Dream Awakener

Top Posts and Top Cities from April

You can make a guess of what the picture represents on the left.  In today's post I am sharing the five most popular posts this past month, in case you missed one of them.  Also, I have found that some of you who follow this blog enjoy learning about the other people who visit this site, so I try to give a monthly report of the top 50 cities that have visited this blog in the past month.  So here are the top five posts and top 50 cities.

TOP FIVE POSTS IN APRIL
Is Conversion a Four-Letter Word? Series
Finding Truth in a Sound Bite Society
Why We're Not Emergent By Two Guys Who Should Be - Literary Review
Need Inspiration?
A Celtic Prayer

TOP 50 CITIES VISITING THIS BLOG IN APRIL
Richmond, VA
Los Angeles
Amsterdam
Herdon, VA
Vancouver, BC
New York
London
Atlanta
Dallas
Fayetteville, NC

Boston
Plano, TX
Chicago
Mt. Laurel, NJ
Ann Arbor, MI
San Francisco
Bronx, NY
Snohomish, WA
Irvine, CA
Grass Valley, CA

Blacksburg, VA
Bethpage, NY
Sydney, Australia
Tulsa, OK
Washington D.C.
Marysville, WA
Columbia, MO
Sanford, FL
San Jose, CA
Waterford, MI

Houston
Redmond, WA
Columbus, OH
Toronto, Canada
Austin
Portland
St. Louis
Seattle
West Palm Beach, FL
Phoenix

Roanoke, TX
Overland Park, KS
Media, PN
Minnipeg, Canada
Auckland, New Zealand
Singapore
Calgary, Canada
Bangkok, Thailand
Pasadena, CA
Miami, FL

The Cobalt Season - Thursday Night - April 24 at 7:30 p.m.

My pastor friend Ryan Bell and his congregation are hosting The Cobalt Season tomorrow night.  It is great music (Indie/Acoustic/Folk) and meaningful lyrics.  Check out their myspace.  Details below.

Top 50 Cities

  nyc poster 
  Originally uploaded by dream awakener

I have found that many who visit this blog on a regular basis enjoy learning more about the other people who visit this blog site.  So I try and give a monthly report of the 50 top cities that have visited this blog in the past month.  So here are the top cities for February of 2008.

TOP 50 CITIES VISITING THIS BLOG LAST MONTH

1.  Los Angeles, CA
2.  Tempe, AZ
3.  Richmond, VA
4.  Chicago, IL
5.  New York, NY
6.  Boston, MA
7.  Atlanta, GA
8.  Philadelphia, PA
9.  Irvine, CA
10. London, England
11. Fayetteville, NC
12. Mt. Laurel, NJ
13. San Francisco, CA
14. Washington, D.C.
15. Edmonton, Canada
16. Austin, TX
17. Herndon, VA
18. Plano, TX
19. Amsterdam, Netherlands
20. Everett, WA
21. Columbia, MO
22. Vancouver, Canada
23. San Jose, CA
24. Rochester, NY
25. Denver, CO
26. St. Louis, MO
27. Dallas, TX
28. San Diego, CA
29. Sydney, Australia
30. Calgary, Canada
31. Brooklyn, NY
32. Toronto, Canada
33. Bronx, NY
34. Redmond, WA
35. Canberra, Australia
36. Overland Park, KS
37. Columbus, OH
38. Ann Arbor, MI
39. Seattle, WA
40. Madison, WI
41. Miami, FL
42. Pasadena, CA
43. Hong Kong
44. Cheyenne, WY
45. Bethpage, NY
46. Portland, OR
47. Troy, MI
48. Tulsa, OK
49. Milwaukee, WI
50. Grass Valley, CA

SUMMARY
There are seven California cities in the top 50 and five from New York. London was in the top ten while Canada and Australia had four and two cities respectively. Amsterdam came in at number 19, while Hong Kong came in at number 43.  There were eight cities that were outside the United States in the top 50 and 22 different states that had a city represented in the top 50 this past month. 

