A Thank You For My Donors

Hope. For us all.

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Tipsuda, One Of SOLD’s Sponsored Students

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Chasing Down A Dream To Change The World, And Today I’m Scared.

Lonely. Isolated. Confused. Foolish. These are not the correct words, but they’re the first to come to mind.

Peace. For us all.

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This Is Difficult To Explain.

“What does it mean to lose your life,” a father figure in college asked me. It’s a question that still haunts me today–fifteen years later. This question defines my faith in a god who’s most poignant message to his created people was a violent death. A god willing to die so that we may know love. So it makes sense that I also ask how losing my life may show a suffering world God’s love.  And those of us who claim Christ resurrected as our creed, must ask singularly and collectively–as Jesus has asked–what does it mean for us to lose our lives.

I’m asking it now, tonight, because I feel crazy. And I feel lonely. I often wonder if my faith in Jesus as god incarnate is wrong. Or rather, how I choose to respond to, or live out my faith in Jesus as god incarnate is wrong. I just left my third visit to a large non-denominational bible church here in Dallas, TX, and I feel nauseous, yet I am not able to articulate why. My journal from the sermon reads like this:

The question is why am I bitter towards Christians & Christianity. Why have I hardened my heart? Why do I not trust them? I want to sing to God, but not this way, the way they tell me to. I feel manipulated by the dim lights, the sounds and the prayers. And I’m tired of feeling like an outcast among all my church-going friends.

I continued to write once worship was completed and the speaker was well under way,

God, why do I feel nauseous here? Why do I feel like this is a perverted form of what it means to love Jesus? And why do I have to fit in this mold to love you? He talks, and I feel unwelcome. They pray, and I feel ostracized.

I have chosen to lose my life. Children are being sexually exploited in most (if not all) countries of the world, and I must and have responded. And I know the voice in my heart that tells me it is proud is God’s voice. He loves me very much. So why then, because I question how we in Dallas, TX respond to our faith in Christ resurrected–singularly and corporately–do I feel unwelcome among those who should be doing the same thing?

Something. For us all.

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Simple. In Theory Anyways.

To some this may be news. I hesitate to use the convoluted term ‘Christian’, but I am in fact one of the many who not only believe Jesus Christ is who he said was, but I try to live my life pursuing a journey that mimics his example. Recently, a new friend asked me how my faith plays into my job as a professional fundraiser. My answer surprised me.

“How does your faith in Jesus Christ inform or direct these fundraising efforts of yours? I found Jesus and grew up as a Christian through [Para-church ministry], but I find that my application of their teachings have ill equipped me in serving the Lord through justice efforts.”

I mentioned that justice is an expression of Love.  To love/care for the orphan and the poor is to worship/respond to Jesus’ call on your (and my) life.  Fundraising is about three things 1.) relationships with people 2.) telling a story 3.) asking people to respond to said story.  In many ways, fundraising is exactly like evangelism.  We build relationships, tell the story of God, then ask for a response.  Fundraising is simple, build relationships, tell the story of SOLD’s bigger story–which is God’s story of taking care of the orphans–then specifically ask for a response.

Simple.  In theory anyways.

Love. For us all.

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A Foray And A Prayer

Eight years ago I read a biography about an unknowing missionary named Bruce Olsen. A frail kid with an affinity for linguistics, Bruce felt the voice of God pulling him at a young age deep into the jungles of Columbia. Somewhere between the pain of being an emotional orphan and a social outcast, the Voice whispered, and off Bruce went, into the fray of bewildering circumstances that forever changed his life.

A friend gave me the book one afternoon in passing, and that night before going to bed I began to read the summary. Then I read the introduction. Then the first chapter. Then the second. Then at 7AM the next morning, I closed the book having completed the last chapter. Through tears I asked God who are the people he’d have me love?

Long before that night, Thailand, as a nation, had earned many reputations, but only two stick with me–like campfire smoke in a cotton shirt. “The Land of Smiles” and “Sex Tourism Capital of the World.” Regarding the former, the Thai smile is both a treasure and a disguise. It is a warm reminder of the nation’s atypical complicit nature. Regarding the latter, Thailand has seemingly become the world’s dump for all things sexually deviant—a Disneyland for pedophiles. The two reputations seem to be tragically related.

Last year, I received an email from The SOLD Project with a simple invitation to travel to Thailand and learn about the grave problem of child prostitution. For the first time, I learned of the stunningly violent affects this problem has on the daughters of Thailand—sometimes as young as eight or nine years old. And I learned of the chilling indifference that the countrymen seemed to display when faced with the problem. I met Cat, a benevolently shy girl whose journey teetered on the razor-fine edge between living out her dreams (a national athlete) and realizing the nightmare of forced prostitution that eventually ended her mother’s life.

I also learned about the simple and holistic preventative work of SOLD. And in the midst of 100’s of children’s often toothless yet bright smiles I knew all was not lost. There, beneath the dark cloud of the sexual exploitation of children, exists a canopy of Hope. Eight years after reading about the missionary in Columbia, God had answered my prayer. “Here—the children of Thailand—are your people.”

I returned to the States so affected that I could not do much of anything. I began to help The SOLD Project any way possible—namely fundraising. Eventually I grew tired of periodic volunteering and asked them to consider hiring me.

Beginning July 1, 2010, I will leave a life I’ve known for 33 years and jump headlong into a fray of bewildering circumstances that will inevitably change my life. Forever. But I know full well that I cannot do this alone. A journey such as this deserves a community. So come with me. We will never be the same.

Michael. For us all.

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