Mumbai

I wouldn't give Mumbai a great review if you are looking for a place to vacation, but should you find yourself headed that way -- stay at the Grand Hyatt and thank me after you eat six freshly baked croissants in one sitting. This is Biddy hanging out by the window in our room.

Oh the city of Mumbai, it's one of the most hopeless, exhausting places on earth. I cannot believe my dear husband has been there more than once, and I'm thinking of returning.


Ahhh, the most beautiful place in the city -- St.Catherine's. Crossroads keeps this place operational. Seriously, it's fully funded by crazy revolutionaries that don't hold onto cash too tightly.
Sharon, IJM saint. Yep, she's that beautiful -- inside and out.
Cana meeting all of the girls at St.Catherine's. She likes to be in the middle of the action.
While we were in Mumbai, the festival of rotten yogurt was going on. David played a game with the girls and got to be covered in said rotten yogurt. I'm about to throw up as I type this.
Cana dancing with one of the sisters at St.Catherine's. She's naked because it was crazy hot.

Mumbai

It's the most oppressive place I have ever been in my life. Six hours into our trip there I was seriously contemplating locking myself in the posh hotel and not coming out, our friend Dave was thinking of jumping on a plane home. It took every ounce of energy I had to get though a day there. So I did not write. I have stories to tell, but right now I'm resting up.

If going to Mamelodi, South Africa is as spiritually refreshing as having water dumped on your head, then Mumbai is equivalent to digging your own well through concrete to get to water. You get water both ways, the latter is just much more exhausting.

Cambodia Day 5

This morning we met 15 girls at a local bowling alley. The two hours that followed were chaotic, hilarious, adorable, nail-breaking fun. It was by far the highlight of the trip. No one stayed in their lane. Sometimes girls threw the ball like a shot putt, and it crashed onto the hardwood. One score screen showed all strikes, all morning long, and no one even thought of correcting it. We ran halfway to the pins to stop a ball from going into the gutter. All bowling parties should throw all the rules out the window. Cana was passed around from girl to girl and bowled for the first time, too. All of this, followed by pizza. Then, we had to say goodbye to them. It wasn't easy. At all.

Cambodia Day 4

Today we volunteered along side of the Transitions girls at a local orphanage. The fine people at Transitions believe that a part of reintegration is showing the survivors of sex trafficking that they have something very beautiful to give to others. I'm a big fan of volunteering in general, but today was sweetness overload.

Adorable Cambodian orphans that love to play patty cake, mixed with stunning Cambodian girls that are figuring out just how amazing life can be sent my heart into overload.

This way of thinking that says you don't have to lock trafficking survivors up to heal them is revolutionary and it is working. By far, the girls at Transitions are more alive than any other survivors I have met. They have true personality and a great deal of spunk.

Cambodia Day 3

James loaded up Katie, Olive and I into a took-took to meet some of the women who are not yet free. As we rode along, I prayed that we’d be magnetic, and that God would make us a bright light in a dark place. James warned us that no girls would talk to three women and a man in the first bar that we went to. He was wrong.

About five minutes after we walked in, Soephogn walked up and began to talk to us. She’s 38, and has a 15-year-old son who would like to be a doctor. She’s been exploited in Cambodia since I was in the 5th grade. I tell her that I have a baby, and she asks to see a picture. James took one on his phone of Cana when we arrived, so he pulls it out. Soephogn stares at it, rubs Cana’s pixilated little face, and then kisses the screen. Other girls see that we’re having a great time at our table, and also join us. We see lots of pictures of their children, and some disturbing pictures of their “boyfriends”. Soephogn is brilliant. She speaks Cambodian, French, English and Vietnamese. She glares at the nasty American, Austrailan, and French men patronizing the bar, and gets feisty when someone takes her spot at the pool table. She hugs me tightly for the $5 I gave her at the end of the night, and runs out of the bar for a moment to wave as our took-took drives away.

At the next bar we sit in a booth and six girls quickly join us. I meet Neang, who has a daughter Cana’s age. This stops me dead in my tracks. I force my tears back as we talk about what it is like to have toddlers, the cost of formula, and how to teach them to talk. Both of our mothers watch the girls while we work. I coach her in teaching her daughter English words and beg her to read to that little girl 30 minutes a day, even if it is the same book again and again. She watches one of her coworkers leave with an overweight white man. She says, “I don’t want to do that.” I don’t want her to either. We keep tipping the girls at our table so they will not have to tend to other customers.

