All I can do is pray

I sat at my kitchen table yesterday, across from my daughter, and, through tears, read another article about the more than 200 Nigerian girls abducted from their school to be sold into forced marriage.

I cried and my 2-year-old daughter asked, "Mama sad?" and kissed my cheek.

I cried because I CANNOT imagine the pain and helplessness the parents of those girls are going through, but I know how much I LOVE my daughter and it is an overwhelming, protective, intense love that I would die for without a second thought.

I cried because I work in this sector and some days I feel like there is more bad news than good.

I cried because I feel helpless in the face of this kind of evil, because I know this is not what Allah really requires of his followers, but some people use his name in vain for evil purposes.

We work and we fight and we try and some days, all we can do is pray. Because there is hope. I have to believe there is hope.

The Importance of a Space

Our Chab Dai book club just finished Stephen Covey's 7 Habits for Highly Effective People, and our final discussion on Habit 7 centred around self-care, or what Covey calls the Four Dimensions of Renewal:

We got to talking about how caring for ourselves may look differently in this country and our line of work than it would elsewhere. I asked Helen, who has been here for 15 years, what she does to maintain a healthy lifestyle and balance living in a developing context and working in such a difficult sector as counter-trafficking. Among other things, she mentioned that her stress levels have been much improved since she and her husband had their own house built outside the city; it is indeed a very tranquil place, with  big garden, a lovely large kitchen, and quiet surroundings. We enjoy retreating there from time to time!

Sam and me hanging out in "Auntie" Helen's pool

This got me thinking about the importance of a space, a place you can withdraw to, and how important that your home be a place of refuge and rest. I think this is especially important when your daily interactions will inevitably include at least one moment of discomfort, misunderstanding, or frustration. It's just the territory living overseas comes with.

Although I wouldn't want to live outside an urban area (I am a city girl through and through!) Charlie and I have put effort into creating an oasis we can retreat to as well as a welcome place for others to find fun and peace in. It even made it into our recently written family purpose statement!*

Six months after arriving in Cambodia, we moved out of our "perfectly fine" apartment, which was actually causing a lot of stress in our lives (overbearing landlady, plumbing and electric in constant need of repair, not feeling at home in our own home). It was only when we moved into our current home that I realised how much our living space was stressing me out and impeding my transition and settling in process.

We now live in a 5th floor flat that I LOVE, though still has its pros and cons. No elevator means everyone who comes over arrives out of breath, including me, and I often have to do it carrying grocery bags and 23 lbs. of squirmy toddler. On the bright side, being so high up on a main street means we're away from the street noise (and I'm getting legs of steel).

Pro: we're investing in artwork! This one is by British,
Phnom Penh-based artist, David Holliday
Con: I do not like the murky brownish orange that
covers our front gate and stair railings.

Half our apartment is a large covered balcony and we have an outdoor kitchen, which, despite my initial reservations, I actually love (for one thing, cooking doesn't heat up the whole house). It does mean more dust and occasional rainstorm invading our living space, but it also means cool evening breezes and a large communal area that is great for receiving people.

The biggest pro is it feels like home and is our oasis in the heart of a bustling neighbourhood - I'll tell you about up-and-coming ToPo another time ;) Although there are still many times we feel like outsiders in Cambodia, our apartment is a safe place that has helped us feel at home in this country.

Charlie & Sam enjoying a puzzle in our outdoor
living room/kitchen

*If you're interested in how we developed our purpose statement, we used a easy tool that has you answer a number of questions and narrow down your family priorities. You can find it here: http://bit.ly/PS3Hr7.

The Economics of Freedom

by Julia Smith-Brake

Originally posted at Along the Paths of Justice, Chab Dai's team blog.

Speaking of heroes, I recently got to meet one of mine. At the beginning of March, a few of us from Chab Dai were lucky enough to receive some coveted tickets to a Social Business Hub event to hear Professor Muhammad Yunus speak. Having had the opportunity (and squandered it!) a couple years ago to meet another development hero of mine, Amartya Sen, I was not going to chicken out this time!

The event was wonderful, it began with a panel discussion on the infrastructure of social businesses which included the different definitions of what a social business is, the biggest challenges that can arise and the kind of achievements you can expect in this sector. After a session of workshop presentations, Professor Yunus gave a thorough and superb talk emphasising the concept of freedom within economics. At the end of the event, a Cambodian social business acrobatic group, Phare, gave an amazing performance.

What I love about leaders such as Mohammad Yunus and Amartya Sen is their ability to link, so eloquently and well-thought out, the connections of economics to freedom. Sen’s theoretical model is based on helping individuals and communities achieve freedom. This freedom can be economic freedom, personal freedom, societal freedom and/or the freedom to be who they want to be. Ultimately, all development should be viewed through the lens of freedom. Yunus’ foundational logic for lending money to the poor, which led to the creation of microfinance itself, is essentially, “If I lend money to the poor myself, they won’t have to go to a loan shark, and they will be free!” So many of the poor stay poor or sink even more into a cycle of debt and poverty because of predatory lending practices; and though there is no such thing as a silver bullet in poverty reduction, Yunus saw microfinance as a powerful tool to combat the violence of these practices.

As an aspiring economic sociologist engaged in counter-trafficking, this is music to my soul. It also, in my opinion, promotes the thought that communities have within themselves the potential to end exploitation and trafficking, and the counter-trafficking community’s job is to come alongside them to enable and support their journey to freedom.

