Freedom Climbers

Ready to go!
photo © The Freedom Climb: Justice for Women
& Kibo Slopes Safaris Ltd on FaceBook

Freedom Climb Countdown!

This just in!  The Freedom Climbers arrived safely in Kenya. Tuesday they traveled to Tanzania. And on Wednesday, January 11, U.S. National Trafficking Day, the climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro begins! They'll be well on their way by the time most of us are waking up.

They need prayer for their safety and endurance as they climb. They're excited, resting up, and firmly committed to the climb!


To learn more about this incredible effort to raise awareness and funding to combat sex trafficking, read yesterday's post: The Freedom Climb.

The Freedom Climb

Skeptics reacted negatively to the CitiBank commercial where a young woman (accompanied by her boyfriend) climbs to the top of Ancient Art—a rock formation in Utah that spikes into the sky like an upside-down icicle.

The commercial ends with the female climber perched triumphantly on a frighteningly narrow surface where a sudden gust of wind or slight loss of balance would send her plummeting to her death.

Makes my hands sweat just thinking about it.

Comments on the Internet read, "No way that's real!" and "Total green screen."  So many people raised doubts, CNN's Jeanne Moos decided to investigate.

The girl, it turns out, is Katie Brown—one of the world's top female rock climbers. She's been climbing since she was twelve. Her "boyfriend" is real-life Spiderman, Alex Honnold, featured by  60 Minutes for his daring free-solo rock climbing (meaning without ropes). When asked, Brown confirmed, "Yeah, it's real." She really did make that climb. She really did pose for cameras "up there."  

The lesson? Never underestimate what ezers are capable of doing. Never!

That lesson was reinforced for me by a mind-boggling email from Cathey Anderson of Operation Mobilisation. 

Cathey, like growing numbers of us, is outraged over human trafficking. But she is doing more than fume. Her outrage turned into action—a bold out-of-the-box vision that exceeded anything I would have imagined. Her vision?  For Christian women across the globe to raise awareness and funding to combat modern day trafficking of women and children by climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa's tallest mountain!

Cathey held onto that vision for months. She was emailing to tell me reading Half the Church spurred her into action.

Her hope of twenty women climbers quickly mushroomed into forty-six. The climbers range in age from 18 to 73!  Half the Sky, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn has fueled their passion and determination.

As I write, The Freedom Climb is moving forward. Right now, the climbers are gathering in Nairobi from around the world. You can read their stories here.

On Wednesday, January 11, National Anti-Trafficking Awareness Day, they'll begin their climb.  It takes 4½ days to reach the summit and 1½ days to come back down. They've been training and will be accompanied by professional guides.

It needs to be said, the choice of their initiative isn't just random. These women are physically making a statement. Mt. Kilimanjaro's summit is Uhuru Peak. Uhuru is Swahili for freedom. By climbing the mountain, this team of ezers are symbolizing the huge climb to freedom millions of enslaved women and children worldwide face daily.

What I love about this initiative is that, not only is this a powerful and creative way to engage the fight against the evils of human trafficking (and I'm praying the outcome will exceed their hopes), it raises the bar for the rest of us. Every day new reports surface about global atrocities against women and girls. God is moving more and more of us to get involved. We're all asking, "What can I do?" The Freedom Climbers are opening the door for us to get creative and reminding us never to underestimate what ezers are capable of doing!

Check out the Freedom Climb website to learn more.

Amazon Kindle Sale!

Kindle versions of Half the Church and The Gospel of Ruth are on sale now for $1.99!  Don't know how long these prices will last, so act now if you want to download a copy!

More good news:   Half the Church is listed on Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed Books of the Year!

Synergy—2012 & Beyond!

Synergy is a game changer!

And after 7 powerful national conferences and a growing network of gifted women and men leaders—we're only getting started.

Never before have more ezer-warriors (women and girls) felt the stirrings of God's call to action. Never before have we been more aware of the desperate needs of our world. Never before have we possessed more resources and powerful technologies to do the job God is calling us to do. Never before has there been a greater urgency for God's sons and daughters work together for the sake of God's kingdom. 
Before us stands a breathtaking window of unprecedented opportunity. Synergy wants to make the most of it.

To read more about Synergy and what we're planning for Synergy's Phase 2, go here.  Then join us in this strategic kingdom effort!

To make a secure tax-deductible donation online, go here. 

Or mail your check (postmarked December 31 for year-end giving) to:

          Synergy Women's Network
          c/o Missionwell Service Center
          466 E. Foothill Blvd., #358
          La Canada, CA 91011

Trusting God for a game-changing future together!

