I had no idea how long I would be there, so I just trusted God from day to day. I had no idea what Haiti would be like, but I knew God called me there, so I was going to be obedient and just trust him. The first week I was there, I had a divine appointment with a local Haitian named Wesner. He wanted to show me around town and take me to the local market, so I went with him.

As it turned out, he knew everyone. His friendship opened a door for me to minister to everyone in the town. I started playing basketball on a local team with Wesner, and every single day I went to practice, God brought people to me to talk about my faith in Christ. I got to share with lost people and other local Christians in Montrouis about having a relationship with Jesus and how God looks at our hearts.

It was a God thing for sure, and I know the Holy Spirit was just giving me words to say to each person that I talked with. After basketball practice we would go and hang out in downtown Montrouis, and Wesner would introduce me to people. I got to share the love, grace, and forgiveness of Christ with them. I built real relationships — hanging out with them, laughing, dancing  — whatever I could do to tell them about Jesus. It was definitely out of my comfort zone, but I knew I had to be obedient to what God was telling me to do.

I lived about 40 miles from Port-au-Prince. We were shaken, but not stirred by the earthquake. I was actually playing basketball up the street with some locals when it happened, and it was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced. By God’s grace, no one here was hurt. We had no cell service, though, so we couldn’t call to let everyone know we were okay. There was extensive damage in Port-au-Prince and other areas.

In Port-au-Prince, and other areas, the destruction was massive. Buildings collapsed and killed many, and many more were missing. Some people that work on our campus in Montrouis lived in Port-au-Prince in the area that was hit the hardest. Without cell phone communication after the earthquake, they were not able to get through to their families and only could listen to local radio talk about the thousands of homes that had collapsed. We spent the night in prayer and prepared to take them to search for their families first thing the morning after.

As we made our way to Port-au-Prince, it was clear that we were in for a tough day. We were able to pick our way through streets strewn with debris and power lines. Every hospital had closed gates and thousands of wounded and dying lay on the sidewalk outside. We stopped at one hospital to search for our friend’s wife and while we were there, we started treating people with non-life threatening wounds.

Digging chunks of cement out of gaping wounds, cleaning head wounds — the work was gruesome. One of our friends, Dr. Kerry Reeves, had a mother beg him to go and check on her little girl. When he got there, she was completely covered with a sheet. Upon pulling back the sheet, he was pretty sure she was dead — covered in flies with a gaping head wound and disfigured face. Kerry was able to find a weak pulse and get her to respond. He got the girl some water and tried to see if there was anything he could do. Unfortunately, he was only tell the family how to care for her as she waited to see if the hospital would open. Kerry prayed for her and her family and left broken-hearted.

We picked up a 12-year-old boy whose parents and friends some were carrying him down the road using a door as a stretcher. They needed a ride to the hospital. While in the back of the truck, we tried to help him but he had a major head injury and a crushed shoulder. I wept over the little guy, so broken that we couldn’t help him. I felt so burdened that we had to talk to him about his faith before he died. We got down on our knees as he looked at us through swollen eyes. He gave a testimony of loving Jesus and believing that God was waiting for him if he was to die. We prayed and wept with him. We dropped him off at the hospital and left not knowing his fate.

On the way back home, all I could do is cry. Seeing all of those dead bodies tore me up inside. All I could think was, ‘I hope they know Jesus.’ When we got home, I praised God for everything – for saving me from the earthquake, for the people we were able to help even a little. I fell asleep for about 20 minutes and got woken up by another aftershock.

We could not count the dead bodies in the streets and on the sidewalks in Port-au-Prince. Everyone was afraid to go back into the buildings, so they built sheet tents in the streets and all over parks. Many of them are still living in these conditions. One of our good friends that barely escaped before his house fell spent the night standing in a parking lot with over 2,000 other people, praying God would let them see one more day.

After the earthquake, we were doing a lot of going back and forth into Port-au-Prince with different groups from the Montrouis area, distributing food, water, clothing and toys. It was great working with everyone, being used by God, sharing his love and being the hands and feet of Jesus. We were so busy, working long days. It was so hard going back and forth, still seeing all of the people living in tents.

Haiti is in a desperate place as a nation. While aid groups provide physical help, the people of Haiti needs God’s help. They will not ever recover solely from humanistic aid. They need the transforming power that God brings. We need intercessors to come and prophetically declare God’s truth over the nation, to come and usher in His presence into the refugee tents and the rubble-covered streets.

The Red Cross is not full of the Holy Spirit. Haiti’s Civil Protection is not full of the Holy Spirit. The UN is not full of the Holy Spirit. They bring help, but not the Kingdom. Haiti will be changed as people begin welcoming in the One who can make beauty from ashes.

Philip Causey was a Discipleship Training School student at YWAM Pismo Beach in 2009. He served for several months in Haiti before and after the earthquake, and will be joining staff with YWAM Pismo in May 2010.

Interested in going to Haiti? Project Sixty One, a ministry of YWAM Pismo Beach in Central Coast, is leading teams overseas to bring aid. For more information, visit their Website. You can also follow them as a friend on Facebook and Twitter.

Cover photo courtesy of Billy Scanlan.

Dominic Laing: As far as this trip to Cambodia, how did you come to this team and this time and this place?

Holland Prior: It was a very bizarre series of events that I can only describe as, ‘This is what God had for me at this very time.’ I’ve, over the last couple of years, been getting more and more educated on human trafficking, and getting more involved in what my particular denomination, the Wesleyan Church, is doing to combat human trafficking. Back in September I went to a conference at our headquarters, human trafficking and what we as a community can do, you know, like raising awareness, education and buying products not produced by slave labor and all that kind of stuff.

So, went to that conference, met some great people. That was in September. So a couple of months later I got this mass email, I think that was sent to everyone who attended the conference, like ‘Hey, we’re taking a trip [to Cambodia] in May.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, sweet, that’d be interesting. I’ll think about that after Christmas, when I have more time.’

I thought ‘That would be fascinating,’ because WorldHope, the organization I’m traveling with, who’s affiliated with the Wesleyan Church, has been in Cambodia for a long time. They run an assessment center where they do after-care and recovery for girls pulled out of brothels. So they work closely in conjunction with International Justice Mission and other organizations that raid brothels, pulls girls out, and they give the girls to WorldHope, essentially, and WorldHope does the after-care.

Then about a week before Christmas I got an email, specifically to me, that said, ‘Hey Holland, we’ve got a last minute opening on our February team. Are you interested? And I went, ‘Well, now that’s interesting.’

