Little did he know--Mr. Duke, assigning our World Geography project. He wanted us to research a country and write a paper containing all of its interesting attributes: its landscape, vegetation, culture, dress, and national flag...things like that. I completed my project and made a beautiful display board--with the help of my mother!--and fell in love with everything about the culture. It was the people's smiles and the diverse landscape all rolled up into one. It was the colors in the food and the exoticism.
In high school, Rachel Looney--a fellow classmate--, lived abroad for a year in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Her parents were missionaries and she got to live there for a year during high school. When she returned for her senior year, I got to hear all about life in Thailand. And my desire to visit or maybe live there grew.
I had a dream that lasted a couple years of high school of being a car photographer in Thailand--literally trying to blend all of my passions into one dreamlike career. Who knows...maybe some day.
My sophomore year of college I almost applied for a study abroad program that Wheaton offers. It was a cultural ecology and environmental awareness trip and although those things are very important, they did not peak my interest like what I am going to do this summer.
So, getting to this year of college, I enrolled in a course entitled Power and Gender in Southeast Asia. It taught me about the role of gender in different contexts overseas. Because it was an upper-level Anthropology course, we were instructed to design our own research project. This assignment was basically the class in a nutshell with the exception of readings we had to complete and discuss every week. This project was my baby for Fall 2010. My topic: Prostitution in Thailand. If you don't know, prostitution in Thailand is a rampant industry. Bangkok is called "The Brothel of Asia" and the industry makes an estimated $5 billion in revenue for the government each year. Although it is illegal, legislation is hard to come by with the invested interest of capital for the country. The whole thing is a complicated mess. People in America want to condemn the industry and its role in subjugating not only women, but children and men as well. However, this industry does provide jobs for women and allows these women to, in turn, support their entire families that are mostly in villages to the north of the capital. To learn more about the industry, I can send you my final product of the class--a 23-page paper. I need to learn more and desire to let this summer be the beginning to a life-long interest in Thailand and prostitution.
So, finally with all the context in place, I am going to Thailand to work with The Well. It is a non-profit organization started and run by Wheaton grads that takes women out of the industry of prostitution and gives them hope for a future. They learn skills and take classes in semester schedules, just like college. They work on crafts that are sold in America for profit. Eventually, these women are helped back to their villages to begin craft businesses on their own and earn revenue for themselves, their families, and hopefully other women in their village, so that they, too, do not need to travel to Bangkok to earn money through prostitution.
My job this summer is a little ambiguous and I like it that way. Well, I will learn to like it that way. I could be teaching or working or just hanging out with the 30 women enrolled in the Well. I will live in an intern house with three permanent workers and two-other interns--recent grads of Asbury University. I am so excited to be in a new place. I feel as if I have missed God a lot this semester. I can't wait to take time to see him in a new city, in a new way.
I was sitting under the stars tonight and it reminded me of the Black Hills. What an incredible journey I had last summer and I can't wait to EMBARK on another one in a week or so.
EMBARK--that is going to be the word of the summer.
Please pray that I finish well at Wheaton. I have to take one more final, check 26 girls out of my floor, pack up my room, watch my boyfriend graduate college, and say lot of goodbyes and do many runs to Target before I can make that flight next Thursday morning. I am not worried. God is in control and has written a phenomenal story that is my life.
No comments:
Post a Comment