Give Input to the Budget of the City of LA

If you live in the city of Los Angeles, you have the chance to give the Mayor your thoughts on what should be some off the priorities this coming year in the budget.  The budget year for Los Angeles goes from July 1st to June 30th.  This city of Los Angeles allows all of us who live her to give budget input that impacts the entire budget development process.  So if you live in Los Angeles, please take a moment to give your input to the budget.  I just gave mine this past week. It only took about five to ten minutes.  It was helpful to work through it because it helped me to realize how difficult it must be to develop a city budget.

Super Tuesday - A Look at Faith and Politics

So today is Super Tuesday in the United States where people have the opportunity to go and vote in the primaries, helping the Democratic and Republican parties find their candidate for President.  It is called Super Tuesday because it is when the greatest number of states hold primary elections to select delegates to their perspective national conventions.  From California to New York people will be lining up to vote for their favorite candidate.  This year has been a record turn out in each state that has held primaries.  The democratic race between Hillary and Obama is tight (so your vote really counts if you are voting democratic) and it seems that McCain has a significant lead in the Republican race (it is still good to vote if you are voting republican).

In light of this being Super Tuesday, I thought I would direct you to an interesting article.  It is an article written by James K.A. Smith, the author of Whose Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Dirrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church (an excellent read).  In this article he reviews Greg Boyd's book The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church.  Smith shares what he likes about the book, and he also critiques it. 

I will give you just a taste of the article.  Here is a little of what James Smith liked, "Boyd's intervention into the discussion is welcome. He is bold (1,000 members of his congregation left after hearing the sermons that gave birth to the book), passionate, and discerning, while still attempting to be charitable. Boyd doesn't pull punches, denouncing the nationalistic "idolatry" of American evangelicalism, which often fuses the cross and the flag. "Because the myth that America is a Christian nation has led many to associate America with Christ," he writes in his introduction, "many now hear the Good News of Jesus only as American news, capitalistic news, imperialistic news, exploitive news, antigay news, or Republican news. And whether justified or not, many people want nothing to do with it."

And in the introduction to his critique of the book he says, "While there is much to appreciate in Boyd's exposure of the Religious Right's idolatries, the question becomes: Does Boyd swing back to the other extreme? No doubt he imagines that he is charting a third way, but there are at least three factors of his proposal that indicate it is simply pietism resurrected."  You will have to go to the article to read the rest.

East Hollywood Neighborhood Council Meeting - Tonight

E-Mails from Friends in Kenya

For those of you who have an interest in keeping up with what is happening in Kenya, I will occasionally post some e-mails from people I know in Kenya - both medical missionaries and locals.  I think sometimes it is helpful to hear from the people on the ground instead of just the popular news sources. I will leave out or edit some details, when it deals with the potential safety of those sending me the emails. I have permission to share these emails with you on this blog.

Here are a couple emails from my Medical Missionary friends:

12/31/07
While I can’t prove it beyond doubt, God protected ..... (place where they work) today.  A large mob had gathered in the square of the small town two kilometers away.  They decided to attack .....  in some form of retaliation or protest of the election.  Guns could be heard from here and were coming closer. Police were using tear gas and weapons.  Families gathered inside their homes.  The hospital administration gathered the people from the rival tribe into a safe place as they were being targeted around Kenya. 

My wife had to decide whether to run home or run to the hospital as the nursery staff hadn’t shown up.  She chose to run up the hill to the hospital with people shouting, “Wrong way!” Her husband?  I was deciding with three other surgeons whether to continue with an emergent operation on a gunshot victim or wait to see what the situation would bring.  We went ahead and hopefully saved that young man’s leg.  Many people were praying with gunshots in the background.  However you choose to see it, the mob suddenly decided to change course and attack another location.  I am personally very grateful to God this evening.  Of course life isn’t all rosy, I still lost my temper somewhat with a busy day and became short with a few people.  My wife just went back up to the hospital to work as many staff are afraid to leave their homes to come to work.  And yes, Mom…I’ll walk her home at ten when she’s done.  Please continue to pray for Kenya and ... (place we work and live).  It is unfortunate so much violence is happening.

1/2/08
Today has been rather quiet here at .... (place they work).  We are grateful.  

