but weight…who cares?

 

i met this man the other day on the river front…he sat there, crippled…asking ME if i wanted to use his scale to weigh myself in exchange for some riel. i was so ripped apart by the irony of what I saw when i saw him. I saw more than a crippled man asking for money. Here clashed the fickle irony of our obsession with image and the desperate REALITY of his marred image…

 

..i had to consider my freedom of choice vs his.

mama T..on slavery

 TO WORK WITHOUT LOVE IS SLAVERY

-Mother Theresa

 

beauty amidst ruin…aye, there is HOPE

Although left and right I am surrounded by injustice, corruption, and desperation (the bitter after taste of the Pol Pot communist regime is still infiltrated into the government, legal system, culture, and the identity and individuality of each person)…..although this surrounds me…I cannot help but see beauty as well.

 

Beauty as a culture once put to sleep stirrs at the break of morning…as hope rises with the sun.   I was driving past the outskirts of the city the other day and literally caught my breath looking out over the lush and mysterious rice fields guarded by tall and brave sugar palm trees…like a vast army fading into the morning mist (…dust and pollution?c:  ).

 

I see beauty too in the people I meet. My new favourite thing to do with rare and free time is to get a moto a part of town I haven’t been…just anywhere that looks interesting.  Then I hop off and just wander …explore…and get LOST c: ( a favourite) .  I wish I could speak  more Khmer (first language lesson  yesterday!! (:…but for now I just meander and roam, curious and intrigued. Watching people and wandering streets most tourists would probably avoid c: I feel like getting to know this culture is like discovering a friend and getting to know someone I love. In that, I want to know more than the other passer-by knows…even the arbitrary details of a back road and the old woman that sits under the shade of a big mango tree on its corner.

 

She smiled at me with a big toothless grin and I felt like she was saying

 

“welcome home”

 

some stats::status of global HIV/AIDS situation, 2007. -UN

Some statistics (sadly not incredibly current)

 

 

In 2007 there were more than 33 MILLION people worldwide

known to be infected withAIDS

 ..over 50% of these 33 million were WOMEN….and 2.1 MILLION were CHILDREN under the age of 15

 

 

In 2007 alone more than 420,000 children were newly infected with HIV worldwide and 290,000 died of AIDS.

 

 

More than 90% of these children contracted HIV from their mothers during pregnancy, birth and through breastfeeding….

 

 

Approximately 50% of infants infected with HIV from their mothers will die before they turn two.

 

 

(..this is my favourite part::)

Intervention (counselling, testing, antiretroviral prophylaxis, educated maternity care, and breastfeeding guidance) can decrease the rate of transmission

 

from 45% to 1-2%

 

 

We cannot ignore that the thriving global Sex Industry fuels the monstrosity of this AIDS crisis…

 

 

 

 

 

 

this blog is an overflow of my soon full book of scribbled thoughts, torn out snippets from various articles, musings, prayers, and attempts at sketches.  A vain attempt to capture the desperation, the beauty, and the untold reality of the people i meet along the way.  Also an effort to capture and translate Gods  heart through my interpretations of his thoughts .

After being in SE Asia for a few months and Cambodia for only a week i am inspired, stirred, convicted and compelled to voice some of the injustices I have caught glimpses of…even from a distance. I speak with urgency on behalf of those who are not being heard…I have never been so sure that God is raising up an army for such a time as this. The issue of Human Sex Trafficking and HIV/AIDS …the persons effected by these…are particularly on  my heart. I have been silent far too long and can no longer plead ignorance to justify my tolerance…my unresponsiveness and apathy. I still am not entirely sure why I am here…but i know that  I have positioned myself and this is somewhere I can start at least by being a voice. Not for the sake of rambling on, self promotion, debating controversy, or a good cause….but for the sake of the Truth.  For the cause of the woman coming out of prostitution with AIDS facing stigma, rejection, and fear. For the baby that she is carrying…and considering aborting. And, ultimately, for the One who called me on their behalf, the One who IS love, the One who gave everything…..

ultimately i speak, i stand, i fight, i live…for Him. Ah and it is my joy! My heart is that His Kingdom (”righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne”) would come on earth as it is in heaven.

