I tried to hide

The bus stopped at the intersection under construction for about an hour. A little girl stepped onto the bus. She wore a white kurta with black design embroidery, green pants, and a layer of dirt over a tired face.

She approached everyone with a piece of paper explaining her plea, so she can ask for money in silence, to hide her shame as she conducts what is considered the lowest form of labor, begging.

Unable to express anything, except for the exhaustion in her face, she moved toward me. I scramble. You see I too was trying to hide, then realizing my efforts were futile, I scrambled for something to pay off my shame, my shame for fearing to face her plea.

It is complex, giving her money probably is feeding a much larger beast. I might be becoming part of the bigger problem.
But I worry, is this child going to eat tonight?
So I give, at the very least, some change.

I feel justified having given some sort of offering, some sort of sacrifice, to cover my own shame. Shame for the fear I felt as she stepped on the bus to shatter my peace. Shame for the fear I felt for having to confront her and look into her weary eyes knowing I'll go home to a nice bed and full belly tonight. Shame and guilt for fearing to help.

And so I gave, because I wanted to change.

She'll be Okay - They say

We just left a message parlor where we met the mother of a child we work with.

She was beautiful just like her little girl. Smiles painted her face as she looked through the photos and videos on our phones soaking in every ounce of pixel on the screen. Her kid doesn't know she works here, and she hopes it stays that way. You see working in a brothel disguised as a message parlor is nothing any mother would want her child to know. She says she doesn't care if she lives or dies, as long and her child is safe. She laughs. It is interesting the different emotions that can exist in the same room at the same time.

Now, as we enter the second parlor we are greeted by another mother of a different child we know. We exchange Namastes. She has the biggest and most welcoming smile. We were warmed by her friendliness, but the warmth dissipates as we walk down into the back of the room. There is a bed, and a young woman is covered in a black shawl laying on her side. She is quivering and facing the wall. I feel a sword puncture my stomach and pierce up into my heart, I bleed pity as the room is now thick with a hopelessness and compassion. This is her first day, and she has serviced three men. It is only the afternoon, which means she still has work to do. 

She thought she was working in a message parlor to make some money for her and her family. 

Like many before her, she was deceived into prostitution. "She'll be ok", they say, "it's just her first day."

We enter a third parlor yet again another mother of a child we know. We meet some other women who are happy to see us but smiles turn to worry as customers begin to arrive, and leave. I see a man walk down from the upper rooms as another man comes up from below expecting services. I was dizzy with sickness and anger. But our host then gathers us, "we should leave, at these hours they can make good money, we ought not to distract."
And we walked away into the night.

It is a day later, and I retain a numb anger and a knot in my throat of which I can't shake.
In the message parlor / brothel industry in Nepal, no one knows the owners, but he knows everything about his prostitutes. If they leave or try and accuse him he can harm them or anyone close to them. And even if the cops come to do a raid,

the prostitutes go to jail, not the customers, and the owner never gets found, because no one knows who they are.

It is complex and discouraging and infuriating the hell that is created on these streets. But we continue on and do what we can to care for these children, and support organizations fighting for social change.

I know you can't understand if you have never dealt with sexual violence, assault, harassment, or abuse, but you can stand along side those who have, and do your part to make sure everyone knows how real the situation is, and that it ceases to happen.

Is it Worth It?

I was talking to a man and explaining the difficulty Raksha Nepal finds itself in. 

There is no system, no safety net to catch the kids in this country. If you have no one, you go to the street where you will without a doubt be raped, beaten, and exploited. And even if you have a family, and you get sexually assaulted, they put you out on the streets in anger for bringing shame upon them. And your perpetrator? He got away, and he paid off the judge. Not to mention you’re a girl, so how can they trust you anyway? Maybe it was your own father who assaulted you, without him, you can't get a passport or your citizenship! Tough luck. Maybe in your next life. 
Then Raksha Nepal saves you and gives you a home, and a purpose, and a dream, and a place to belong in a big family. You are now eating more than you ever have, surrounded by people who genuinely love you and celebrate your greatness. However Raksha, like any NGO needs funds. And when you have 50 children, those funds dissolve quickly. 

