Human Trafficking Head On // November Update

Dearest Friends and Family,

Apologies for the lack of updates from America! My first three months of mission have been very intense and now I am in the UK for a short break to organize some things for the rest of my stay.

In August 2014, I started my 6-month placement in Downtown Los Angeles, working on the frontline with victims of human trafficking. Currently, it is estimated that 27 million people are trapped in human trafficking (slavery) of some description. I have previously supported and researched organizations that deal mainly with victims of international trafficking, people who are kidnapped, sold or tricked into a life that they have no choice over: filled with brutality, poverty and cruelty that is way beyond the scope of what you and I could imagine. The demographic that I work with falls prey to the same shocking and terrifying brutality, cruelty and devastation, but with some crucial differences…

The victims that I work with and help to rescue are not usually those international victims that we are used to hearing about: the ones who went to another country, seeking better employment and opportunities. No, these girls and women that I work with are very different…

Their stories tend to start the same: their father/ grandfather/ uncle/ cousin/ brother (or a more than one of them) raped and abused them when they were very young. Step 1 in the breaking down of their self worth; in the normalization of abusive relationships and the realization that they will never loved, valued or protected any better than they were in that moment. Step 2: their mother/ grandmother/ aunt/ sister/ cousin (or all of the above) tells them that they are a liar, or that they are not special, that this happens to everyone and this is real life, so why do they think anyone should feel sorry for them or help them? - they learn that they should not reach out for help because they will be rejected and ridiculed and their hearts will be broken again by the crushing realization that they are not loved, valued or protected by the people who should be their safety. So they harden their hearts to that hope and open them to a future of ‘normal’ abuse, violence and sexual exploitation…

The average age that one of these girls is ‘turned out’ to sell herself and earn money for her pimp..? Twelve. 12. Not even a teenager yet. Whether she is courted by a ‘boyfriend’ (read ‘pimp’) who then forces her to work, sold by her parents (or often foster parents), turned out by her family to earn money for them, or kidnapped as a runaway who has nowhere else to go, these girls become slaves before their childhood is even over.

So where do I come into this horrific picture..? I am fortunate enough to be able to help manage and work in a safe house / shelter about 40 minutes outside of Los Angeles where these women can come and find safety, rest, love and an opportunity (if they choose to take it) to begin a new life. It is heartbreaking and amazing all at the same time and there is no ‘typical day’ at the shelter, but here are some examples of days that I have lived through with some of these girls already…

On Monday, I might be the ‘house mum’: cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, taking the girls out for ice cream or a walk at the beach.

Tuesday, I could be breaking up fights or arguments in the house, or helping a girl to come to terms with the devastation she has suffered, or the overwhelming choices she now faces.

On Wednesday, I might get a call at 2am to our 24 hour hotline from a girl who is terrified and hiding from her pimp who has threatened to kill her; or a call from a social worker who has a girl in the Emergency Room who has jumped out of a moving vehicle, or was beaten her within an inch of her life..

Thursday, I may be at the police station, going on a sting operation with LAPD (yes, sometimes we even get to wear bullet proof vests!), or working alongside the FBI to help a girl to be strong enough to identify her pimp and help to uncover huge prostitution rings.

Friday, I could be collecting a newborn baby from court- already ‘in the system’ within the first week of her life because her teenage mother is the victim of this life she never chose (but has fortunately managed to escape from).

On Saturday, I might be driving the familiar ‘tracks’ of LA where these girls (some as young as 12) walk and wait for men to stop and buy them… We drive around, handing out gifts (including our hotline number) to these girls who are ‘in the game’ and telling them to call us any time. 12am – 3am is the worst shift… the girls and women walk around in literally lingerie and heels in plain sight and I always have to fight back the tears when we see a girl who has chosen to return to the life after being with us in the shelter…

On Sunday, I might be blessed enough to take the girls to church and for one of them to ask for prayer and feel for maybe the first time God’s love, or any love at all..

There is no typical day, or week, and no way to describe the pain that I witness on a daily basis… but there is also nothing that compares to seeing God reach in, or for these girls to finally make the choice to start their lives again: to see them go into a program, be reunited with their children, finish their education and get a job and a life that they can be proud of and feel valued in.

What we do in this ministry is difficult, but it is such an unbelievable blessing! So when my manager asked me to extend my contract to 12 months, I was absolutely thrilled!

My position is completely voluntary. That means that I will not earn anything for 12 months and will also have to support myself while I am there, including $4,000 for a year’s accommodation, some meals and any necessary training. This is currently where I need your support the most. I absolutely hate asking for money, but I have realized that, in order for this to be possible, I have to.

