Limbo

For Steve Fielding

So, here I am, home alone in my parents house while they're on a cruise to Alaska and the envisioned "party time" turned out to be just a serious food shortage with no money (because no job) and a constant checking the door to make sure it's locked. Except for last night, when I forgot to lock it. My dog doesn't know what happened. You see, she was asleep on the couch when my parents left and as far as she can tell they simply disappeared and left me, the Incompetent One (in her eyes of course), behind. She peed outside my door in defiance. But Lola, my sister's little dog/hamster does that just for kicks. Matt was down from camp for the weekend so I wasn't lonely but he couldn't sleep over (because it looks bad and why put yourself in the way of temptation?), and there is something about being in a house on your own, waking up in the middle of the night and waiting to hear the comforting sound of intense snoring when all you get is silence. After a great weekend together with Matt I messed up our plans and we missed lunch with Matt's family in Duncan. We had Subway instead and I was ragging on the falseness of the "eat fresh" motto (I may have said "Eat fresh my butt" only in not as nice words) when I realized that the reason my sub sucked so much was actually because I forgot to get any condiments on it. We did get to hang out with Matt's family, who I really love, but not for long before I had to go down for a nap just so I could safely drive my sister's car back to Victoria. How much more pathetic can you get? I don't know. I would hate to see it. It might actually be right now. I'm in my pajamas and it's past dinner time and I haven't gone outside yet...

My life is in limbo right now, not just because my parents left me to go on a cruise, but because I am still waiting on a job prospect. It's been a month and a week since Auxano ended and I wish I could say I had accomplished a lot of other things, but the sad truth is I've mostly been sleeping. And watching Downton Abbey (it's so good!) and now that it's over mostly just sleeping. A little writing, trying to get some exercise and hang out with friends, reading my Bible and praying but mostly sleep, sleep, sleep and never really feeling any less tired. Despite the depressingness of that fact, I'm still dreading going back to work. The alternative to not sleeping is being awake. Oh gosh. Yes, I do hear myself. At least now when I feel like I'm going to pass out I have the wonderful satisfaction of going back to sleep. At work when I try that on my desk they think it's rude. I don't mind it though, being home alone, without a job, constantly feeling ridiculous for missing my boyfriend who is actually doing real work up at camp. I mean I'm old enough to live on my own now, right? WRONG! I am just as capable of burning the house down as ever. Those little pictures above the stove top are freaking confusing. Which one is on top and which one is on the bottom???? Anyway, we're both safe and sound, my dog and I, don't worry. I put her out to pee and everything. Of course, she's constantly afraid for her life but luckily she is so old now she has forgotten why already.

For Shayla Broda

So what is the point? Well, the point is, I am savoring this time. I am flat broke but God has been so good (because that's who He is: good) and provided everything just when I needed it, not that God is supposed to do that. There's many reasons why He wouldn't. Tim Parker, the amazing prayer warrior who taught us at Auxano, told me at the graduation night that God wanted me to know He saw my faithfulness up at Auxano and He wanted to reward me, but I needed to be patient and have faith, it was going to take a little while. Why did God do that? He didn't have to tell me that. And that's what makes me feel so incredibly loved. He didn't have to but He did. So I'm waiting, patiently, faithfully, trusting Him and sleeping lots. I knew I was taking a big chance going up to Auxano to volunteer, but I also knew God was bigger and I said to Him, "Well, if I go, I hope you're going to provide for me." And He hasn't let me down. Of course, my biggest, possibly naive, wish going to Auxano was that I would be able to get my chronic fatigue sorted out. That taking iron supplements or whatever I needed would finally fix my sleeping problems after going to the Sleep Clinic and finding out about my TLS (Twitchy Leg Syndrome, a name which I made up, read post Leg Tourette's, Or Why I'm So Freaking Tired). I was hoping that coming back from Auxano I would be ready to enter the "real" world again (because camp is totally fake. No one is real there. They are all actually just inflatable dummies that can be used as complimentary flotation devices in the lake. Just kidding!). But I am going to just have to trust God again. Go figure. It's almost like that is what life is about. Trust that He will carry me through like He did at my previous job, where every day was a struggle. This is not supposed to be a depressing blog post, but it is real. Life is freaking hard. That's what heaven is for.

THE END.

My Auxano family.

