Pachyderm Underground

For all of you who read my blog, I thought I'd tell you that I've just launched my newest blog, The Pachyderm Underground. In an effort to separate the political things I discuss on my personal blog, I've banded together with a few others to create a blog that is all politics and all conservative. Now, that's not to say all Republicans or Conservatives will agree with every author all the time, but I think you're all in for a good treat!!!

Passing the Buck

Somewhere almost too far away to sense winds are tearing trees out of the ground as fifty-foot waves drown barrier walls. From the safety of my house, only a scant 50 miles inland, a strange feeling rushes over me: are those in danger paying the price for my relative safety?

As hurricane Ike was forming in the Gulf only a few short days ago, I was going about my business...working on a brief, an article for a symposium, filling in missing album artwork on iTunes and religiously updating my facebook status, when I stumbled across the first projection for Ike's path...right through my front door. Less then pleased, I called my dad at work and let him know we ought to consider re-stocking our pantry. We have hurricane stuffs, but Dolly kinda cleaned us out and then we got to lazy to the store and buy water to drink when there was a perfectly good stash righ there in our house.

We bought more tuna than any platoon of men should eat...I'm looking at it now in the family room as it makes its own preparations to sit and wait for the next diaster.

Since hurrican Dolly, my hometown and surrounding cities have been suffering - badly. Over 1/3 of the Valley is impoverished [as compared to the 1/10th of the population national average] so natural diasters hit us hard. The wealth and abundance in places like McAllen must try to outshine the unappealing qualities of shacks and shanties inhabited by the immigrant workers and illegal alliens who probably picked, packed, or shipped whatever you're eating as you read this. These areas of poverty are prone to flooding, and since Dolly, our grounds have remained saturated. You may not believe it, but the post-storm mosquito infestation has gotten so bad, we now have confirmed cases of Malaria and West Nile Virus here...as if left Africa only b/c I missed watching House on Tuesdays.

With all this in mind, I was speaking to a dear friend of mine in Houston early in the Ike saga, and the thought suddenly occured to us - how do you pray in this situation???

If he prayed for my safety and my home's protection...what would be the best case scenario in the back of his mind?? In other words, what was it he REALLY wanted? If my friend asked for the hurricane to be otherwise diverted, someone else's life would be in the balance. Just because that life isn't mine doesn't make it less valuable...or does it? Say I prayed for the hurricane to change direction...where would it go? Houston? What if the hurricane shifted North? What if shifted South? What if what if what if...the fact of the matter is prayer, now matter how effective...couldn't make the hurricane go away. It has to go somewhere...

And somewhere it did. I spoke to this same friend yesterday and he was on his way over to his parents' house after work to help his father ready their house - their home - for Ike. He says he's thankful the hurricane was redirected because Houston at least would be less saturated and more capable, in his mind, of handling Ike...we'll see.

As Ike's potential for devestation became more evident, the lesson this teaches about life becomes more evident. I remarked to my father that watching Ike over this past week is like watching an army of the world's most powerful soldiers slowly desend upon your castle - it's like watching your death. And as momentarily scary as that may seem, the inevitability of it all takes some of the edge off. What I mean is, once the hurricane's path was set, you could only do so much to prepare yourself, and then you just had to wait. It will come when it comes, and it's the waiting that's the most difficult. As Dr. Wilson says, "Dying's easy. It's living that's hard."

I've never seen a tornado disappear into thin air. I've never heard of a tsunami disentigrating in air; never known a monsoon to stop in mid pour while still leaving the eco-system balanced. Hail storms do not turn into lemondrop and fruit roll-up parades. Weather patterns dissapate, not vanish. It's one of Newton's laws of motion - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction - forces come in pairs.

Even Jesus, when he ordered the demon[s] Legion out of the man, ordered them into the pig. He didn't smite them into nothingness...when bills come due...they will be paid...by SOMEONE.

I have my tuna, my passport, my bottled water, a truck full of gas, a knife, a first-aid kit, two months supply of medicine...and the weather channel...now I just have to wait...maybe I'll watch something else instead.

