My birthday and Christmas were great. For my birthday, we went down to the beach an hour away and then came back and had dinner at a good Italian restaurant called Bella Ciao. Christmas began with having the 30 and under crowd over to our apartment for brunch. We all cooked and brought things and it was really good. Later in the afternoon, we went over to one of our boss’ house where about 25 ex pats were gathered for dinner and to do a gift exchange. It was nowhere near what my birthday and Christmas are like at home, but it was probably as good as they can get for being so far away!
I do have one a story about my favorite birthday present that I wanted to share. As I mentioned earlier, we went to the beach about an hour south of here. Now, as you drive to the beach, you drive along the coast, where the Tsunami came up and destroyed everything. The aftermath is still visible in the shacks that are loosely constructed lining the coast line, the absence of trees, and the presence of lakes that did not previously exist in areas away from the shore.
When we arrived at the resort, after lounging by the pool for a while, we made our way out to the beach. We were quickly seen by the locals and soon three children appeared by our sides. Once the children realized that we weren’t going to buy anything, the two boys started talking to my roommate, and the girl began to talk to me. We discussed the usual topics, where I am from, what grade she is in school, if she was around when Tsunami hit, etc. Her name was Olivia, and she was 11 years old, in Standard 6 in school. She proceeded to ask me if we were staying at the resort for the weekend. I told her that we were just down for the day. She continued to ask why we were down for the day, and I told her that it was my birthday.
We continued to talk for a few more minutes before she made her way back to the area where her family and friends were selling items. I continued to walk along the beach, and after a few minutes she came back down to me again. When she returned she had a small heart shaped necklace charm, and said, “Here, this is for your birthday, Happy Birthday!”. I was blown away. I could not comprehend how this 11 year old girl…who had been in Tsunami…who has nothing…lives in shack on the beach selling cheap jewelry to tourists…could be moved to give me a gift for my birthday. It still floors me. I think that it is one of the most concrete ways in which I have ever seen the love of Christ manifested in human form and interaction. That was my first thought in response to the situation, and it has stuck with me. I think it may be the best birthday present that I have ever received, and it provided me exceeding joy and peace about the fact that I was and continue to be miles and miles away from home this holiday season. So simple, yet so cool and meaningful. God works in amazing ways to move us and provide for us.
Tonight we are off to Thailand for six days, and I will post more pictures and stories when I return. Happy New Year!

As promised (to some of you) here are the pictures of the creepy Santas that were caravaning around town last weekend. There were 6-8 busses of them.

Unsettling, no?

Also, this is how we roll in S. Asia:

finally, just because i like it, a picture at one of our favorite restaurants, Bella Ciao:

tonight: Christmas Play at church and hanging out with the group

tomorrow: tomorrow beach and dinner at bella ciao for my birthday

Sorry that it has been a while since I’ve written. Life has been very busy here, and continues to be, so this will be a quick update. I am doing well, lots of things have been happening…one big and sadly unsuccessful raid, weddings, christmas parties, friends departing back to the states for the holidays. We have been moving and shaking here. So much so that the other night when we got home I fell asleep on my bed before I even ate dinner or did anything, because I was so exhausted. But it’s a good exhausted.
I’d like to tell you guys about one huge thing that has been taking up my time. Our office is in the process of doing a program evaluation for the aftercare (social work) department to measure how effective our services are that we provide for our rescued victims. Now, this is a task that I would much prefer to pass up. Statistics was my least favourite class in undergrad, and I more or less cursed it as I endured three of its miserable courses. However, here it comes to haunt me despite my best attempts to evade it.
But, as I have been going through the laborious process of doing data entry and getting ready to run tests on these surveys, I have been confronted with some very cool things. The surveys contain lots of questions about what was helpful to the victims, etc. and on quite a few surveys, one of the most meaningful things for the victims has been their release from bonded labour. It is amazing to see that in their words and know that it has remained as a life changing event for them. This may seem as though it would be obvious to some of you reading this for them to say that, but it is just a powerful thing to be able to read it and know that you are a part of that life change for people. And all of you, as my supporters are part of it as well.
I just wanted to share that with you all, and bring some joy and encouragement to your Christmas season. I will try and update again soon and throw in some pictures.