So Auxano is over. The only reason I know that statement is true is because we had a graduation ceremony and then everyone said goodbye and then I went home and I can't think of any other reason for all this than that Auxano must actually be over. Hard to say. The last two weeks of Auxano were great fun. We went on an amazing surf trip to Tofino. I had a lot of fun playing in a wet suit in the ocean and being trampled by waves but very, very little success with a surf board. Most of us succeeded at what we called "accidental surfing" only (when a wave shot us forward while we lay on our board without any effort on our part other than facing the right direction). Unfortunately I tired myself out playing in the waves for an hour before actually trying to surf so by the time I got out there on my sweet board, all stoked to finally know what it feels like to surf, I paddled around five times, got washed by the waves twenty times and was pretty much done with the entire sport of surfing for life. We all looked like a bunch of oompa loompas in our wet suits or beached seals when we laid down on the shore and let the waves wash over us and make molds of our bodies in the sand. The best part was when we were lying on the shore and a big wave hit us and, when it left, everyone was still there except for Steph... who had been washed up further on the beach. Eric and Brad were like two little kids that didn't want to go home. We went the next day but only half of us surfed, and once again there was Brad and Eric in the water and all of us trying to convince them to go home after hours at the beach. Instead of surfing the second day Shayla, Matt and I made friends with a squirrel and a Stellar Jay. We also found quicksand on someone's private property and had a great time sinking and struggling to get out. I mean, no we didn't. The squirrel was one of those cute little brown squirrels too, the ones getting taken over by the big grey ones. I say down with the big grey squirrels! We need to start equipping the little brown ones with defense mechanisms and warfare tactics. I say build a brown squirrel army and unleash them on the grey ones to kill them off. Now that I'm saying this it sounds a lot like a racist genocide... only for squirrels.

Tofino

Anyway moving on, the last week of Auxano was a great end to the year. We had classes in the morning on the Bible (I know, weird topic) and in the afternoon we hung out with old people. The Spring Adult Adventure camp was up for the week and we got to help out and basically hang out with the "campers" (it was hard to think of them as campers when they could all be our grandparents). We played Scrabble, croquette, boccie ball, did crafts like permanent marker on coffee cups and painted Kleenex boxes. Katie and I ran the drinks station and made lattes and organized musical bingo from the 1920's. I think they thought that we thought that this was their actual era. There was one woman there who was 99 years old so it pretty much was. I wanted to ask her what the secret to life was but I couldn't bring myself to. What if she told me it was something I didn't want to do like you have to give up sugar? I couldn't handle the responsibility of knowing the secret to life but not being able to follow through with it. I'd rather live in ignorance. I keep getting distracted. I'm watching this creepy cult movie with Nicholas Cage called "The Wicker Man" and it keeps reminding me of Auxano, it's uncanny, like they took a camera and filmed our lives there. Just kidding! So what did I gain from these past eight months? A greater knowledge of the Bible, a closer reliance on God, really good friends, lessons in humility while still knowing when to stick up for myself, lessons in grace and forgiveness, greater discretion (I know, hard to believe), learning how to live in a community... and a boyfriend.

Pretending to be surferes.

Yes, you heard me. This year was really hard. Really good, but really hard. I think it could have been a lot easier. I'm trying to figure out why. I think maybe if I was to advise someone else I would say probably don't fall for someone at camp while you're still up there. I don't know but I would think that would end up complicating things a little bit. Wait did I say fall for someone at camp? I meant to say fall for a student... that's when things get awkward. I kept asking myself, should I fall for a student? And at first I was like mmm better not but then I thought you know this Auxano business is pretty boring. Let's spice it up a bit! Of course I didn't you moron! I tried so hard not to and like usual I just had to think hard enough and will my feelings away... oh wait, no, that doesn't work. If only life was so easy and you could choose who you like and when you like them. If I was going to give anyone advice from this I would say maybe don't tell the student you like them? Just a word to the wise. Not that I did that of course. Don't be ridiculous. But just let's say the student was a friend first long before he was a student and let's just I'm not perfect and I'm actually a Big Mouth Betty (see blog post Big Mouth Betty (Debby Downer's BFF)) and did tell the student I liked him, then felt like the stupidest idiot in the world and had to tell the leader and admit that I was actually a real human girl with emotions and then live with the consequences for the rest of the year. Now you understand my problem. But no longer! Auxano is over and God is still amazing, fancy that. So, if you too do something stupid like that don't worry, I am a living testimony that after eight months of awkward, you CAN survive. And the weird thing is people will still love you (not all of them, but you win some, you lose some). You will never be the same, of course, and people will point and laugh at you and call you a cougar and people like Shayla will say "ew" every time you're together and your leader will tell you it's lucky you weren't sent home, but hey! Isn't that what life is about? Blabbering to a student about your feelings for them and living out the next six months living with them and knowing everyone knows? Isn't that...? No? Huh. I was so sure.