However, much violence is still going on.  The local chief’s house was burned down across the river from us.  All of our local gas stations have been burned.  Locals have set up roadblocks to get bribes and look for people from other tribes. We have only had 7 gunshot victims since things began and one arrow shot victim.  We rarely have gunshots here as so few people have guns.  So most of these guys were shot by police likely doing something they shouldn’t have been.  We haven’t had any injuries from rungus (clubs), pongas (machetes) or knives.  That is our usual trauma mechanism. 

One clinical officer intern was trying to report for his first day of work today.  He had just been given a training spot to fill in for someone else before the holidays.  Apparently he was trying to get here and got stuck about an hour’s drive away.  He called on his mobile to say that he couldn’t make it to his first day of work…he was hiding in a bush due to the violence.  Many staff haven’t reported for duty so we are struggling some to keep the hospital running.  Some very local staff have come even off duty to check and when vacancies have been found, they have filled in.  Most who aren’t here are stuck some distance away having traveled for the holiday.

It has been hard for our visitors.  We had a great family from the US who were here for two weeks to give our orthopedist a break for the holidays.  They were scheduled to leave on Saturday.  With the violence we couldn’t send them by road.  However, our local airstrip has recently become in need of repair such that we can’t get a plane in.  So this family had to travel with a police escort thru back roads to get to a large wheat field where a mission plane picked them up.  They called to say they were airborne en route to Nairobi to catch their commercial flight home.  I pray their travel in Nairobi is safe.

I filled up our Toyota with diesel tonight from the hospital tank.  Ben was doing the same and it seemed like a good idea to me.  I need to replace the bushing on the rear strut again but can do that in the morning so the vehicle will be ready if we need to do something.  For now, I’d rather be here than travel as it’s a bit out of the way.  Stores are being looted so eventually things will need to settle down or we’ll have some trouble there.  Fortunately my wife has a large store of things out back.  I don’t know how long the hospital can last without the roads opening up for supplies.  It is dry season and the river is low.  So we’re having to supplement our hydroelectric plant’s electricity production by using a diesel generator.  Interesting times…

Thanks for all of your prayers.  I’m certainly more concerned for our staff and neighbors than for us as our hospital grounds have been without incident.  Some of our staff are sleeping in bushes as their homes are targets for one reason or another.  Some are hiding out.  I’ve heard horrible tales of people suffering and I’m concerned for them.  Please continue to pray for the people of Kenya and for peace.

P.S.

Oh yeah, on the light side…My wife scared herself severely today. She calls to tell me she saw a large truck pull up outside of her window in the nursery this morning and all of these military guys jumped out with AK47s.  She was working alone due to staffing and was nervous. She was also in the middle of changing the light bulbs on an incubator (source of heat for the babes).  Not paying attention to the bulbs any longer to see what the men with guns were up to, one of them rolled off the table and fell to the floor.  The subsequent “Pop!” was of course recognized as a gunshot…”I’ve been hit!  It won’t be long now. Tell my husband I love him”  she thought to herself…  Finally she calmed enough to realize what happened…  We’re still laughing now as we listen to some jazz at our place….

Happy New Year 2008 from NYC!!!

A friend of mine Ephany from Kenya and I went to NYC from my parents house in Ohio.  Ephany wanted to see NYC before heading back to his country, so I took him.  We met other friends of ours yesterday and traveled to some common sites in the city. 

We are staying with Jon Tyson a friend of mine who is a church planter in Manhattan.  The church he serves is called Origins and really seems to be connecting with the city.  Jon is a passionate man, with a huge heart for this city.  He has been incredibly hospitable to us.

We spent New Year's Eve roaming around the city meeting people from all over the world.  For Christmas I got a Cannon HV20 and was able to get some video footage that I hope to post after I get home.  I probably won't have time before that to edit and post it.  I haven't really worked with video much, but that is one thing that I hope to do more of this coming year.  I would love to have more video posts on this blog.  We'll see.

At around 11 p.m. last night, we went to a New Year's Eve party on 51st street.  It was a party that was raising money for a safe house in NYC for victims of human trafficking.  Jon invited us and we met a number of people.

After the party, I went around the streets talking with people getting some video footage of what New York is like on New Year's Eve after the ball has dropped.  There is high energy and many friendly people here.  I had a great time. 

