Today was awesome. I joined up with UNICEF and Not For Sale's T-blitz campaign at Park Street station. We chose Harvard Square, which PERFECTLY coincided with the Chocolate Festival. At first we were just on the sidewalk handing out placards of information, but we weren't having much success. Then suddenly there was a huge line for the chocolate and it was kind of amazing, because they couldn't run away! It became the perfect opportunity to engage with people one on one about the atrocities of human trafficking. We were handing out placards with information on what they could do about the issue, and most people in line were more receptive. But when they weren't..my gosh! Usually I'll at least be polite and take whatever people are giving me. Now I am absolutely determined never to be rude to a homeless person or person canvassing again! The least we can do as Christians is smile and politely say No thank you, but God bless you or Jesus loves you. It's takes two seconds and it will put a smile on someone's face. I never thought before that just saying something like that might help but after getting rejected 100 times today (and many times with incredible rudeness), I have seen the light.
The three women and I working together bonded on this short two hour spree to bring awareness to Harvard Square. Perhaps one of the most disappointing aspects of this activism was realizing that there is so much apathy and people are just so involved in themselves and putting up walls that they can't even connect on a basic human level. It's not even a busy time thing, because they were waiting in line for chocolate for crying out loud, and they didn't have anywhere they had to be. Sorry, I guess change takes time and it takes effort to bring about awareness. People like to live in their own bubbles. But there were a few highlights. One woman came right up to us to ask us what we were doing and asked us for more information. That was pretty exciting as we got to share the knowledge we had. Marta shared her friend's personal experience with being trafficked and exploited and I learned something new today. There was another woman who had just moved here from LA attending law school and wanted to get more involved with what was happening in Boston. It was exciting because she was studying immigration and wanted to be more knowledgeable and possibly bring more awareness to her campus at BC Law. Overall, the positive experiences outweighed all of the apathy and negativity we experienced. I made an important decision this morning to leave my warm bed and be a part of a global movement that IS already influencing the lives of many. We must NOT be apathetic to the suffering of fellow human beings. People looked away from the slave trade once before. But WE CAN NOT AVERT OUR EYES AGAIN. This is how Christians and others in this nation tolerated slavery. WE CAN NOT TOLERATE SLAVERY AGAIN.
And UNICEF http://www.unicef.org/protection/57929_58005.html
The three women and I working together bonded on this short two hour spree to bring awareness to Harvard Square. Perhaps one of the most disappointing aspects of this activism was realizing that there is so much apathy and people are just so involved in themselves and putting up walls that they can't even connect on a basic human level. It's not even a busy time thing, because they were waiting in line for chocolate for crying out loud, and they didn't have anywhere they had to be. Sorry, I guess change takes time and it takes effort to bring about awareness. People like to live in their own bubbles. But there were a few highlights. One woman came right up to us to ask us what we were doing and asked us for more information. That was pretty exciting as we got to share the knowledge we had. Marta shared her friend's personal experience with being trafficked and exploited and I learned something new today. There was another woman who had just moved here from LA attending law school and wanted to get more involved with what was happening in Boston. It was exciting because she was studying immigration and wanted to be more knowledgeable and possibly bring more awareness to her campus at BC Law. Overall, the positive experiences outweighed all of the apathy and negativity we experienced. I made an important decision this morning to leave my warm bed and be a part of a global movement that IS already influencing the lives of many. We must NOT be apathetic to the suffering of fellow human beings. People looked away from the slave trade once before. But WE CAN NOT AVERT OUR EYES AGAIN. This is how Christians and others in this nation tolerated slavery. WE CAN NOT TOLERATE SLAVERY AGAIN.
Jesus said in Matthew 22:36-40 (NKJV)
36) “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
37) Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38) This is the first and great commandment. 39) And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40) On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
We must rise up as a nation against the 30,000,000 who CURRENTLY live in human bondage. Join me.
Join Not For Sale. http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/ http://www.facebook.com/NFSMAAnd UNICEF http://www.unicef.org/protection/57929_58005.html
No comments:
Post a Comment