Not All Who Wander Are Lost: Part One

My passion for Dressember is outlined in the post “Because I’m a Girl,” but now it’s time to tie it all up in a nice bow. Today’s post will focus on the why, how, and when, but don’t worry, more answers are coming. First, add your email here so that you don’t get locked out when this blog goes private!

The Why

It started in kindergarten, when I was chased around the playground by some male classmates because “she doesn’t have a penis.” They knocked me to the ground and confirmed for themselves and the school didn’t do anything about it.

I figured if I dressed and acted “like a boy,” I wouldn’t get picked on. My social circles became male-dominated and I started to focus on sports. As I started to try out different teams and activities, I found my home at the ski hill and started training to be a ski jumper.

The problem with ski jumping was that women didn’t have an Olympic event. We were continuously told our bodies couldn’t handle the sport and that we lacked universality (read a great overview here). I watched my role models fight in court when they should have been training, but without the Olympics there wasn’t much of a career for athletes like us.

The How

While my heros took legal action, I realized I could combat injustice through service. In middle school I participated in Madison Missions, a week long camp where we did two volunteer projects a day in our own city. I had heard of people going abroad or to other states for mission trips, but it was embarrassingly eye opening to see the need in my own backyard. There were so many organizations doing so many cool things, and even as an insecure preteen, I was able to help out.

When I outgrew Madison Missions, an opportunity to help serve a school in Honduras opened up. We can talk at length about my thoughts on short-term trips another time, but I decided to go. My hero at the time, Sarah Hendrickson, was texting asking me to come train out west that summer, but I turned the opportunity down to work with AFE in Tegucigalpa. I still jumped when I came back, even making the podium for my main event at nationals, but my heart had been opened for international injustice. Women had finally secured a spot in the Olympics, but when the following summer came I made the decision to go serve abroad again rather than stay and train. I spent the following three summers helping at a summer camp in Romania for adults who had grown up in the infamous orphanages, some of whom had their own stories of trafficking.

The When

I first explicitly heard about human trafficking through the leader of a shelter for survivors in Madison asking for volunteers. I was shocked that there was a need for such a thing in Wisconsin and quickly began doing research and writing every school report and project on the topic. I didn’t understand the relationship between sex trafficking – what most of my work focused on – and my own experiences as a girl until much more recently, but I was driven to learn and share as much as possible.

That is also when I started to make the connection between the local and international trafficking industry, as well as how the women from camp in Romania (and likely in Honduras) had been affected by it. I was blown away that it took me so much work to hear anything about it and make these connections, but I wanted to take this knowledge and use it to teach others about the industries as well.

I got involved in Dressember rather reluctantly, again, read more here, and through that I learned about International Justice Mission (IJM). I knew that they were “the largest anti-slavery organization in the world,” but it wasn’t until later that I fell in love with them.

I ended up hanging up my suit and skis for a lot of reasons, but I felt a new calling towards understanding injustice at its root rather than having such a reactive response to the industry.

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Updates:

Made it through orientation!
THIS BLOG WILL BE GOING PRIVATE – IF YOU DO NOT ADD YOUR EMAIL YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SEE IT
Passed the $4000 mark in fundraising!
Dessert nights! – Come talk with me about what’s going on and what you can do to be a part of it (first date posted on FB page, more to come)!

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