I have calculated that it will cost me $500 per month to live and volunteer in this ministry. That is roughly £350. If 10 people committed to £35 per month (until August 2014), that would cover my monthly costs and allow me to continue to do this work.

For one off donations and gifts, please either donate via PayPal:

(£) http://www.youcaring.com/SupportRonell

($) http://www.youcaring.com/SponsorRonell

Please feel free to pass on this information to others who may be interested in supporting me in the work that I am fortunate enough to do.

Thank you for your support in prayer, encouragement and finances. I could not do this without you!

Blessings,

Ronell x

Volunteerism- Please Help Sponsor This Mission

Dear friends and family,

As many of you know or have read, I have recently left my job as a teacher as I believe that God is calling me to serve Him in a different way. I applied for a Volunteer Missionary position at in LA and have been offered a place! 

How soon I am able to go depends entirely on how quickly I am able to raise the funds to go. Please go to my online fundraiser and donate as you feel led.  For those of you who know me outside of the blogosphere, you can also donate to me in person if you would rather not do so online. 

Whether you are able to donate financially or not, I would very much appreciate your support in prayer in the lead up to and throughout my time in mission.

Thank you! 

Blessings!

Ronell x

Mission, Testimony and Other Musings...

Recently, I have been doing a lot of research about mission work, as I believe that this is what God is calling me to in whatever capacity, in the immediate future. I have found some interesting articles about short term mission placements and things to be aware of that have made me think and I decided to share them here, along with my testimony in this area. 

Here are a couple of interesting articles for you to read:

Things No One Tells You About Going on Short-Term Mission Trip: A few ways to make sure your mission trip is effective 

The Good Missionary: An African orphan on what he loves (and doesn't) about short-term mission teams

So here goes with my testimony about being called to mission! As it stands, I have 3 weeks left in my current teaching post, and then I will be moving on to where God sends me!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have known that God has a calling on my life since I was a teenager and a few years back, He began to really stir that in me again. I remember standing in the big top at Soul Survivor in tears as God showed me images of the children that He wanted me to rescue and care for, and there and then, I just surrendered and prayed: “God, here I am, use me…”. 

Last summer, I spent several weeks developing and changing the indoor and outdoor areas for my class at school. It was a huge process and when I finally got to the end of it, I was so relieved and excited! Literally in that moment as I looked around at the finished areas, God asked me: “If I asked, would you be willing to give it up?”.  After the initial shock and horror passed, I replied’ “You know I will” and He responded, “good, I’m asking…”. I didn’t know when, where or how, but I knew it was finally happening.

In September 2013, God began to make my calling clearer. I had prayed for my ‘Schindler’s List moment’ of seeing the need He wanted me to tend to and He did. He also reminded me of the prayer I had prayed at Soul Survivor and the promise I had made in that garden a month before. 

At that point, I had not shared this calling with any of my friends yet, but that night, God used 3 of them to speak to me about it independently: My friend Hannah stood at the front in the middle of worship and said, “I believe God is calling someone to leave their job… you’re thinking ‘I can’t afford to do that!’, but God is saying, ‘can you really afford not to…?’”. I knew it was me and I went up for prayer. 

My friend Cassie prayed for me and after she said, “I don’t know if this is right, but I got the words ‘children’ and ‘abused’ for you” – another confirmation as this lined up with what God had stirred in my heart. 

I wanted to know if God had shown Hannah anything else with the original word, so I went to speak to her. She said He had not shared any more, but she asked if she could pray for me. As she prayed, she named my worries spot on and at the end, she said, “I don’t know if this goes with what God has been saying to you, but I got that you are supposed to work with children”. So I’m thinking ‘I DO work with children’ and God says to both of us at the same time (I was thinking it and she said it out loud), “Yes, you work with children, but they’re the wrong children”.

After church, I told my friend (and accountability partner) Anne-Marie, and she just smiled and said that she knew in that moment that Hannah’s word was for me, but she knew she had to be the confirmation, not the catalyst. 

By February of this year, God confirmed to me that it was time and I knew I had to tell my Head Teacher. I also began to have California impressed on my heart. When I went to my Head Teacher, she told me that God had prepared her heart that weekend for the news and she knew that I was coming to speak to her that week– what a blessing!

In praying for direction, God has brought the a specific organisation, based in Los Angeles, into my life through my friend who is currently their summer mission program. Everything that I have heard and read about it over the past month has worked together to confirm that I believe that this is in fact where God wants me in this next season and so I have applied!

I would very much appreciate your prayers that God will help to clarify whether I am on the right track with this and for favour for the placement that I have applied to already.

Blessings!

