'Decriminalizing prostitution'= protecting pimps and traffickers

A few months ago I was approached in the park to sign a petition to place a bill that 'decriminalizes prostitution'. My two questions were how will this bill effect trafficking victims? And how will it effect minors (who are also considered trafficking victims, but I am making the distinction nonetheless) The woman said it wouldn't effect them. BUT IT WILL!! 

This will not protect adult consenting women and men from prosecution. It will however prevent the city from prosecuting people who prey on the vulnerable. 

Read the article below.

If you live in San Francisco VOTE!

If you live outside the city PRAY!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/08/17/INRE129JV7.DTL

Support letter

Dear Friends,

 

As many of you know I recently completed my Masters of Divinity. I am excited to say I have been invited to work with ReIMAGINE in San Francisco. I would like to extend an invitation to you to join in our work through prayer and financial support.

 

ReIMAGINE is a Bay Area Center for Life Integration based in San Francisco.  As a Center, we run a 9-month integrative spiritual formation process. Through a variety of hands on workshops, retreats and events, participants learn and practice how to incorporate 7 themes (service, creativity, community, obedience, prayer, simplicity and love) seen in the life and teachings of Jesus.  In addition to the 9-month initiative, we also run weeklong intensives for high school and college students based on the same 7 threads.  As a unique, creative, and inventive ministry, ReIMAGINE is an exciting place to serve. I will be the main facilitator and coordinator for much of our work.

 

This fall as part of our nine-month formation process ReIMAGINE is participating in Jesus’ call to seek justice. I will be a main facilitator in a workshop designed to train people in educated activism in response to the Illegal Global Slave Trade, focusing on slavery in the San Francisco area.

 

Modern day slavery/human trafficking is an issue that God has developed a passion for within me over the past year. Last summer I started reading about modern day slavery and human trafficking. I was so horrified by what I read that I was hardly able to finish the book. (Disposable People, Kevin Bales) Since then I have searched out ways that I could be involved in helping the people who are forced into the position of slavery.

 

Despite all of the things that make San Francisco great, San Francisco is one of the cities in the US to have a known problem with trafficking. Through the summer I have been spending time researching and planning a way for ReIMAGINE to be involved in helping end slavery. This is an answer to prayer for me. I believe that in this day the call to set captives free is not only a metaphor but also an actual call on our lives.

 

Along with preparing for the workshop I have already spent much of the summer hosting student groups. As many of you are aware I have a deep love for students. My desire is to see them mature in the way they follow after Jesus. Our weeklong intensives create a beautiful environment for them to learn how to live out everything they have been taught about the Gospel.

 

San Francisco is a beautiful, diverse, and challenging city. Over the past months I have learned so much about how God is moving in this city. I feel very confident that this is the place that God has called me. The greatest affirmation that this is right for me is the fall workshop project I will be helping facilitate.

 

As I have met people here, I can see that this is a city that is alive with spiritual seekers, and much like most places it is also full of obstacles. I am consistently amazed by the opportunities that I have to speak with people about what it means to follow Jesus; even more, I am excited about the ways I am allowed to live that call out in San Francisco.

 

The opportunities make it clear to me that this is where God desires to use me over the next year. ReIMAGINE is a small organization and I need you to help as I stay here. In order to live I need to raise a minimum of $30,000 in annual support. I will be working part time to make half of that income.

 

I have been working with ReIMAGINE as an intern without support this past semester. As I enter this next year of service I need the support of others to make this year successful. You are receiving this invitation to join in supporting me because of the role you have played in my life already. I am very grateful for the prayer and financial support that I have received over the years in other areas of ministry. Please pray about how you can give at this time. Financial support is very much needed and appreciated, but I cannot do this with out your prayers. Attached is an area to mark what information you want to receive and how you would like to participate in supporting the work of ReIMAGINE.

 

Grace and Peace,

Sarah Rochelle Montoya

I am offering support through:

 

Prayer                         one time gift                        monthly giving

 

$10             $20            $50            $100            other_________

 

I would like to receive:

 

Mailed out updates                                    Email updates

 

Please return to:

ReIMAGINE!

P.O. Box 411601

San Francisco, CA 94141-1601

 

Checks payable to ReIMAGINE for Account 114

your one wild and precious life...

We had a little poetry slam tonight. I was going to read this poem, mostly because I love the last few lines, but I forgot to print it off. So I am posting it here.

The Summer Day 



Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear? 


Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean-- 


the one who has flung herself out of the grass, 


the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, 


who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-- 


who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. 


Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. 


Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. 


I don't know exactly what a prayer is. 


I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down 


into the grass, how to kneel in the grass, 


how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, 


which is what I have been doing all day. 


Tell me, what else should I have done? 


Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? 

Tell me, what is is you plan to do 


With your one wild and precious life? 



~Mary Oliver 


the bridge

with friends in town over the past weeks I was able to get some great pics of the amazing city i live in. i played with this one (obviously) and I wanted to share.

more will come in time.

the cost of not being a hypocrite $2

hi

hi how are you

hungry- i need a burger

i am sorry what did you say

i need a burger- will you buy me a burger- from jack in the box

sure, my name is Sarah

hi i am steve- you know what is cheaper than a burger- rice and sweet and sour sauce- can i have that?

sure, i will get it for you

(walk in the building, order food, pay $2, go outside realize that he can't use chop sticks, go back inside get fork and napkin, go back outside)

what do you do for a living

I work with spiritual formation

oh, that is cool, what do you do

I teach people about living in the way of Jesus, you know feed the hungry and stuff

(and I don't feel like a hypocrite because he has rice)

His toothless smile was intense and honest. He asked if he could use my phone to call his mother, reluctantly I dialed the number he gave me. He asked her for money. She didn't even know where he was and he asked her for money. That was hard to watch. Before I left him I told him about Page Street where he could volunteer and get a meal for free, and some groceries. The prospect of food was really exciting for him. The entire time we were talking I was holding my fresh coffee. I had just eaten Indian food, and watched a movie. It was a good day, and even if by some crazy social standard he didn't deserve to have me buy his meal, I have to say that as I told him what I did for a living I was relieved that I knew it was true. I encourage people to live in the Way of Jesus, I host work shops that focus on the teachings of Christ, and sometimes when I am lucky, I get a chance to meet people, ask them how they are, and feed the hungry.

Sweet Pain

"... the more I think about loneliness, the more I think that the wound of loneliness is like the Grand Canyon-- a deep incision in the surface of our existence which has become an inexhaustible source of beauty and self-understanding.

Therefore I would like to voice loudly and clearly what might seem unpopular and maybe even disturbing: The Christian way of life does not take away our loneliness; it protects and cherishes it as a precious gift. Sometimes it seems as if we do everything possible to avoid the painful confrontation with our basic human loneliness, and allow ourselves to be trapped by false gods promising immediate satisfaction and quick relief. But perhaps the painful awareness of loneliness is an invitation to transcend our limitations and look beyond the boundaries of our existence. The awareness of loneliness might be a gift we must protect and guard, because our loneliness reveals to us an inner emptiness that can be destructive when misunderstood, but filled with promise for [those] who can tolerate its sweet pain." 

The Wounded Healer, Henri J. M. Nouwen

Going to 7 elementary schools, feeling that I did not fit at my conservative college, and having a spirit set to roam I have dreamed of a day when the ache in my heart will be soothed. Even still, with each year, each adventure, each life changing friendship, each person who deeply loves me, and each person I love, I have learned that loneliness is at the core of life. No matter how busy my day is there will be some brief moment when I know that I am alone. Part of me knows that there is more to this feeling, that nothing will fully take it away, and that I might not want to loose it. It is in the sweet pain that I am most connected with all of humanity, most able to share in the suffering of the world, and most able to participate in the healing process. 

mashup

Suz and I hit up the DNA Lounge with my friends Leah, Charlyn and Jeff. it is a crazy place, kind of gothish, complete with legal Absinthe (I did not partake in it)- funny that SF seems to have missed the memo that the drink is illegal everywhere else in the US- all kinds of laws don't apply to us San Franciscans. Looking around the dance floor, experiencing the house band, rocking out to the DJ's I feel that I saw a deeper part of my city. Jumping around and singing at the top of my lungs I saw a mix of people whose stories I will never know but I am still sure that they are powerful. I cannot put it into words, but that mashup of people affected my experience as much as the music did. It was as if everything in the world separated us and nothing did at the same time.

 

here is a photo of the after effects of dancing:

we are all sweaty and my hair is messed up...

maybe this is why baptist think dancing is a sin? it has to be a sin to look this good!!!

btw: I am excited about hosting another Texas friend this week! I am overwhelmed by how much I am loved, and by the opportunity I have to share wild my city!