thanksgiving was last thursday. the day started out with our maid coming at 8:30. despite the fact that we were there-and up-she decided that it would be a good idea to lay down on our floor and sleep. not kidding. here is a picture:

this picture was taken from our upstairs. notice how she carefully positioned herself underneath our coffee table so that she could still fit her whole body on the rug. this was maybe the most ridiculous thing that has happened yet. we proceeded to try and wake her up by making noise: slamming doors, playing music, talking. she did not budge. finally, i walked downstairs with my roommate, said, "excuse me." and she woke up with a sheepish grin on her face. we told her to go home for the day.

later in the day, we had thanksgiving at a restaurant that is owned by an American on the bottom floor of our office building. here is a picture of my roommates and i from that:

after dinner (which was medium good-south asia just doesn't do thanksgiving) we went to see Casino Royale. seeing a movie here is an experience in itself. first, you have assigned seating. second, everyone claps and cheers anytime they think something is worth either of those actions. third, they cut any scandalous parts of the movie. fine by me, but, that leaves holes and gaps in the plot and dialogue. fourth, there is an intermission in the middle. for about ten minutes. they just stop the movie where ever it is and everyone can get up and go to the bathroom or get refreshments.
friday was work again, and then on saturday we had a official christmas season kick off at the house of a guy who works for the consulate here. this is our young person crew minus a few:

that's all for now. i'm off to meet up with some ex pats who were wandering the same grocery store as us this past saturday. every westerner over here is automatically friends by default of living here and being westernized. happy christmas season.

i also got sick this weekend. not sure what it was, but i was definitely down and out for all of saturday. i'm doing okay so far today (sunday) but it was rough. please continue to pray for health as my body continues to adjust to this side of the world. also, at my office this week there is a lot lot lot that needs to get done. so, it will be hectic and intense. thanksgiving is this week also..which i have to keep reminding myself of. somehow we all seem to just be caught up in the work and climate and different things that make us forget that thanksgiving is in fact on thursday. we will be having a proper thanksgiving dinner at the diner downstairs which is owned by an american. it will be good, but not as good as my mom's thanksgiving cooking unfortunately. the new apartment is good. we are enjoying having a place to call home.

Okay. So here is an attempt at making an entry with more than just a picture of me chewing on sugar cane-even though I know you guys adored that one. Ha. Anyways, things are going along here. So much has happened, I find it hard to condense it down into blog entries..and at the same time, I think that taking so much in at once makes it hard to separate things out into blog entries…if that makes sense. So today started my second week of work. Last week felt pretty long. Chalk it up to jet lag and various things. But, the weekend went by quickly, and here we are on week number two.
First, let me just start off with what has been incredibly difficult for us: apartment hunting. Wow, it is just an outrageous task here! I would have never guessed, but it is. First of all, as soon as people see or hear that we are Americans, the price of a place jumps at least 20%. We have to try to explain to them in detail that we are volunteering for an NGO, not some lavishly rich Diplomats, etc. Secondly, some people refuse to rent to us just because we are Westerners. They would straight up prefer to just leave a flat vacant as opposed to rent to a Westerner. Needless to say discrimination is alive and well here. Which is an interesting lesson to learn. Part of me knows that it is a gooood lesson for me to learn. Discrimination is still alive and well in the U.S. and other Western countries, but I by way of being Caucasian usually don’t experience it. So, I think in that respect it is probably healthy for me to live in it for a while. The selfish part of me that just wants to move into an apartment as soon as possible on my I-volunteer –for-an-NGO- budget wants to be the heck done with it and get a decent apartment at a decent price. So, for those of you that are in prayer for me during this time, that is a HUGE thing to pray for/about.
Other than that I have been working on adjusting to the time difference. Still. I thought I would be done by now, but I usually wake up at least once a night for while and wake up for good around 6:30 in the morning. It just makes for tough days when I am tired, so another prayer point. Additionally, I think a combination of sleep issues plus new food has been making me feel sick about once a day as my body gradually adjusts. Okay. So those are some of my struggles so far.