Ronell x

{photo credit: http://www.bradruggles.com/images/I-Am-Only-One-1900x1200.jpg}

Open Doors Movement: responding to the cry of the persecuted church

Tonight at church we took up our monthly charity offering. This month, the charity is Open Doors. They are doing incredible work with the persecuted church all over the world. Too often we take for granted the fact that we can freely go to church, read our Bible, pray, worship or access limitless Christian literature online. We forget our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world who are being placed in concentration camps and killed for their faith!

Open Doors is responding to this cry and reaching out to the persecuted church. Help fund this work by visiting their site.

Blessings!

Ronell x

Living Waters Village, Borneo, Indonesia

Living Waters Village is situated in West Kalimantan, in the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo: http://www.livingwatersvillage.com/. Living Waters began in 2003 after Ronny Heyboer (http://www.heyboer.org/) had a vision to build a place to accomodate upto 1000 impoverished, sick, abandoned, or orphaned children.

Since that time many buildings have been built and currently there are 450+ children, together with several young married Indonesian couples, and a number of Western couples and single workers.

One of my close friends (Jannah) spent a whole year volunteering as a doctor in Living Waters Village (LWV). She wrote about some of her experiences in Borneo in a blog that she started in the initial phase of her stay there: http://jannah-borneoupdate.blogspot.co.uk/. Another mutual friend of ours (Matt) is currently in Borneo on medium/long term mission (not sure about the duration yet), teaching practical skills such as painting and decorating and working with the teenage boys in particular. To visit LWV or to volunteer, go to: Visit/volunteer: http://www.livingwatersvillage.com/visiting.html.

LVW is close to my heart, not just because it rescues and cares for orphaned children in a physical, emotional and spiritual way, but also because one of those children is a little girl (Ayu) who lives there and attends the LWV school. Ayu is my sponsor child. I write to her and send her parcels and love receiving letters, pictures and news about her! For a chance to change a child’s life, go to http://www.wouk.org/2005/04/living_waters_sponsorship.php and sponsor a child on a monthly basis.

Videos about the work:

- Miracle in the Jungle: http://vimeo.com/14397680

- Interview with Ronny Heyboer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQbexqSIEBk   

To donate to LWV, go to: http://www.livingwatersvillage.com/support.html or to donate to World Outreach (an umbrella organisation which LWV is a part of), go to: http://www.wouk.org/administration/donations_by_card.php

This month, Luc De Coster (a supporter of the LWV project) is taking some stuff to Holland (20^th October) to put in a container to send to LVW. Read his email below for more details:

---------------------------------------------------

Living Waters Village – Borneo

At the end of this month a container will be sent from Holland to Borneo.  The material needs to be in Holland at the latest on the 25^th October.

We are asking if you could help us with this project.

There are 3 ways you can help:-

·        by a financial donation towards the transport and import costs (approx €3000)

·        by a financial donation to enable us to buy items to go into the container

·        by donating items to be sent in the container

We are always very grateful for any donated items for Living Waters but we would like to respectfully point out that we really need new items or second hand items in very good condition and full working order.  We don’t have the facilities to repair and renovate items and the cost of transport makes it uneconomic to send items in poor condition.  We do hope you understand.  Also, we need to bear in mind that the climate in Borneo is very humid and hot and so items need to be good quality and capable of withstanding the climate and also the inevitable fairly heavy duty use to which everything is subject in a community of children and teenagers.

The following are some suggestions that we would currently find very useful:-

·        Good summer clothing (clean, in perfect condition and washed) (preferably small sizes)

·        New underwear and children’s shirts

·        Slippers and children’s black shoes

·        Soap, tooth paste and tooth brushes

·        Pens, pencils and note books

·        Toys (including small cuddly toys)

·        Bath towels and tea towels

·        Energy saving light bulbs (screw type – NOT UK bayonet type fittings)

·        Ironing boards (new or as good as new)

·        Paint brushes and washing up brushes

·        First aid kits, plasters and scissors

·        Spoons (no knives)

If you are able to help with any of the above, or have other items or contacts that you think will be of use, please contact me.  I’m planning to drive to Holland from the UK around the 20^th October and could take the material then. 

Luc De Coster E-mail: ludecos@gmail.com

---------------------------------------------------

Thank you for any prayers and support for this project! I would also particularly encourage you to pray for the leaders at LWV that God will give them wisdom and keep guiding them in all of the decisions and trials that they face on a daily basis.

Blessings!

Ronell x

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” {1 Corinthians 13v1-3}

The Child Health Site: Free Clicks to Provide Medical Care for Children in Need!