I want to wish you a Happy New Year this coming year and encourage you to take a moment to reflect on this past year.  I plan to take some time in the next couple of days to examine the past year of my life.  I want to look and see what things were life-giving and what was life-draining.  I want to look over the year and remember the times I walked with the Lord and the times I didn't.  I want to take some time to ask God to forgive me for the times I didn't walk with Him and to help me to walk closer with Him in the coming year.  I will take some time to review each of my roles in life and consider how God would have me focus for the coming year. I hope that you might do something similar. 

May this coming year be a rich and rewarding year for you!

Man is shot in crowded Old Town Pasadena

While gun shots are common in the LA area, they are not common in Old Town Pasadena.  In this LA Times article the police say they can't ever remember a time when someone was brazenly shot in old town Pasadena.  Being that it was just the day after Christmas at 7:30 p.m. the crowds were at their highest.  The shooting occurred near Colorado Blvd and Fair Oaks Avenue, which is at the heart of Old Town Pasadena.  The article quotes Lt. Randell K. Taylor from the Pasadena Police Department saying, "It was crazy, mayhem; shots were being fired and - imagine - hundreds of people trying to take cover."

This is a place that I visit regularly, because Fuller Theological Seminary is right around the corner.  The victim of the shooting was 23 and the suspected shooter was a man in his 20s.  Pretty crazy.

Signs of Emergence by Kester Brewin - A Literary Review

Today I wanted to share with you another literary review.  Kester's book really moved me and caused me to think about many things more deeply. I hope you enjoy the review.  It's worth the read.

LITERARY REVIEW
I basically start with my sense of the author's thesis, followed by a general overview of the book, and then I focus on themes that are pertinent to my research. With that said, here is my review.

THESIS
Brewin in signs of Emergence contends that the current demise of the church in the West is not to be blamed on the lack of personal holiness, but on old wineskins, and that the church must empower people (herself) to honestly face change and evolve, or become extinct.

GENERAL OVERVIEW
Brewin looks to Fowler’s stages of faith, urban theory, the science of emergence as well as the story of scripture to help us consider how to evolve, so that we might “become wombs of the divine, allowing God to fertilize our creativity and give birth to newness” (67).   Brewin calls for evolutionary change, not revolutionary change (43) and suggests that our first step is to stop.  Like the season of advent, we are to pause.  To rest.  To wait.  Just like a woman cannot speed up her pregnancy, the church cannot try and fix herself with a new program to make everything okay.  After waiting he suggests that the church needs to be born again, that is the church needs to rebirth into her host culture and to re-emerge from the bottom up.  He uses emergence theory to help describe the character of the emergent church, one that dances between the dangers or rigidity on the one hand and anarchy on the other.  He then calls the church to discover God in the city, to learn to be a gift exchange culture in the midst of a consumeristic culture, and reevaluate our dirt boundaries, what we consider clean and unclean. 

THEMES TO REMEMBER
I appreciate how Brewin intertwines the story of Jesus and our current post-world context in a way that frees us to imagine.  He uses the scripture, poetry, and science to call us to evolve.  By using the rebirth idea, he helps us to realize that “failure” is a natural part of evolution,  “we must be aware of our expectations.  The newness that will be born will be incomplete and immature.  It will be newness not fully formed and unable to speak.  It will be newness defenseless and unable to justify itself to its seniors.  It will be newness that is born into a culture and therefore totally and naturally immersed in the codes, the language, this history and life of that which it comes to serve.” (67,68)

Brewin reminds us that just as Sabbath was man for man, and not man for the Sabbath, structures must serve us, not us serve them (46).  Brewin also calls us to face the pain of exile and reminds us that it doesn’t matter if God abandoned us or we abandoned Him, “what is patently clear is that the church is experiencing separation, delamination, marginalization, trivialization, and exile from the world it seeks to service.  And therefore it is experiencing these things from God too, for if the church is not connected to its host culture and society, it is not where God wants it to be, and therefore not where God is” (50).  Drawing on Brueggemann’s study of Jeremiah, he reminds us that that the first step through the journey of exile is grief. Quoting Brueggemann he notes: “Indeed, he surmises that only through grief can newness become a possibility” (51).  Brewin gives a lot of rich but uncommon advice that I can appreciate.