Three American women walk into a bar known for sex tourism. Men who are clearly there as predators feel so uncomfortable that they leave a 10 foot buffer between us and then, and many leave because they can’t stand to see us there, knowing that we know the evil they are up to. Maybe we should just bring 1,000 women to the city and camp out in all of these places. Darkness cannot push back the light.

At the Royal Palace

Cambodia Day 2

“Baby, baby!” Two women yelled as we hit the door of a local Non-Government Organization (NGO). They were watching 4 very young children so that mothers (who have all been exploited in the commercial sex industry) could work on jewelry, sewing, and cake decorating upstairs. Cana saunters up to the woman holding a four month old.

“Baaaaby, baaaaby!” The women all laugh, and we let Cana and the Cambodian baby talk, reach, and kiss at each other. It’s a sweet moment. At one point the Cambodian baby starts to cry (because Cana poked her in the eye) and I pick her up to bounce with me. Instinctively, I begin to whisper into her ear prayers as forcefully and boldly as I can. (Thanks, Kim for teaching me to do that – it’s not creepy.)

The tour continues to the next floor and we enter an 8x8 room with four girls sitting on the floor around several bowls of brightly colored beads. They are taking each individual bead and drilling a hole in it. It’s tedious work. They all light up as Cana hits the doorway. “Come here baby!” The bright beads hypnotize Cana. She sits on the floor and organizes all of the beading supplies. I meet the girls; they are adorable, smiley and fun to be around. They say my name over and over and over again. We need to continue with the tour, so I tell them that Cana and I will return. The rest of the building is filled with equally precious women. They are all working hard on various crafty projects that are all delicately made and beautiful.

One of the girls in the sewing room begins to cry when I hand her Cana. I ask if she’s okay, and she just holds Cana tightly, closes her eyes, and lets it all out. I try desperately to hold back my own tears. She opens her eyes, smiles at me, and says, “thank you”.

Next, I find myself in the middle of an English lesson complete with flash cards being taught by a Brown University student. The girls in the lesson are trying very hard to say each word exactly right. Cana gets in the mix and holds up some cards for them, then gives her very best baby applause.

We make our way back to the bead room, where I purchase a bracelet for $6. One of the girls smiles directly at me. “I made that one.” She tells me her name, and while I do not know the details of her circumstances, I know that she is a loving girl who is patient and hilarious. She sings Cambodian pop songs as she works and has some sweet dance moves. Cana adores her. One girl gives Cana a hair clip from her own head. We spend about twenty minutes on the floor together, and then give hugs and say goodbye.

We’re off to lunch at an aftercare home run by our dear friends James and Athena. We hit the gate of the home, and cheers ring out from inside. On either side of the doorway, there are 7 or 8 beautiful girls who have been waiting for us all morning. I wonder if they knew I’d been waiting for them over a year. A girl in a traditional Cambodian bright pink dress reaches out for Cana. Cana leaps into her arms. I didn’t hold Cana again for several hours. The 15 girls range in age from 14 to 17, and Zaya, who should be on a Crest commercial, mothers them.

We tour the facility while the girls complete the preparations for lunch. Lunch consists of 5 of the best dishes I have had in weeks. All homemade, and my own mother would point out, made with love.

We spent the afternoon with 15 girls who glow when you love them, and are on their way to true freedom. They watched Cana while we met about the program that cares for the girls and when I returned Cana was dancing, laughing and drinking green tea. She may never want to leave Cambodia. Cana cheers as we hand out care packages, and then takes a hairbrush from one of the gifts, walks up to a girl and gently brushes her hair. Love. Beauty. Freedom.

I talked to one girl for most of the afternoon. She’s been there for one week. Her sister was rescued at the same time, but she is in a different aftercare home. She tells me that this place is much nicer. She loves it. She is so happy to be there. The team there is actively trying to get her sister transferred, so they can be together again.

The crazy thing about interacting with these girls is that you get lost in their smiles and have to remind yourself why they are there. They are so pure and innocent, so beautiful, that you cannot bring yourself to imagine the evil they have been subjected to. I love them.

(no pictures on the blog, to avoid further exploitation of these girls)

In Cambodia

We're in Cambodia with AP's work. It's good. Cana is here with us. She made the 40 hours of travel seem easy, and slept 12 of the 14 hours of our longest flight. When traveling with a baby, it's essential to get that bulk head seat with the sweet bassinette. She made it into a fort, and then promptly crashed. Here's hoping we get it on the way home, too. Strangers even commented on what an angel she was on the flights.

