Summer update #2

This past week I started an internship with the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force.

The new website should be up later this week, so if you check it out once... check it out later to see some more interactive opportunities!

Tomorrow we start visiting local hospitals and check into cash locations to continue education on how to identify victims of human trafficking.

There are a few things I have learned from just one week in action.

1. Trafficking is very real here in Orange County. Check the Sports section of the OC Register... look at all the Asian Massage advertisements.

2. It is incredibly useful to speak another language - I am currently on the hunt for language speakers!

3. All it really takes for trafficking victims to be identified is people to KNOW what to look for.

4. Trafficking is ORGANIZED CRIME, and should not be investigated by the everyday person - 

5. Call 1-888-3737-888 if you have any questions about trafficking, if you think you suspect a location or a victim, or for any other related reason!!! It is an incredible resource!!! Use it!!!

Hopefully these posts will be more organized as I figure out more of what exactly I will be doing this summer, but until then - 

Welcome home Rwanda, UK, Central Asia, Canada etc.... !!!!

If you have nothing to do this summer, and are in the OC area... let me know! We can definitely use some more volunteers!

Check your... brake lights

My brake light has been out for a few days... or maybe a week or so. I know, i need to fix it - but its one of those things that just seems to slip out of my mind unless I am in my car. 

So tonight after dropping my brother off I promise my dad I will go to Kragen Auto Parts and get a new brake light.

Overwhelmed, I walked into a world where I could speak the same language yet everything seemed foreign. Cars confuse me.

A very nice clerk (Robert) carrying out the trash asked if I needed help.

Apparently my confusion showed.

After getting the make of my car, he said the total would be 649.

My head swirled, I called my dad to make sure I was getting the right thing.

He asked if I had enough money, and I remembered my extra loan money I had been given.

Sadly, I said yes - knowing that this was an emergency that this money was for.

He walked outside with me to take off my old light, grabbed a new pair from the store and another clerk rung it up.

"Six dollars even," he said. 

I felt like I had been tricked.

"Are you sure? I thought he said six hundred and forty nine dollars!" I responded.

They looked at my like I was crazy, but I could tell they were laughing inside. Apparently both clerks and my dad clearly knew that 649 meant $6.49.

I did not.

Lesson for the day: Brake lights are typically around 6 dollars. Not 600.

Mission accomplished?

I've been asked to blog again. So here goes.

I have struggled to figure out exactly what I want to use this blog for - to show the latest trafficking information I have heard, to tell funny stories from the day, to pour out the confusing mess of stuff in my head called thoughts... or to be creative and innovative and create something entirely different out of it.

Considering there has been a lot of life since International Women's Day, a brief synopsis seems appropriate.

School ended.

I'm moved back into Sophie's place.

I thought I would be stoked to be done with responsibilities - 

but it turns out that I am addicted to being needed.

or something like that.

When you think of "home" what comes to your mind?

A good friend said that it is wherever the most of her stuff is... another talks about home as the place where her family is...

I am not sure what my definition is as of yet. But I am convinced of one thing, that K White shared with us in our last mentoring group. I want this to be my prayer - for summer and for life.

From Psalms 73

You're all I want in heaven! 
      You're all I want on earth! 
   When my skin sags and my bones get brittle, 
      God is rock-firm and faithful. 
   Look! Those who left you are falling apart! 
      Deserters, they'll never be heard from again. 
   But I'm in the very presence of God— 
      oh, how refreshing it is! 
   I've made Lord God my home. 
      God, I'm telling the world what you do!