Blessings of the Burdened II - Guilt is a Disease

I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

To preface this, with a disclaimer/warning - I have been reading Atlas Shrugged. I have read it before, but it has been a while. If you know of Atlas Shrugged, you probably are also aware as to its author's political and phillisophical persuasions - so when I say "I love it" you may now make a decision as to whether or not you'd like to continue reading. I'll give you a moment to decide.

[crickets chirp]

Here's something that's really fascinating to me - Christian guilt. To expand on my last entry, I'm not sure I ought to be so paternalistic as to say one way or the other whether or not "poor" people are happy. I'm sure they have just as much right to be unhappy or happy as Bill Gates does. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's none of my business whether they are happy or not. Because people ought not be what makes other people happy. If someone can make you "happy" then they can also, [insert appropriate obnoxious latin phrase to demonstrate I went to law school], make you unhappy.

In the traditional American Christian, we find a particularly interesting breeding. Here is a capitalist - the more successful the better. This person has a sense of individuality not to be found in inhabitants of other countries, especially if he were raised here. He is moved to joy by the fruits of his own labor - who among us is not proud when we finish something that doesn't turn out shotty? The American Christian is self-motivated - he succeeds at work because he doesn't make decisions based on irrational motives, but on fact. That which will yield the better result, will make the bottom line fatter, that is the one he chooses. And when he makes the wrong decision from time to time, we are ok with that. But what if he is always right? What if he makes TONS of money? Then, suddenly, we villify him. His name is synonamous with greed and evil: he is selfish. He only wants to make money, he seeks to make a profit. As we ride on his airplanes and talk to our friends on his iPhones, we make sure to point out what a horrible person he is - he has no social conscious. I mean, what has he ever done for society? [Never you mind that competition breeds innovation, and that the all-mighty dollar as a motivator probably pushed the development of the vaccines that kept you alive so far to read this on your wonderful machine that I suppose appeared out of thin air without the aid of any entrepreneurial intervention.] How has his money grubbing done anything for a single human being on earth [besides of course keep him in business - but who ever needed pasturized milk anyway]? Selfish, selfish, selfish: disgusting.

When we approach this American Christian at church or in a religious setting, we remind him that he has much and others have little. We inform him that he has no right to be joyful in what he has created, invented, improved, because others don't even have that which he has improved upon. We tell him that he is responsible for the weak - that he owes to them all that he has because to he whom much is given, much is expected. And if the guilt works, the American will allow himself to live a dual life - one in which he believes in self-motivation and self-reliance as virtue, and one in which his guilt at others' failures and lack of opportunity enable them to live off of him. Our ability to control his giving depends not on the quality of his conviction in the value of life, but in his acceptance of guilt. Now, unable to remain consistent, he begins to be afraid of himself. He fears what his instincts tell him - that he should pursue the right decisions in business -those that make him profit. He is now unwilling to act on what he believes in. Supposing that were the definition of virtue, what sort of stumbling block is our social conscious?

Can this really be the way in which God wanted Christians to tend to the hurting world? Consider this excerpt taken from Atlas Shrugged, that would demonstrate the absurdity in this line of thinking:

"I mean, we're only human beings - and what's a human being? A weak, ugly, sinful creature, born that way, rotten in his bones - so humility is the one virtue he ought to practice. He ought to spend his life on his knees, begging to be forgiven for his dirty existence. When a man thinks he's good - that's when he's rotten. Pride is the worst of all sins, no matter what he's done."
"But if a man knows that what he's done is good?"
"Then he ought to apologize for it."
"To whom?"

"To those who haven't done it."


When we apologize, as a nation for having more money than [insert country here], we allow them to live off our system, and our government, our people, they just hand over the money. What does that do? It eventually will destroy the American Christian's ability to make a living and live comfortably, and his apology to those who do not live comfortably will be his joining them on a lower socio-economic level, standing in solidarity with the poor he can no longer afford to assist. This would be the consequence of the ever expanding social conscious, would it not?

But what if we were selfish? Would that help anyone? Next installment - same bat time, same bat channel.

Out of Africa - How Would Jesus Vote?

Just in case your curious, there are people who mistakenly find me intelligent from time to time, despite my inability to spell anything without spell check. Above please find the link to my latest article. It's been up for some time and I'm sorry to say I was too lazy to put this link up...
sue me

Acholi Beads

The Blessings of the Burdened

It's difficult for any left-leaning Christian, much less a right-leaning or middle-ground walking Christian in today's world to feel happy for more than the 30 seconds it might take him or her to realize that she has no right to be happy in today's world. How can one be happy, when others most certainly are not? How can I laugh at Boston Legal knowing there are those without food, much less televisions? How can we be happy when we beat Rainbow Six on medium, with the knowledge that somewhere someone's REAL life is much more gruesome than the grenade launching death "REAPER" [my brother's Playstation 3 handle] just rained down on all the animated terrorists?

I don't know how we CANNOT be happy...because all those people we so pity with our fake guilt, they are happy. Well, maybe they aren't, but they have joy.

Why is it that old negro spirituals fill our songbooks, with each one on a dog-eared and well-worn page; but the songs of happy well-fed rich slave owners are on the pages still white as the day they hit the presses? Why is my church full of people who still insist on worshiping Sunday morning as if the Lord has given them nothing to sing and be happy about? Why moreover, is a church in Uganda or Zaire or those underground in China full of such happy people in the face of our Lord? We eat each day, many Christians do not. We have water, clean water, and many of our brothers and sisters in Christ do not. We have much and we are unhappy - perhaps even ungrateful. They may need our help but they do not need our guilt or pity.

And frankly, it does us no good either.

Look at the eyes of a child who lives in BelAire and has everything he could ever want or need...but has never had to fight to keep it...never had to risk to defend it...then look in the eyes of a child beaten for his faith...starving for food and water...hungry for death as a relief...who's eyes make you sadder? That's always the question we ask...because we would complain to live that way so it must be intolerable...but somehow...the promise is enough for them...

why not for me?

more on this later...but it seems that those burdened always manage to bless me more than I am able to save them

Scrap Blanket

Most of you who know me, know that I like to knit. I love it - blankets, potholders, scarves, afghans (different than blankets, just so you know), dishcloths, doileys, whatever. I have amassed quite the yarn collection too. You see, whenever you make something, unless it's a really thin scarf, it takes more than one skein [thing] of yarn. And you have to make sure you buy enough for each project the first time around. Yarn is dyed in lots. So if you are making a blanket out of terra cotta brown, all 20 of the terra cotta brown skeins at Hobby Lobby or Michaels or whatever, are not exactly alike. They were dyed 15 or so at a time. Each skein has a dye lot number written on the label. If you need about 8 or 9 skeins to get the job done, you better buy 9 NOW...because you have to make sure you get 9 with the same lot number, so your project has consistency...it would be awful to come back and end up with the last foot of your blanket lookin' a little off...

If you buy yarn like this for years, you end up with a little bit left of all kinds of colors...then of course there's the yarn you can't pass up...you know, the yarn that's usually 4 dollars a skein but's on sale for 99 cents...it would be just perfect for this scarf pattern...that you never get to. So every couple of years or so, I make something out of the scrap yarn. But since law school started for me three years ago this August, I've slown down a little on the knitting, and haven't had the chance to get to a scrap ANYTHING.

Well, today I started on a scrap Afghan. Knitting with two skeins at a time, I'm making a blanket with black as the constant color, and the other will be all the scraps of all the colors I have left. When I finish, the blanket will be black with many colors. There will be some of the orange chennille left over from the UT scarf I made my best friend for his birthday two years ago; frilly pink and purple mixed yarn left from the scarf I made my cousin Erika when she went skiing; red, white & blue yarn from the Obama scarf I made this year, and a different tinted red white & blue mixed yarn from the Bush scarf I made in college. There's green from the blanket I made my mother; UN blue from the blanket I'm making John; purple and white from the ACU blanket I made, and red from the GATA diamond scarf I made Kat. There's various shades of purple left from the blanket I made Shirley, and a small ball of blue mixed from the blanket I made Jay for his 24th birthday. Somehow, somewhere, I bought all this yarn...across the country and across the years, hauling it with me everywhere I go. And even though it's been sitting, stored and sorted by color and kind, for a while - some for years - now I need it. Now I'll use it.

Everytime I make one of these projects - these scrap projects - I'm always amazed at how beautiful they turn out. You'd think that all these mismatched colors, all these undertones and seemingly clashing hues would look absolutely terrible together. But they don't. Somehow, the undertone color makes it all fit...makes it look like somehow I knew I'd need enough Boston-Celtics-In-The-Finals-Again-Green for seven rows of this blanket, but only enough I-Dated-Too-Many-FRATS-And-Not-Enough-Kinsman-Blue for one row. All it takes is that black undercurrent. All it takes is one underlying consistent thought to string it all together. I guess not all that is random is aimless.

Not all who wander are without purpose.

In violation of copyright laws...

I bring this to you all as a violation of copyright laws, but I don't really care. Think of it as my reading it to you.



The Cure of Troy
by Seamus Heaney


Human beings suffer.
They torture one another.
They get hurt, and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.

The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker's father
Stands in the graveyeard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.

History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime,
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightening and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
The outcry and birth cry
Of new life at its term.
It means that once in a lifetime
That justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So You Think You're A Radical

So I have been reading these Human Rights Watch reports on torture and the war on terror etc. and I gotta say, I'm really really disappointed. As I'm reading, I notice that if I turned any one these reports in for a grade in High School English [and not the AP stuff I'm talking "Hi my name is Bob and I can barely read because I smoke pot all day" kind of English Class] I would probably not have passed...and thats saying a lot because somehow there are Bobs all throughout the US who manage to pass...

These reports are terrible!! They are poorly written, redundant and don't really conscribe to any particulary set of academic standards. They cite what they find convenient to cite, but never the most important stuff. For instance, In a report I just read about Command Responsibility for Torture [which was way too long - the reputable information they had was about 10 pages], there is a HUGE section about memos written by White House Lawyers. HRW asserts that the memos attempt to reason away the Geneva Conventions, that the lawyers are responsible for nuclear holocaust and spiders under your bed, etc. but they do NOT cite the memos!!

At all!!

Later they cite a memo by Colin Powell, but there's not even a shout-out to one by Gonzales or Yoo. Now, we may all have read these memos, or some of them already, but that doesn't excuse HRW from being lazy or un-academic.

The problem I have with all of this is that if you want people to think you're talking about more than some vision you had smoking pot in a drum circle with your friends from the Yale Human Rights Clinical, then I'm going to need for you to cite things. You need to have EVIDENCE. This is why those who put their lives on the lines in war zones in the Sudan cannot stand overly educated lawyers and marketing majors and fancy-pants carpetbagging senators who don't know what fascism looks like. Because they see America for what it really is - the coolest country on earth and the ONLY one in the world where you can, during war time, stand on a corner in a busy metroplex with a sign blaming the President for actively causing the deaths of your country's largest terrorist attack to date and NOT DISAPPEAR. Instead, the people you accuse or terrorizing the whole world at will are dying out there so you can continue to stand on street corners like the loudmouth ignorant fool that you are.

My solution is that we send all of these people to Somalia for a little while, then ask them how they feel about the evil oppressive force that is America. If the world wants to eat McDonald's and drink Coca-Cola, let 'em! Honestly, the only people who are oppressed around here are these people - they are too stupid to think for themselves, to a little research, or make an intelligent decision about ANYTHING. Instead, they jump on whatever bandwagon Barbra Boxer is driving, and grab their kids along for the ride. You tell me, how is a Palestinian kid with a gun because his parents taught him to have one any different than a 5 year-old on a Malibu street corner with a sign calling Bush a fascist? This person's world may be even MORE dangerous then the kid with the gun...

and only in America, will we let that kid's parents continue to teach him to keep on truckin'

Well Played Brother

The Last Unicorn

As I sit up in bed, the exhaustion teems over my eyes, but still sleep escapes me. Like the love you can never quite hold on to, so too lately is undisturbed sleep. So numerous are the unconnected thoughts that swarm in my mind that were they colors, the greatest of Klimt's masterpieces would still pale in comparison to the sea of pigment it would produce. But amidst the rushing thoughts and the din I create in my mind, there is one thing that brings me peace - the image of a small porcelain unicorn.

As a child I had such the fascination with the enchantments of childrens' fairytales. I was awed by the simple beauty in a kind woodland maiden aiding a lost creature, or the nobility with which a noble steed would stand by his master. It seemed more than just "too good to be true," for I really believed that kindness and mercy existed in the world. All I knew, is that somewhere there had to be a place where my favorite of playtime fantasies, the Unicorn, existed.

And why shouldn't it? Lonely streets and cold nights numbered many in our silent and fearful world, but I had always felt warm. So many lived without a home, but I had one. And so, I began to love unicorns. And when I moved away from my first best friend, she gave me a small porcelain unicorn to connect us, for always. I remember it well - it had a main of rainbow colors that were far brighter in my mind than they could ever have been represented by cheap paint in the uninspired spectrum it had been painted. It was small enough to fit in my cupped hands, tiny though they were, but big enough to fill my whole heart.

As I grew, many other depictions of this fair creature began to mark the shelves and spaces of my humble bedroom. But no matter how beautiful each new addition was, no matter how intricate the detailing or the awesome talent each new artist had for her art, no image or figure could take the place of that one tiny icon. I remember talking to it when I moved away from all my friends as a little girl. I remember holding it when I wished I could go back to my "old home," where everything was alright. And as the years passed and I perhaps had grown to like my new home, I would still glance at it, or hold it, whenever I was disheartened because it reminded me of the beauty of true friendship. I recall often with a smile, and perhaps even a small tear, the day my prized possession broke in half. My mother understood that I could not just throw the gift away! She knew that none of the others would matter without this one precious pearl. She helped me glue it back together and proudly I continued to display it as if everyone else would also be indifferent to the obvious crack all around my little unicorn's neck.

As I grew, I lost my affinity for child-like knick-knacks in my room, and one by one, my unicorns disappeared. They grew old or shabby or tacky with the changing of the seasons [and my moods] and were gradually thinned out. But not the one - the Last of my Unicorns. I still have that unicorn, wrapped in tissue paper in my hope chest. From time to time I take it out and stroke it and remember...The thing about the unicorn, is that she represented mercy and justice. She protected all the creatures in her forest, and if she left it they would all be in danger. All those who were truly good knew her when they saw her. But then, so did all those who were truly evil. Much like the soldier of Christ, she is easily recognized by both friend and foe.

But what of the Last Unicorn? She would have hardly anyone left to recognize her in eyes of love. What would it be like to be known by your enemies, but by very few friends? What would it be like to stand for good and justice, and still go unrecognized by most?

I saw a man, a man whom I knew to be evil in my recent travels. He is large, he is powerful, and I am not. He owns much, I own little. He commands attention, I am just a small woman. But when he saw me, he stared at me. And when he stared at me, I could tell he knew me, and the one who sent me. God's army is full of Last Unicorns.

THE LAST UNICORN

When the last eagle flies
Over the last crumbling mountain
And the last lion roars
At the last dusty fountain
In the shadow of the forest
Though she may be old and worn
They will stare unbelieving
At the Last Unicorn

When the first breath of winter
Throught the flowers is icing
And you look to the north
And a pale moon is rising
And it seems like all is dying
And would leave the world to mourn
In the distance hear her laughter
It's the Last Unicorn
I'm alive... I'm alive

When the last moon is cast
Over the last star of morning
And the future is past
Without even a last desparate warning
Then look into the sky where through
The cloudes a path is formed
Look and see her how she sparkles
It's the Last Unicorn
I'm alive... I'm alive.

What My Life is For...

FROM GARY HAUGEN'S THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT INJUSTICE

Anyone who has spent time with infants knows what amazing machines of tireless learning and curiosity they are. We can also see that during an early stage of development, an infant has no capacity to maintain interest in anything that is not immediately before its eyes. When a brightly colored ball or rattle is held up before babies, their attention is riveted on it. Their eyes seize on the new item with urgent curiosity. They display an almost compulsive urge to touch it, feel it, embrace it. But move the toy out of sight and infants lose all interest. They do not look for it. They do not try to bring back the hand that took the toy away. The do not express any disappointment that the toy is no longer there to explore. As far as child psychologists are able to discern, to babies the toy ceases to exist the very moment it is removed from sight. They have not yet developed the mental capacity for object permanence, that is, the understanding that objects exist even when they are out of sight. It is truly a case of out of sight, out of mind.

I must confess that this is very much the way my mind often works when it comes to maintaining an interest in the reality of injustice in our world. I read about innocent people being slaughtered in Rwanda on page A1 of the Washington Post, and I am appalled. But my mind moves onto other things with amazing speed and thoroughness when I read on page D15 that the movie [I was] hoping to see actually starts a half hour earlier than [I] thought. When I read about the way abandoned orphan girls in China are tied to their bed rails and left to starve and die in state-run orphanages, I am very nearly moved to tears. But a year later when a conversation with a friend reminds me of the article, I realize that I have not shed a tear, uttered a prayer or even given it thought since the day I put down that newspaper article. I can move from torture on the evening news to touchdowns on Monday Night Football with almost the same mental and emotional ease as my channel changer.

Of course, much of this is perfectly natural and probably healthy. I do not aspire to be someone with a psychotic fixation on evil and human suffering. It s a poorly lived life that cannot experience joy, peace, laughter, beauty, and mirth despite all the oppression and injustice that mars the goodness of God's creation. If the evening news or the morning paper keeps me from [going] to a movie, from laughing at [] stories or from enjoying the exhilaration of a bike ride on a crisp fall day, then something is surely out of balance.

But we can grow into a more mature way of engaging the reality of injustice in our world if we take just two steps: (1) We can develop a compassion for the people suffering injustice by looking through the eyes of missionaries and other Christian workers who see this suffering firsthand, and (2) we can prepare ourselves to help people by looking at them through God's eyes, that is, through his Word.

Perhaps a next step in our development as children of God is a capacity for compassion permanence - a courageous and generous capacity to remember the needs of an unjust world even they are out of our immediate sight. Not content with the infant's out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach, God calls us to a grown-up capacity to engage a world of oppression with our heart and mind, even though (thankfully) it is not always before our eyes.

The One

This past Winter I had the opportunity to meet a number of interesting and beautiful people in the country of Uganda. But among all of the new people I met, the one who left the largest impact upon me, was a young girl I interviewed in a dirty and run-down Orphanage just outside of Kampala. Let's call her Mikay.

Mikay, like many other young children in Uganda, has fallen victim to the atrocities of the War in the North. While peacefully living a simple life in her village with her family, Joseph Kony's rebel army quickly thrust her into a nightmare. They burned her village down and she and her family were forced to flee into the bush for safety. They lived there in abject fear for over a year, terrified that each new day would bring with it the realization that the rebel army knew where they were. And one day, I'm sad to say, she met that fear face to face. The rebels found her and her family, killed one of her parents, and took her away. She doesn't know where her other parent is or her siblings. She served as a sex slave and domestic for Kony's militants for over 2 years, until she escaped one day amid a skirmish with the UPDF.


Returning to the Bush for safety, Mikay ran into a childhood friend who offered her a chance for hope: "Let's go to Kampala and get jobs and an apartment together." Overjoyed at a chance for a new life, Mikay gladly assented. But upon her arrival in Kampala, she was sold by her "friend" into prostitution. This beautiful young girl was a child prostitute in the streets of Kampala for what seemed like forever. Her escape from this new nightmare was being sold into domestic servitude. After being moved from house to house in the Kampala underground slave trade, she finally lifted her cries up to God: "Lord," she cried, "I have never stolen from anyone, lied to anyone, or cheated anyone because I know that it's wrong. But I'm starving and alone and tired and if you can't help me, I would rather die." She was soon kicked out of the house she was working in, and found herself once again on the streets.


The One
By Sharon Cohn - Vice President, Interventions

Rather unoriginally, I suppose, Mother Teresa is one of my heroes. She exemplified better than perhaps anyone, the significance of the one. When a priest was trying to discourage her from a dangerous mission, she replied, “It is not an idea, Father, I think it is our duty…If I didn’t do it that time [pick up the one] I would never had picked up the 42,000 in Calcutta.”


I think back to this sometimes when I am asked how I keep from being overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the injustices we labor to combat. Or when I am challenged with grim statistics and asked, “So you have rescued hundreds of bonded slaves in the past few months. There are tens of millions still enslaved. What is the point?”


The point is the one. Let me tell you about her. I met Simla* more than two years ago in May 2002 when I was assisting with my first brothel raid with IJM. Based on our information the police rescued six children and arrested one offender. Simla was the most reserved of the girls rescued that day. Her eyes darted with skepticism and distrust and she was loath to smile when I met her.


With good reason. Simla had been promised a job in a restaurant two-and-a-half years earlier, and had instead been taken to the brothel where she had been subjected to exploitation day and night without end. When our investigators first met her, she begged them to give a good report to the brothel keeper because she had been beaten severely the last time a customer had complained.


Simla and I walked back into the brothel together one hot day when the police took us to retrieve her few possessions. It was a painful glimpse into the life of a teenager enslaved, the bizarre juxtaposition of childhood and brutality, posters of teenage idols and bank ledgers of customers’ payments.


Why this one?
IJM has assisted in rescuing hundreds of girls from commercial sexual exploitation since Simla, some of whom I have come to know. So why do I want to write you about her? Simla’s story is not unique, except that, of course, it is. It is unique to Simla. She has plans and dreams just like you and I. Men and women conspired to crush her uniqueness and her value, but we are committed to seeking justice for her.


And so, too, for one little girl in a rock quarry in South Asia. Kani* wasn’t among the others when IJM went with the authorities to raid the quarry. As a matter of fact, our investigators did not know about her family and had not documented this case of slavery during the investigation. At the end of a successful raid, IJM staff members were leaving the quarry where 76 people had been freed from slavery. A desperate woman, Kani’s mother, began banging on the door of one of the cars in the caravan. She explained that her family had not been present for the investigation, but they wanted to be taken out of the quarry. She explained that Kani had been injured while working at the quarry. After inadequate medical care and a raging infection, her middle finger had been amputated just that day to save the rest of her arm.


IJM stopped the caravan and with the help of local police officers found the husband and the eight family members, including the young girl. The family had been working as bonded slaves in the quarry for three years trying to pay off a $400 US debt. The pleas of a desperate mother were heard and her family was freed. IJM staff members have been working with Kani to help prepare her for a more promising future. She’s now back in her native village with her family, attending school and getting the education she deserves.


To Simla and to Kani it mattered that IJM brought the hand of justice to them despite the massiveness of the problem of oppression. Not only is each victim the one, but we likewise can be the one. The one called, the one listening, the one willing, the one sent to bring freedom and justice to innocent ones who are suffering.


Being overwhelmed by the numbers is an indulgence the oppressed can ill afford. Thank you, dear friend, for your willingness to stand with us for each child, each woman and each man who longs for the chance of a new life of hope.