Tuesday, November 30, 2010

To be in: GERMANY

            There are good and bad things about being in a different country, or even Europe. I can country hop whenever I want, and I can be independent on my own.  I can make my own decisions, and focus on my life over here and not on all the troubles of home. I can make my own opinions on life, and decide when I’m going to bed. I can choose my friends here, and they will know me for who I am at this very moment and not have any view of prior judgment from the past. It is a glorious life to be in Germany on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, but still sometimes I feel distraught and held back from reality.
            I have to grow up, be my own mom. I have to make drastic and tough decisions on my own without the council of a parent. And my friends aren’t the same as they always have been, and they don’t know or understand me the way the ones at home do. Two months can happen, or even one month can pass and drastic things can change. My best friend could get engaged in a month, or the United States could be threatened by a terrorist attack. It sometimes feels as if I’m living in my own little DTS bubble, but for the most part I feel like I lived in my American tent my whole life.
            It seems as if people are afraid to utter the word “injustice” or “poverty. Its as if it is a taboo word, not to be mentioned. But we have lecture after lecture about the tragedies in the world. It’s in our face every day, and we can’t possibly ignore it. I now feel like the one with open eyes, open eyes aware to the unthinkable. Yes, I may not be apart of the social network of the States, but ready to embrace the dark so that I can illuminate the sun. The Son.
            

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Not for Sale

November 23, 2010

I remember when I was younger and my siblings and I used to playfully put on stickers with prices on them from yard sales and joke about how much we were worth. It’s a fun game to play when you’re a child, but it’s actually a cruel reality that I discovered. I went to a “Not for Sale” conference with my DTS last weekend.  Not for Sale is an organization that makes people aware of human trafficking and slavery in the world. One of the horrific numbers that I learned about slavery in the world is 27 million people to be exact. That 27 million includes child slave labor and forced prostitution with women and children.
            The third and last day of the conference we had a speaker who was giving an overview of everything we learned. To prove a point, he asked for an 18-year-old girl to stand up. As I looked curiously around the room to see if anyone would stand up, I felt a pang in my heart. All of a sudden I somehow was on my feet with hundreds of people staring at me. The speaker asked the crowd a question, “How much is she worth?”
 I pondered the question in my head. My worth? Can someone truly stamp a price on my forehead? He answered the question, 3:25$. How can that be true? How can it possibly be determined? My heart broke; this was the standard price the world has bestowed on a woman’s body.
Jeremiah 1:5 “ I knew you before I knit you in your mothers womb. Before you were born, I set you apart.”
            If we were not made with worth, why would God take time to form us? To set us apart? We were made for a plan, a purpose, and a future. We were not just tossed into the world broken and without a purpose. God strategically designed us to be beautiful, captivating, and exquisite. God saw our full potential, our special part in the world. Life in the States is so easy to ignore this kind of stuff because it feels like another countries problem, but it’s actually in your back yard.  Just look up “Slaverymap.org”. Check out your state, even your city. I’m sure you will be shocked. For me, it seems like a never-ending shock in my DTS.
            I know with all of my heart that God frowns over injustice, His heart is constantly breaking over it. It seems as if God is breaking my heart every day here, but I don’t want it to just break. I want it to break for a purpose, I want it to break for a change.

Here are some pictures from Hamburg...

           


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