Hello Friends and Family!
As most of you know I am moving to Ethiopia on September 16th to volunteer for 8 months at the ministry Women At Risk. I have started this blog in order to update my friends and family back home on my new life! I will try to answer as many questions as possible ( the why,who,whens of everything) in this first post!
WHY: My heart strings have always been pulled for the less fortunate, whether it was a lonely student at school or a child in a foreign country without shoes. As a freshman I went on a missions trip to Mexico and fell in love with missions work. Since then I have gone on four other amazing short term trips that have planted and grown my desire to serve abroad. I knew going into my senior year that missions was something I was very passionate about and something that I was interested in pursuing. I also knew that I was interested in taking a gap year after High School.
When I was in High School the issue of Human Trafficking started becoming something that everyone talked about. I started educating myself more and more about the issue by taking social justice classes and talking to my parents who are both actively involved with organizations that work to combat Human Trafficking. For me it was never enough to just have a conversation about it and then move on. After every commercial or informational speech my heart was left in pieces. Over the course of my senior year the Lord really revealed to me that this was an issue my heart was eager to fight against. My passion for helping the women who were enslaved was deep, and I knew to ignore it would be wrong. The pinnacle point of all of these thoughts and emotions was when a speaker came and talked to my Social Justice class about women who were enslaved in brothels. I went to my next class in tears, I remember not being able to shake my sadness for days after that. That's when I started talking to my parents about taking a gap year and working with women who had been trafficked or involved in prostitution. My dad has worked with the ministry Women at Risk for awhile now and knew that was the only place he would send me to volunteer! I prayed about this decision for months, and in April I decided to defer all of my college acceptances and head to Ethiopia in the fall!!
WHO: I am working with the ministry Women at Risk. They have a year long program for women coming out of prostitution. In the first half of the year the women go through counseling, in the second half they are taught skills that will help reintegrate themselves into the community and find work once they complete the program. WAR also has a prevention program that works with the children of the women who have come out of prostitution. The program supports the children's physical, social, and emotional health as well as their education. There are currently over 120 children in the prevention program ranging from 4 to17 years old. My volunteer work will include tutoring children and helping run the after school prevention program that the 120 kids attend. I'm sure there will be many other things I do while volunteering at WAR that I don't know about now...but those things will be saved for later blog posts :) If you want to read more about WAR here is the URL to their site http://www.w-a-r-e.org/ .
WHEN: I am leaving September 16th. I have a one way ticket at this point but I plan to come home in the late spring!!
I am beyond grateful for this opportunity! Jesus has been so good through the crazy process of preparation--moving to a foreign country as an 18 year old girl is not a walk in the park! I strongly believe this is where the Lord wants me for the next chapter of my life and I couldn't be more thrilled to answer His calling to Ethiopia. Thank you all for the support you've already shown me and will continue to show me in these upcoming months, it means the world to me.
So much love,
Becca
As most of you know I am moving to Ethiopia on September 16th to volunteer for 8 months at the ministry Women At Risk. I have started this blog in order to update my friends and family back home on my new life! I will try to answer as many questions as possible ( the why,who,whens of everything) in this first post!
WHY: My heart strings have always been pulled for the less fortunate, whether it was a lonely student at school or a child in a foreign country without shoes. As a freshman I went on a missions trip to Mexico and fell in love with missions work. Since then I have gone on four other amazing short term trips that have planted and grown my desire to serve abroad. I knew going into my senior year that missions was something I was very passionate about and something that I was interested in pursuing. I also knew that I was interested in taking a gap year after High School.
When I was in High School the issue of Human Trafficking started becoming something that everyone talked about. I started educating myself more and more about the issue by taking social justice classes and talking to my parents who are both actively involved with organizations that work to combat Human Trafficking. For me it was never enough to just have a conversation about it and then move on. After every commercial or informational speech my heart was left in pieces. Over the course of my senior year the Lord really revealed to me that this was an issue my heart was eager to fight against. My passion for helping the women who were enslaved was deep, and I knew to ignore it would be wrong. The pinnacle point of all of these thoughts and emotions was when a speaker came and talked to my Social Justice class about women who were enslaved in brothels. I went to my next class in tears, I remember not being able to shake my sadness for days after that. That's when I started talking to my parents about taking a gap year and working with women who had been trafficked or involved in prostitution. My dad has worked with the ministry Women at Risk for awhile now and knew that was the only place he would send me to volunteer! I prayed about this decision for months, and in April I decided to defer all of my college acceptances and head to Ethiopia in the fall!!
WHO: I am working with the ministry Women at Risk. They have a year long program for women coming out of prostitution. In the first half of the year the women go through counseling, in the second half they are taught skills that will help reintegrate themselves into the community and find work once they complete the program. WAR also has a prevention program that works with the children of the women who have come out of prostitution. The program supports the children's physical, social, and emotional health as well as their education. There are currently over 120 children in the prevention program ranging from 4 to17 years old. My volunteer work will include tutoring children and helping run the after school prevention program that the 120 kids attend. I'm sure there will be many other things I do while volunteering at WAR that I don't know about now...but those things will be saved for later blog posts :) If you want to read more about WAR here is the URL to their site http://www.w-a-r-e.org/ .
WHEN: I am leaving September 16th. I have a one way ticket at this point but I plan to come home in the late spring!!
I am beyond grateful for this opportunity! Jesus has been so good through the crazy process of preparation--moving to a foreign country as an 18 year old girl is not a walk in the park! I strongly believe this is where the Lord wants me for the next chapter of my life and I couldn't be more thrilled to answer His calling to Ethiopia. Thank you all for the support you've already shown me and will continue to show me in these upcoming months, it means the world to me.
So much love,
Becca
