What are You Supporting?

Being a person who can't say much of anything in a few words, I often struggle to explain the work of She is Safe concisely to people who ask me about what the Run to Rescue Virtual Run supports.

Today I got an message from a friend who works for them outlining goals for a future trip.  This is a trip to a region where She is Safe is just beginning to form partnerships for ministry.  Take a look and see what kind of work you are supporting and the people you are helping by participating in this run!

"Here’s some of the field work we plan to do while on the ground:

•  Attend children’s outreaches (tutoring centers in local recycle* communities) - observing, interviewing members, teaching lessons, offering encouragement, taking photos, taking notes
• Participate in an outreach to prostitutes** (forced or volunteer) in the local Red Light District – playing games, developing relationships, offering encouragement
• Investigate potential outreach to at-risk teenage girls in the recycle communities - observing, offering encouragement, taking photos, taking notes, asking lots of questions
• Visit ministry leaders & others doing similar work – participating and speaking in church services, praying with leaders and local believers, encouraging ministry leaders, listening to updates from ministry leaders, taking notes
• Introduce Transformation Groups and determine what adaptations might be necessary to launch into these recycle communities

*Recycle Communities are essentially communities where people live and are employed to sort out recyclables from trash.  People in these communities are extremely impoverished, child labor is quite high, and girls are at high risk for being trafficked to local Red Light Districts or to China as brides for children of the one child policy.  Children sometimes attend school, but the free morning school sessions don’t actually provide an education.  The children’s outreaches (tutoring centers) provide academic help while also bringing the message of the gospel, abuse prevention and awareness, etc.  These outreaches are just getting started and there is more to improve, but in the first year all children participating in the program passed their exams.  This was a big deal!  Now the parents are interested. We hope to expand outreach to teenage girls and possibly introduce Transformation Groups as a strategic bridge to the gospel and holistic development initiative to prevent abuse and exploitation and bring lasting change."

Will you sign up today?

Where Will You Run?

This is one of my favorite photos from the 2014 run. As she posted her pictures from the family run, sweet Haydee commented, "You don't want to know how long it took us to run 5k."  It didn't matter.

 Somethings are better done slowly.  Like raising boys to be men.

When I look at this picture, I see a father and mother who are raising their sons to value women and to fight for them.

Even the ones a world away whom they will never lay eyes on.

Even the ones who are not yet born.

The fact that dad was right there with them?  HUGE. By his participation, Dad validated this event to his sons. As they dressed for their run/walk that day, these boys learned in age-appropriate ways the details of why they were getting dressed in matching shirts, pinning on numbers and hitting the trail.

As they began their run, Haydee told me her youngest looked around, confused and said, "Where is everyone else?"

I'm not sure he was ever able to understand the concept of a virtual run, but the beautiful thing was this:

Everyone else was all over.

There may not have been other runners on the trail that morning, but people were running in Florida, Iowa and Alaska, in Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina, in California, Texas, and Puerto Rico.  People walked on trails in the heat and, ran on indoor tracks and treadmills where it was snowy.

As they ran, they sent in pictures like the one above that set my heart on fire.

Let's do it again.  Let's do it even bigger.

Sign up today and then comment where you will be running.

SIGN UP!

Great Letter for Recruiting a Team!

This week one of my great helpers for the Run to Rescue Virtual Run, Sue Williamson, sent me a letter to review.  Excited to build a large team to help this effort, she is mailing it to friends in her homeschool support group and at her church.  With her permission, I am sharing it here as a model for anyone else looking to build a team to help this cause!  Thanks so much, Sue!

Dear Friends,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ughWb-W7OI Click here to watch a video on She Is Safe's mission.

Katy Anderson, a missionary friend and former member of my church, introduced me to her mission work and ministry a few years ago at dear friend's home. Katy presented a slide show and spoke about She Is Safe, opening my eyes to the plight of many girls/young women in the world (as you have hopefully watched on the video link above). Last year, my friend Mary Odell worked hard to organize a 5K Virtual Rescue Run for She Is Safe. I'm so proud of her and inspired by her faith put into good works. With the Lord always leading the way the results were: 85 participants from Alaska to Puerto Rico raising $2600 for S.I.S.!

Here's an excerpt from Mary Odell's blog: "I am not going to bury my head in the luxurious sand of my comfy North American life, praising God for my blessings while ignoring the ugliness elsewhere.
 
I am not going to do nothing.

For now my "something" is to stand with those who are fighting the darkness with the light and hope of the Gospel.  I am standing with She is Safe and their partners in the darkest places through the Run to Rescue Virtual Run.   Will you join me?"

Virtual run?? What does "virtual" mean, you may ask. "Virtual" in this sense simply means that the 3.1 miles required to run or walk on behalf of raising money and awareness for this worthy cause can be "virtually" done ANYWHERE in the WORLD by men, women, or children. Registration is online only and participants are asked to post a photo or two of their experience so others on social media can see us come together one weekend out of the year to help rescue girls from lives of feeling and being treated as unworthy and of no value. WE know GOD values all life...every single life, so knowing this, isn't it our responsibility to share this knowledge with others? We are not all called to go to India and other 3rd world countries like Katy does, but we can all do "something" as Mary wrote. This Rescue Run is one idea, but one I hope you will consider doing because 1) it's easy-- you don't HAVE to do the physical part and you don't HAVE to do the financial part...keep reading to find out more about that 2) As fellow Christians we want to encourage them as the Word teaches all of us to care for the poor and orphans of this world.

If you want to walk with me  I would love it—(insert time and location).  If you can’t make it at that time, you can do walk or run whenever and wherever as long as it’s sometime during the weekend of Oct.9-11! Walk your neighborhood, run the trail, walk on a treadmill, but take pictures and help us spread awareness by posting your photo on social media and/or wearing your Rescue Run t-shirts. You see, the difference between just writing a check and sending it or participating in this Rescue Run, is that the Run was formed to help spread the news about She Is Safe's ministry so that MORE people will become aware & decide to help out. The results of last year prove that it's an effective means of "free advertising", so to speak. It was a great first showing, but we're confident we can do even better this year "with a little (more) help from our friends".

So here's the good news for those of you that can't afford the registration fee, but want to help out: If you can't pay the registration fee, but would like to participate, find a Sponsor who will register for you while you do the grunt work! We tried this last year with a couple broke college students who were quite capable to run a 5K. This year we've added this idea to the official Registration page.

So here's the good news for those that can't or don't want to physically run or walk the 3.1 miles: Become a Sponsor by paying the registration fee and someone will walk/run for you! You can either find someone to run/walk for you (this would be great!) OR the Rescue Run will find someone who will do it (one of those people in the previous paragraph:).

This way, everyone of all ages and stages can help out the Rescue Run and help save and empower lives around the world in the name of Jesus. :)

https://run2rescuevirtual.webconnex.com/r2rvirtual2015 Please register by clicking here and join my team— or make a team of your own. There is a team discount code. Just follow the instructions on the Registration page found at this link.

Thank you for reading and prayerfully considering this,