He  looked at me and asked, “You think this is worth it? You think your just pouring your money and other people’s money down the drain?”


I was so lit for a second, and then composed myself and explained:
The money disappears quick, I understand and am very aware. Someone just donated $350 today, and guess what tomorrow I’m going to spend $260 on groceries to feed 50+kids! including staff and volunteers! which is a weekly expense. We had to do en entire fundraiser just to be able to buy 1 single solitary piece of fruit per day for a year!
Lets not talk about the fact they constantly need cloths, and shoes, and underwear, and bras as the girls get older. Disregard the female hygiene pads, the sanitation and cleaning materials. Oh and the $4000/month house payment that we NEVER know how we are going to pay it, yet the good God above apparently loves these kids too. Don't forget the thousands of dollars it takes to run an organization that rehabilitates rape victims who are children starting at the age of 4! All the medical and psychological rehabilitation.
Is it worth it you ask? Oh I do believe so. Because you don’t realize that if Raksha goes, they all go right back to where they came from. NO ONE is there to catch them. THERE IS NO SYSTEM HERE to save them from injustice. This country is changing and if you invest in Raksha you invest in change, because Raksha is the leader. Raksha will be the MLK of Nepal. Raksha will be part of the reason that women and girls have rights and are protected against sexual violence. Raksha will be part of the reason women aren’t second class citizens in this nation. 
The money will continue to dissolve, yes, just like it does investing in your own children. But those children will go on to change this world for the better because you cared. 
So I do believe it is worth every dime good sir. Because more than anything in this life, I want to see each and every one of these children attain exactly what they aim for. Be it a model, a lawyer, a business woman, a banker, working in tourism, or a national Tae Kwondo athlete. 
Because I know, as well as you do, that it is the children who will fix and heal the sins and wrongs of our society, if we 
invest in them to do so.


After that, he told me he wanted to donate $1000 of his own money.
God Bless Him


I wish this happened a heck of a lot more often.

Learn more about the work Raksha is doing at:

http://www.rakshanepal.org

Instagram: @raksha.nepal

Perhaps I am a Fool

I was walking in the downtown about to enter a shop to get some water when an older woman came up to me and started to spew the word ‘milk’ over and over again. 

She assured me, “no money, milk, baby.” 

This was different. I am used to people coming up to me begging for money, not milk. At this point I’m full of curiosity and a twinge of pity. She takes me into the shop and points to baby formula. The price is $20 USD! 

“I am sorry that is too expensive I tell her.”


Then she points at a $5 box. 

I pause in time for a second. 

I observe myself and this woman. 

I was so mad.


She has come in here and pressured me, guilted me, destroyed my peace on this day so I would feel bad enough to buy her some formula that she is probably going to use in her tea to sell because it would be free if I buy it! 

She was nervous, kept looking out the window and back to me and back to the formula.

Then I took a breath. 

My anger dissipated and I thought, or maybe she is struggling with a kid somewhere. Maybe she needs this formula. A 
voice came to me, “It doesn’t matter what you do, but whatever you do, don’t judge the person.” My last thought was, 
“Who do you want to be?”

Well, here I am in the middle of Nepal, working with children who have been assaulted, and abused. 
I spend my time connecting with them, buying them food, planning for activities with them, and asking others for money to support the kids. 

I am the same as this woman. And I have been shut down so many times and have been unable to get people to invest in these children. Though I know the need and If only I could show them I know they'd invest their funds and hopes.
She spends hours trying to get someone to believe her and help her get the formula she needs for her baby. I was about to walk away, when I decided, 

“No! I want to give! . . . at least what I can. That is as much as I ask of others. 
Perhaps yes, $20 right now is a large chunk of my own funds, but I have $5.”