Without Him, everything is meaningless…another good humanitarian cause…that never truly satisfies the hungry.

“untamed thoughts”. -collected on a brown paper bag over time

“God, how many times have I asked You to break my heart..

 for the things that break Yours…?

 

 

Tonight

I am broken, I am enraged,

Paralysed by the injustice I have seen

….it isNOT FAIR.

 

I weep, I moan, I clench my fists in rage.

Children…

 

innocent, beautifu

l, curious and

 

free..

 Today were selected….SOLD…and enslaved

Branded like the herd with a number; 139…102..146

Numbers they take in exchange of a name.

Caught like a bewildered butterfly,

…in the tangled web of social immorality, corruption and injustice

A web more complex than I realize.

Yet there is hope

Simply in the knowledge that the One

Who created that butterfly

Has not forgotten

Will show Himself

Redeemer

To each one.

…..

To each one :

 

All innocence left in a pile with her teddy bear

Left in a pile with the non refundable film called ‘childhood’

The film she didn’t have time to finish before she left

Home

Bribed, tricked, ‘tamed‘…confused.

Numb, ashamed, robotically used.

To gratify the desperate desires pooled by the deficit

An old man left at home

 

A man called lover by the woman he once loved.

And father on a postcard that arrived yesterday…

by the child he fails to see in you.

“Cant wait til you get home dad, I miss you, love

Taylor” 

You are expected to be his saviour

Anesthesia for his pain, amnesia for his past

He too is desperate, is hurting, is lonely, is confused

So I try not to hate him…just what I see him do.

To you…

As you start to fall together into his grave

 

I cant let you..

Because the One who created you

To live

Wont let you

Fall

That’s why He created me…for you.

And your freedom.

I know this is not the first time I’ve seen your face

Your face

…………………………

 We hear her story…we are moved.

We might even cry

But tomorrow…we could forget

We will forget

But YOU, God

YOU CANNOT FORGET

 

You cannot callous your heart to the pain of a world that has self destructed

Or deafen Your ears to the child’s desperate cry

Or close your eyes and claim ignorance

Because it is

always

within Your reach 

You are there withevery child

Suffering even in the darkest place….

The places I will never even know of

You said when we do it to the least of these

We do it to You

 

 

Tonight I come nowhere near the brokenness of your Father heart.

Continue to break MY heart….

to RUIN my life for the ordinary, for the possible,

for the glamorized ideal of a society corrupted by our skewed perspective…

a perspective skewed by self gratification and greed

(as we feed the lust we claim to despise).

Let these tears generate a

life’s response.

 

It seems that everything I have lived for up to now has lost its meaning.

My emptiness was in that I lived for nothing beyond myself.

In pleasing others I thought I pleased myself

I rehearsed the scripts so well…word for word..

In front of mirrors lining the walls of vanity and pride

Yet failed to realize that the only person who really cared about my act…

 

 

Really didn’t

 

He was not

moved by my sentiment,

Fooled by my masquerade

Oramused by my hollowed humour

His piercing eyes seared to the very core of my existence…

Past all pretence and parade

And He knew me

Knew the willingness of my heart

Knew the weakness of my flesh

And He loved me still

 

So He called me back

‘He led me out into the desert…away from my idols’

He redeemed me, who I am and why I am

Redeemer

The one who is JUST in every way.. yet who was in no way fair

In the exchange of my ashes for His beauty.

He called me back, and called me beautiful.

He knew me,

I am fully known

He surprised me when He said

He still loved me.

He knew me as a child when He stirred dreams in my heart.

Dreams that He too had dreamed as I was knit together thoughtfully…

Perfectly…in my mothers heart, in His mind, His hands.

Father I know WHO you are sending me to…but I don’t know WHEN or HOW…or do I??

Tonight, You said I have seen now I am responsible

What is my response?

I asked you and you showed me the neon green EXIT sign.

Ok.

I’m ready. I think.
Teach me to trust you.

I lay everything down again.

My life is

 

completely

Yours.””