Journey notes: The value of a child

After my presentation he approached me quickly.  “You know,” he began. “The girls in [my country] are grateful when a man will spend money for them.  They feel valued.  They feel proud.  This is the measure of their worth.  This is our culture.”  Truthfully, I didn’t know how to respond.

In these weeks leading up to our trip to Thailand I have been talking with groups who are interested in hearing more about the work that Jessi and I will be doing with the Remember Nhu Foundation.  The intention of these presentations is two-fold.  First I want to spread awareness about the prevalence of child sex trafficking throughout the world.  Secondly I am hoping to raise funds to pay for our trip and funds to support the Remember Nhu Foundation.  Child sex trafficking is a social disease that is so revolting to me, so utterly sordid, that I couldn’t imagine that I would meet with opposition.

How would do you respond?

This statement I’ve taken directly off the Remember Nhu website (https://remembernhu.org/how-prevention-works.html )

 

“In countries around the world it has become culturally acceptable to sell your children when ends don't meet. Due to the high death rate in the sex trade (3 years or less), there is an increasing demand for more and more workers. Sadly, both boys as well as girls are wanted to fill brothels. It is because of the supply and the demand that horror of the sex trade continues.”

Right after college I was preparing to enter the Peace Corps.  I learned that we could not simply enter into a community, into another culture, and expect to make changes or pose solutions.  We would first need to get to know the people.  We would need to sit with them and form friendships.  We would need to learn to work within the culture.  But what if that culture has social mores that argue against my moral fabric?  How do I combat that?

 

I did not argue with the man described above.  There was no real forum for an argument.  I simply listened to him and I acknowledged that this aspect of his culture was something I could never come to understand.  And quietly, in my heart and mind, I prayed.  I prayed for compassion for all of the people I would come to meet during this journey – for the children who would need comfort and reassurance that they are loved (2 Corinthians 1: 3,4), and for the people whose deeds I did not understand (Matthew 7:1-2).

I do not know what obstacles I will face on this journey but I know there will be obstacles and there will be opposition.  As Jessi and I face these challenges together we know that our fight is not just against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6) and we know that we will need to put on our armor every day.  We stand together and we claim that God did not give us a spirit of fear.  Rather he gave us each a spirit of power, and of love, and of sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7).

The beginning of our journey: Su's story

I didn’t expect to be stretched so much.  

When I chose to become a parent I had no idea how my children would stretch me, how strongly they would impact my life.  When Ian was just over four months old my friend Debbie asked me, “aren’t you afraid to lose your identity?”  Allan and I were living in Maine at the time and our friends Debbie and Bob were visiting.  Debbie and I had just returned from cross country skiing.  In the warmth of the wood stove our faces took on a healthy glow as we shared the ups and downs of our lives.  Her question gave me pause for thought.  Well, what is my identity?  Is my identity something that was established before parenthood and that is now hampered by this new little person in my life?   Will I view this child as an obstruction to who I am or who I can be?  Or will I embrace this new person in my life and let him shape me as much as I try to shape him? 

But I didn’t expect to be stretched so much.

When Jessi was in my womb I didn’t really expect to have a girl.  Historically the Johnson family didn’t have girls – at least not in the biological sense.  I prayed for this child.  I prayed for the things many moms pray for.   I prayed that my child be healthy and able.  I prayed that my child would grow to love and to serve others.  I prayed that my child would be kind and compassionate.  I also prayed that if my child was a girl that she would be strong and would be able to stand her ground.

I guess I didn’t really know what I was asking for.

Jessi is healthy and able.  She is kind and compassionate, she has a special kind of love for the downtrodden and she desires to serve people who have less then herself.  And she is strong.  She is one of the strongest people I know.  These traits of love for people in need, compassion, a desire to serve, inner strength, bring us to where we are today.

I didn’t expect to be stretched so much.

After Jessi received news of the Remember Nhu vision trip she called me.  “Mom,” she said, “I heard from Carl Ralston of Remember Nhu.  He’s planning a trip for potential workers, will you go with me?  I need your input, your wisdom.  I need help with this decision.”  

HUH?  Me?  I’m not the one who goes.  I’m the one who stays home and helps to raise money for these trips.  I pray.  I support.  I encourage…  I don’t go.

But, my kids have always forced me to grow, to look at the world and it’s peoples through a different lens, to stretch beyond my comfort zone.  So I said yes.

It’s been 26 years since I had that first conversation with my friend Debbie.  Have my children caused me to “lose my identity?”  

Maybe.  

If my identity is to be someone who lets others do the hard work that is needed in this world then, yes, I have lost my identity.  On the other hand, I choose to understand that my children have brought me to find my identity.  My story is about a desire to affect change in this world, one child at a time.  I chose to do that when long ago I became a teacher, and I choose to do that now as I plan and fundraise for our trip to Thailand to work with the Remember Nhu Foundation.  I choose to follow my own child into a very dark aspect of our world.  I choose to try to match her strength and her conviction.  I choose to lose my identity to a greater good. 

I choose to be stretched.

Isaiah was a Hebrew prophet who lived around 8 BC.  I have come to embrace his words.

“And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, 

“Here I am! Send me.”

Isaiah 6:8

The beginning of our journey: Jessi's story

In 2008, I fell in love with a country I had never wanted to see and its people whom I had never wanted to meet. I was sitting on the ground outside of an HIV-positive orphanage in Khon Kaen, Thailand when a little girl claimed me as her buddy for that day. She sat in my lap and started coloring with the crayons in front of us. She wrote her name, Nok, in chalk on the sidewalk so that I would understand. She fixed my hair when it fell out of the ponytail, got me a glass of water from the kitchen, and showed me, in her own way, that she is a warrior. Nok was just one of the many Thai people I met on that trip who changed my heart forever.

Nok is one of the lucky ones, raised in an environment of love and compassion with people who would care for her basic needs. Unfortunately, this is not true of the whole of the Thai culture, as many of these children will, at some point, be raped or sold for sex to brothels. Most of these children come from poor households and are sold to the pimps by their own parents, desperate for a little money. Lack of education and opportunity drive children into becoming sex workers; once they have lost their virginity, it becomes easier and easier for their parents to sell them again and again to be raped over and over.
I fell in love with Thailand. It is a beautiful country full of beautiful, friendly people who celebrate a rich and interesting culture. When I started learning about its dark side of sex-trafficking, my heart broke for all the children who would be forced into a life of complacency, pain, despair, hopelessness, and violation. A presentation at church about Remember Nhu hit my mom very hard and she shared her hurt with me and I realized I couldn't just sit idly by doing nothing. I contacted the organization's founder, Carl Ralston, to see if there was any opportunity within their organization, or simply if there was anything I could do to help. At the time, there wasn't and as time continued to rush by, I forgot about this inquiry and forgot, as we are like to do in our land of plenty, about the cries of the children of Thailand.

In 2015, I decided to drive cross country to Portland, Oregon. Shortly after I arrived there, I received an email from Carl. It seems that there had been some others that were interested in working with Remember Nhu and because of the combined interest, Carl decided to organize a Vision Trip to learn in a more hands on way about the Remember Nhu organization. Carl was in Portland and so was I. We met and talked about the idea and encouraged each other in it. Since then it has been a whirlwind production; dates were set, commitments were made, and the trip emerged into reality. 

My mom is my confidante and knows my heart the best of anyone. I know her heart too and asked her to be my partner in this adventure. She has a gentle spirit that aches for these people without meeting them, or seeing them. Blessed are those who believe and have not seen. All we know is that there are too many broken hearts in the Land of Smiles.

We want to make ourselves into vessels of God's love to these people. When two come together, God will deliver and answer.