Tying into my post from yesterday about supporting underprivileged girls’ futures (http://365days2changetheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/plan-ukorg-international-day-of-girl.html),  today’s post is about helping to provide free medical care for children in need by visiting The Child Health Site, which is another site run by The GreaterGood Network. It is pretty much the same principle as The Hunger Site, The Breast Cancer Site and The Animal Rescue Site free clicks, except that it supports charities that provide free medical care for children in need.

The Child Health Site is a charitable site that sells a whole host of items that donate to supporting these charities. It also has a lot of excellent information on different causes that need supporting and how we can help.

Over 200,000 children die every week from preventable causes! Many millions suffer from preventable, curable diseases such as blindness and malnutrition. Since its launch in 2002, The Child Health Site has supported and helped hundreds of thousands of children directly through the ‘free clicks’ initiative. You can help with this for free too! This has got to be one of my favourite features of the site (which I use every day that I log onto the internet using my laptop): using the ‘daily free clicks’ to donate. Basically, you visit http://www.thehungersite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=5&link=ctg_chs_home_from_aut_home_sitenav and click on the ‘Click Here to Give - it's FREE’ button, which generates money for charity, paid for by site sponsors. When you click, these companies and groups actually pay for your click! That's 365 free chances each year to help! The Child Health site gives 100% of sponsor advertising fees to their charitable partners- so all of the money generated by your daily clicks will actually go to helping to provide medical care for children in need!

The Child Health Site are particularly focusing on two areas of medical care: (1) Distributing Vitamin A, which strengthens young immune systems, improving resistance to disease. Vitamin A supplementation also prevents as many as 400,000 cases of childhood blindness each year! (2) Administering oral re-hydration therapy to children with severe dehydration, often due to diarrhea, which is a serious killer of children under the age of five worldwide (it causes roughly 1 in 5 child deaths and can kill a newborn within hours).

I have added a bookmark called ‘click’ to my bookmark bar at the top of my web browser to help me remember. Other suggestions would be to set The Child Health Site (http://www.thehungersite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=5&link=ctg_chs_home_from_aut_home_sitenav) as your home page, or to sign up for a free click reminder email (under the big ‘Click Here to Give - it's FREE’ button). You control how often you get a reminder! Bonus: if you are a new registrant to the GreaterGood Network (owners and operators of The Child Health Site), they will make an extra donation to the cause when you sign up. Funding from this site helps an average of over a 1,000 children every day!

Thank you click sponsors!

Blessings!

Ronell x

“It is not my Father’s will that one of these little ones should perish” {Matthew 18v14}

Free Rice: Play online for rice to feed the poor!

This has got to be one of the most distracting (yet conflicting) sites ever! You get distracted because you are so into answering the quizzes.. then you feel bad because you are not working.. and then you remember you are actually feeding the hungry by donating rice! So conflicting (just ask @m_ager!). Go to http://freerice.com/#/english-vocabulary/1387
to have a go!
How it works is, you basically go to the site and start answering questions. Each question you get right, you earn 10 grains of rice to donate to the World Food Programme to help end hunger! (don't worry, rice does not get taken away from starving kids if you get a question wrong!). Now that does not seem like a lot of rice, but it soon starts adding up as you get more and more addicted to the quizzes!
The home page takes you to the 'English Vocabulary' quizzes, but there are more subjects to choose from! If you go to: http://freerice.com/category
you can choose from the following categories:
HUMANITIES
-Famous Paintings
-Literature
-World Hunger
MATH
-Multiplication Table
-Basic Math (Pre-Algebra)
LANGUAGE LEARNING
-German
-Spanish
-French
-Italian
SCIENCES
-Human Anatomy
ENGLISH
-English Vocabulary
-English Grammar
CHEMISTRY
-Chemical Symbols (Full List)
-Chemical Symbols (Basic)
GEOGRAPHY
-World Landmarks
-Identify Countries on the Map
-World Capitals
-Flags of the world
(there is also a section for American SAT questions: http://freerice.com/#/sat/1521289)
This is an amazing site for teachers to use as a time filler in class too (I know the upper primary and the secondary sections of my school use this site).
Enjoy the fulfilling and meaningful distraction!
Blessings!
Ronell x
"If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday." {Isaiah 58v10}

FareShare & Sainsbury's 'Million Meal Appeal' (6th-7th October)

Did you know that an estimated 5.8 million people in the UK live in deep poverty and struggle to buy basic foods? Sainsbury's is helping to make a difference by donating some of their surplus food to FareShare, a national charity that aims to tackle food poverty and waste.
This month, Sainsbury's has teamed up with FareShare to organise the 'Million Meal Appeal' for Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th October. With the help of the public, they are aiming to donate over 1 million meals to disadvantaged people in our local communities. This will be the UK's largest charity food collection! Sainsbury's will help FareShare to distribute the food to those who need it the most, including homeless charities, children's clubs and women refugees.