Yesterday was filled with visiting some of the people on the front lines of freedom. Our group of 8 was in large conference rooms all day, getting the full report of the situation in this country. Because Cana doesn't really like to sit still and ask questions in big meetings, we adventured around these organization's offices. In doing so, we hit a gold mine of people with amazing hearts. I got to hear to the story of an Austrailan woman, K, who knew ten years ago that she should use her social work skills to do something here. She prayed, and asked God for a way. Then, four months ago she raised money for her own paycheck for two years, and volunteers full time for an incredible place here. Her first order of businees upon arrival? She found a local woman to teach everything she knows, so that in two years the work will continue. Cana and I had a great time haning out in her office for 40 minutes. She is a play theropist, so Biddy tried out each and every toy on the shelf. Then, she gave K an extensive lesson in baby signs, which K had never seen before. K was excited to learn more about baby signs, and thought that they could really help some of the children that she works with. K gave me hope that social workers here have someone backing them up, looking to make them better. She also said that there is a need for more social workers here, even from the United States.

At another office, Cana and I met V, an accountant with the heart of a hero. I learned how she came to know Christ through a friend (that's very rare in Cambodia). Then, she told me how she actually started following Christ when she accepted the job with this organization. She told me how she wakes up in the night praying for the girls that they have rescued, and the ones that still need to be recused. I taught her a new english word -- innercessor. She now understands that her prayers are just as poswerful in the Kingdom of God as the reports of investigators, the brute force of recuers, and the love of social workers. We prayed for eachother while Cana pulled every tissue out of a box in V's office. It was sweet, sweet time. Yes, you can be an accountant and use that skill to rescue people from slavery.

We had an incredible dinner and then Cana and I came back to the hotel. AP had another experience entirely.

It's 7:45AM here, and today we get to meet girls who are on their way to freedom. Cana is all rested up and ready to blow them all lots of kisses.

Raisenetes

You know, vacationing with friends is much better than vacationing alone. It's 2:07AM right now, and for the last hour I've been hurling Raisenetes at the doormen guarding the club next door. Well, Raisenetes and Junior Mints. I can't tell you what joy this brings all of us at the end of a long, hard day. Those doormen are not cut out for the secret service. They keep looking everywhere but our balcony.

This little prank really picked up some speed as the doormen picked up the chocolate rain, examined it and tried to figure out "what the bloody hell" this stuff is. Never seen Raisenetes in Ireland I suppose. They have been diligent at rubbing their heads, looking toward the sky and retelling the story to each other. Nice.

Dublin is a blast. The grass is green, the Guinness is black, and the people are Irish.

Friends, I'm disappointed to tell you that my other idea for a practical joke today did not work. We sat on a park bench in St. Stephen's Green plotting to scare a passerby, thereby forcing them to fall into the pond. Just couldn't get up the nerve to do it, but we sure talked about it a lot, and I think we laughed as much as we would have if we actually had forced some poor soul into the water. For about half an hour, we people watched and determined if each person would laugh, cry, or come out swinging if we got them to fall into the duck pond. There's always tomorrow. Let me know if you think we should go ahead and do it.

On the train ride home tonight we grilled the people who went to the U2 show. They said there was little to no encore. I say, if that happens again, the four of us will start the chorus, "Love, love, LO-OOVE." Surely, they'll come back out to 85,000 singing their favorite warm up.

Now, on to see what the doormen are doing ...

Dates

One of the many remarkable things that happens because Grammie lives with us is late night dates. A few times a week, when Biddy is in bed (undoubtedly with her arms tucked under her chest and her booty in the air) AP and I take the monitor downstairs to Grammie and sneak out for a date. Another remarkable thing that happens is fresh biscuits on Monday mornings. Ummmm biscuits.

Anyway, the dates don't have to be fancy. We just get coffee or ice cream and catch up. Earlier this week we saw Harry Potter, it was not very good. What was my favorite book of the series turned out to be the worst movie.

Tonight we planned on going to Awakenings and getting some coffee or wine (I love that they have both). As we approached the door AP's eyes get wide. He states, "We're not going in there." I pause at the door to asses the situation. There is a man with slick black hair and a short silk scarf playing what appears to be Jazz Flute. It is just as creepy as Anchorman dipects. The audience is all completely still and silent staring at the Jazz floutest. Their emaciated forms are wearing similar eurosheek gittups. And since the stage is on the same wall as the front door they must have all seen the two of us pause, take it all in, and swiftly walk away. I can only imagine their disgust with our Gap clothing and lack of musical enlightenment.

We went to Tellers instead and had a great date.