red light exposure

When someone says "Red Light District" what immediately comes to mind?

Maybe its just me, but that phrase just drudges up uneasy feelings corruption, malfeasance and depravity. Unfortunately in downtown Bangkok, there is a thriving crime syndicate of trafficking and prostitution that has festered and flourished into what is known as the "Disney World" of the sex industry falling within this said block. You know what the kicker is? Prostitution is illegal in Thailand, but do you think the cops will do anything if a girl is getting raped and beaten in this locality? According to the women behind the organization "Night Life," local law enforcement would be quicker to give you a ticket for not wearing a helmet on a tuk-tuk (taxi bike).

Today I was thrilled to get to hang out with some exceptionally bold women. Specifically Anne, Sondra, and Rebecca shared their mission of rescuing women from the chains of sexual exploitation through the micro-finance business of selling jewelry.

A few nights a week these women head down to neon lit streets and occupy the bars sipping on a coke waiting for girls to take a break from dancing. They say the girls dance for 4 songs and then get a break for 4 songs. How much can you fit in a 4 song span? Apparently a lot as the organization is currently employing over 80 girls.

Sondra told stories of a little boy they rescued found wearing a dress who had been raped and was suffering from severe anorexia. Another night a 60 year old American man sat next to her and as she told him about what she was doing there he was reduced to tears declaring that she had ruined his night. There are also stories of redemption and Buddhist girls accepting Christ.

Tourism is the #1 contributor to the perpetuation of the sex industry here in Thailand. Cambodia is the #1 country of pedophiles in the world. And the greatest majority of the "Johns" or customers come from America and Eastern Europe. The women shared how God has broken their hearts not only for these abused women but also for the men are the source of the demand.

Today was powerful and inspiring, but also incredibly daunting. The women of Night Life rest on the truth that the glory of redemption rests in changing one life at a time.

I took some pictures of the beautiful faces of the now rescued girls but for their privacy and protection I will not post them on this public site.

More to come soon {stay tuned}

chasing the sunset

Up until this day of my life I have completely underestimated jet lag's potential for utter disarray. Somewhere somehow I left West Palm Beach on Tuesday morning and after chasing altitudes of horizon status I landed in Bangkok on Wednesday night. Its a 13 hour time difference and the longitudinal meridians of time could not be more disorienting. This befuddlement aside. I am currently roaming the streets of Bangkok, well not currently, currently I am hiding out in a little cafe with some vagrant wayward euros and a random raggedy old man. After a flashdance bull ride with a tipsy cab driver I made it from the airport to my desitination. There was a laminated list of rules to the room I was staying in, apparently typed up in Clarisworks 3.0 with the boarder of these ~ all around the whole sheet. Fancy I know. Well I was comforted to know that this establishment was one of morals sine rule #1 was: "Do not bring prostitutes up into room."

I am still trying to prioritize my goals for this sojourn. I live in America, so what can I possibly glean from this experience, literally on the other side of this world? Well after reading a handful of research artlicles and dissertations on the best practices of dissipating Human Trafficking in Thailand I am still not sure. Other than that I hope to soak up everything I possibly can to increase my knowledge and resume on fighting this fight while encouraging and loving on the selfless rescues and people that have dedicated their lives to battling this abomination here in Asia.

I love the independence air of adventure, but I am getting anxious to meet up with my team, also I think I am sitting in some kind of invisible bug nest because something itchy is waging war on my right leg. so I'm out for now.

Thats all for Day#1 in Bangkok.

bang bang

<3 kb

original love story

I love PDA. And all of these photos are the sweetest. But Frank Viola writes: "Yet the most powerful love story that any human has ever crafted pales in comparison to the epic romance that runs throughout your bible."

Put that Twilight poster awayyy, Jacob hasn't even survived his teens yet (acne is bound to strike), oh and fahgetabout The Notebook, turns out Allie didn't really have Alzheimers, she and Noah just fought so much in their marriage she was trying to block it out. BUT the ancient publication we call the bible contains an allegory running so severely and drastically deep concealing a dam of meaning, that tragically many will never understand it.

ok, so i am not THAT much of a skeptic, there really are lovely stories of people madly in love and absolutely committed to each other, but even these situations are merely an attempt of us, the created, to imitate what God our creator has played out before us and innately planted desire to love in our souls. Imagine that every plot of every romantic scenario is really just the human endeavor to display what we believe and feel, but is really just a pale shadow of what God is spotlighting throughout all of history.