Carolyn,
Synergy President

Conversations with Haddon & Alice

Brian Hettinga, Haddon Robinson, Alice Mathews, Mart De Haan

Some of the most intriguing conversations I've had recently have been with Alice Mathews over lunch or with Haddon Robinson at a Gordon-Conwell faculty gathering.

All this week on Discover the Word, I am in conversation with them both at once. We're discussing Half the Church and exploring the significance of this book for women and for men.
 
Here's what Alice wrote after reading Half the Church:

"With the care of an experienced scout, Carolyn James has lined the fire pit with stones, then assembled the kindling and logs, and in the final chapters of this remarkable book has struck the match to ignite a blaze for God and his kingdom. No thoughtful Christian woman can walk away from this book unchallenged or unmoved, as she senses the glory of her ezer-warrior calling. Nor can any thoughtful Christian man remain unmoved by the vision of the Blessed Alliance so skillfully sketched in these pages. The challenge of Half the Church is to the whole church to fulfill God's purpose in creating all of us as iconoclastic bearers of the divine image in a broken world."

 If you miss the radio broadcast of any of these five conversations, the full MP3 recordings are available online:

• Conversation about God's plan for women
• Rediscover what it means to be made in the image of God
• God created his daughters to be ezer-warriors 
• The Blessed Alliance
• Ready to change the world? 

Finding Treasure in India

If there's one lesson to be learned from all the people who suffer poverty, abuse, and injustice, it is this: the world is impoverished so long as they remain captive and enriched when they're set free and empowered to cultivate and use their God-given gifts.  

That's the not-so-subtle message of the Chinese saying, "Women hold up half the sky." So guess what is falling and who else pays a price when women are trafficked, raped, denied an education, and marginalized?

That's a sobering question to ponder!

It's a message I read in Scripture. Who would believe a powerless trafficked Egyptian girl named Hagar would become the prophetic voice to reveal the intimate side of the Creator God as the one "who sees me."

Would anyone expect a trafficked Israelite slave being held unjustly in an Egyptian prison to catapult overnight to become Pharaoh's second in command or of developing a strategy to preserve the entire nation during a prolonged famine?

Who would believe God would summon a young barren Jordanian widow and her bereft Jewish mother-in-law out of the margins to fight for the next generation and ultimately rescue the line of Christ?  Only think what the world would be missing, if any of them had been forgotten and left to languish in the margins!

That same message keeps sounding through the stories of the people I meet.

Several months ago, I encountered a bright young twenty-something woman from Ivory Coast. She was born to a vegetable vendor who had five sons and no use for a daughter. So her mother gave her to an American family. How differently her story is playing out.  Instead of remaining illiterate, being married off (or trafficked) at an early age, suffering an early pregnancy and possibly fistula, my young friend is a Wellesley graduate, now with a masters degree from Harvard. I shudder to think of the treasures the world has thrown away by failing to see and empower the undeveloped human potential that God has implanted in his image bearers.

This past week in India, I saw it again. Yes, I saw overwhelming poverty. I heard disturbing stories of injustice that have left me aching. I doubt I'll ever shake the appalling images of the unbearable mistreatment of the Dalit people. One pays a terrible price for being born into the lowest caste.

But I also witnessed the flip side—where poverty and oppression are rendered powerless against the strength of the gospel to release the human treasure that God intends should flourish.

We visited the Good Shepherd School—one of Operation Mobilization's network of schools in India that is currently educating 25,000 Dalit children. 600 children are enrolled at this particular school.

At these schools, no one is willing for little ezers to get left behind.  If a family sends their son to school, leaving his sisters behind, the school won't take him until his sisters come too.

The students welcomed us with garlands, sang and danced, made speeches, celebrated birthdays, and shared their birthday candy with us. Their joy was infectious.

Students who will graduate this year and move on to college told us their goals—to be a teacher, an engineer, a scientist, a policemen. These aspirations wouldn't have occurred to them apart from the education and affirmation they're getting here. OM stays with them to ensure they reach their goals.

If a student is not able to go to college, they have other options. We visited silk screen printing and sewing classes to get a sample of the training OM offers. All those smart looking uniforms are handmade by seamstresses trained on site. Microfinance loans are helping these graduates and others in the community launch new businesses. 

There's more good news, for as these young people learn and flourish, escape poverty and become the promise of India's future, they are also hearing the Gospel and God is changing hearts. 

Before I left for India, I was told my heart would get broken again. It did.  You can't listen to the stories of injustice I heard and not have it break your heart. But what surprised me most of all was the undercurrent of hope that permeated the Justice Forum to defy these grim realities. The trip to India was an unexpected reminder that God is on the move. His people are at work. Lives are changing. Buried treasure is being unearthed. Darkness is no match for the light. 

 For further information:  Dalit Freedom Network