That's a really good question and something I've been asked a lot over the past few months as I've prepared to go to Cambodia to volunteer for 6 months. The short and simple answer to that question is that I'll be volunteering with a small non-profit called Save Each One, primarily working with prostitutes to 1) meet them, get to know them, and provide an outlet into programs where they learn other vocational skills if they want to and can get out of prostitution, and 2) provide first aid education for those that stay in the brothels so they can live healthier lives. I've been learning a lot about sex trafficking and sex work over the past 5 years, but it will be a huge learning curve as I start helping out on the ground and seeing exactly how this plays out in people's lives, rather than just on paper.
The less short and simple answer to the question of "what exactly are you doing?" is something I've been thinking about more specifically over the past year. Yes, I'll be heading overseas with the plan to help people and that on the surface sounds like very good and noble work and that could probably suffice if I didn't want to think about it more. But as many of you who know me, not over-thinking anything in my life is rarely an option for me :).
Let's start with how this whole process began. I started looking to volunteer overseas in earnest about 5 years ago. I was trying to do some non-profit work through Accenture, and had a very cool opportunity to go to Ghana for a few months, but my plans went through the red tape machine and didn't come out. I then decided to look for opportunities outside of Accenture, and sex trafficking was the issue that I had been learning more about through my church as well as with One Day's Wages, the non-profit I was heavily involved with. I've worked with kids my whole life, whether as a counselor at church, a basketball coach, or at summer camp, so when I learned that children as young as a few years old were in forced into the sex trade, it was hard for me to feel like I could just keep going without trying to do something. If I tried to put myself in the situation of a child who had to go through such young and formative years with the experience of being so intimately exploited (and given up by their parents, sometimes because that was the lesser of two evils), I honestly don't know how I could come back from that and feel like I wanted to keep going on.
I naively thought that I wanted to immediately start busting down doors in southeast Asia to "rescue" these children, but didn't know how to even get involved. I felt paralyzed because the issue was so massive and far away. And as I continued to learn about sex trafficking, it's a lot more complicated than just raiding brothels and taking kids out. For example, if governments don't punish these brothels for exploiting children, then they'll just open up shop down the street the following week. And if the children being taken out of brothels don't have anywhere to go for support and care, they'll just go back to the only place they've known: the brothels. The more I learned about the complexity of the issue, the more I felt the sense of powerlessness in what I could do to help.
Nevertheless, I felt like I had to do something. So I kept studying the issue here in Seattle, and trying to raise awareness and funds to support organizations doing great work to support these children. One of these organizations is Love146, who I learned about through my work with One Day's Wages. Love146 provides a support system for children to who are taken out of the sex trade to begin the long process of restoration. I so loved their approach to holistic, long-term, and consistent care and that felt like something I wanted to get further involved with. So I emailed them and literally asked "how can I help?"
That kicked-off a year-long discussion on how I could help them on the ground which culminated with a six-month opportunity to join them in Cambodia at the beginning of 2014. I would be working in a program that provided aftercare for boys taken out of sex trafficking - a prevalent issue, but one that doesn't get as much focus.
But like with most things in life, God has a funny sense of timing. Literally the day after I committed to going to Cambodia, I got an offer to join the Gates Foundation full-time. I was (and am still very much) flattered and honored with the offer, but the opportunity in Cambodia took so much time/planning and was the end goal of a few years of thought that I felt like I had to do that before committing to anything else. With that said, I loved my team at Gates and the work we were doing was so amazing and exciting, and I felt like it could be so beneficial not only to the foundation, but also to the non-profit sector as a whole. When Gates came back and very generously said that if I committed to them in 2014, they would find a way to give me six months to pursue my volunteer opportunity in 2015, I made the decision to finish out my work at the foundation before going abroad. It was a tough decision given how much time and energy went into setting up that opportunity, and how I still felt like I needed to find a way to help in that arena, but it felt right at the time and I'm very proud of the work our team accomplished for the foundation.
Which brings us to 2015. Even though I was now able to pursue my 6-month volunteer opportunity, I honestly hadn't given it much time/effort/thought. I knew how long the planning process took previously and just didn't feel like starting that up quite yet. On top of that, the people I had been working with at Love146 were no longer there, so it would literally be starting the whole process over again. This is the part of the story where friends that keep you accountable, my big mouth, and Warren Buffet come into play.