I picked up the formula purchased it and in the entrance of the store I gave it to her and bowed with a Namaste. 
She bowed, said, “May God bless you,” turned, and left. 

Perhaps this was unwise, maybe I was foolish, maybe she just scammed me and ran, but maybe not. 
I would rather have a giving heart to the occasional scammer too, than be closed to the frequent people in need. 
So a fool I am, and a fool I’ll remain if it means I’ll be ready to give when the time is presented to me.

Raksha

I have seen God's hands on many occasions in my life, I have tried to maintain a relationship with Christ throughout the years, but I will be honest, there are many times I found myself nearing despair and confusion and I say to myself, "This would be so much easier if you were here, I just want to talk face to face, but you aren't here, and I am just talking, on a phone I guess, and you're not exactly responding."
Perhaps faith has really been my biggest Aquiles heel, though I have witnessed miracle after miracle, I have doubted God's personal love for me. I spent two years teaching others this!
I just didn't believe I was a part of that conversation. I have always wanted that feeling of closeness like others do, and I found it among a group of very small people in a place very far away.
In Nepal they say "Namaste" to greet you, which means, "The God in me acknowledges the God in you." I was volunteering at an organization called Raksha Nepal working with 30 minors who had been sexually trafficked, abused, and assaulted. Most were victims of rape and sexual assault, some from sex trafficking, others lost their family in the quake, and some were abandon and found on the road. When they enter Raksha, they recieve a new name. This is for safety, but also for them to start a new life. They are baptized in the love and care of the Raksha family. These children take care of each other. As new kids arrive still in shock from the horrors that just shook lives, the Raksha children take them in as their brothers and sisters. New kids will suffer from many problems that make them aggressive at times. As they lash out, the Raksha children treat them with the mercy, patience, acceptance, forgiveness, and love as God does to all of us. Slowly these new kids change and adapt and acquire the same amount of charity as the children who took them in.

If I can paint a picture for you of a special moment: On my last night with the kids I began to cry, one girl came up to me and said, “Brother don't cry, the good energy will leave you through your tears.” She embraced me and with her hands wiped my tears away. She, this wounded girl, with pains I will never understand, held me and comforted me as I stood in need of comfort. I was like the child and she was the guardian hushing my tears. She was God.

My time at Raksha was sacred as I played with them, gave them medicine when they were sick, carried them to bed, removed lice out of their hair. 

They would say that God is in the animals so don’t harm them, and that God is in the food so don’t waste it, and that God is in all people so treat them with love. They were living in the Kingdom of God and all the world around them was his sweet benevolent blessings, his hand wiping their tears, feeding them, comforting them, protecting them, and teaching them. Even though they have seen the ugliest this life can bring upon a person, though they have seen hell, God was there in their pain.

You see I found Christ in these children. He taught me what it is to love, to care. It was during this time with these kids I felt closest to him. I place my testimony to that of the Savior, the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a Child.

To the others who suffer

When, in her fury and hatred, with anger as her blood and indignation her breath, she decides to harm another. Perhaps she had her reasons. Maybe it was revenge, or she was lost. Maybe she was scared and didn't know what to do, and yet she had done what cannot be undone. Pain, perhaps hers, left her hands and entered into the life of another. But she is not released. What she thought she came to do was not the answer she sought after all. As she inflicts her designs, all the havoc and destruction she causes, it wakes back into her like the ocean on high tide, for now she suffers from a far deeper pain. As she opened the wound, fresh and tender in another, she opens her own with greater force. And now she walks the earth crippled, unable to heal. Her victim, able to accept what happened, has healed and moved on, while she yearns for forgiveness, from them, from herself. But alas her blood now bleeds black, concentrated in the pride of her blackened heart.

Reading books, of the atrocities done by our biggest villains, we see the symbolism in the pain felt, not only for the harmed but for those that cause it.

