Friday, October 24, 2008

The evening was AMAZING!

The art show was amazing! We had between 250-300 people there and raised over $1000 for two wonderful organizations that work with trafficking victims!!!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

ABOLITION ART INSTALLATION




As the 6 week of learning to be advocates for those in slavery is now at its end we are having an art show to share what we have learned. We are hoping to have at least 200 people there. We are using the event to both raise awareness and raise some money for organizations that are serving victims of human trafficking.

It is so exciting to see something that we have worked towards for months come in life, and it is also fulfilling to see it coming to its end. It has been beautiful hard work. We learned about the issue together, we investigated a suspected building, we gave up products that feed the slave trade, we created propaganda to raise awareness, and tomorrow we are hosting an art show.

This is what it is to follow in the Way of Jesus- it is a broken and hard road. I am in no way saying that I have done anything perfectly, or even all that well- but with other people beside me, we have sought to live the message of release of captives. We have attempted to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.

This has been a beautiful experiment in living.

I am so grateful that I am in a position of freedom so that I can participate with others as we raise our voices and create art to call for an end to slavery.

Maybe I am idealistic, but I believe that we can end this in our lifetime- and people will really be free.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Self Evident

We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men were created equal.

Today has been a sobering and powerful day. I hit up the monuments, the Holocaust Museum, and the Archives.

As I stood in the monuments and read the speeches, I was in awe. I am still in awe. I am inspired. I also a little afraid.

Afraid that we are resting on ideals of the past and failing again to take responsibility for the now. We look back at 6 million Jews and say never again. We forget about Darfur and the many other genocides happening today. We focus on the Jews and forget that the Roma were and still are severely mistreated in Europe. We act like the lives of the Jews have been fully restored, but there are villages that are gone forever.

We also, like many of the naive Germans, claim that we don't know what is happening, even as 27 million people are enslaved all around us. We hold on to the idea that once upon a time we said all were created equal, and having said that we feel we have done enough.

Because of the economic crisis we have dropped the ball on slavery issues in the country. The TVPRA has to be reauthorized every 2 years. Time is up. If it is not pushed through in the Lame Duck session it will be dropped and all the positive changes (20 improvements that have been fought hard for) will be lost as legislators have to start over next January. The good news is that Biden is a major champion of this bill, if he is VP that will help it get through. If he is not the VP then he can get back to working on passing it, but in reality it needs to get through now.


Please write your senator and house reps to tell them to get the TVPRA through! Encourage them to push it to the front of the list of issues to deal with in the Lame Duck session. It is a matter of life and death- I am not being dramatic.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all members of humanity are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

If slavery isn't wrong then nothing is wrong- Abraham Lincoln

The Nation's Capitol

A little over 100 of us showed up here on Wednesday to tell our representatives that we cared about the TVPRA.

Not sure why the plan was for us to come talk to them while they were in recess but we are here. I am grateful to have a rep that is a strong supporter of this bill getting through. To bad it is going to rely on a Lame Duck session to move it through- it is a matter of life and death for slaves, but the crashing economy and the election year seem to have trumped the lives of children enslaved all over the world.

They said that 90% of politics is showing up, we did that. Who knows maybe the November session will prove that people do care about this growing crisis.

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