Good news! He liked me back.

I LOVE YOU GUYS!

Social Justice: Modern-Day Slavery

I feel vastly overwhelmed by the idea of writing this blog post. I don't know why. It might have something to do with the fact that the stuff I want to talk about is vastly overwhelming. Yep. That's it. This week we had Randy Hein and Tara Teng teach us a class on "Social Justice." They taught us the difference between compassion, which is like giving food to a hungry person, and justice, which is like finding out why that person is hungry and trying to fix it. We are called to both, but most Christians just stick with the compassion part. Randy talked about the new-fangled idea that worship and justice should go together. And by new-fangled I mean it's aaaaallll through the Bible and yet we seem to ignore it. Justice is everywhere in the Old Testament and everywhere in the New Testament. Again and again God says, "Take care of the poor, the widows, the orphans and the foreigners," as in the most vulnerable in society and "fight for justice." But He doesn't say it like "this would be a nice thing to do, if you have some extra time." He commands it. It's as much a part of His law as "do not murder."

Tara Teng is this amazing girl who is all about ending human trafficking (some key words we discovered in describing what she does are "ending" and "anti." It's the little words that matter) and happens to also be Miss World Canada. I can imagine as a young child when people asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up they would be quite confused to hear "I'm going to be an abolitionist beauty queen!" She travels around using her beauty pageant platform to speak against human trafficking, which most people don't know, isn't just a problem in far off countries but is a problem in Canada as well. What is human trafficking? It's defined as a "multibillion dollar criminal industry that involves the recruitment, transportation, harboring, or delivery of people for the purpose of slavery, sexual exploitation, and forced labor." If you were to ask most people they would say that there is no such thing as modern-day slavery. We abolished it remember? Wrong! More children, women and men are held in slavery right now than over the course of the entire trans-Atlantic slave trade. It's the fastest growing industry, second only to the drug trade, and earns over $32 billion dollars. Humans are the second most trafficked "product" on the black market. In 2008, the United Nations estimated nearly 2.5 million people from 127 different countries are being trafficked into 137 countries around the world, but many others estimate that it is more like 27 million (see The Polaris Project), two-thirds of which are women and children and an estimated 79% are used in sexual exploitation. And what about Canada? We think we're pretty great, don't we. But Canada is a known source, transit, and destination point for human trafficking. Here are some sad statistics for Canada:

• According to the RCMP, 800 to 1200 people are trafficked in and through Canada every year.
• 2200 men, women and children are trafficked into America from Canada every year. 
• In Canada a girl can be sold for $15,000 and earn her owner over $40,000 a year for the purposes of sex.

Now, this is going to be hard to believe, but it was only in 2004 that Parliament finally passed a law that even recognized human trafficking as a crime. Yay Canada. Always keeping up with the times. And it wasn’t until 2008 that someone was finally prosecuted after earning over $350,000 by sexually exploiting a 15 year-old girl daily for two years. How much time did he get? Three years. Minus 404 days for time already served. Canada is known for its suckiness at fighting human trafficking. You should not distance yourself from it, saying ah well, the world is fallen. Sure go ahead and say that, but not at the same time that you buy that shirt from Wal-Mart that was made by a human trafficking victim in China or that chocolate from Nestle or you know, 90% of the cocoa out there that is harvested by a human trafficking victim from the Ivory Coast. Did you know that a lot of pornography is made using human trafficking victims? Did you know that the average kid starts looking at porn between 6-8 years old? They don't know they're contributing to girls being held against their will and raped over and over again. But neither do most of the adults who continue to look at porn. And what about prostitution? Prostitution has a lot of controversy because people assume the girls have chosen that work. If by chosen you mean an imaginary debt is being held over their head and they have been threatened, beaten and raped into submission, then yeah, totally. Chosen.

YOU AND ME are contributing to human trafficking by the choices we make every single day. YOU AND ME are the bad guys if we aren't doing anything to help. I don't know about you, but being so incredibly privileged and blessed with so much, I want to fight for justice. I want to get to heaven and hear God say, "Yeah, you did alright." What can you do? Educate yourself, educate people, buy fair-trade, start buying more from places that don't use forced labor, stop buying less from places that do (and if you don't know, start asking) don't contribute to the sex industry, write letters to our government (go here), just to name a few. Here is a cool website that rates industries by whether they are contributing to human trafficking or making efforts to end it: Free2Work. You can download it as an app for your phone as well. And just so you know, I have to start doing these things too, little by little, bit by bit. Even Tara Teng can do more. We all can. But make sure you do something.

I think this is the heaviest blog post I've ever written. You're welcome.