Miles Walked/Rode/Hula’ed: 10.67
Money Raised: $150

As I mentioned previously, I’m participating in Tread on Trafficking again this year. It officially started May 1, so I’m a little late in writing this post. I’m going to blame it on the pieces I was finishing for Lucinda’s and Steve Holt, our new puppy. Yes, I got Todd a puppy as an early birthday gift. Yes, I’m an awesome wife. Yes, he’s a sweet puppy, but he’s exhausting. And I’ve never talked about bowel and bladder movements so much in my life.

Here’s a picture of Steve Holt the night we brought him home, when he was called Lebron. (He had two other names before we landed on Steve Holt, but we have to stick with this one because we got an engraved dog tag at PetSmart this weekend with his name on it.)

Anyway, I’m Treading on Trafficking to raise money for Love146, an organization that fights sex trafficking around the world using a number of different strategies, including some prevention programs in the U.S. From May 1 until June 30 I’m going to be walking, riding, and hula-ing* 146 miles to raise money for Love146. You can help me by going to my fundraising page here.

One of my favorite programs in Love146’s organization is the Round Home, a safehome in the Philippines that offers holistic aftercare to survivors of child sex trafficking. It recently celebrated its third anniversary, and in that time it’s seen girls return to their homes, start careers, further their education, and get married.

Here’s something from a recent e-mail I received from Love146 about the Round Home:

“In the Filipino language, there is a beautiful and rich word for which there is no equal in English. “Pagdamay” is like sympathy or grief, but those words aren’t deep enough. It is to align yourself — emotionally and practically — with someone in a difficult situation.

A child who has been trafficked and exploited should evoke the deepest “pagdamay” in all of us. The root word — “damay” — implies being pulled into a mess. In the case of trafficking, the mess isn’t simply something that happened in a girl’s life- It is the girl’s life.

The mess is self-contempt, hopelessness, cutting, bittersweet pregnancies and children born of abuse, calls from family asking you to go back to the brothel to earn money so you can feed them, flashbacks, post traumatic stress disorder, STDs, being in love with your trafficker…

Aftercare is a work of “pagdamay.” We must allow ourselves to be pulled into the mess in order to make way for restoration. None of this is easy or comfortable, yet we invite you to enter into the mess. When armed with Love, we have seen beautiful things.

Love restores and empowers in even the messiest situations.”

From here in Wichita I can’t physically get into the mess with these girls, and though my heart hurts for them I can’t come close to fathoming what it feels like for them to be in that mess. But there are people in the Philippines who’ve willingly gotten into that mess, and they need our money to help those girls climb out of it. So if you’re at all able, please go to my fundraising page and make a donation to help the Round Home continue to provide a safe place for these survivors. Thank you!

*Yes, I hula year-round, but I’m going to hula harder these next two months for Love146.