Whatever the reason, whatever I had unknowingly expected it to look like 10 years down the road, it didn’t matter. It didn’t happen how I thought it would. It didn’t happen when I thought it would. But it is my dream. It is my today.

Over the past year and a half at SFP, I have seen a lot. I have experienced a lot. I have learned a lot.

It has been a rough several months. But the look in a woman’s eyes that says she knows she is in a safe place, the smile she can now mean, the laugh she lets flow, the tears she is not ashamed of, and the Life that now fills her is… indescribable. It makes me so much more breathless than that night did long ago as a 14 year old learning about injustice and heartbreak. I have seen a lot of heartbreak this past year and half. But I have seen what restoration looks like too. I have seen what Hope is. I have seen what was dead come alive again.

This is my last week working at the Project. In a few weeks, I’ll be packing up my faithful suitcase off to the next adventure and hopefully to the next dream. It probably won’t match my knowingly preconceived notions and my unknowingly preconceived notations this time either. But as I leave my home in Asia for a while, I will carry each and every woman in my heart. For they are my friends, my sisters, and my inspirations.

I do not know what the future holds for them or for me.

But this is our today.  

There was this one time when I obeyed...

At the end of August in 2011 I made the decision to take a step of obedience. A step of obedience that led me to withdraw from college 3 days before the start of my sophomore year, pack a suitcase, and move to Asia for 10 months.  I didn’t want to drop out of school. I didn’t want to move to Asia. I didn’t want to give up everything I had known and understood about my life. But there was this burning, penetrating truth that plagued me inside – the truth of the presence of PEACE.

I knew peace like I had never known anything else before. I had to move to Asia – and I couldn’t explain why. I just knew it more than anything I had ever known before.

A 10 month “phase” turned into a 2 year adventure – an adventure that has redefined, redirected, and redeemed much of my life.

Often times people upon hearing pieces of my story or finding out how old I am are amazed at me and impressed at the whimsy of an 18 year old who moved to Asia on her own to work in the nonprofit world. Someone the other day called me “inspirational”, and I had to repress a laugh. I’m not inspirational. I’m not impressive. I’m not even very interesting. When people treat me like I’m some mature, wise young person it makes me uncomfortable. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love compliments as much as the next person. But truth to be told, I’m really just an ungrateful brat most of the time. In a rare moment of spontaneous obedience, I decided to take Him up on the challenge of surrender He placed before me and that’s how I got where I am and how I have become who I am today. It had nothing to do with my maturity or strength. I just obeyed. That’s all I did. He did the rest. People say that I’ve done so much with my life, that I’m so experienced even though I’m so young. I haven’t done anything. All I do is wake up in the morning and say, “Okay.” Many times I say it reluctantly, but I know the beautiful freedom that is found in walking on the path marked out for me.

These 2 years have passed. Life has happened. And now this 2 year season is coming to a close. And I am speechless. I’m overwhelmed with grief, gratefulness, excitement, and hope.

                      

I want to process, to talk it all out, to figure out what I’m feeling, what I think about it all. But I just don’t have any words. I just can’t figure out how to capture what is inside. All I can do is utter, “Thank you.”