Day 3

So instead of finishing my online homework for my summer class, I am write to you--my invisible readers. Meaning-- I AM TRYING HERE, ARE YOU LISTENING? AKA: I'm trying to make sure you know your money is being put to work! And so is this servant:)

Woke up today like it was any normal NYCUP day-- ate some delicious organic and fair-trade breakfast and went on a scavenger hunt in Washington Heights. AKA---I was finding all my essentials for when I move here! P.S. FORGIVE ME if my Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram was blowing up--- Jonathon was happy though that we got NYCUP and LOGOFF some legit publicity. P.S.S. Firefighters are AWESOME.

Which leads me to my note of the day on the good 'ol bottle (which I dropped...along with Papa, my laptop): Who am I--- and who am I afraid of? Firefighters are awesome. 

First and foremost, we talked about Xenophobia and one of our staff, Chris, went through a personal story about his own struggles with racism, identity  and just the concept of "other". 

Let me tell you about mine. I am a Pentecostal Malayalee female--- and literally only by birth. Pentecostal means so many things in the Malayalee community. There are so many sects and division, because of one or two changes or even entirely different Biblical theology. I am Malayalee, but I needed Google's help to spell that. Sad. I was born in America but lived in India for about 4 years, so I came to America knowing no English. Now, besides dealing with the issues of being foreign, so foreign you didn't make friends as a kid---worked for me. So if you didn't like me: fine, I'll beat you into submission and let you hate me from below. Literally. 

As I got older and you find your cliche and stuff like that, that female part of me stuck out. Generally, in this rigid community--- women do not serve on leadership. They are not pastors. They can MAYBE be missioners, but that is not necessarily their "calling". That sucks. 

This is all brief and fast paced, but connecting that to LOGOFF and the fight against human trafficking takes me to the documentary screening we saw tonight: Girl Rising. I will not spoil it for you, but here is a trailer.

Basically, at one point in my life I said: "That could have been me". This was in response to every tale of a trafficked girl and to every statistic I cringed at. If I was born in another family  maybe in another time, in another place--- I could easily have been a statistic. 

Well...I REBUKE THAT. I realize my xenophobia is of myself... So many times people think I'm Hispanic, and I take that with pleasure. But when someone perhaps guesses right and says Indian...I realize my face is a bit discouraged. That is putting my family to shame. That is putting my relatives to shame. Everything my great grandparents did for us, everything my parents did to---taking a chance--- moving to America for my sisters and I, and I am not even proud enough to say, I am Indian? That is a shame.

Now, I am a statistic of my own...I won't go into details, but for a long time I thought I was not worth it. I was unholy, dirty, torn, broken, and just not...enough. God is enough. JESUS'S BLOOD is more than enough, because my sins, my pains, my struggles, and past has formed me to being this person---so in a way I am a Girl Rising, too. My story does not necessarily involve a trafficking victim, an abused child, or a community that did not love me--- but what I did lack was knowledge and what Girl Rising was meant to do was to tell us that educating our young girls, in every corner of the world will literally save this world. Because ladies, I realized that if I was born in Nepal, Kolkata, or Peru--- I would probably be just as intuitive, creative, and amazing as God created me to be. 

Never change, just keep growing...because we are never done until Jesus takes us home.

Thank You & Goodnight,

Princy

P.S. Liam Neeson is literally an amazing man. Watch the movie and you will know why:)

P.S.S. Firefighters are awesome because of this...