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Me and the cutest 3-year-old - she has the sweetest voice and loves to sing, but also can be very strong-willed. This one is a leader and needs to be nurtured in the right way so that her spirit won't be broken by harsh discipline
Thankful for times and people who change your life… thankful for the ability to choose where I want to work and everything else. The former trafficked women I met in The Golden Triangle region do not have the freedom to choose because they were born in a village and have had limited education, nor have they developed confidence in themselves to fulfill their dreams. Those of us who do have decision-making power can help empower the voiceless. We have a huge responsibility if we’re willing…
At a drug rehabilitation center in Myanmar. That's me on the right (in flip flops). Our donor client funded this program complete with free HIV testing and medical treatment.
LEGACY OF LOVE, A BEAUTIFUL INHERITANCE OF JUSTICE AND PHILANTHROPY
Feeling weepy today… as I reflect on the legacy that I want to leave for my children and future generations and the dreams I have in my heart for them.
I want to be able to tell my children someday that this is our legacy for you: your parents fought for social justice and with the love of God, they did their best in loving orphans and helping them to be parented and empowered through healthy communities and social enterprises. Your parents lent their energy and voice in fighting for the ending of sex trafficking; in helping restore trafficking victims & providing support for safe homes for their rehabilitation, and in bringing healing and restoration to hurting at-risk children, broken lives & the desperately poor. This is what’s burning in my heart. I hope that it burns in my childrens’ hearts as well someday.
I want to carry on my 4th generation blessings of social justice work and extraordinary compassion. My great-grandparents on my mother’s side opened their home and hearts to love and feed the poor who would trek from all over to be nourished by free meals; they also gave whatever they could. They gave away coats, money and even gave the long johns they were wearing to those begging in the winter – so moved were they with great compassion for the suffering.
My great-grandfather was a radical, influential political leader (for his entire career till he retired and ran an huge fruit orchard) and had a deep passion for justice. You could say that he pioneered governmental social services in his region out of his large home estate. My mother had a privileged upbringing (was the first family in her town to have a T.V. set when she was a child among other material things), but grew up watching her grandparents give the shirts off their backs to street beggars. She was definitely shaped by her unusually loving grandmother; my mom is also incredibly compassionate… she has for more than 30 years helped low-income families in a myriad of loving and kind ways and cooked for the terminally ill at her church.
What qualities do I want my kids to model after their parents? I hope it’s what I’ve seen modeled in my great-grandparents and parents: deep faith, compassion, integrity, selfless service, noble living, wisdom & discernment, thoughtfulness and a deep commitment to friends and family.
What else is there besides deeply satisfying and nurturing relationships? Nothing. No work, no call of duty, not even material things can replace the special friends and family in our lives.
At the Mother's Heart foster home in Mangshi, Yunnan province, China
These kids were incredibly radiant… there were lots of giggles and hugs… it was a joy to be with them in October 2009 on a trip on behalf of a donor client… their parents have passed away from AIDS. Living in these foster homes has meant the world of difference for them. Before living at these homes, they were at risk of being sold to traffickers, dropping out of school, drug use and mistreatment. To see their beautiful smiling faces was one of the highlights of my time in Yunnan last fall.
I’m missing China.
Orphans in Haiti
**These children are vulnerable to traffickers. Please pray, support and act quickly on behalf of these at-risk kids.**
January 19, 2010
Associated Press: Haiti quake creates thousands of new orphans
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The 5-month-old patient at the Israeli field hospital has a number rather than a name. No one even knows who dropped the barely conscious child at the makeshift medical center after he was pulled from the debris of a collapsed building four days after last week’s catastrophic quake. Now recovering, doctors have a difficult decision ahead.
“What will we do with him when we are finished?” said Dr. Assa Amit of the hospital’s pediatric emergency department. No one knows who the boy’s family is, or whether any of his relatives are alive.
Tens of thousands of children have been orphaned by the earthquake, aid groups say — so many that officials won’t venture a number. With so many buildings destroyed and growing chaos in the capital, it is conceivable that many children are alone.
“As yet they are still on the streets,” said Elizabeth Rodgers, of the Britain-based international orphan group SOS Children. “Without doubt, most of them are in the open.” Even before Tuesday’s deadly magnitude-7.0 earthquake, Haiti, one of the world’s poorest countries, was awash in orphans, with 380,000 children living in orphanages or group homes, the United Nations Children’s Fund reported on its Web site.
Some of the children lost their parents in previous disasters, including four tropical storms or hurricanes that killed about 800 people in 2008, deadly storms in 2005 and 2004, and massive floods almost every other year since 2000. Others were abandoned amid the Caribbean nation’s long-running political strife, which has led thousands to seek asylum in the U.S. — without their children — or by parents who were simply too poor to care for them.
International advocacy groups are trying to help, either by speeding up adoptions that were already in progress, or by sending in relief personnel who could potentially evacuate thousands of orphans to the U.S. and other countries.
On Tuesday, a flight carrying 53 Haitian orphans landed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after two sisters working at a Haitian orphanage used Twitter and Facebook to spread the word about their plight. A day earlier, the Dutch government sent a planeload of immigration officials to Haiti who will try to locate and evacuate 100 children who were already being adopted by Dutch parents.
Also Monday, Indiana-based Kids Alive International, which runs orphanages around the world, is expected to take 50 Haitian orphans to group homes in the Dominican Republic, the organization said in a news release.
U.S. Homeland Security spokesman Sean Smith said Monday that orphans who have ties to the U.S. — such as a family member already living here — are among those who can get special permission to remain in the United States.
Notwithstanding the U.S. policy, the Catholic Church in Miami is working on a proposal that would allow thousands of orphaned children to come permanently to America. A similar effort launched in 1960, known as Operation Pedro Pan, brought about 14,000 unaccompanied children from Cuba to the U.S.
Under the new plan, dubbed “Pierre Pan,” Haitian orphans would first be placed in group homes and then paired with foster parents, said Mary Ross Agosta, spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Miami.
“We have children who are homeless and possibly without parents and it is the moral and humane thing to do,” Agosta said. Archdiocese officials said many details would have to be worked out and President Barack Obama’s administration would have to grant orphans humanitarian parole to enter the U.S. In the meantime, U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said the United Nations is establishing a group whose mission on the ground in Haiti will be to protect children — orphans and non-orphans alike — against trafficking, kidnapping and sex abuse.
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