Not a single word in the bible goes to waste. Every letter of every chapter is allegorical. Consider the introduction of Eve into the world. Eve was brought forth from Adam's side. Parallel this with the church (often referred to as the bride) within Christ. This would bring a whole new meaning to how Adam was "put to sleep" when Eve was created, and then how Christ was stabbed in the side by the Roman Centurian in his final fateful moments on the executionary cross and then was dead for 3 days. It was after Jesus was killed that the church came forth.

From Jesus' sacrificial death to you finishing reading this sentence, there is a story God has entangled through history of his pursuit of us, his creation and object of love. God is perfectly adequate within Himself. But because God is love, He is not content to be adequate in Himself. And because He loves us totally, He gives us the free will to choose to love Him back, or not. But this poses the question: why would we not choose Him?

civilize this

"Christianity over the past 2000 years has moved from a tribe of renegades to a religion of conformists... Jesus is being lost in a religion bearing his name. People are being lost because they cannot reconcile Jesus' association with Christianity. Christianity has become docile, domesticated, civilized."

-erwin McManus

When I think about Jesus, or Paul, or Simon Peter I picture like an Indiana Jones character trotting the ancient world making politicians look like doofuses, rich people and their roman coins utterly useless, and the rest of society admire their mysterious gusto enough to follow them around like groupies or paparazzi, US weekly style. How far have Christ followers drifted from this movement 2000 years later?

The modern religious conformist makes me sick, maybe because sometimes I feel myself slipping into that ra-tard sloth pattern of a comatose Christian sometimes. UGH. We do live in a different world but everyday can be just as much as a mission trip as Paul getting ship wrecked in the mediterranean in the early AD days. People are tripping around this place all around us in a desperate cloud of self remedy for the gaping hole in their soul for sOMEthing, anything, to suffice and carry them into the next day or week. They don't know what they are missing if they haven't experienced it.

BUT maybe YOU have. I know I have and yet I am often too scared to offend someone, or immediately get written off as one of those marshmallow Christians who dramatically coughs when someone lights a stog, or is desperate to hunt down a husband and have sheltered home-schooled kids, or wince at a four letter word or the idea of a sleeve and body piercings. But you know what Jesus said?

"blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me (matt 11:6)"

Jesus spoke these words to John the Baptist when he was in prison about to get beheaded for scouring the streets and spreading the word that Jesus was that hero the people were looking for. The solution to all their political, religious, and spiritual strife. But Jesus basically told John, while you are in prison about to die, I am healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, making parapalegics dance, and I'm not rescuing you from prison. Jesus was like, I have a diff plan for your life, hopefully this will not sway your faith in me, thank you for your life of service and following your barbarian call.

Jesus' purpose was not to save us from pain and suffering, but from MEANINGLESSNESS.

What are you doing to not live a meaningless docile life??

Matt 10:16, we are called to live in this world as citizens of another kingdom and jesus never said it would be easy.

I want to be

how very avant garde

you are my microphone

{6.3.2010}

I might over-examine things. Actually I do. Not in a bad way, more in a soaking wet with curiosity kind of way. For instance, I know we have this thing called culture. Its just how we do things. But how do we simply walk into it and adapt to its waters and never question it?

So, I'm talking to my friend Twohill yesterday and we were laughing at how people will dish out millions of dollars for little animals (we love animals too bear with me haters). Like there was an animal rescue org in CA that had this huge campaign to nurture some little seal. They raised millions of dollars to concoct the creature a specific comfortable aquatic sanctuary, nurse it and harbor it. After some time, the organization sponsored an enormous local event where they were going to launch this million dollar stock investment back into the wild. Animal obsessive enthusiasts came from all over to cheer this little blubber nugget on its way out into the vast primeval oceanic jungle. Not five minutes after the beastie gyrated its ways through the Pacific layers, a monstrous killer whale swooped in outta no where and intercepted the seal into its destined killer jaw cage. All of the hard earned "American Dream" dollars lobbied for the support of this animal chunk were swallowed into oblivion without so much as a drop of ketchup.

All that extensive tale to question, what is wrongggg with people in our culture that we are so quick to pump extra cash into the unnecessary care of wild animals while at the same time there are people that are desperately fighting to barely survive life in this world.

