This is my last real time update for a while…there are a few scheduled posts coming tomorrow to keep you entertained, but I figured I had a few minutes to spare…and I needed to get something off my chest. See ya on the flip side.
Author: Anne Marie Miller
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Sharing is Good
EDIT: Badge codes have been updated. If they weren’t working for you, please try again.
If you choose, it would mean the world to me if you would occasionally re-post, link to, or re-tweet this trip. I made it super easy by creating the link http://russia.flowerdust.net that will link only to the posts on this trip.
You can use a badge on your blog, Facebook, website, or whatever. Just copy and paste the text in the boxes below the image you’d like to use and paste the code where you’d like for it to be.
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I’m Leaving for Moldova & Russia in Five Hours
The following is a true story.
At 1:21 pm CST, I’ll be hopping on a plane that will take me to DC.
Then another plane that will take me to Zurich.
Then another plane that will take me to Vienna.
And then another plane that will take me to Kishinev, which is the capital of the very small eastern European country of Moldova.
I assume at that point one of my four travel-mates from Children’s Hope Chest will place my jet-lagged body and suitcase on a luggage cart and throw me into a taxi and we’ll all arrive safely at the place we are staying for a few nights.
I haven’t talked much about this trip yet because in some ways, I’ve been in denial. Don’t get me wrong – I am very much intrigued to see a side of humanity I’ve yet to experience up close before – the world of sex trafficking.
At the same time, the very nature of this trip triggers some really dark memories for me.
A few weeks ago, I alluded in a post to the fact I was sexually abused in high school by a youth pastor who was an acquaintance (he wasn’t my youth pastor). I never really talked about the relationship until a decade later – because in my mind, it wasn’t abuse. It was me, an all-grown-up sixteen year old in love with an older man.
I started working with teenagers when I was twenty-five, and that’s when the reality of the situation hit. I went to see a counselor, and ended up having to talk to some lawyers and a variety of other people about the situation due to the nature of this person’s then-career, still within a faith-based setting.
Anyway, all this “reliving” of the abuse happened in late 2007…just a couple years ago. It’s still too fresh.
When I’m in Moldova, we’re going to encounter some really difficult sights. Moldova itself is pretty heart-breaking.
- The average income in Moldova is around $100 annually.
- Moldova is the main source in Europe (60%) for women and girls trafficked in Western Europe, the Balkans and the Middle East. At least 20% of Moldovan females will be trafficked at some point in their lifetimes.
What happens here is so many girls live in impoverished rural villages. So, they go to the city looking for work, get lured out of the country at the promise of a job, have their identity and papers stripped from them, and are forced into prostitution – often having to “service” up to 40 men a day.
If they don’t (and sometimes if they do) they get beat, raped, and drugged.
If a girl happens to escape, when she returns home, she is typically banished from her family and is unable to marry. And it’s tragic that Moldova has the 18th highest suicide rate in the world.
However, while we’re there, we’ll also be visiting orphanages and transitional housing (or safe houses) so we can see the other side of this very dark world – the hope.
The prevention. The education. The recovery.
Later in the week, on Saturday (Friday night for most of you), we’ll head from Moldova to some areas around Moscow and see the cycle all over again.
It’s my plan to blog as much as possible during this trip (which ends on April 16), but like most of my trips, that all depends on internet accessibility. I’ll be twittering as well, when I can anyway. If you follow me there, you’ll be able to see snapshots of our trip as they happen.
Sex trafficking isn’t an issue that the world has decided to talk about very much, so any awareness we can give it will be incredible.
Because where there’s light, darkness can’t live.
Pray for us?
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In Honor of Ad Free Day, Pimp Something Good
Today (and for as long as I can imagine) this blog is officially advertisement free.
In a blogosphere free-trade kind of way, I’d like to give you a chance to pimp your book, your blog, your organization (or one of your choice) below.
A free for all ad free party kind of day.
How?
Super easy.
Just fill in the Mr. Linky below (I never thought I would say those words) and tell us why you pimped what you did in the comments.
Tip: Be generous and be creative!
NOTE:
When you fill it out — do it in this format:
Name: Anne Jackson – Blood Water Mission
URL: http://www.bloodwatermission.comHope we all make some new friends!
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Someone Who Goes Before You
Now that the weather has been nice, I’ve been spending time outside on my bike preparing for the Ride:Well Tour. My first ride out was a few weeks ago. Last week, I went out with a friend (also a new rider) and mainly rode around some of the areas I had been running before. With one of us leading the way, it wasn’t so intimidating not knowing what was around the corner – say, if the shoulder disappeared or there was a dead squirrel.
Monday, I went out by myself and took a road I had never ridden on before. It was a stretch of about 8 miles on Highway 96, and then you make a simple turn around at the Natchez Trace and ride back. I’ve driven this path before, and it looked like it had a decent bike lane (so the signs said) but when I was actually out on my bike, 75% of the time this “bike route” wasn’t even really paved (it had something on it, but it wasn’t asphalt) and was full of patches of slick gravel.
Add to the mix an inexperienced cyclist, a 20 mph headwind on my first climb, and drivers of cars that do NOT comprehend the “cyclists get 3 feet of space” law and it ended up being a good ride to get under my belt for the sheer confidence-building element.
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People my age often share the complaint that we lack mentors. We didn’t have them growing up and we’re either afraid to ask someone to play that role (or are afraid because we don’t exactly know what a mentor does) or we move into a mentality that figuring it out on our own is more beneficial to our learning.
Here’s the thing. I believe anyone of any age can be, and needs to be mentored. But while we’re trying to figure out what to do in our own lives, there is a generation of children who are growing up without fathers.
These are the children who have potential that can either be turned good, or turned bad, depending on the type of relationships surrounding them. Who will they be influenced by? Who will go before them so they can navigate down the dangerous paths they’ll find along the way?
It doesn’t seem like a pressing matter now because we see them as children. They don’t really “contribute to society,” so to speak. They go to school and play sports and eat and annoy us in movie theaters.
We really need to shift our mindset and realize they may be children now, but in twenty years…thirty years…these children will be making decisions for our country.
They will be making decisions about the law and our health care.
They’ll be the ones engaging in negotiations with countries at war.
They’ll be forming new companies and developing technologies.
They’ll become parents themselves.
There are 27 million children in America growing up without fathers. These children are more likely to commit crimes end up (repeatedly) in prison, statistically speaking. We don’t talk about this much in the church (I don’t know why…maybe it seems too unsolvable?) but it’s an issue the church should – and could take lead on.
I have been supporting The Mentoring Project financially for about a year or so. There isn’t a way for me to be directly involved in the mentoring process yet as they operate currently with churches in the Portland area, but here in Nashville I can do something. I can financially help this organization continue to grow, and I can tell people about it.
I’d like to share with you a couple of videos. The first is of Don Miller explaining a bit of his heart behind The Mentoring Project and why he started it, and the second one is just an incredible (and short) mini-documentary on what The Mentoring Project looks like in real life.
Watch the videos. If you live in the Portland area, check into being a mentor. If you don’t, consider financially contributing. It’s amazing what $10 or $25 will do to push this amazing organization forward. And share. Please share these videos with the people around you and share what The Mentoring Project is doing.
Fatherlessness is America is a crisis. But it’s one that we can put an end to. It’s a story that can be rewritten.
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Just to be clear, this is not a sponsored post in any way, shape, or form. I saw this documentary yesterday and wanted to share it with you.
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Lightning100 Interview on Ride:Well & Blood:Water Mission
Chase, who is a rider on the Ride:Well Southern tour and I did a short interview with Dan Buckley for Lightning100, a local Nashville radio station.
I wanted to share it with you guys since his show is at 7 am on Sunday mornings, and I know most of you are asleep or getting ready for church.
And most of you don’t live in Nashville.
So here we are. Talking about why we’re doing the ride, what we’ve learned about the need for clean water and HIV testing, and other bits and pieces along the way!
Just wait a moment for the audio player below to load and press play. RSS and email subscribers may need to click here to get to the interview.
[audio:https://annemariemiller.com/audio/ridewell.mp3]—–
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What if You Miss Something Important?
“…There is inculcated in us such a fear of being out of everything – out of touch, left behind.
This fear is a form of tyranny…”
…The conviction is that it is precisely in these (collective) preoccupations that the Holy Spirit is at work.
To be “preoccupied with the current preoccupations” is then the best — if not the only — way to be open to the Spirit.
Hence one must know what everybody is saying, read what everybody is reading, keep up with everything…
…or be left behind by the Holy Spirit.
Is this a perversion of the idea of the church – a distortion of perspective due to the Church’s situation in the world of mass communications?
I wonder if this anxiety to keep up is not in fact an obstacle to the Holy Spirit?
~(adapted from a journal entry by Thomas Merton – February 24, 1966.)
A few months ago I read this in one of Merton’s journals, and I was astonished that a man, practically living in solitude in the 60s, could have such perspective on a culture of mass communication. We think this era is unique, but it’s not. It’s merely redefined using new forms of communication.
I read a post on Tom’s blog about how he was scaling back in some of his online intake. His post reminded me of what Merton said, and I can’t help but wonder the same thing both pieces allude to…
Do we stay plugged in because we’re afraid we may miss something (spiritual or relational?)
Do we feel like there is more to miss simply because there is more being communicated?
Is what we view as the things that connect us to information inhibiting our capacity to be aware to the not-so-obvious things in our midst?
I remember unplugging during Lent last year. A few of my other friends did the same and we shared a similar story:
When we were offline, the things happening around us were so much louder, so much more clear, and we were so much more present in them that it was like God screaming at us – through relationships, through nature, through solitude, through the seemingly mundane…
What changed?
Our input level?
or God’s output level?
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I would tend to think our input level. We quiet down, and we hear what’s already present.
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What do you think? Have you ever wrestled with the fear “unplugging” brings? Have you experienced the radical change in God’s volume when you do unplug?
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Down Heaven’s Grey Cheek
It would make sense
that upon my awakening
as the birds begin their morning song
the sound of rain would accompany themTears are falling
down heaven’s grey cheek
and landing in the lap
of the soil of the earth—-
I will be taking some time off from online life to focus on quieting my heart, my schedule, and spending time with my family for the next few days as my uncle passed away last night in Texas.
Please keep our family in your prayers, especially his two daughters, who are my age, and have now lost both parents in what appears to be a time that was too early in taking them.
Thank you.
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The Weight of It All
I know it’s going to be a rough day when, within five minutes of leaving my house, I see a blue, mid-nineties Grand Am.
It’s a rather odd thing to say, I realize, as I’m sure if you see a blue, mid-nineties Grand Am you probably don’t give it a second thought.
For me, a blue, mid-nineties Grand Am reminds me of him.
The one I trusted.
The one I loved.
The one, who I thought, loved me.
But it wasn’t a real love, the way he loved me.
It was a twisted “love” that made me believe it was okay for a man – a pastor – of his age, nearly ten years my senior, to love a girl like me…a sixteen year old.
He drove a blue, mid-nineties Grand Am.
Fortunately, many American cars don’t make it past their tenth birthday, so a blue, mid-nineties Grand Am sighting is a rare occurrence, but when I caught a glimpse of one as I pulled onto I-65 yesterday morning, I knew it was going to be a bad day.
Instantly, I was pulled back into a time warp of my heart. I was 16 again. And 17. And I found myself innocently in love, and at the same time, unknowingly losing my innocence.
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I steered my car mindlessly to the mall. A distraction.
I needed socks.
Wandering into Eddie Bauer, I ended up in a rather long conversation with a chatty salesman. He wasn’t trying to sell me anything. He was just really nice. And really conversational. I welcomed the distraction, but felt badly for not being fully present.
Most of me was still back in 1996.
I lost an hour in the mall, and popped over to Target. For what? I don’t remember, but I walked out with a cheap T-shirt.
More distraction.
I managed to swing by the post office, make it home, and get ready for a meeting with my manager about my new book’s release.
Still, I was only half-present.
That damned Grand Am.
How can it still take me back?
Back there…with him?
I felt sick to my stomach.
After my meeting, I drove back to Target.
Cat litter. I forgot the cat litter.
With my iPod on shuffle, I got lost in the winding roads of rural Franklin. An hour passed. Maybe two.
I couldn’t find myself.
Back to my house.
I attempted to make myself look presentable.
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Honestly, I wanted to bail so badly.
I wanted to throw on some sweats and stare mindlessly at the television for hours until I fell asleep and it was a new day. But I had committed myself to doing the Blood:Water Mission Water Walk.
I love Blood:Water.
You guys know that.
But I didn’t want to go.
I didn’t want my half-present, half-missing self to go.
Selfishly, of course.
I didn’t want anyone to know anything was wrong.
I didn’t want anyone to realize I wasn’t really there.
I didn’t want anyone to look too deeply into my eyes and see the vulnerable, ashamed, naive sixteen year old who was currently inhabiting my insides.
But…I needed to go.
I needed to pull what was left of me out of my head and just do something outside of my own self-consuming and destructive introspection.
I don’t even remember the ride. I took my buckets, ran into some friends, and shared some good stories as we walked a mile down to the river to fill them up.
More distractions. It was good.
At the river, after everyone had filled their containers with river water, Dan told us for our walk back, to try and keep silent.
“Silence? No…anything but that, please,” I pleaded in my head.
And, he added, we should try and keep the water inside since if we were really African, every drop of water that’s carried is a drop of precious life.
The first fifty steps or so were easier than I imagined.
With each step though, the bucket became heavier.
The wind, colder.
Keeping balance in order to not spill the water, more difficult.
I stared down at my bucket, watching the water float back and forth and side to side.
Finally…
The weight of the water – this small act I was doing simply to represent a necessary and daily time consuming task for so many people around the world – had transported me back from 1996.
I became present again.
Me.
Here and now.
And my bucket felt so much heavier.
I lost track of where my friends went. I took off my mittens to experience the sharp pain of the cold wind.
I wanted to feel the pain.
It wasn’t fair what these women and children had to do every single day.
I tried to imagine carrying a bucket ten times heavier than mine for ten times longer than I carried it.
How?
How do they do it?
It wasn’t fair.
It’s water.
Why is it so difficult for hundreds of millions of people to access it?
I realize the goal of these events isn’t about what they can do for me. It’s about what we can do for others. And I don’t know what it was about the mile back carrying a small bucket of Tennessee water but something inside me healed.
Something inside me was restored.
Just a little bit.
But that little bit was just enough.
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Was it the community around me? A blend of friends, acquaintances and strangers coming together in such a powerful way?
Was it simply pushing myself to pull out of the selfish cycle of negativity I had been dwelling in all day?
Was it realizing a common, broken thread of humanity and a same common need for rescue?
I don’t know.
Maybe it was all of those things, and things I didn’t even see or feel or realize.
But something happened underneath the weight of it all.
The weight of my past and the most broken part of my soul.
The weight of poverty and the most broken part of the world.
Redemption only can be recognized when the broken is let out.
And it can happen unexpectedly.
And I am grateful.
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The reality is 325 million Africans don’t have access to clean water. That is more than the population of the US. $25 provides an African clean water for life. Please take a moment and consider making a donation here.
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