    His thoughts on the character of Emergent systems is helpful:

    1. Emergent systems are open systems
    2. Emergent systems are adaptable systems
    3. Emergent systems are learning systems
    4. Emergent systems have distributed knowledge
    5. Emergent systems model servant leadership
    6. Emergent systems only evolve in places between anarchy and rigidity (97-117)

    The chart on page 117 is helpful, as well as chapter 6 where he calls the church to be a hub of gift exchange and chapter 7 where he calls us to redefine what is dirty and what is clean.  If you get a minute, check out Kester's blog. 

Vote for a Brighter East Hollywood

Since the city of Los Angeles is the second largest city in the United States by population, it is sometimes hard for different neighborhoods in LA to feel as if their voice is heard where it counts, thus the creation of Neighborhood Councils.  Our neighborhood, which goes by the name of East Hollywood, was just certified this past spring and TODAY is our first formal elections.  We will be voting for our very first East Hollywood Neighborhood Council.

Below are a list of people who have been instrumental in helping to see East Hollywood certified as a Neighborhood and each of them are running for one of the board seats.  If you live, work, own property, are a student or attend a church or non-profit group in the area of East Hollywood, you are a stake holder and have the ability to vote.  So please come out and vote today.  Voting will take place at Barnsdall Art Park - 4800 Hollywood Blvd, the Main Gallery between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.  Vote for a brighter East Hollywood.

Click to enlargen

Here are a few reasons why I am running for the board:

• I live, work and play in the neighborhood
• I have been on the interim board and care about my neighborhood
• I will focus on developing a stronger sense of community and find new ways to help those in need
• I will work to make East Hollywood a leader in sustainable living, as well as fight for more bike lanes and a local farmers market
• I will celebrate and support the arts
• I will create new ways to listen to and involve the neighborhood in meeting the most pressing needs of our neighborhood

If you are a stakeholder, come out and vote today!  When we work together, we can see transformation take place.

Southern California Fires - Thanks for Your Prayers

I wanted to thank those of you who have called me, sent me e-mails and messages with your prayers of concern, in regard to the fires that are popping up all around Southern California.  A neighbor of mine who was  traveling to San Deigo, has not been able to come back to LA yet because of the fires, the road closes, and so forth.

My friend Dustin just sent me these pictures, so I thought I would post them as a public service and ask you for prayer.  I'm not sure where he got them, but here they are:

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Please pray for those who have lost their homes or been effected in some way, and thanks again for the phone calls, the e-mails and messages.  Just so you know, the fires haven't sparked up here in East Hollywood. (We got real close the last time.)  Our congregation in West LA  was camping this past weekend and most of them headed home Saturday night when the wind gusted up to 111 mph at times and was steadily over 55 mph. While some of them may have lost their tents, none of them were injured.  But we obviously have many neighbors going through rough times.  Thanks for your prayers of concern.

NBC Moving From Burbank back to Los Angeles

  NBC Studios, Burbank 
  Originally uploaded by dogwelder

The LA Times reports that NBC Studios is moving from Burbank where it has been for more than 50 years , back to Los Angeles.  Here are a few clips from the article:

"The studio has a rich history, as home to such iconic programs as "The Tonight Show," first with Johnny Carson and now with Jay Leno, as well as "Hollywood Squares," "To Tell the Truth" and "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In." Elvis Presley taped his 1968 Christmas special there, and Tom Brokaw started his NBC career at KNBC-TV Channel 4, which shares the premises."

"The company intends to relocate the network and local news operations from Burbank to a new headquarters in a massive complex planned a couple of miles away on Lankershim Boulevard, across the street from Universal Studios.

A Red Line subway station and a sprawling parking lot now occupy the proposed site next to the 101 Freeway. The subway stop will remain and be part of the new complex.

The new "green" facility, with its high-definition news headquarters, is scheduled to house NBC News' West Coast operations and the local news staffs of KNBC and Spanish-language Telemundo KVEA-TV Channel 52. NBC's syndicated entertainment show "Access Hollywood" would also be located there.

NBC Universal expects to move into the new center in 2011. The sale of the Burbank property was necessary in part to pay for the elaborate new facility.