Good things. The ex-pat community here at the office is great! They are like a little family. And it is wonderful to be immediately swept up into that. The other two girls that came down here at the same time are wonderful as well. It is so nice to have people sharing your experience.

It is a continual process learning about things here. Some things to learn…you can only eat with your right hand. Also at traditional restaurants there is no silverware. Crossing the road is like real life Frogger. Seriously. We adapted by finding a native person crossing the road and then following them. If we don’t, we pretty much hap-hazardly dodge cars all the way across. Also, not to my surprise, but kind of, there is really no diversity here, or Westerners. I think that I (and the other girls) generally anticipated that we would see more of either here…but we really haven’t seen any. All of the women wear traditional dress 95% of the time. Westerners…we might go days without seeing one. This also leads to us being stared at a lot when we are out.

Anyways, my time is about up to get this updated and take care of all my other email duties. Tomorrow I am heading out to a rural village to meet with some of our rescued victims and a newly appointed official for that region. That should be interesting. It will be a three hour card ride each way out into rural areas. Also good news…we had a raid last week-which I wasn’t a part of because I’m still new-but the perpetrator was jailed immediately, which is apparently un-heard of. So that is cool to see justice taking place so quickly. Anyways, I hope that you all are well…I’ll try and write more soon. I discovered that the only way to add pictures on this internet connection is one at a time, and on the “small” size. So, apologies for that. These are all pictures from my commute to work. Please note that the crazy small yellow things are the auto rickshaws that we take everywhere for transportation!

just another afternoon at the office, snacking on some sugarcane. (better pictures to come soon)

well, i am here safe and sound and have been so since very early saturday morning. i only have internet at work right now so my updates may be inconsistent for a while. lots has happened, probably too much to condense into a quick paragraph right now. i've been working on trying to discreetly take some pictures as to not be "that westerner" with her camera around her neck at all times. i'll try to get them up in the next few days. overall everything here is good so far. oh, and did i mention that i never get cold. never. and i love that! anyways, hope everything is good state side..considering most of you are sleeping right now! will try to update again soon! :)

this is what my room currently looks like i as i attempt to pack. yikes.

Good News! the fundraising dinner went really really well! i am now significantly closer to my goal-which is great! i am done with work too, which is a big step in being able to get ready for everything. now it's time for a weekend of seeing friends and saying goodbyes, which will be sad..but its only for ten months. :)

today starts my last week of work. (hurray) i was home for the weekend this past weekend, and finally got a chance to get a handle on my fundraising. to date i am about halfway there, which is great! and tomorrow is the fundraising dinner that we are having at andiamo's in grosse pointe. so i'm hoping that that will help to bridge the gap between what i have and what i need. for now, it's time to work on my speech that i have to give at the dinner!

down to 18 days and counting now until i leave! time is flying by! this week things went one step further with me being ready as i got my vaccinations! holding with their twenty three year long pattern of being miserable, hepatitis a, tetanus, and polio remained the same miserable experience. in fact, i still have some small bruises. (it's okay, you can feel bad for me.)
in exciting news, one of the girls that is going over there too called me yesterday to get my flight information so that she could get onto my flight. that would be wonderfully amazing. so, hopefully it will work out.
this past week, Jim Wallace, the editor of Sojourner's Magazine, came to MSU to speak. he was phenomenal. he has written a book called, "God's Politics: Why the Right doesn't get it, and the Left gets it wrong". he spoke a lot about the grey areas of between religion and politics from both ends of the political spectrum. a lot of what he spoke about testified to the need for social justice, and was very affirming and encouraging as i prepare to go over to the other side of the world to do just that. bring social justice to enslaved people who need it.
that's all for now i suppose. the countdown continues!