Finally I connect with [the trip coordinator], and she answers my questions, and she goes, ‘By the way, if you want to go on this trip, we need your stuff, like, yesterday, because we have to purchase airfare at least six weeks out and it’s six weeks out right now.’

So, I was, I remember distinctly, I was sitting in front of my computer and just went, (claps hands) ‘Okay.’ I turned around and I asked my boss, ‘How would you feel about me taking a couple of weeks off in the middle of the school year?’

Then I went right into the process of collecting all my application materials, because WorldHope requires that you submit a few references, and get all your proof that you have all your travel documents and everything. I basically drove straight to my pastor’s house and was like, ‘Here’s a reference, fill it out while I’m watching, because I have to go fax all this in right now.’

It was pretty crazy. I was able to track down everything that I needed that day, fax it all in. I had this conversation with the lady on Friday. By Wednesday, I had a plane ticket for Cambodia.

D: Wow. Incredible.

H: I’m still…I walked around for a couple of weeks – ‘I’m going to Cambodia. What just happened?’

D: How long are you going to be in Cambodia?

H: I will be there about ten days.

D: And it’s you and who else on the trip?

H: It is me and five other women, so there’s six of us total. I don’t know any of them. They are all out of a church in Buffalo, N.Y. Their church decided to put together this team to send a team over to Cambodia to work in the center. And the reason I got called in was, I guess, initially there was, I think four, there must’ve been four, that were gonna go, and then another woman signed up. WorldHope prefers to travel in even numbers, and they didn’t find anyone else at the church who wanted to go, so WorldHope — I still don’t know to this day who at WorldHope gave them my name — but WorldHope contacted me right away and said, ‘Do you want to go?’

D: So you’re working in the center?

H: Yes. They call it the assessment center, the girls are there for, I believe, up to 60 days. They’re between the ages of 4 and 14.

D: That young?

H: Yeah.

D: Serious?

H: Dead serious.

D: I would’ve thought they were like, 12 to 18.

H: Yeah. The girls are between the ages of 4 and 14 at the center, and I believe they can house up to 50 girls, and they’re usually full. During [their time there] they call it the assessment center because they kind of assess, ‘What’s the situation?’ Does the girl have a family to go back to? If she goes back to the family, are they going to sell her again?

And then they try to decide is the girl’s family safe? Is the family the reason she was in the brothel in the first place? Did they sell her? Was she kidnapped? Or somehow, was the family tricked? You know, like, ‘Hey, I’ll take her into the city so she can go to school and whatnot.’

D: And then she disappears.

H: (nods) So they assess what to do next. Does she go back to her family? Does she go into a long-term facility where she’s given some education and taught how to make a life for herself?

D: Does the assessment center offer any medical assistance, if necessary?

H: I believe so. I don’t know as many details as I think all the women from Buffalo, because I came on so late.

D: The girls that are in the assessment center, are they mainly coming from brothels? Or is it a combination of slave labor and sex trafficking?

H: It is my understanding that this specific center is sex trafficking. So the girls are coming from brothels.

D: And ages 4 to 14?

H: (nods) Ages 4 to 14. Which breaks my heart. Absolutely. I was, like you said, expecting 12 to 18 [year olds,] but when she said, ‘Oh no, all the girls are between 4 and 14,’ I almost cried right then. Four years old?

D: In your opinion, are people in Cambodia aware of what’s happening, and are people in the United States, or in your community, aware of what’s happening?

H: I can’t really speak for Cambodia. I haven’t been there before and this will be my first time. I don’t really know what the climate is. My general impression is people know what’s going on. Because you kind of know if a girl disappears, I mean you pretty much know what happened.

D: And as far as American awareness?

H: I think Americans are woefully uninformed, unaware, blissfully ignorant, whatever you want to call it.

D: What misconceptions do you think people may have about human trafficking? Like, my thought that the girls’ ages were between 12 to 18, when in fact they were much younger.

H: I think the biggest misconception is that these girls are somehow at fault. Like, ‘Well it’s their fault. Maybe they got into debt or whatever, and they chose to be a prostitute.’ Or, ‘Well, being a prostitute’s the lifestyle they chose.’ They never chose this. I’m not saying there not prostitutes in the world who have chosen it. But girls living in brothels, who are victims, there’s no way they’ve chosen this.

The second misconception is that they stay there by choice because they’re not shackled in any way. So it’s, ‘Well, why don’t they just escape? Why don’t they go get help? Why don’t they try to make their lives better and get out of there?’ The answer is — they can’t. Because we don’t, most people don’t understand what fear can do to a person. I mean, if you’re 4 years old, and I steal you from your family — I tell your family some story about, ‘Oh, I’m gonna give you an education or whatever, and take you into the city with me…’

Once we get there, I sell you into a brothel, and then say ‘If you ever try to escape, you’re going to be arrested because you’re now a criminal. You’ll go to jail. Your parents will go to jail because they willingly let you come and do this. If you try and go back to your parents, they’re going to hate you because of what you now are.’ I mean, you are completely imprisoned. It’s just not in a physical sense. So I think that’s another big misconception that there’s something they can do about it.

And I think the third one is that there’s nothing we can do. I hear that a lot. ‘But, there’s nothing I can do about it.’ False. No, not everyone is going to go raid brothels with International Justice Mission. Not everyone is going to be traveling overseas and doing that. But newsflash: Human trafficking is in America, too. It’s no excuse to not educate yourself; to educate yourself, educate your community.

There’s a fabulous group down in Orange County out of Vanguard University. They go around to the free clinics, where they speak languages other than English a lot of the time. A pimp will hardly ever take one of his girls to a hospital if she gets sick, because the authorities might become involved. But they will take them to these free clinics where they’ll probably never see the same doctor twice, they don’t all speak English, so it’s not a huge risk. This group will go into those kind of clinics and train the staff to recognize signs of human trafficking, so they know what to look for.

D: Do you know the name of the group?

H: Sandy Morgan leads it. She’s the administrator of the Orange County Task Force for Human Trafficking. And she is also, I think, the director of women’s studies at Vanguard University. She coordinates a lot through the university and has her students go out and do a lot of this stuff.

D: Before talking to you, one of my misconceptions was the size of the problem in the United States.