We feel so accomplished when we support a child by donating a few bucks a month or tossing some change in the orphan bucket on our way through the grocery line, but how is our culture NOT in a state of EMERGENCY based on the catastrophic imbalance of life, love, and the pursuit of happiness (fahget about prosperity!). Our culture is so egocentric, how do we even sleep at night on our perfect tempurpedic mattresses (where a chick can jump up and down on it and the dude's glass of wine doesn't spill) when there are places in the world where 30 kids sleep on a floor in a one bedroom house with no mother to tuck them in or no promise of breakfast in the morning and the constant fear of being trafficked because their life has little to no value. WHAT kind of a culture are we living in? Who do we think we are?

I know that people are drowning in our culture. I know that people are numb. I know that my emotion might not jump off this screen into your heart or soul. I know that these paragraphs might even be too long to even hold your short attention span. But if nothing else, please examine our culture... your reality, and expand your perspective outside your excessive comfort and feel a little less comfortable knowing that there are cycles of unnecessary evil in the world and you can do something to end their perpetuation.

grand finale

{3.15.2010}

Bliss was fading in the sunset and responsibility was leaving voicemails on my cell phone. But just a few more tasks awaited Logan and I on our adventuresome menu. The first was a date with the Pope. Benedict that is. Whyyy would we not use x's and i's for numbers right? When in Rome! Logan and I met Benedict the xixix (whatev) at St. Peter's square (where THE peter is buried- yowzA!). People were tailgating in the square awaiting his arrival with pennets and guitars playing and singing songs to hear their beloved religious leader. As soon as he peeked out his little window the whole square fell silent to hear his blessing. I can now say I have been blessed by the pope. Hope that grants me invincibility and gets me out of future speeding tickets. From there we trail blazed on our noble steed the double decker bus to tackle Castel del Angelo, Piazza del Poppolo, Mausoleum of Augustus, The Spanish Steps, Michael Jackson (yup he's hiding in Italy) street dancers, graffiti artists (my muse), Trevi Fountain, Colosseum, Roman Forum, Capitol Museum, Circus Maximus, the Pantheon, and much more. The Spanish Steps (which were imported to Italy and supposedly where Jesus stood on trial and his flogging wounds dripped His precious blood on that very concrete) was my favored spot. This is where I overdosed on gelato for the last time, tipped Michael Jackson for his impeccable "Billie Jean" serenade, gawked at Italian break dancers, and drooled over the coolest graffiti art of the Colosseum. "time flies when you're having fun" is the worst concept ever, come BACK fun, quit playing games with my heart!! Buuuut life awaits, so for now I'll plan my next sabbatical and play and replay these wonderful memories in my day dreams while focus flies out the window and I sit at a desk staring at my computer screen with a glazed over gaze. ahhhhhhh ciao RomA!

ah-roma // so sweet

{3.15.10}

Prego! {not the sauce} the italians just say recite this word like we do "ok!" Everything in Rome is COVERED in graffiti, except for maybe the Colosseum. I would seriously wonder about the person that would dare taint the surface of THAT fortress. After being packed in an overnight train like sardines from Paris to Rome where we were petrified that we would all be trafficked into slavery from the sketchiness of the conductors we ran straight over to the house of the Pope. Welcome to the Vatican! A colossal citadel full of an accumulation of antique valuables and treasures it cost us $30 bucks just to walk around and look. I wonder what the Pope is doing with all that money. Donating to the poor and needy of Italy or the world? Later on we got wicked lost {but all Italians are super nice so its all good}. We were poking around some cool vintage shops when we decided we would try to find the Colosseum. We asked for directions and a sweet little gelato-scooper girl laughed and pointed out the door to the left. ummmm, the monster was literally on top of us. It was so strange to be popping in and out of little shops and BAM! there is one of the 8 world wonders (is it? it should be on the list) right on top of us! wooowwwwwwww! ay yi yi! I loved it, I wanted to climb all over that whole thing. But it was night so at the same time it scared me a little. I was just imagining the untamed wild lions, starving for something to eat ramming themselves up against the gates at the latest group of foreign hostages held captive from the latest roman campaign. Then 55,000 fans in their seats screaming at the gladiators and the Christians and emperors Nero and Marcus Aurelius giving them the thumbs down. Its was too much. I loveeed it. We ate pizza and gelato. I walked in one gelateria and got a cone of vanilla creme, ate that while I walked to the next shop and purchased a second with chocolate and mint. I could do that all day longggg. on to the nexxxxt one ciao!