Throughout this process I had shared my desire to go overseas to volunteer with friends and family. This process had now been going on four years and counting, and I was feeling like I should either push through and make it happen or stop talking about it as if I really wanted to do it. I've found that
telling people your plans serves as a good incentive to make sure you follow-through. And my caring friends, who all knew my desire to go overseas kept gently reminding me that I, in fact, had not yet gone overseas. To exacerbate my big mouth syndrome, I wrote a devotional for some of the folks at my old church having to do with remembering that you need God, even when you're life is comfortable and you don't actually feel that acute necessity anymore. I asked if "remembering" this need was sufficient. Maybe for us to really feel that need, we actually had to put ourselves in position of needing God, not just feigning need for the sake of it. This could take many forms: helping with something you're not very skilled at, getting to know people that you don't see eye-to-eye with, or in my case, going to a foreign country to help in an area I wasn't familiar with, without knowing the language or people. Yup, that bullseye you see forming is the one on my back.
At the same time, Warren Buffet spoke at our annual meeting and as he usually does, was both self-effacing/humble and inspiring/convicting. He spoke of two things that showed his humility: He reminded us all that he's not an amazing person (he actually is), but that he's just trying to get the most utility out of his resources. For him to spend money on say another car, would give him very little marginal value. But to take that same money and spend it on vaccines would provide people life-saving value and that's where he wants his money to go - where it can provide the most utility. He gave to the tune of $35+ billion - so just a few cars sacrificed.
The second thing he reminded me of was that he's had success in his life not because he's smarter than everyone else, but that he won the "genetic lottery" (he actually is smarter than most, but you get the point). He had a 1:40 chance to be born in America and a 1:2 chance to be born a man. The combination of those two chance occurrences allowed him opportunities that relatively few others in the world had and he knew it. You know the saying that some people are born on 3rd base thinking they hit a triple? Warren Buffet knew he was born on 3rd base, and he wanted to use the resources that came with his chance privilege to even the playing field.
These two things were a profound reminder to me that I should be thoughtful/intentional about my resources as well as the fact that any thoughts I have of deserving what I get because of hard work are coming from a place of naive privilege. So the question to myself was what do I do, if anything, with the knowledge that I was blessed with many more opportunities than most.
Let's add all this up:
I'm still not exactly sure how I'll be helping these six months. There's a lot I've learned over the past few years about trafficking, etc., but with that learning comes the realization that I don't really know very much at all - and definitely not enough to feel like I can just come in and start making a huge difference.
But I'm reminded of something one my pastors mentioned this year (and I'm paraphrasing): "We think ability is more important than availability, but sometimes we just need to go if there's a need, regardless of how ready we feel."
The less short and simple answer to the question of "what exactly are you doing?" is something I've been thinking about more specifically over the past year. Yes, I'll be heading overseas with the plan to help people and that on the surface sounds like very good and noble work and that could probably suffice if I didn't want to think about it more. But as many of you who know me, not over-thinking anything in my life is rarely an option for me :).
Let's start with how this whole process began. I started looking to volunteer overseas in earnest about 5 years ago. I was trying to do some non-profit work through Accenture, and had a very cool opportunity to go to Ghana for a few months, but my plans went through the red tape machine and didn't come out. I then decided to look for opportunities outside of Accenture, and sex trafficking was the issue that I had been learning more about through my church as well as with One Day's Wages, the non-profit I was heavily involved with. I've worked with kids my whole life, whether as a counselor at church, a basketball coach, or at summer camp, so when I learned that children as young as a few years old were in forced into the sex trade, it was hard for me to feel like I could just keep going without trying to do something. If I tried to put myself in the situation of a child who had to go through such young and formative years with the experience of being so intimately exploited (and given up by their parents, sometimes because that was the lesser of two evils), I honestly don't know how I could come back from that and feel like I wanted to keep going on.
I naively thought that I wanted to immediately start busting down doors in southeast Asia to "rescue" these children, but didn't know how to even get involved. I felt paralyzed because the issue was so massive and far away. And as I continued to learn about sex trafficking, it's a lot more complicated than just raiding brothels and taking kids out. For example, if governments don't punish these brothels for exploiting children, then they'll just open up shop down the street the following week. And if the children being taken out of brothels don't have anywhere to go for support and care, they'll just go back to the only place they've known: the brothels. The more I learned about the complexity of the issue, the more I felt the sense of powerlessness in what I could do to help.
Nevertheless, I felt like I had to do something. So I kept studying the issue here in Seattle, and trying to raise awareness and funds to support organizations doing great work to support these children. One of these organizations is Love146, who I learned about through my work with One Day's Wages. Love146 provides a support system for children to who are taken out of the sex trade to begin the long process of restoration. I so loved their approach to holistic, long-term, and consistent care and that felt like something I wanted to get further involved with. So I emailed them and literally asked "how can I help?"
That kicked-off a year-long discussion on how I could help them on the ground which culminated with a six-month opportunity to join them in Cambodia at the beginning of 2014. I would be working in a program that provided aftercare for boys taken out of sex trafficking - a prevalent issue, but one that doesn't get as much focus.
