I'm hoping I'm ready now to come back and pick up the torch again. First I need to finish writing about the last few days of the Love146 trip.
We spent most of Sunday traveling from northern Thailand back to the Bangkok airport (our beloved hub), where we had an intense discussion with the Philippine Airlines workers for more than an hour to actually give us boarding tickets for our flight to Manila. (Long story, still not quite sure any of us understand it either.) We got to Manila in the evening, had Japanese food at our hotel (yum) and went to bed.
Monday was pretty much a free day and we spent the day decompressing. Paula, Matt, Kristian and I sat around a table at the breakfast buffet and talked for almost two hours about everything from the trip to books we had read to microloans to the practice of tithing. I loved that morning. Paula and I spent the rest of the day talking and exploring the hotel and the little surrounding area. I bought a pair of sandals for $4 and wore them to our dinner with Love146 staff and other nonprofit organizations that had gathered in the area. I was really excited to meet Rob in person, because it was his story that got me so involved with anti child sex trafficking in the first place.
Paula and I are standing in the hotel lobby when we catch sight of him; spiky, slightly graying hair, tattoos running up his forearms. I recognize him immediately from the Love146 videos, but am surprised and flattered when he knows who I am. We follow Rob to a hotel conference room and spend the evening eating with him, Love146's Dr. Gundelina Velazco, and several other Love146 workers and NGOs fighting child trafficking and exploitation. The evening is capped off with this play by a group called the Stairway Foundation. It is another inspiring night of being surrounded by people using their lives to take on the battle for rescuing children. At one point in between bites of cake someone asks Rob about the tattoos on his arms. He beams as he brings out a photograph of his family, a blend of biological and adopted children, his smiling wife, and their dog. He then ticks off the names of each of his kids; they are written in bold ink around a single word on his right forearm says, "Tribe." On the other forearm is a detailed, delicate image of a young Cambodian girl, accompanied by the word "Mercy."
"Do you know what ever happened to #146?" someone else asks. "Did you ever see her again?"
He pauses before saying, "You know, people ask me that question all the time. And the truth is that I don't know what happened to her, and I don't know if I ever will. But I think about her and see her face almost every single night before I can go to sleep."
***
The next morning we wake and ride in a jostling van for a good length of time out to the brand new Love146 safehome--also known as "The Round Home." The Round Home is, as you might guess, completely round and has no sharp edges or dark corners. It houses 7 girls and we have the enormous honor and privilege to attend the opening ceremony of the home. We pull into the whitewashed gates and Rob makes a joke that we are entering the Rolls Royces of safehomes. There is lush, green grass; a treehouse for playing and therapy sessions; an open-air chapel with a rounded roof; and the home itself, which is decorated with bright, round circles in reds, oranges, pinks. I am handed a program printed with "Love146 Safehome Opening Ceremony," and my name handwritten on it. To see the realization of the ideas and painstaking work and prayers and donations and vision and everything that went into making this home, and the look in Rob's eyes as he takes it all in, makes me cry with the honor of it all. The girls are peeking out of the slats of the windows, watching us as we look with awe and tears at their beautiful new home.
Marie Morin, the Love146 New England taskforce director, flew
out to the Philippines a week early to teach the girls some choreographed dances for the ope
ning. She is dark-haired and beautiful and has a thick Long Island accent. Her husband Paul is the project manager for the Round Home, and his planning and handiwork are evident everywhere. We sit, a
group of less than twenty, in folding chairs around the open air chapel and the girls emerge in a line, smiling. The ceremony is a celebration of speeches, clappi
ng, and the girls' dancing, of their colorful costumes and choreography. They wave scarves and flags in the air with
their movements, and at one point the music cuts out so we all start singing so they can finish the rest of the dance.
We eat dinner together under tents as the sun sets. The girls are energetic and friendly, gathering around to hug Marie and Paul, calling Rob "father." He pulls out his laptop to show them a portion of a Paramore concert. When the lead singer mentions Love146 and points to a 146 badge on her shirt, the girls shriek with excitement. They laugh and cheer and shout "I love you Paramore!" into Rob's tiny Flipcam, so he can take it to the band and show them what they have helped to accomplish.
We take a tour of the inside of the Round Home and the girls show us their rooms. There is a pink room with hot pink plastic armchairs and a bookshelf lined with toys. This is the therapy room. I reach into my backpack and pull out the Beloved quilt that I've been working on for the past few months at home and at the Beloved quilt sew-ins, and shyly present it to Dr. Velazco. She graciously said, "This will be perfect for the girls to point to the different colors in the sessions to help explain what they are
feeling." I know the joy that I had in hearing that made the quilt more of a gift for me than likely any of the recipients it was intended for.
The reality begins to set in that we are leaving in the morning, and that the things we have seen on the trip will be coming home with us. I know that I will think of these moments every day, for the months and years to follow. What I don't know yet is that the hurt that has been kept at bay to get through the trip in one piece will come slowly and at times least expected, and that I have been affected much more deeply than I even understood at the time. While it's painful, I hope that this certain part of me never quite heals back to the point I can forget it.
The girls, just like at the Thailand safehome, gather around the van as we pull away, waving and cheering. Tonight, at home in Massachusetts one month later, I am pledging to support the work the Roundhome is doing a world away in the Philippines--to give these girls love, a home, guidance, and a new life, for a mere $25 a month. If you'd be interested in being a part of this work, too, you can consider joining me to support the Roundhome here.
Over the past few weeks I've realized that I came back from this trip with many new heroes: each of the workers we met who have made this their fulltime job and life's goal; my teammembers; the beautiful, determined, inspiring girls themselves. But there's a special one in particular. You'd recognize him by the ink etched up and down the insides of his arms, and the love for justice and the girls he has helped to redeem etched deep on his heart.
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