Be a part of this initiative to help reduce the effects of poverty and hunger in the UK! Go down to your local participating Sainsbury's store over the weekend of 6th-7th October and donate food to support the collection.
Getting involved is simple:
(1) Just pick one (or more!) item from the Million Meal shopping list (see below) and donate it at the collection box after checkout.
Million Meal shopping list:
- tinned food
- tea
- instant coffee
- pasta sauce
- dried pasta
- rice
(2) shop online between 3rd-9th October and donate £1 at the checkout.
Sainsbury's have pledged to match the donations made by the public, so get donating! In 2011, over 1.2 million meals were donated in just one day! Let's see if we can smash that figure this year!
To find out more about this event, click here.
To find out more about the FareShare charity, click here
Blessings!
Ronell x
"Blessed are those who are generous, because they feed the poor." {Proverbs 22v9}

Lemoru, Kenya: Project 4810

For today's post I wanted to highlight a project that two of my friends (Daniel and Verity Yardy) are closely involved with. Every year, a team from Trinity Church goes to a rural village in Kenya (Lemoru) to physically and financially support the various projects there.
This year Daniel and Verity personally embarked on an epic journey named project 4810. Read the two emails below from Daniel to get a better understanding of the project and ways to donate:
------------------------------------------
Email 1:
Dear Friends,
This week Verity and I are embarking on a challenge to climb 4,810m to the summit of Mont Blanc whilst raising £4,810 for a charity project that we am very closely involved with.
Over the past 3 years I have been travelling out to a rural community called 'Lemoru' in Kenya, to help them build a medical clinic to serve the wider community and the local orphanage.  Currently they have to walk nearly a whole day to get any medical attention and with diseases like Malaria being so prevalent in their community they often do not survive.
In October Verity is going back to (with others) to complete the fit-out of the clinic and to assist with buying the medical equipment and supplies they need to get the clinic up and running.
Please help us achieve our goal of raising the £4,810.  It would be great to know whilst climbing the highest summit in Western Europe, that for every meter climbed we are helping raise £1 towards this fantastic project!!
All the money raised goes direct to the project, all the expenses of the climb are met by myself.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this.  Hope we make it!!!!
Regards,
Dan
------------------------------------------
Email 2:
Dear All,
Thank you so much for your messages of support and donation pledges over the past week, we really needed it as the climb proved to be an unbelievable challenge!!
We were hoping to complete it in 4 days (allowing for acclimatisation) however due to bad weather we had to try and do it in 3.  Unfortunately I fell very ill on day 3 and we had to return to the valley when I had reached 500m from the summit.  After recovering, we still had a 2 day weather window to get back to the top, but we no longer had a guide!!
However, we couldn't face coming home having not reached the summit, so we decided on another attempt on our own.  We finally reached the summit on day 6 (Friday at 8am), having only slept about 8 hours all week!!!
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE help us achieve our target of £4,810 by next week, when Verity and the gang travel out to Kenya.  We have already received some very kind donations and are now half way (nearly £2,500).  This is a very worthy cause which we are directly involved with and we get to see exactly where the money goes and how it transforms the lives of the people in this community!!
We now have a PayPal link for giving donations (as below) and I have also listed a few other ways you can donate.
Once again, thank you so much for your support!!
Dan
Ways to donate:
1.      PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=4X6C4ZAY3A99E
2.      Text: LTHC12 £10 (The code is simply the acronym for Lemoru Trinity Health Centre 2012 - and then a donation of £10.  This is then added to your mobile phone contract bill or deducted from your pay-as-you-go credit.  You then get a text confirming your donation)  Give it a go yourself to see how easy it is. Please note that there is a space between the code and the amount being donated.
3.      Internet Banking:  Community Development Initiatives - Sort Code:  08-60-01; Account Number:  20136572 If you have online banking can do a simple transfer and put LTHC12 as the reference.
4.      Cash/Cheque: Please forward to me at A2O Ltd, Pump House Farm, Ongar Rd, Brentwood CM15 0LA.  Cheques to be made out to Community Development Initiatives.
p.s. If you have any questions about the charity or the project, please don't hesitate to ask.
------------------------------------------
Watch this YouTube video more on the project.
Please support this very worthy cause in any way you can, whether it is financially, through prayer, or fasting.
Love and blessings,
Ronell x
"And Jesus said, 'Whatever you Did for the least of these...you did it for me' " {Matthew 25v40}