I just got back from training in Washington D.C. last week! It was really really good. I learned a lot about the organization, and feel even more excited about the work it is doing and the fact that I get to be a part of it. I tend to think of myself as a relatively decent evaluator of non profits having spent significant time over the last two years in four different non profit organizations, and I can say without a doubt, that I am whole heartedly impressed with. The work that is doing is so thorough and professional...I was quite impressed.
Now I am back, and working at my agency for a few more weeks while also trying to fund raise. I need about $7900.00 in the next 4.5 weeks. This is where the people who are getting my letters and are reading this come in. My contact information for donations is at the bottom, please refer to it for sending donations. Before I went to training, I was more hesitant to ask people to donate money, but I have found myself at two conclusions in the last week:
1. time is of the essence, I need to do this more frequently in order to raise sufficient support to go
2. after going through training, I truly beleive that this organization and what I will be doing is a more than justifiable cause for people to donate to. If I was 100% behind what I was doing before, I am now 150% behind it, and have no hesitations about the integrity of the organization or what I will be doing when it comes to asking people to donate.

It is time for me to go print off some support letters, address some envelopes, and hope that people's hearts will be moved as they consider this endeavor.

so, this is the beginning. there's a long way to go from here, but i just wanted to get this up and running for people who wanted to find out more and follow me on this journey! so here are some basics about me:

I graduated from Calvin College in Michigan with my undergraduate degree in Social Work and continued on to Michigan State University to get my Masters in Social Work through a one year program. My studies focused on clinical social work, and working with unaccompanied refugee minors and trafficking victims. International experiences come as a second nature to me having spent some of my childhood years in Peru, Belgium and Germany. In college I continued my travels to South Africa, England, and Guatemala where I studied subjects such as trafficking, post apartheid challenges, did mission work, and was finally able to use my Spanish. Outside of traveling and studying I enjoy horseback riding, dancing, soccer and an occasional surfing adventure whenever the ocean is near by.

so, that's kind of the basic about who i am. the important part is what i will be doing for the next ten months. i will be going to south asia with International Justice Mission (ijm.org). here is my support letter that i am sending out:

Dear Blog Reader,

As you may already know, I have been accepted to a ten month work (fellowship) program through an organization called. Throughout these ten months I will be responsible for doing social work with people who are victims of bonded slavery in South Asia. While it might seem like slavery is a practice of the past, National Geographic Magazine estimated that approximately 27 million people are held in bonded labor around the world today.

Let me explain a little bit more about to give you a clearer picture of what I will be doing; is a non-profit organization comprised of attorneys, law enforcement officials and social workers which works in countries all over the world to stop human rights abuses such as sex trafficking, modern day slavery, un-prosecuted rape, and illegal land seizure. seeks to bring justice to the victims of these abhorrent practices in an effective and systematic manner. partners with host country’s government and law enforcement to investigate trafficking and slavery rings. then breaks down rings and prosecutes perpetrators in order to ensure the end of an exploitative cycle. Once this is done, the social work staff seeks to connect and provide victims with the proper resources to help rehabilitate them socially, psychologically and financially, and to prepare them for re-entry into their society.

There are many ways you can fight injustice in the world today. However, I ask you to partner with me as I join with to personally take a stand against it. is a non-profit organization that serves people for free, thus I am raising support to fund my trip and expenses. The total estimated cost of my trip will be about $9,000. I am able to contribute somewhat to this experience from my own funds and savings, but am also paying off graduate school at this point and am unable to completely fund it myself. Please seriously consider if you can join with me in this venture. Any gift, no matter what the amount, is helpful and will help rescue former slaves from a life of oppression that you and I cannot even begin to imagine.

If you are able to support me in this, there are two ways in which you can make a donation:

You can send checks directly to me, and I will ensure that they are used solely to cover the expenses of my trip. Or, you can make a tax deductible donation and write the check out to International Justice Mission. In accordance with IRS standards however, you may not write my name anywhere on the check, even the memo line. All checks should be sent to me, and I will either route them toward my trip, or send them on to a financial coordinator at IJM.

Thank you for your consideration of supporting me in this endeavor. I believe in it so strongly not only because it will be life changing for me, but because I know that it will be life changing for all of the people that I encounter. Please feel free to check out ’s website (.org) to learn more about the organization. Please contact me with any questions you might have.

Sincerely,

Marianne

if any of you out there are considering supporting me, please send it to: