Mother May I and the Middle East

So… raising teenagers huh? I now have a new respect and appreciation for all you parents out there as another one of our girls seems to have reached adolescence overnight!

There are so many sides to every story. One side of this story sounds romantic. Heroic almost. Rescuing young girls from prostitution or boys out of the army. I had dreamt of it for years. Busting down doors, sneaking down back alley’s and while I never imagined Kumbaya by the fire, I did probably have a few more rainbows and quiet nights in there.

And though at times, that may be a part of the story, I’m learning that a large part is quite different. A 5:15am alarm clock wakes me from my short night’s sleep and calls me to make breakfast for our sweet daughters. Suddenly my life, is no longer my own.

Time is rushed doing homework checks and though I’m absolutely obsessed with loving our girls, I breathe a happy sigh when we finally get them all out the door with school bags and uniforms together. Any other mother’s relate?

(Photos with our youngest babe on what we affectionately call “Afro Sunday”)

I know my life is different and I have the privilege of seeing them raised alongside a few other ‘house parents’ who carry it year round. They are amazing and I am SO grateful for them! I love the adventure and am very aware that I am learning A LOT. Wow. A lot about love and truly laying your life down for someone else. A lot about patience! And understanding adolescent girls, especially those with harder backgrounds like our own babes.

It’s been a beautiful time and I’m so thankful for every moment I have with them.

Along with everyday life in Bella House, things are also growing and developing here with new opportunities, not only in Kenya but also…the Middle East.

A large part of my passion is war zones. It’s bizarre sometimes, as I can spend hours dreaming of the transformation to be had in lands of war lords and grenade explosions. To places where my purity, not to mention my very breath can be on the line, yet somehow something draws me. Like a renewed version of Sirens calling; “There is hope. There is transformation available. Who will go for me to bring home the desolate and the dying?”

It was in November that my heart got really wrecked for what was happening in Syria and area. I started praying “God, let’s do this thing, let’s shift atmospheres. I’m not sure how but if I can be apart the answer to my own prayer, please send me!” In December he finally answered with: “For your 26th birthday, I’m sending you to the Middle East.”

I was in Nashville during a worship set and I couldn’t even respond, I could only laugh. See, Jesus and I LOVE exchanging gifts, always trying to “out give” the other. (I’ve learned the best way to love Him are two things - Quality time, and sitting with the poor aka: Matt 25) So this felt absolutely about right. Trumped again! ;)

The funny thing is I had utterly no clue how I’d get there. Just thrown into one of those “trusting gigs”. Days passed and eventually turned into weeks and soon two months had gone by, but then at the end of January the beautiful Skype call came. I connected with others from Iris Global and a relief team was forming with an extra extended portion into the most needy places we could find. I now leave Mtwapa, Kenya for Amman, Jordan April 13th and return to Kenya May 4th (My 26th birthday being May 5th. Sweet right?!)

Here are some articles on Syria. There are currently over 4 million internally displaced people in Syria. FOUR MILLION. And over 1 million displaced internationally. Currently they’re predicting over 3 million refugees by the end of the year!! I can’t even imagine that.

Syrian Internally Displaced Reaches 4 million

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21676542

Immediately my pioneer heart hears this and switches to: “Ok, after years working throughout African war zones I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t, so let’s go in and develop education programs! They can be partnered with counseling, art therapy and sponsorship. We can scout now, implement by the summer and have something launched by fall!!”

And then he spoke again. “Just listen. Love. And let’s get a little dirty. For now.” I watched a TED talk (God LOVES to speak through TED) about dead aid and the power of actually listening first. (By Ernesto Sirolli) Ok God. Agenda’s aside, let’s go in, hearts on the table and without reservations, love the Syrian people in Jordan!

The team plans on bringing in relief supplies and therapy programs, I’m excited.

I hope to tweet as often as I have internet. Hashtag #hopetosyrianrefugees Follow

If you’re interested in donating to the costs of this trip, to supplies or to my ground fees, you can donate HERE and sow into the refugees.

If you’re interested in helping Justice Rising Projects in the Kenyan brothels, we have a new venture!! “Pads with a Purpose”. Start collecting new Always Pads and we give them to young girls in the brothels who are normally kept out of school when they have their period. (Making them vulnerable to sexual abuse) Brilliant right!? We then take them back to Africa with us and give them to a sweet young girl that we work with here. :)

Transition! And a road-trip across Kenya...

I took 5 showers over the course of two days, a manicure, pedicure and laundry in a real washing machine and dryer to finally feel clean. My hair feels so soft again and the funny rash on my arm is already starting to fade.

I’m back in Kenya!!!

It’s always a funny transition from DRC to Kenya. The deep far out places of Congo are a world all their own. Though, I was completely happy and loving life when I left Congo but it was as soon as I reached Kenya, my heart started having what I call “emotional contractions”. Tenderly sorting through the stories of our sons and the reality of child soldiers. The ones we’ve rescued and the boys that have yet to be rescued. We hope to have them at the end of the month and once safely relocated to the city, I will feel much more satisfied.

I would often refer to myself as pretty sensitive. (Annnnnd all my friends laugh) Possibly an understatement. Every story, every teen with a gun, every young girl with a baby, my heart aches. It never gets easier.

But it does get more beautiful. I’m so thankful for our sweet munchkins. But every rape story is still a blow to the gut.

So I’ve been in process mode! Lots of tears. Lots of laughter. People often ask me how we handle the stories. Well, I’ve learned over the years that my Papa God has big shoulders. REALLY big. He can handle every breath stolen by injustice and in his ridiculous amazingness, replaces it with joy. He’s patient with my process. The times I want to talk about it and the times I want to put on a TV show and zone out for an hour.

We’re also patient with ourselves (we have to be) and take time to recover. My recovery this time… Nairobi!! My favorite. One of my closest friends also came from LA to spend a week with our family on the coast! YAY! She’s a professional designer who has a heart to bring creativity and beauty to areas of injustice. And through revamping the atmosphere, help create a place of safety and a better area to recover and have restoration. She’s amazing and owns her own business with her husband. It’s called Disregarden (check it out here)

It’s been perfect. We shopped, got our nails done, ate half the sweets she brought me from the west (So much for pacing ourselves—shout out to Easter “mini-eggs”!) and laughed and talked ‘til all hours.

From here we’re heading to Bella House to be with the girls and decorate the home and Nevaeh Community Drop-In center. Continuing to add a little more beauty to the brothels. 

The only quirky thing about her time here is it’s also election week… Quick lo-down as this is important!! Last national elections of Kenya there were what they call the “Clashes”. A political uproar that cost hundreds of lives and thousands of others displaced from there homes. There was looting, fires, riots. A very painful time in Kenyan history. Now Monday March 4thwe revisit elections again. There is much fear surrounding the week and we’ve been advised to store up enough food, water and candles to last up to a MONTH, incase of house arrest.

From Congo to this. I laugh as I believe we carry Heaven’s perfect peace, so it only makes sense that we would be in places with the most danger and chaos! It is my first time in situations like this where my staff and I are parents to so many. Ha. Please be praying for safety in Kenya, particularly the hot spots on the coast and our young little family of muffins. We’re believing that by being here we will be the atmosphere shifters and not subject to the environment around us. HOWEVER, we did by enough water for a small nation. 

Be watching for future photos of the physical transformation Jessica and “Disregarden” bring to our home and projects!!!

Abolition Requires Movement

I woke up this morning to a blasting alarm. Opening my eyes, I looked out the window to see it was still pitch black outside. I usually hate waking up when it’s still dark, however today and most weekdays lately, have been an exception. I walked down the hall to a room where our sweet princesses were freshly showered and getting ready for school. Though still wiping the sleep from the corner of my eyes, a massive smile spread across my face as I took each girl in my arms. We are obsessed with loving them.

Later it’s breakfast and backpacks and then the bus takes them to school, no longer facing a day of hunger and servicing of clients, these girls adore their studies. As I grab a few more cups of tea, my team and I make the plans to visit another one of our little princesses. This situation is different though.

This daughter does not live in our home. Her, like dozens of other girls we’re committed to, still stays in the village as we work with her and her family in sponsorship, mentorship and attempt to shift a culture with education and a lot a lot of love.

Her story takes a few more deep breathes to conquer as she is still in process. Her sister is a prostitute. Night after night the woman brings men home, wakes up our beloved and tells her to switch beds. Our sweet one then gets up and climbs under the covers with her siblings, trying to fall back sleep as her sister satisfies customers in the bed next to hers. She hears everything. She sees everything.

Our young, beautiful one’s raw environment seemed to paint a target on her forehead that eventually traffickers appeared drawn to her and had started pimping her out. Uh, our hearts. How do you deal?  Just barely 13 years old, her story is not just of one but dozens. In a culture where “children and sex” share the same phrase on a normal day, we take a moment to refocus our gaze and remember it’s not impossible.

Today our schedule was sitting with her in a waiting room after she was screened for STIs. (Sexually Transmitted Infections) Her tests came out clean and we tried to convince her again of the dangers that lay in sex with strangers.

Later that night we heard more rape stories. More accounts of abuse and more brothels that bind young women in a sexual nightmare. But as we discuss the rounds of exploitation we can’t help but start to shift the conversation.

It’s who we are. It starts with a brothel and grows to a dream. Freedom! Liberty! Love’s perfect invasion! We start to hear the cry of heaven screaming louder than the threats of injustice:

“Ask for it. Ask for the transformation…”

Soon where tears had just rolled, a laugh escapes. It starts out small but then followed by a sequence of others you can’t hold it back. We win! We will dream for more and we WILL see girls rescued and brothels shut down!

And so it doesn’t end there. It can’t. Later on we stuff some cash in our pocket and our phone down our shirts and while others climb into bed, we climb onto a motorbike to head to the strip clubs to bring action to the dreams.

So often we talk about “abolition” and sex-trafficking or slavery. But sitting with our sweet princesses, talk isn’t enough.

Walking into the clubs we’re looking for children. Looking for the babies who are hidden under thick make-up and short skirts.

We sit with a beautiful girl named Cecelia and she starts to cry as we share what love really looks like.

In the moment it feels so ordinary.

Nothing is impossible. Nothing is too big. All it takes is love and action. That we would be a generation that moves from great ideas and discussions to the dirty bars and packed out street corners. Love in action. The unqualified, now qualified by love!

At home our babes lie peacefully in bed. Success. Tomorrow we’ll wake up and do it again. Giants taken down with simple stones. Love. Justice. ACTION. Never underestimating the power of our “yes” and the simplicity of a child with a slingshot.

Back in Action

It’s a beautiful night. A canopy of stars light up the dark black sky and the sweet breeze, smelling of a mixture of coconut and wild flowers, refreshes me from the sticky heat.

Mmmm I’m home.

Our beautiful Kenyan house is unusually quiet for this hour. After a busy day of family fun field trips, (pic of some of us above) our Bella House girls now sit around their desks in the living room finishing up homework for the manic Monday that waits them in the morning.

Is this really my life? The other missionaries and myself just had this talk. What!? We literally get to go into brothels, find the worst situations and rescue them into our beautiful family. Several months after taking in our first girl, a young woman trafficked from Nairobi; it’s amazing to see the transformation that’s almost unrecognizable from when we first met.

“I’m taking snow [ice] in my water because Sandra is taking snow. I will do what she does,” she boasts at the dinner table.  Oh how good it is to finally be back after months of furlough!

Not that the transition didn’t come with its drama… I still can’t believe how much I traveled in the last two months. Thank you to everyone for being so amazing and hosting me and supporting me and partnering with the dream to shut down brothels. We have a house of girls who thank you as well.  :)

Their process amazes me. Both their growth and also the constant stories from their past. The more we learn the tales of their little lives, the more we cherish their laughter and every hug that we hold onto for just a few seconds extra.

Snuggled up with one of our girls, this precious one asks me every time we’re alone: “Why did you start this home? What made you come? Why, why did you pick me?” This girl has had more abuse then I can comprehend but her smile now says it all and I think to myself : “You! I came because Jesus is here. And if he is who we say he is, this passionately obsessed God who is the very nature of love and goodness… It’s easy to give it all away and see transformation.” So to her question, it makes me think: “How could I stay away??” Oh to move as heirs of a big God.

This year is ridiculously exciting. Our family loves the process of growth with various projects and businesses and teams here on the coast! Our holistic model “Prevention. Intervention and Rescue” to shut down brothels has been so fun to develop! Sometimes, though my days are filled with long hours and often way too many rape stories, but in the midst of it all I feel I’m just along for the ride as the ease of life is so beautiful how it all unfolds!!

Presently I’m with my growing team in Mtwapa, Kenya and will move at the end of the month back to Congo! We’re so excited about life there as well!

In short, my little schedule:

January-USA /Kenya

February- DRC

March- Kenya

April- Kenya/DRC

May- DRC/Kenya/USA (for a super dear friend’s wedding)

I’ll be sitting down and sending out a real newsletter, maybe when life slows for a second. Until then… This is my first blog back, trying to get into the swing of it again! And I’ll continue to unravel the everyday living of a “normal life” between war zones and brothels in weekly blogs to come. (Normal AKA: Living happy, passionately and doing exactly what you were created to do. Stopping for the poor and tackling the impossible all the while. Course.) I plan to be back and forth a lot this year, focusing more and more on overseeing and delegating projects to the on sight project managers and directors rising up!  To follow more of that process—check out our project site: www.justicerising.org . It gives a few more daily stories from other team members and an overview of what we do!  :)

So until inspiration strikes again! …

Rebel Raids to London Lattes

(Written last week, posted this week… C’est la vie in transition!)

For a moment, a beautiful, awkward transitional moment, I close my eyes and purse my lips, and I’m back in Africa. I remember holding one of my girls as she sobbed in my arms– she’d been raped for a living and desperate for some love. Or I listen, almost holding my breath to determine the location of the bomb blasts of active conflict and I see the faces of my sweet boys who’ve gone from the front lines of battle to the front rows of a classroom.

Opening up my eyes it’s a different story though. The English country side. Scones and tea in the gardens of an old castle, as deer frolic past us and swans play in the brook. What?!

I hold the moment as there are few in this life quite like it. Straddling two completely different worlds, yet still having my heart forever rooted and grounded in the lap of my papa. It’s in these moments I feel the richest.

I left Africa last week, just as our first girl moved into Bella House. A girl who’s been sex-trafficked, oh how honored we are to be trusted with some of papa’s most absolute favorites! Out of respect for our girls, we don’t share too much of their stories on blogs but watching life play out, I feel SO SO privileged at who God has brought into our beautiful Bella House family!!!

I chat with my Kenya team frequently and my heart gets SO excited at all that’s happening.

Right before I left, our “Can’t be Bought Campaign” was launched. (YAY!) This is our prevention side to working in brothels. Yes, I absolutely ADORE Bella House, but reaching a dozen girls is a pretty small drop in the ocean. If we REALLY want to take down this giant of sex slavery, there NEEDS to be justice along with mercy. PREVENTION.

In the first week we reached several hundred kids and hope to be reaching a few thousand per week by the beginning of the new year.

With this campaign, our team goes into public schools and teaches kids about prostitution, sex-trafficking, their value and worth and that they are created with purpose and can truly change the world! It’s amazing, our first class I stood at the back taking pictures and almost cried as the kids rang out a cheer “I am not for sale… I cannot be bought! I’m valuable… I’m powerful… my body’s mine…” In a place where sex with children is normal, this felt ground breaking.

It’s been a journey… choosing to “see” can sometimes be the most difficult part.

Imagine being in the 5th grade and because you don’t sell yourself for sex, you are a minority.

Imagine wanting a snack during recess, so for your bag of popcorn it’s acceptable to find a man who will violate you for it.

Imagine growing up knowing if you don’t get the luxury of education, you will most likely be forced to sell yourself for sex.

And imagine knowing not much else. Your mom is a prostitute, your grand-mom is a prostitute and your aunty is now forcing you to be a prostitute.

This is the life of SO many in our community here.

It’s so… engrained in a culture, and we’ve had our shirts stained with too many tears of child prostitutes to do nothing about it.

With the curriculum of this campaign, we hope to use it as a foundation in brothels around the world. Entering public school systems and empowering kids to protect their body, stay in school and dream for a better future. I’m excited!!

So now I go from rescuing kids on the ground to being their voice abroad. (As of now, I’m officially back in N.America!) They say children exploited in sex-work or conflict are the most voiceless population in the world. So for my babies and family in another world—it’s time to speak up!!

Exciting times we live in! That we would get the opportunity to touch so many lives! Amazing really! Change the world, and now get hot showers too. Life just keeps getting better 

If you want to join us in rescuing child sex slaves and hopefully, well, shutting down brothels : ) you can donate today and be apart of the journey of writing history! Donate