But like with most things in life, God has a funny sense of timing. Literally the day after I committed to going to Cambodia, I got an offer to join the Gates Foundation full-time. I was (and am still very much) flattered and honored with the offer, but the opportunity in Cambodia took so much time/planning and was the end goal of a few years of thought that I felt like I had to do that before committing to anything else. With that said, I loved my team at Gates and the work we were doing was so amazing and exciting, and I felt like it could be so beneficial not only to the foundation, but also to the non-profit sector as a whole. When Gates came back and very generously said that if I committed to them in 2014, they would find a way to give me six months to pursue my volunteer opportunity in 2015, I made the decision to finish out my work at the foundation before going abroad. It was a tough decision given how much time and energy went into setting up that opportunity, and how I still felt like I needed to find a way to help in that arena, but it felt right at the time and I'm very proud of the work our team accomplished for the foundation.
Which brings us to 2015. Even though I was now able to pursue my 6-month volunteer opportunity, I honestly hadn't given it much time/effort/thought. I knew how long the planning process took previously and just didn't feel like starting that up quite yet. On top of that, the people I had been working with at Love146 were no longer there, so it would literally be starting the whole process over again. This is the part of the story where friends that keep you accountable, my big mouth, and Warren Buffet come into play.
Throughout this process I had shared my desire to go overseas to volunteer with friends and family. This process had now been going on four years and counting, and I was feeling like I should either push through and make it happen or stop talking about it as if I really wanted to do it. I've found that
telling people your plans serves as a good incentive to make sure you follow-through. And my caring friends, who all knew my desire to go overseas kept gently reminding me that I, in fact, had not yet gone overseas. To exacerbate my big mouth syndrome, I wrote a devotional for some of the folks at my old church having to do with remembering that you need God, even when you're life is comfortable and you don't actually feel that acute necessity anymore. I asked if "remembering" this need was sufficient. Maybe for us to really feel that need, we actually had to put ourselves in position of needing God, not just feigning need for the sake of it. This could take many forms: helping with something you're not very skilled at, getting to know people that you don't see eye-to-eye with, or in my case, going to a foreign country to help in an area I wasn't familiar with, without knowing the language or people. Yup, that bullseye you see forming is the one on my back.
At the same time, Warren Buffet spoke at our annual meeting and as he usually does, was both self-effacing/humble and inspiring/convicting. He spoke of two things that showed his humility: He reminded us all that he's not an amazing person (he actually is), but that he's just trying to get the most utility out of his resources. For him to spend money on say another car, would give him very little marginal value. But to take that same money and spend it on vaccines would provide people life-saving value and that's where he wants his money to go - where it can provide the most utility. He gave to the tune of $35+ billion - so just a few cars sacrificed.
The second thing he reminded me of was that he's had success in his life not because he's smarter than everyone else, but that he won the "genetic lottery" (he actually is smarter than most, but you get the point). He had a 1:40 chance to be born in America and a 1:2 chance to be born a man. The combination of those two chance occurrences allowed him opportunities that relatively few others in the world had and he knew it. You know the saying that some people are born on 3rd base thinking they hit a triple? Warren Buffet knew he was born on 3rd base, and he wanted to use the resources that came with his chance privilege to even the playing field.
These two things were a profound reminder to me that I should be thoughtful/intentional about my resources as well as the fact that any thoughts I have of deserving what I get because of hard work are coming from a place of naive privilege. So the question to myself was what do I do, if anything, with the knowledge that I was blessed with many more opportunities than most.
Let's add all this up:
- Human trafficking was an issue I was interested in, but didn't know much about and felt a little paralyzed with how to help
- I had a desire to travel abroad by myself because it forced me to get out of my comfort zone, which is where I learn the most and have the most dependence on God since I can't fall back on my routine - even though it terrifies me at the same time (which is probably the point)
- Warren Buffet reminded me that with my great privilege (and luck), I should do something to reduce the gap between the haves and have-nots.
I'm still not exactly sure how I'll be helping these six months. There's a lot I've learned over the past few years about trafficking, etc., but with that learning comes the realization that I don't really know very much at all - and definitely not enough to feel like I can just come in and start making a huge difference.
But I'm reminded of something one my pastors mentioned this year (and I'm paraphrasing): "We think ability is more important than availability, but sometimes we just need to go if there's a need, regardless of how ready we feel."
Enjoyed reading this. I'm reminded of a prayer that goes like this: We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts. Make good use of this opportunity and just follow your heart and your trust in God.
ReplyDeleteWe love you very much.
Dad
That was long. Haha, excited to hear more about your adventure!
ReplyDeleteI am very proud of you Pert! This takes a lot of guts and courage to do what you are doing! To me, the most important question in life is "What Gives You Deep Meaning?" Without a doubt, you are answering it. I am excited about your adventure.
ReplyDeletePhong