Yunus is an inspiring person; after all the challenges he has faced, he remains so positive and hopeful for the future. He truly believes this generation’s youth has the most power and potential in history, and keeps pushing the boundaries of innovative business and economics. At the end of his address, he said (paraphrased), “Poor people are like bonsai trees, there is nothing wrong with the seed, society just didn’t give them room to grow. We need to fundamentally change the system to give them room to grow.”

I am a big believer in “doing with” in development, not “doing for,” and Yunus’ ending words inspire me. Fighting poverty and violence not only requires giving the poor and the oppressed space to grow and achieve their potential, but also working tirelessly to change a system that accepts the status quo and allows a continuous cycle of violence and poverty in the world.

AsiaLife Covers Chab Dai's Director!

AsiaLife magazine recently did a Q&A with Helen, Chab Dai's Founder and International Director and I thought it was fantastic! Not only do I think Helen is awesome, but the article was written by a friend - so I'm totally not biased ;)

Helen is so articulate about the issues around human trafficking. At the office, we talk a lot about the complexities of multiple vulnerability factors, issues of dignity in the media, and how best to address this injustice holistically and collaboratively. She has spent over a decade working in this sector, and thinking through all these complex cross-cutting themes.

Please go read the whole article, it is great! But for now, I thought I would share one of my favourite excerpts:

Is the increased attention on anti-trafficking helpful?I think there is a danger point that trafficking has become the sexy issue. You get a huge influx of money, attention, organisations, but if that is not coordinated, it can create chaos. We have seen a lot of people coming to address this, but they’re not necessarily doing it in a collaborative manner, and they don’t necessarily understand a lot of the complex issues within the Cambodian culture, within the history.

People are led by their heart on this issue, but sometimes they forget to bring their brain with them. You get lots of well meaning people, but they don’t really know what they’re doing. And that is a huge risk factor. A lot of people start working on this issue and get paralysed by emotion. Some people may say I’m hard-headed, but what Cambodia doesn’t need is a lot of emotional wrecks. They need people who are able to strategise for responses, to support them, to help them develop policy.

Along the Paths of Justice

One of the links from our blog is for our Chab Dai team blog. The members of the international team take turns writing about issues having to do with human trafficking or human rights. It's sometimes program-related, but mostly it's a space where we can share our thoughts as counter-trafficking practitioners and researchers.

From time to time, I will share the same post on both this blog and the Chab Dai blog, but in case you want to read some of my old posts on Along the Paths of Justice, you can do that here.

Also check back in the next week as I will have a post published on my recent encounter with Professor Yunus of Bangladesh's Grameen Bank!

Lenten Reflections

At home group this week, our friends led a beautiful reflection and discussion about the desert and the [living] water. They showed two videos, which we discussed afterward, and both were so touching to me I wanted to share.

If you have 15 minutes or so, these two videos are great for reflecting on Lent and Easter. The first video is about Jesus' 40 days in the desert; it really struck me and got me thinking about just how long Jesus spent in the wilderness, how he was at his weakest when he faced his temptation, and how he still found the strength to repel evil. I have often read this passage (Matthew 4:1-11) but didn't really stop to think about the desperation, pain, fear, hunger, and even boredom Jesus must have felt throughout these 40 days. He must have also attained moments of perfect peace, calm, and joy during this time.

Here's the video, enjoy!

Pretty cool, eh?

The next video is shorter and from BBC Earth's series on Africa, and this clip is about the "Resurrection Plant," which I had not heard of before. It reminded me of how my faith journey is not linear; after a period of "being in the desert," so to speak, I don't start over at the beginning. And when I learn a lesson I feel I've learned before, I am learning as a different person than I was when I learned it before.

If nothing else, it's just a beautiful video!

 

Oui, allo?

A word that a lot of Christians use, and I try to use well and meaningfully, is "calling." I am often keenly aware of why and how I use it, mainly because it may not mean much to those outside a Christian (and perhaps a narrow segment of Christian, at that) culture.

What is calling? What is calling to me?

I recently responded to an online survey for humanitarian aid workers and one of the questions really got me thinking.

[Sidenote: Are you a humanitarian aid worker? Take the survey here! It takes about 30 minutes.]

The question was:

Which statement below *best* describes your primary reason for becoming an aid worker?

• Ended up as an aid worker by accident or "unintentionally"
• I felt called by God or a higher power
• I was following my dream to provide aid for those less fortunate than myself
• I needed an adventure in my life and being an aid worker sounded like a good idea
• I could not find any other employment
• I followed a friend or significant other into the field of aid work
• None of the above even comes close to articulating my reason for becoming an aid worker.

As I read "I felt called by God" I thought, "Of course, that's the one." Until I read the next line, and then I had a mini brain explosion. I stared at the two options for a good couple of minutes, talked to Charlie, stared a little longer. And came to the conclusion that both answers are the same for me, and that one doesn't even follow the other, but they are weirdly and beautifully intertwined.

I believe that God uses what I am passionate about to call me, while also being the source of that passion. I think calling is about using my God-given gifts (which I have tried to steward by developing into usable skills), resources, and passion to live a life that is other-centered. 

God is love. Jesus was all about loving and serving others, especially the vulnerable and marginalised. This doesn't mean everyone, or even every Christian, needs to work in some form of humanitarian aid, but it sure does mean we need to treat the vulnerable and marginalised with dignity and respect, as Jesus did. 

Working in development and human rights is how I live out this "calling."

As always, still haven't figure it all out. Does anyone? How do you see your "calling"? Do you have issues with the idea of "calling" in the first place?