Perhaps it is the splitting of the soul through murder as one tries to live forever

The loss of ones body and their entire existence depends solely on the destiny of a ring 

After traveling the path of fear and anger, though they receive great strength and power in the force, they lose everything in order to obtain what they could have had in the light 

In a moment of loss they curse a child whom they come to love

Two people, give into passion as they break the hearts of their lovers in disloyalty, and are damned to an eternity of the winds of passion

In the stories we read so many suffer at the hands of these individuals, often even lives are lost. Great wounds are made and perhaps trauma is caused, but it brings another kind of sorrow to see the comparison of these great wounds of our heroes, to the chasms the guilty create in themselves. 

Often times they are good hearted in the beginning of the story. Sometimes they are even the hero, for a time. Then they make a mistake, and another, and instead of choosing the path of healing, they pry into their wounds seeking strength and they become consumed in their pride and live in a world so deep in pain that guilt turns to shame, shame to misery, misery to despair, and despair to hate, and hate to apathy, a state in which they rarely can come back from.

The wounded pull together. They find hope again and healing in the love they share with those around them. They are warmed by the light, and they often become more wise, more loving, more compassionate than they were. Their wounds are reminders of what men can do to one another. And so they recommit to bless everyone, and strengthen their fellow man and woman. They become the mentor, the teacher, the master, or the king and queen, where they rule and instruct in love and wisdom.

I find this as a type or a symbol. That at the end of the story we are happy for the protagonist. We are content that after the long battle they are ok or at least healing. Then I think to the antagonist, and I am still hurt. I am still hurt for those who chose the other path, from which they often times cannot come back. We watched them fall and tumble, and eventually hurl themselves into the darkness much bloodier and beat up on the inside than our beloved hero. They suffer too, perhaps more than our hero ever will, because he chose to heal. Our antagonist however, as we peel back the layers of these villains, often times we find a small child, curled up in the corner of a dark room, terrified of something we may never understand.

Faith

Being placed in a situation where we are outside the presence of the maker of our bodies and spirits we are thus placed in a situation to search for this source. Throughout time we have discovered, uncovered, and gained knowledge about the universe and its mechanics. Some have wondered about these creations in the narrative of the Creator, others as a great and ever fortunate chance. Faith and Science had been believed to be separated by empirical evidence as opposed to feelings and impressions. I find it absurd to believe that Science and Faith are separated. In the gaining of faith, empirical evidence is put to the test through experiments, hypotheses, and results. 

The belief in God is a rational decision based off evidence that is stemmed from personal physical, emotional, and spiritual experience and evidence. "Blind faith" is not faith, it is ignorance because it ignores the very functions of faith. Faith is obtained in the action of doing, acting, and moving toward a belief. As actions are taken, experiences occur giving faith solid evidence to the person who experiences it. Spiritual experiences cannot be dismissed simply because those outside of the experience cannot see, hear, smell, or touch it. Spirituality is a very personal aspect of life. 

Faith that is believed to be lost is due to inaction. Just as in any discovery, to stop finding means to stop gaining knowledge on that thing. Scientific discoveries are examples of devout faith. There are products of persistent action towards the search for knowledge. Faith is the same in that one must continue on in the path toward truth and not dismiss principles simply because many questions and doubts arise. You cannot expect to discover truth without traversing the forest of question and doubt.

Faith is the reward to the persistent, sincere, honest, and humble. It is what lifts up those who are willing to fail and be wrong. It is what encourages those who earnestly study, pray, experiment, and live in a way that they can find truth. 

The Creator would not divise a universe in which we would not learn through trial and error, question and doubt, opposition and failure. Pain and sorrow hollow out the soul, creating a space of empathy. Empathy gives way to understanding and understanding to peace. Peace grows into joy over time. And happiness and laughter cultivate joy like rain on a garden of diverse flowers and fruits. 

And thus, life flows with the fragrance and sweetness of the gardens of faith.