The project is not NBC Universal's only ambitious expansion at Universal Studios. It is separately seeking approval for a $3-billion development plan for Universal City that would add 2,900 homes to the area, as well as new production facilities and retail space. The project, which must get county and city approval, could take several years to get off the ground.

NBC Universal also confirmed Wednesday that "The Tonight Show" would remain in Los Angeles when Conan O'Brien, who now shoots his "Late Night" show in New York, takes over from Leno in 2009."

Top 25 Cities

  Hong Kong Sunrise 
  Originally uploaded by dream awakener

I have found that many who visit this blog on a regular basis enjoy learning more about the other people who visit this blog site.  So I try and give a monthly report of the 25 top cities that have visited this blog in the past month.  So here are the top cities for September of 2007.

TOP 25 CITIES VISITING THIS BLOG LAST MONTH

1.  Los Angeles, CA
2.  Irvine, CA
3.  Milwaukee, WI
4.  London, England
5.  Orlando, FL
6.  Plano, TX
7.  Fayetteville, NC
8.  Sydney, Australia
9.  Chicago, IL
10. New York, NY
11. Toronto, Canada
12. Pasadena, CA
13. Austin, TX
14. Mt. Laurel, NJ
15. Atlanta, GA
16. Roanoke, VA
17. Miami, FL
18. Ames, IO
19. Boston, MA
20. Long Beach, CA
21. San Jose, CA
22. Indianapolis, IN
23. Amsterdam, Netherlands
24. Rochester, NY
25. Owosso, MI

A SHORT ANALYSIS
Five cities in the top 25 are in California, which makes sense, since that is the state in which I live.  There are cities from each of the major sections of the U.S. in the top 25, cities from the North East, from the South, from the Midwest and the West Coast.  There were two cities from New York and Texas in the top 25, and there were four cities from other countries in the top 25.  Two of the cities from other countries landed in the top ten - London and Sydney.

All About LA

People on mission ought to always be "reading their city" and keeping up  with what is happening, in order to best  contextualize and embody the good news.  This one one of the reasons why I post entries about Los Angeles. I enjoyed reading the article in the LA Times about a famous city planner - Jamie Lerner who recently dropped by city hall to give a few pointers for LA.

Here is a clip from the article:

Lerner is also known in planning circles as a guru of "sustainability" -- as someone who took a growing city and helped it build a new transit system and new parks. His message, in short, is that cities can be environment-friendly, pleasant places to live and work and walk. . . .

If what?

If everyone can get on the same page. Here are a few excerpts from his hourlong speech in council chambers:

On turning cities around: "Is it possible to make a city better and improve its quality of life? Every city in the world can make it better in less than three years. All you need is a shared dream."

On the automobile: "He is the kind of person you invite to a party and he never leaves. . . . He's very demanding. . . . The car is like our mother-in-law. We have to have a good relationship, but we can't let it ruin our lives."

On his commandments of sustainability: "Provide a good transport system within a decade that allows most people to use mass transit to get where they're going on a routine day. . . . Improve downtown so that it's not empty half the time -- it should be the city's heartbeat."

But isn't that just the same ol' feel-good, "Let's make it happen" stuff we often hear from local politicians?

Yes, but Lerner said it better than most.

Any other intriguing ideas from him?

Yes, there was one we really liked: At one point, Lerner talked about something he called "urban acupuncture."

The idea is that a city can tremendously improve its appearance by installing a few exceptionally well-designed buildings or street-scape-type features that either make everything else around it look good or, at the least, distract from how bad everything else looks.

Among the examples he pointed to were the stylish entrances to the Paris and Bilbao, Spain, subways. Anything, he said, would do the trick -- even sleek newsstands.

If you have an interest, feel free to read the rest of the article.

Recognizing and Assisting Victims of Human Trafficking

If you are living in the Los Angeles Area, or if you will be in the area, you are invited to come and learn how to recognize and assist victims of human trafficking.  The details are in the flier below.

Click to Enlargen

Human trafficking is taking place right in our neighborhood, and we can actually do something concrete about it.  We don't just have to listen to the horrible statistics - like there are more slaves in modern times than when British politician William Wilberforce and his band of loyal friends helped to end it in their day - but we can take positive action.  Join us this October 6th at the Hollywood Seventh Day Adventist Church.  This event is being sponsored by Hollywood Seventh Day Adventist Church, Kairos Los Angeles and the Salvation Army.  I'm thankful to be teaming up with Ryan Bell and Bekah Cooke in sponsoring this event.