H: Mine too. I would have said, ‘Well, that happens overseas.’ But that’s not true. And also, where you put your money — into the clothes you buy, the food, the products. Pay attention. Do the companies use trafficked persons? Because, human trafficking is more than sex trafficking. There’s slave labor, forced labor, bondage. I’m ashamed to even go through my closet and see that most of the stuff that I own is probably made by a slave.

I just read the latest watch-list and found out IKEA is horrendous for their use of slaves. IKEA and Hollister, and I forget the others that were on top, but I was just like, ‘Oh, gosh.’ And people are generally becoming aware of free trade coffee.

D: Right.

H: That’s kind of becoming a trendy thing. But we don’t realize the scope of it and how much of it is used, how much [clothing] is produced using slave labor. I mean, you see a nice blazer in a store, probably cost, like 60 bucks. And you’d probably think, ‘Hey, good quality, name brand, that’s a decent price. 60 bucks.’ The woman in Bolivia who produced that, probably gets paid a dollar per coat she produces and it probably takes her two days to make the coat.

D: And that dollar for the two days is all she gets?

H: That’s all she gets, and probably, she has three kids. I’m totally making up this scenario, but…

D: But it’s almost like a statistically proven hypothetical.

H: Yeah.

D: I think hearing even just a little bit of this, it’s easy to get the feeling of ‘Oh, there’s so much…again, it seems so impossible to…’

H: It’s so big, I can’t do anything.

D: Right. So where did you get the inspiration to keep going?

H: In truth, I’m still a newbie in this field. There’re people who’ve been doing this a lot longer and who know a lot more than I do.

D: Sure, but to actually say, ‘Yes, I’m going to go on this trip…’

H: Yes. The more closely I come into contact with who God is, and what God’s desire is for all of His creation, for each individual human being, the more sickened I am by things that are happening to these people. Every single person is created in the image of God. I have the image of God, you have the image of God, each person has the image of God. But also, collectively as humanity, we bear the image of God. I don’t think we fully understand what it does to us when that image is stomped on, even if it’s not personally stomped on in me. It effects us all.

D: It’s like a dedication to the image of God and to prize the image of God in other people.

H: I really truly believe we are marring and distorting something beyond what we can measure and we don’t understand the cost. We really don’t understand the cost.

When we ignore, or fail to fully understand what it means to bear the image, I mean the imago dei, the image of God within us is part of what helps us understand who God is. So if we’re not in touch with God, if we’re trampling on it, then of course we’re going to have a misunderstanding of God.

D: So what have you done in so far as preparing for this trip?

H: I found I don’t really know how to prepare. I mean I sit down and get out my journal and pray be like, ‘Okay God, how do I emotionally prepare for this?’ And then I would realize what I just said and say, ‘How do you emotionally prepare yourself to see a 4 year old child rescued from a brothel?’ I think that should shock and horrify me. I don’t think I should be prepared for that. So, beyond making sure I have bug spray and everything, I don’t know what other preparations to make.

I know I’m going into something I’m not fully prepared for, but in many ways, I think it’s good that I’m unprepared. Because I think to go and see that, I mean I don’t know what I’ll feel like after this.

For more information concerning WorldHope, please visit www.worldhope.org. For more information concerning International Justice Mission, please visit www.ijm.org.

Dominic Laing is a writer, director, editor, and anything else. He lives in Pasadena, Calif. For more of his writing, please visit www.dominiclaing.com

So long as we love, we serve;
So long as we are loved by others,
I would almost say that we are indispensable;
And no one is useless while they have a friend.
– Robert Louis Stevenson

Justice. It’s a word denoting the concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, and equity. History is littered with attempts to define it philosophically, pragmatically, existentially and scientifically. Every page of world history tells a story of justice or injustice, intertwined with the story of civilization.

But that’s so macrocosmic! Such a large scale. To truly define justice we have to get closer. How do I define justice? Justice, for me, is not a concept to play with. For me it is the real desire for equality in the realm of society.

Society? That’s still too large. While justice remains a global ideal, it happens one person at a time, in places like Little Flower Mercy Ministry in India. Started in 1988 by Mathew Manuel and Molly Manuel, Little Flower is a place devoid of the jargon of justice one often sees today. Instead, it is a place where 200 examples of God’s definition of justice reside.

At Little Flower, the orphaned, the mentally impaired, the old and extreme poor are given the basic amenities of life and the opportunity to share in the joy of life as purposed by God. Rejected by their society built on the law, these people find themselves for the first time with an equal opportunity to exploit their God-given potential. Children have hope for the future, mentally impaired have a community who understands them, older people have a place to be comforted and cared for.

While I was there, questions kept popping up in my mind. Society is littered with people with no hope and justice – Am I not the vehicle of God to reach out to them? By not doing so, am I identifying myself with the society rather than with the purpose of God?

Such acts of kindness start with a man who dares to love people as God has loved him. Robert M. Pirsig was right when he said, “The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands.”

Little Flower Mercy Ministry relies on donations to help them help others. If you are interested in helping, please contact Hope Ink for more information.

Prince Varghese is a photographer from Kerala, India, which is often called “God’s Own Country.” Prince became interested in photography watching his father take pictures with his old Yashica Electro 35. Prince seeks to understand different people groups – their values, lifestyle, environment and struggles – and frame their story without any words.

The idea was to head to a small village in southeast El Salvador, but before we left, we made a visit to the first orphanage. The sight of the vans pulling into the compound brought the kids running our way. The plan was simple. Get out, spend some time with the kids and leave in a short while. Impossible. Most of these kids were abandoned by their parents. Just having someone stop by to see them was a treat.

The children at the orphanages in El Salvador were excited to see the 'gringo' visitors.

During our entire visit at the orphanage, she and Kenny were attached at the hip, his smile as bright as hers. All these children wanted to be held, thrown in the air and swung around. And we did just that. As we left, each person in our crew was speechless. A few tears were shed and a spot in each of our hearts was put aside for these kids. Spending a couple hours with the kids clearly had more of an impact on us than them.

Down the road a ways, we ran into some rain and traffic. At one point we were at a standstill and noticed a mid-sized car at the crossroad that was stuck. His front wheel had fallen into an enormous pothole. The car was unable to move. Other people walked by and cars passed him as he sat helpless in the rain. Almost instantly, Mike looked at us in the back of the van and said, “We need to go and help that guy; let’s lift up his car and get him out of that hole.”

Half laughing, six of us ran over, lifted his car out of the hole, making this guy’s day with one simple act. As traffic started moving, I stopped long enough to exchange names and say “Dios te bendiga!” (God bless you.) Kindness rubs off of the guys from Surfers on Mission and becomes contagious.

We spent the rest of the week in a small fishing village on the southeast coast. Each day we surfed early in the morning and late in the afternoon and spent the rest of the time with the local people. Salvador Castellanos, our friend and contact, had arranged to drive his Toyota truck to distribute food in a needy area. Walking door to door, we split up into groups of three and four with one translator. The response from each family was smiles and gratefulness. Some said a simple “gracias” and others wanted us to come in and talk or pray with them.

The team surfed in the morning and afternoon, and spent the rest of the day meeting the locals.

Tin for a roof, trees and scrap wood for walls and natural dirt floors, these people were content owning very little. Life was simple and there were no distractions like iPods or Wii games. When we were down to our last food bag, we called from the fence to a small makeshift house. A middle-aged man made his way to us with a look of confusion; three gringos (white guys) and a frizzy-haired Filipino.

You could see the gears turning in his head, “What could these guys possibly want?” I explained we were making our way through the village blessing people with large bags of food. He shook my hand and did his best to hold back tears. He explained his family “was on their last meal and didn’t know where the next meal would come from.” His next comment showed me how important that whole day was — “Now I know how much God loves me and cares for me.”

The next day we drove an hour or so to another orphanage. At first the kids were reserved, and understandably so, as 10 gringos more than twice their size walked into their building for the first time. After a couple hours of singing, dancing and playing with them, we asked the woman in charge, “What would be a way we could really bless you and the kids tonight?”

The adults loved the pinata as much as the kids, but the little boy who climbed the tree to get the pinata got the laughs.

As we drove back to our base camp that night, all I could think about was how much I take things for granted. How many times I’ve had fried chicken. How many times I’ve spent money carelessly. How many times in the future I’ll stop and think about the things I want versus the things I need.

The big party was set for Friday night. We had posted and handed out flyers all over the small village. With permission from the mayor, we took over the soccer field in the middle of town. We had a raffle for the kids and adults, soccer games, piñatas, and topped off the night with an animated movie about Jesus.

Nearly everyone in the village turned out, or so it seemed. The hardest task of the night was holding the adults back during the piñatas; they all wanted some candy too. Everyone crowded around the boy swinging the stick at the piñata, waiting in anticipation for candy to fly everywhere. It was then we noticed a small boy had secretly climbed the tree from which the piñata hung. The boy in the tree pulled the piñata up and began reaching in to grab hand full after hand full of candy. Ingenuity at its best. Everyone had a laugh.

The highlight of the night came after the movie as we were packing everything up. A man approached with his eyes full of tears. He fought to spill out a few words and explained he wanted Jesus to be number one in his life. A bunch of us gathered around him as he prayed a prayer of repentance.

These are only a taste of the stories and experiences from a trip that was ‘all that and then some’. Not because we surfed great waves on the trip, but more because what we were able to give.

Adventure photographer, “Looman”, looks for the perspective that others wouldn’t and stops time with the shutter of a camera. He’s traveled to over 30 countries and his work has been published in various web/published material. His goal? Showing others the world the way he sees it; from a different perspective.

My favorite salad growing up: ambrosia with coconut flakes. After playing in the sun all day, I go for my cocoa butter, lotion of choice. I recently needed some hair oil product, and bought the coconut kind. One Halloween, I dressed in Hawaiian garb, complete with a coconut bra (actually my mother dressed me, but she understood my affinity for these tropical treats even as a toddler.)

So it only seems logical that when choosing where to go in my life post- (formal) education, I would go to Thailand, the land where coconuts abound, with curries made from coconut milk, coconut trees growing wild (as opposed to our landscaped ones here in SoCal) and fresh coconuts cracked open with a straw at open air markets and sidewalk vendors.

Mmmm...coconuts.

If you like, or even love, something enough, you will first find that thing and then follow it back to wherever it grows most pure and wild—or at least that is what you do if you want to remain passionate and alive throughout your life.

So that is what I did, and for the next seven months, I will follow what I love to this country of palms bursting with the fruit of my heart.

Oh, that, and God walked me here.

OK, so coconuts really have been just an ironic twist in the grand symphony of my life thus far. In fact, they have nothing to do with it. Actually, God had everything to do with it.

I didn’t even think I wanted to go to Thailand. I wanted to travel in Australia. And then Africa. And then Europe, where I would meet someone and continue on with him through life. Maybe we would re-visit Asia after cinching lucrative careers with loads of vacation time and I could write some novel while hobnobbing with the natives.

Upon evaluation, God replied, ’Sweetheart, those are nice ideas, but your heart is meant for another path, little Christian’ (loosely paraphrased). And this is how He made my way…

My friend Lauren wanted to start an online magazine (this one, actually,) and she compiled a seminal team of two for her first journalism trip to Thailand, scheduled for just the same time I was to be in Australia. Having previously resolved to ‘write more’ in my graduated life, this trip aligned too well with my pursuits to go unnoticed. He stirred an uneasiness within me, and when finances made it too difficult to make for a meaningful time down under, I quickly switched plans and proceeded to Thailand for a month in February.

Kay Fox, Betsi Clark and their friend Claire

In May, my travel mate Sarah and I fulfilled our promise to pay our friends a sleepover visit. On the drive over to Visalia, I thought, God, if Kay invites me to go back with her and Don (her husband) to Thailand, I don’t think I could say no.

Why, you ask? Because this woman exuded love, and living alongside her for any amount of time surely has to contain transformational properties. We did not even get to dinner before our conversation turned to Sarah’s and my directionless lives in search of ourselves — and our displaced passion to love others in need. So Kay inquired of my talents, and amidst my feelings of uselessness she found that I can sew a bit and am willing to teach/speak English. Therefore she extended a volunteer position at Handclasp, the center where she and Don work (I say ‘therefore’ only because in God’s logic it makes absolute sense — why wouldn’t she ask me to come just at the peak of my existential funk — but to me it came as a quite pleasant surprise).

Karen children in northern Thailand

On our way home, I stopped by my coffee shop job and gave my two weeks notice. A week later, I emailed Kay to say ‘Yes, I will go.’ Ever since, a peace passing all understanding has kept me committed to this quest, and I still cannot wait to go.

I am really nervous. I do not like running errands by myself, let alone living in a village somewhere north of Chiang Mai with a barely familiar couple in their sixties, teaching a language I still struggle grasping most days. But somehow this makes it just ridiculous enough to be perfect, wild and pure.

Did I mention that the Karen people group compose the majority of those living in Museekee (the village)? Insignificant to the untrained eye, but this group relocated years ago from their native Burma due to ongoing persecution, and has quite a story to tell. I first read about them in Don Richardson’s book, Eternity In Their Hearts, and frankly it remains the only excerpt (amidst tons of miraculous accounts of redemption) that stuck with me after setting the paperback down. Something about the Karen really captivated my heart and cultivated a distant affection for them.

When I read this book a year ago, I resolved to learn more about the Karen. I didn’t, so they loitered in my memory bank, and somewhere in the left ventricle of my heart.

God brought them back to the surface upon our visit to their refugee camp — the very spot I first met Kay.

I do believe in irony, but not the naturalistic, unfeeling sort. No, I am into the kind that serves as a tool for Jesus to construct a life story glorifying the Godhead and the kind that made Sara laugh out a baby well into her nineties. The type that moves a girl to Thailand by way of foxes, restlessness, refugee camps and theology/missions authors, sprouting a growing speck of faith that continues to discover His love step-by-step.

I will spare you the rest of the pages detailing the majorly minor details of this year’s falling ever-the-more in love with my God, but do know that this is just the head of a very dark and tasty pitcher of beer poured straight from the tap Himself: the Holy Spirit.

It gives me a good buzz to think of just how fast He makes my heart pump.

Coconuts have many uses.

Plus coconuts, when clomped together, sound like hoof beats…

Betsi Clark is serving as a missionary in northern Thailand for the next six months. You can keep with her adventures on her blog Going Somewhere.

Faith, Hope And NOLA

“If there was no New Orleans, America would just be a bunch of free people dying of boredom.” — Judy Deck
There is the United States of America.
There is the South.
There is Louisiana.
And then there is New Orleans.
May Seventh, Seventeen-Eighteen.
La Nouvelle-Orléans.
Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville and
The French Mississippi Company.
My life. My love. My city. My home.
I was born in San Jose, California. But I came alive in New Orleans.
Her story cannot be forgotten, and her voice must never be silenced.
She struts and sings, dances and screams for help.
Purple, green and gold, my love is beautiful and bold
and she’s drowning on August Twenty-Ninth, Two-Thousand and Five.
She’s drowning on August Thirtieth.
She’s drowning on August Thirty-First.
She’s drowning on September First, Second and Third
because there is no FEMA, no food, and no President for “refugees.”
Hurricane Katrina slams into the Gulf Coast, and
houses in the Lower Ninth Ward are inundated with over nine feet of water
and levees break
and the roof of the Superdome tears open
and Interstates Ten and Ninety fall into the ocean.
My heart is broken and her streets are flooding.
Eighty percent of my heart is underwater and I don’t know what to do.
They’re dying because they’re trapped in the attic.
Because the walls were supposed to hold.
New Orleans wails and mourns
and prevails and scorns those who wish her dead,
who wish to forget her and bury her under the waters.
The world could not go on without New Orleans, kicking and screaming since that wonderful seventh of May.
And those who’ve fallen in love with the city know that, and so we rebuild.
We play for keeps and we play for resurrection.
In my dreams it’s raining, and the waves are rushing
Lake Pontchatrain steel blue crush.
Then I see black Moses with trumpet armed, my Fat Tuesday miracle.
Suit black as night wrapped tight
the spirit of fiery New Orleans might fight and might right these wrongs;
might take, might make this broken city strong. Again.
You hope and you pray and you realize God loves New Orleans.
God didn’t flood the Lower Ninth Ward.
You’re mixing up God and the Corps of Engineers.
You set your hands on the heart of this city and you tell God
“Open my eyes—“
And He crushes you.
Miss Linda Lewis finds her brother dead in his home. She was under the false assumption that he’d evacuated. Her van has no middle seat because she took it out to make room for her belongings and Katrina washed it away. She drives through Orleans Parish and we are years beyond the storm and it looks it happened yesterday. “We ain’t back,” she says. “Not even close.”
Mister Warren is old and homeless. His eyes are bloodshot and he sleeps all day. He loves Motown; The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, The Supremes.
Tomorrow he sleeps against a park statue that looks like a hand. He sleeps there because he didn’t make it to the shelter in time and they ran out of beds.
Stephen Gonzales’ family has lived in St. Bernard Parish for two-hundred and thirty-seven years. He takes care of his feeble wife and escapes his house after it floods in a matter of minutes. In the twelve months after the storm, his wife loses strength and dies of a broken heart.
Lucas Russ laments his friends, gone because rent has tripled, because most everyone packed into a bus in September of two-thousand-and-five was given a one-way ticket and they didn’t know where they were going, and they weren’t told how to get back. His friends don’t know how to get back to the city they love. They don’t see houses in which to live, schools in which to send their children, or jobs in which to work.
“The only way to get back into New Orleans is to die. They can’t feed you, clothe you or house you, but they can damn sure bury you.”
“I wonder how man can build a spaceship and walk on the moon, but he can’t fix the levees.”
“Ain’t nothing changing but the time on their watch.”
“It’s hard…It’s hard…”
And now you throw up your hands, and with it all the love and hate and rage and confusion and despair and wonder and awe and fury inside of you.
Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani, you asshole? What did they ever do to you?
You are in the wind you are in the whisper, but right now I feel that neither is doing much good. And I’m sorry…but actually, I’m not.
I’m angry that things are still like this. I’m angry things have not changed.
In my dreams the Lower Ninth Ward is the Red Sea,
giant jazz-blasting away water and past.
In my dreams there is resurrection and healing.
And in this hopeless moment, I feel the wind.
In this darkest hour, I hear the music.
And I hear His whisper. I hear His love.
A Love Supreme at all costs.
It swoons and sorrows and rises and beats back the night.
God’s love and Christ himself buddy, bringing the Saints who come marching in.
Hot heat in the hot hall,
small hall smoke-filled sweat beads
sink down purple green and gold light
moonlight packed in
to-night
for the Preservation Jazz,
for the four on the floor, St. Peter Street Serenaders Preservation Jazz.
To preserve and protect
to reflect the shining light of the all night so right so tight New Orleans,
REnew REvive REstore
for man is more than wind and water.
Man is greater than hurricane weather,
and whether or not you believe it
you and I will build this home together
and we will sleep in its bed
and rest our collective head on its pillow
and we will have to think about what we’ve done together.
And music is made together.
The trumpet machine-gunning
on the skins a drum-drumming,
the piano keys dancing
ebony ivory tossing back sharps and flats
crescendo crashing smashing into a beautiful New with
bass line heart-thumping
and the voices of the saints be calling us home.
The saints go march
go round and call out and shout out and belt out and break out
and bust out and bust down barriers,
treble and bass, economy and race,
whatever lines lie between you and me
they lie to us
about who we ought to trust and these lines
these lies
they push us apart.
But when we step through the doors of the Preservation…
we.
are.
Together.
Because Together is what we are called to be.
We are St. James Infirmed,
and in the sweltering night the healing will come.
The music will come and save our souls.
God won’t you bless the Preservation…
I love this city at all costs and at all potential for criticism.
I will show you a city the likes of which you have never seen.
It is the greatest show on earth, the greatest tragic, x-on-the-door, feet-on-the-shore-mississippi-satchel-mouth-heart-as-big-as-the-crescent-moon show on earth.
Watch because something’s happening. New Orleans is turning a corner. Because people care enough to love the city and love the people and love what it means to be New Orleanian. This is the love that wraps around the whole world and teaches the rookies how to second-line.
Jesus Christ is my mighty-mighty Mardi Gras Chief,
united-as-one-Lake-Pontchatrain-son.
New Orleans, Louisiana. Bonjour, mon ami. Where y’at, baby?
Now recruiting for the New Orleans Five-Oh-Four Armored Division.
Must know how to:
Play trombone, drums, trumpet, clarinet, tuba, saxophone and guitar.
Cook Gumbo, Étoufée, Crawfish, Catfish, Crayfish, Shrimp, Lobster, Po-Boy, Atchafalaya, Muffulettas.
Sing, dance, smoke, drink, pray, love, love, love and never give up.
My life. My love. My city. My home. Laissez les bons temps rouler. Let the good times roll and roll and evermore roll. God Bless New Orleans.

Photo provided by Kellie Linder.

Rainy Season Rising

Sometimes the monks rode on top of trucks,
Their robes blowing back.
Blur. Beetle-nut color.
The superhero capes of Myanmar at superhero speeds.
It was natural to kneel here.
Water from the rain sat smooth upon the tiles.
The bare feet of monks and merit-seekers move slow.
Incense and jasmine lilt
upon the softer fog of the rainy season rising,
and I prayed too.

Their hands as they put them together
touched ephemeral.
If this falls through;
There are always golden owls.
There are always bells.

Easter Drama in India

Our Jesus hadn’t eaten for a couple of days.
Traveler’s sickness was pulling out his strength. The black
shirts were all too quiet for Calcutta: City of Color.

Our Jesus broke his heart easier this morning.
His tired arms fell from the cross with relief, readiness
to be held to our dust. For a few measures,
it was good Friday. It was the slums of this city
fifty years ago; the trafficked girls in San Francisco;
the Karen fleeing into Thailand.

While he hung his head, while the music slowed,
the Holocaust itself descended upon his shoulders like the last plague
of Egypt- and in this way, every event of earth connects.
He started to breathe.
Inhale. Beat, Exhale. I maybe heard the curtain ripping.

That carefully preserved canvas of blood. Ripping. And the Levites
pulling at their hair in horror- The Holy leaking out everywhere.
A downbeat and explode. The cave went supernova and the thick fumes
of Uganda, Palestine, and the Bolshevik revolution
were sucked into the nether-space.

Watermelons in India

We ate with our hands as the Bengali woman taught us.
It was late at night and loud with honking taxis in the heat.
I don’t think I was remotely hungry, but it is rude not to eat.
Even more rude if there are people starving down the block.
After rice and roti, she gave us watermelon.
But India was bananas and mangoes to me.
Watermelon meant the fourth of July back home.
For barbeques and the picnics of people who wear sweaters at night
and drive home on quiet streets.
Tonight I know that watermelon was made for India.
It was a clean chance at hydration.
It was all over my face.
I swallowed the seeds, and I saw how badly the watermelon
would like to populate the earth.
Just so the kids dying from holy rivers
would have something sweet to quench their thirst.

Virtues of Vaseline

It takes movement to lift a child. Awe to watch him sleep.
I am no physician, but my father is.
That seemed to be enough. Thrust into a closet with metal cabinets.
Prescriptions. Medicine, expired, in Hindi, in German, in Spanish.
A bottle of clean water.
The train station kids came in one by one.
Presented their battle wounds. The battle of living
on a crowded and careless earth. Vaseline. Gauze.

We can use those for anything. Most of the kids still wanted a bandage.
I had nothing to make them not hurt.
Glue, they said. That is another thing we can use for almost anything.
They were exhausted at mid-day because guards catch them at night.
Make them leave, hit them with sticks. My sister sat on the floor,
instantly had three heads on her lap, the children wanting to sleep
just once under benevolent hands.

I knew that if she would simply wash her eye in decent water,
the infection would fade. She said she would not.
I used Vaseline.
One of the kids was trying to choke the other. Had him flat
amid the scarred building blocks, I shouted because a child
was in my arms, and my brother pulled the aggressor away and fell
to his knees before him, murmuring “Oh no, no don’t be this way. Please.”

I prayed for a visual gift of tongues to read the medicine bottles.
Checked again. No good. Excuse me; did they by chance have antibiotics?
No. Vaseline then. I prayed for God to make it sting.
When I had heads in my lap like that, nestling into my legs,
I would have disarmed a mad Calcutta taxi.
I would have done it without waking the darlings.

With a little love and care, even the darkest corners of the world can become spectacles of hope.

Svey Pak, Cambodia, was one of those dark corners, where sex trafficking was rampant and the government did nothing to help. Foreign men would buy children on the streets and rape them. The police were in on the deal, and when a brothel was shut down by an NGO, it would be up-and-running within the week. Pimps would bribe their way out of jail. Foreign pedophiles used Cambodian corruption to stay an arm’s length from away from trouble.

What lies hidden is revealed in the light of God. Jesus is redeeming Svay Pak, which has becoming a beacon of hope to a dark world.

In 2005, International Justice Mission (IJM) raided the largest child brothel in Svay Pak, and this time, business stopped for good. A ministry called AIM 4 Asia moved into building that formerly housed the brothel, calling the place Rahab’s House. The AIM staff began to love and serve the people of Svey Pak, even those who did not welcome them, and their passion has changed the entire district.

Pastor Chantha, his wife Bohnthan and ministry partners Ratanak, and Clayton began offering free weekly health clinics, English classes, and children’s programs, as well as providing free gym access. The locals became curious. Men and women who months earlier were selling their children to pimps and dealing drugs now come to Rahab’s House to know the God of love.

The word transformation became much more meaningful during my stay in Cambodia. The work of AIM and Rahab’s House is surely not just about stopping bad behavior, or rescuing children from a brothel. This is only the beginning. When people in Svey Pak meet Jesus, they are turning 180 degrees not just 90. One girl I met was rescued from this ex-brothel, and now ministers from the same building, reaching out to other children who are abused and at-risk.

God is taking the broken, healing them, then using them to heal others. The abused now comfort the abused.

Transformation is not just for Svey Pak, but for the world. Regardless of where we are, our calling is the same, to love those around us. As we love we will see transformation in our own communities.

Twenty-four hours later, Christian, who is the lead singer of the rock band Anberlin, called Freeman back to let her know he was going too, and bringing friends along with him.

“I had no idea what it was going to be, or even what we were actually doing in Haiti but I knew that I wanted to help,” Christian said. “Being in a band you are not your own and you are subject to an intense touring schedule, but once I realized that I had time off, it seemed to flow easily.”

Photos provided by Faceless International

Faceless International is an organization that seeks to “put a face on the faceless” by bringing awareness to social issues, and offering people a chance to do something about injustice through local and global humanitarian trips.
Faceless, which is been around four years, has led trips to India and Guatemala and Ukraine in the past couple of years, with more planned for next year. People from all walks of life are jumping on board. A Faceless trip to India over Christmas break filled up rapidly, Freeman said.

“We are taking close to 30 people to India this December,” she said. “The group is made up of everyone from new college students, to graduating college students, to young professionals, to mothers, even some musicians.”

Human trafficking is the main focus of the India trip, a cause close to Christian’s heart.

“The cause that is closest to me is the fight against sex slavery and human trafficking,” Christian said. “No other cause makes my blood boil and my fist clinch as fast.

“It is atrocious that in the 21st century there is more slavery around the world then there has been in the history of mankind, even here in America there are more slaves now then there were at the time of the Civil War.”
Christian’s passion comes from a desire to the basic tenets of Christianty fulfilled. While Faceless International is open to all faiths and walks of life, the founders are Christians, which supplies the drive for the organization.

Photos provided by Faceless International

“Without faith, Faceless would never be. The reason that I am so adamant about reaching out to the brokenhearted is because the Bible tells me that ‘pure religion is to love the widows and the orphans,’ and that is what I long to do,” Christian said.

“All of the trip leaders, the board members and current active volunteers are Christians,” Freeman said. “As a result, all of the decisions made are through the lens of our faith.

“We strive to be the best at what we do because we believe that as Christians we should be. We really value the concept of family and community. As family, we are fighting to make the world a better place for everyone. This is exactly what we believe Jesus did with his disciples.”

The team started with an overseas focus, but they soon realized that there are places closer to home that also need help. This year, Faceless added US trips to Los Angeles and New York City during traditional Spring Break times, to allow high school and college students an opportunity to get involved.

“Everyone who attended our domestic trips absolutely loved it. We heard countless times the phrase, ‘I had no idea that this was happening here,’” Freeman said.

The domestic trips give people an opportunity to see what organizations are doing in other cities, and how they can bring it back to their hometown.

“We love traveling overseas and working with our family in other countries, but we really feel that we have issues here in our own country that need to be addressed. The participants left our domestic trips on fire to make a difference in their own community that will ultimately make the world a better place,” Freeman said.

Domestic trips are arranged for Spring ’09 for Los Angeles and Nashville, where Faceless International is based. Each trip features a variety of organizations, so individuals can find opportunities that are close to their heart and fit their personality.

Faceless International has brought change to thousands of people globally and locally, but the founders have discovered changes in themselves as well.

Freeman, who serves as the director for Faceless, said the position caught her by surprise, but that is was obvious God had placed her in exactly the right spot.

“Four years ago I would never have dreamed that I would be going over seas frequently, yet alone that I would be leading these trips,” said Freeman.

Photos provided by Faceless International

While Christian still enjoys singing, the call to help others has grown louder. Christian now uses his platform with Anberlin and his side project Anchor & Braille to speak up about injustice.

“I have always had a still small voice in the back of my head that reminds me constantly that my first love was not music, but humanitarian and missions work,” he said. “I am happy to be a part of Anberlin and Anchor & Braille, but I realize that I may be here more for the platform aspect of the music business and less for the entertainment.”

Among Christian’s peers in the music industry, the reaction to Faceless International’s work has received praise.
“It has been all positive, not one negative comment. I think that the industry is glad to see substance rather than substance abuse for once,” he said.

As Faceless International grows, objectives and goals are starting to come into focus. Education, they feel, will be a stepping stone to greater change.

“We want to focus on education through the building of schools and setting up scholarships for students around the world,” Freeman said.

“We want to make sure we keep people involved in the States as well. We are developing a regional program where every month Faceless will have events all over the country that will get local communities involved in the fight for freedom.”

“The next place I would love to impact would be Africa,” Christian said. “I have always wanted to go, and it holds a special place in my heart. I would also like to go back to the Ukraine as I feel as though my work there is not done.”

As the organization grows, more doors are opening and the running of trips gets smoother. No matter how large the organization gets, however, the impact they are leaving still manages to catch the Faceless crew off guard.
“Faceless was a surprise to everyone involved I believe,” Christian said, “and continues to surprise us every day with lives impacted of those who were on that (first) trip and those we set out to serve.”

Want to learn more? Click here or here for a list of Websites where you can get involved. Or go to Faceless International to read more about past and future projects. To check out Stephen Christian’s music, visit anberlin.com or anchorandbraille.com.

For more Hope Ink perspectives on India, check out stories by Kellie Linder and Beth Webb and photos by http://www.hopeinkmagazine.com/2009/08/beauty-in-chaos/.

Huddled together in the dark basement of a ministry building in San Francisco, our team of 12 women and two men received our Calcutta briefing from a veteran of over 25 years in India.

He told us of Koli, the goddess of death and destruction for which Calcutta is named, and to whom 30 goats are sacrificed daily—100 on Sundays. He told us of a culture built on chaos, of traffic that was a moving organism, of mean streets and a violent way of life. He ended with, “I’m not trying to scare you, but…” I was only more excited to take on this city.

We stayed at a guesthouse owned and operated by a Christian ministry, only a few short blocks from the Mother House where Mother Theresa lies entombed. Sudder Street with many of the other Sisters of Charity ministries lay in the other direction, as well as New Market, a tumbling, bustling, indoor market of meat, clothes and anything else you would like to buy. Just outside our door, to the right, living on the sidewalk was a society of beggars, thieves and children for whom we were not adequately prepared.

“Deception is a game to these people,” another friend had advised us. “It is culturally acceptable. When you are bartering, you must keep this in mind. It is all a game.” We arrived on Holy Thursday and were not able to begin ministry due to the holiday, so we set to bartering, bargaining and clothes shopping at the New Market. We were met by men in long white Punjab who took us to the best deals, and took some of the profits from our purchases. All part of the game.

Women flocked us outside the Blue Sky Café, clinging to pitifully underfed children and uttering the two English words they knew best, “Baby milk.” I bought one woman a dusty canister of dry milk from the shop on the corner, then insisted she open it in front of me. She unscrewed the top, then spun it back on.

“No,” I instructed with a smile, “All the way. Break the seal.” She and the shop keeper exchanged a look as she angrily punctured the foil with her finger. I am told by another local missionary that she will still sell the milk back to the shop, who will in turn attempt to sell it to another Western do-gooder, drawn in by the extreme poverty and the reputation of the Mother Houses. As I returned to my group I was swarmed by women, grabbing and pulling on me. One appeared in front of my eyes, covered from head to toe with scars. I wondered if someone had done this to her on purpose, to make money. Her mutilated state is her only source of income, and a good income it is. Beggars on Sudder Street can make a month’s worth of wages in a day.

A day of this affront to the senses and organ of compassion feels like a month to our group. The guides at New Market know us by name. We came to buy clothes for ministry as our Western jeans and t-shirts are deemed immodest, and we unwittingly spent in one day more than most of these people see in a week. Several of us were targeted by a woman at New Market who, clinging to her starved baby with one arm, grabs people with the free hand and digs in her fingers, walking and begging and pulling for over a block. It is common knowledge to the street-smart that she and all the others starve the children to win your compassion.

There had to be relief somewhere. hen there was a woman on our street who called out a cheerful, “Hello sisters!” every time we passed. She was different, and I began to watch her. She was not always at her post, as the other beggars can be found predictably in the same spot with their hands reaching.

On Saturday evening we decided to eat Chinese takeout. As we round up the half-eaten boxes shared amongst the 13 of us, I remember stories of starving children in India who would like my food if I do not want it. I gathered up the food and delivered it to the cheerful woman on our block. Food that cannot be sold back and a woman who does not beg seem like a safe enough move to my heart, aching with compassion despite being swindled time and again over a period of three days.

Rianne introduces us to her well-fed 4-year-old son and tells us her daughter lives with a local woman to keep her off the street. The woman arrives for a visit, and the two children laugh and play, running up and down the lamp-lit sidewalk and into the street. They chase and tag and giggle as Rianne thanks us for the food and rouses her husband to meet us. We sit down on the blanket where he has been sleeping to hear their story.

They themselves had been deceived. They were Christians living in Bangladesh and had been lured to Calcutta on false pretenses. Once they arrived, their contacts walked around the corner with all of their worldly possessions, including their passports, and never returned. Their daughter was born to the streets and taken in by the woman I had met. She needed money to buy milk for the baby. The part they left out that night was that they had struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, and a retired doctor from America was helping them overcome this addiction. Rianne worked cleaning houses and was hoping for two more clients. Edward had been volunteering with a security company for several months, but could not be paid until he could afford a uniform. If he could find a certain sum by the next morning at 10 a.m., he could keep his job. The sum was less than half of what I spent on my sari the day before.

I wondered if helping him would pay his way into indentured servitude. My heart heavy with questions and hope, I went to my friends to collect an offering. We were able to supply enough for his uniform and milk for the baby and food for the family. We delivered it, and upon our return, Rianne grinned at me from her tent on the sidewalk. The woman she had worked for that day had loaned her the pots and pans. Later that afternoon she wanted to speak to me. It was then that she shared her husband’s weakness with alcohol, and asked us not to give him any more money. Others in our group saw him drinking later that day.

They both dealt deceptively from time to time over the next four weeks. I do not think they meant to, the effects of fear, greed, and trauma are the same in any culture, and they end in more deception and brokenness. Edward continued to ask for money, but Rianne pleaded for friendship, for relationship. I visited with her some, but found myself always wondering if she had ulterior motives.

The Sisters of Charity at the Mother Theresa house warned us that the beggars on Sudder Street and surrounding areas are professional, and that giving to them pays into crime. The people of India, we are told, find the situation embarrassing. The beggars have embraced their position in a culture that only recently recognized their personhood. They have capitalized on their pain. Without means to gain dignity or respect, they abase themselves further to gain money. The question of Sudder Street is this: how do we love these people who do not know how to be loved?

Toward the end of our time in India, two of the women on our team were motivated to reach out to the street people again. We prayed together, then organized into groups. One group went to Sudder Street to wash the beggars’ feet. It was a strange and beautiful statement, and the women on that street greeted my team members with joyful recognition after that. Another group of us went to the children on our street, giving them suckers and simply playing with them. I sat and had tea with Rianne as two of my teammates ran by with a child swinging and jumping between them.

Several days later, Rianne found me at night, distraught. Edward had been taken to jail for using a racial slur. She insisted he was only protecting her. With the national election approaching, emotions were stirring, including violence against women. Now she was alone on the street with her little boy. I held her as she wept. She had posted bail with the help of a friend, but Edward had not been released. Rianne had spent the day in the train tunnel, crying out to God, “I trust you. I trust you. I trust you. I trust you.” I will never forget her tear-stained face as she told me, “And now God has sent me you, sister. I was alone; I had no one to turn to; I have been holding all of this in. I am so sorry. I just needed someone to talk to.”

Edward was returned to his family the next day, our last day in the country. He was able to keep his job, and if he has been able to spend his money wisely, they should be living in a one room home in the neighborhood nearby. I have no way of knowing, unless I return to our guesthouse in Calcutta, turn to the right, and find their tent missing. The memory of Rianne challenges me to this day. She was indeed different from the others we saw on our street. She longed for four walls, her family reunited, and enough food for her children, but she also had the wisdom and self respect to know she needed friendship.

What shred of dignity gave her this wisdom? What act of kindness awakens the longings of a bruised and battered soul? The question of Sudder Street still haunts me: how do we love these people who do not know how to be loved?