BEYOND STATISTICS TO REAL STORIES
The sad reality is that there are more slaves trafficked today than there were then.  The 2006 U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report states that “the international Labor Organization – the United Nations agency charged with addressing labor standards, employment, and social protection issues – estimates there are 12.3 million people in forced labor, bonded labor, forced child labor and sexual servitude at any given time; other estimates range from 4 million to 27 million.” 

And this is not just happening in other countries, the State Department estimates that 14,500 to 17,500 people, primarily women and children are trafficked to the U.S. annually!   But we must remember that these people are not just mere statistics, they are real people.  That same report shares a number of people’s real life stories.  I want you to hear one of them: 

“Reena was brought to India from Nepal by her maternal aunt, who forced the 12-year-old girl into a New Delhi brothel shortly after arrival. The brothel owner made her have sex with many clients each day. Reena could not leave because she did not speak Hindi and had no one to whom she could turn.  She frequently saw police officers collect money from the brothel owners for every new girl brought in. The brothel owner coached Reena and all the girls to tell anyone who asked that they were 25 years old and had voluntarily joined the brothel. Reena escaped after two years and now devotes her life to helping other trafficking victims escape.”

Free the Slaves, a non-profit organization working to end slavery worldwide shares the story of Drissa:  “When Drissa was a teenager, he decided to leave his village in Mali to look for work….

There were many boys Drissa’s age looking for jobs in and around the village, and only precious few jobs available. Although it was difficult to leave his family and friends, he decided it was worth it to try his luck elsewhere.

Drissa crossed the border into neighboring Cote d’Ivoire, where he heard there were many jobs available for people who did not mind working hard. When he arrived in Korhogo, he was pleased to be offered what sounded like a good job on a cocoa plantation. Drissa agreed on the payment and work arrangements, and then went with the employment recruiter to begin his new job.

Drissa’s new job suddenly turned into a nightmare. He became a slave.

Drissa and 17 other boys and young men on the cocoa plantation were forced to spend long days tending the cocoa plants and collecting the pods. Besides the back-breaking work, the heat was oppressive, the biting flies constantly swarmed around them, and they had to watch for snakes in the undergrowth. The slaveholder gave them little to eat, and many times only braised banana for months on end. Weak from hunger, they staggered under large sacks of cocoa pods. If they slowed in their work, they were beaten. At night the slaveholder locked them all into a small room with only a tin can to use as a toilet.

Drissa was trapped. He was more than 300 miles from home in a new country, far from any settlement, and he did not even know exactly where he was. One evening before being locked in, Drissa attempted to escape, but the slaveholder caught him and savagely beat him. He still has the scars from those beatings. The next day, Drissa was forced to work, even though the wounds from the beating were still raw. Flies feasted on his exposed flesh.

Drissa and the other slaves on that farm were eventually rescued by an official of the Malian government. After their rescue, Drissa and his friends were given medical care and a safe place to stay until they could return home.

Drissa’s story helped tell the world about slavery in the chocolate we eat. As a result, Free the Slaves and other human rights organizations helped convince the world’s chocolate companies to end slavery in cocoa production.”

Join us October 6th and learn how to do you part in ending modern-day human trafficking.

Interesting News

Photo by Pensiero

NBC to Offer Downloads of Its Popular Shows - New York Times
Here are a few clips from the NYT article.  It seems that NBC and Apple couldn't quite work things out.  "NBC Universal said yesterday that it would soon permit consumers to download many of NBC’s most popular programs free to personal computers and other devices for one week immediately after their broadcasts." 

Later they say, "Jeff Gaspin, the president of the NBC Universal Television Group, said, “The shift from programmer to consumer controlling program choices is the biggest change in the media business in the past 25 or 30 years.”

NBC makes many of its popular shows available online in streaming media, which means that fans can watch episodes on their computers. Under the new NBC service, called NBC Direct, consumers will be able to download, for no fee, NBC programs like “Heroes,” “The Office” and “The Tonight Show With