Updates, Coming Soon...

Some crazy exciting updates coming soon! We've been away from the blog because we've been hard at work. Keep an eye out! :D

A Restore Banquet

So us Black Bow girls and a myriad of friends were able to go to a Restore Innocence banquet!

Between just myself (Rachel) and my brother, and ten percent of proceeds from online work and freelance writing... we were able to contribute $130!

I added $40 of it to our shopper's impact tally and will add the rest whenever it decides to start working again. :)

Thanks to our awesome friends and family for getting involved. We're getting ready to take our first round of change shopping for Restore Bags. Stay posted!!

3 Jars of Change So Far
$101 of Shopper's Impact and pending. :) 

Mason Jars

Nicole loved this image and thought it was true to what we were doing. Our mason jars are slowly filling up with change that will make change! 

2 Jars of Change so far 

$61 of shopper's impact

A Lesson in Impact

Rachel Danielle P.

Nicole has a heart like a Colorado sky. She daily inspires me.

 

I never skip a chance to eat out. Really. When you've lived on a budget for as long as I have? Restaurants are a place of supreme bliss.

 

Recently, it was our fellow abolitionist Rachelle's birthday (Happy 21 years, lovely Rachelle!) and the family went out to celebrate. Nicole said to me over the phone, "But all I could think about was those girls. All I could think of was how $8 to eat could mean everything to someone else."

So she convinced her mom to donate the money that she would have spent on dinner to her Restore Jar.

Nicole said this as a side note, and kept talking, but I lingered over the words, stricken. There were tears in my eyes.

Really. Do we ever think about how our tiniest sacrifices could mean the world to somebody else?

 

 

{Photo via Pinterest}

Of Poetry and Links

This poem was shared with Restore Innocence by a young girl named Taylor. They say of Taylor, "She still has hope. Let us keep fighting so we can see that hope turned into love."
 

Caught in Traffick...

 

Does anyone hear them?

Does anyone see them?

The broken hearts,
the crushed spirits.
They cry out in the day
and weep at night.
They are lonely;
they are confused.
All hope is gone,
all joy is lost.
Only despair,
only helplessness.
They stop fighting,
they stop dreaming.
They feel rejected,
they feel used.
Does anyone understand?
Does anyone know?
The hurt they feel?
The pain they suffer?
They pray and plead to an
unknown God for a rescue.
They are afraid,
they are young.
All future is forgotten,
all childhood is taken.
Will they ever be healed?
They hunger and thirst
for real love.
They feel alone,
they feel invisible.

Can’t we hear them?
Can’t we see them?
Let our hearts break for them.
Let us cry out to God
and weep for them.
For they are lonely,
they are confused.
Let us hope for them
and pray for their joy to be restored.
Let us not despair or feel helpless.
Let us fight for them.
Let us dream for them
For they are rejected,
they are used.
Do we understand?
Do we know?
Let us hurt for them,
let us feel their pain.
Let us pray and plead
to the God we know for a rescue.
For they are afraid,
they are young.
Let us remember them
And pray for God
to restore their childhood.
Let us intercede for their freedom
and battle for their healing.
Let us cry to God to give them real love
For they are lonely, they are invisible.
WE MUST HEAR!
WE MUST SEE!
WE MUST KNOW!
WE MUST UNDERSTAND!
For we are God’s people
And He’s calling for us to know
For us to show the broken hearts
That there is HOPE
That there is LOVE.

 

~Anonymous

  

Link Love

*A free 5 day devotional, to take your heart on a journey.
 
*A brilliant project for the swift-approaching weekend

Praising God for half a hundred dollars of shopper's impact in just over a week! He loves these girls. Thanks for loving on them too.
 
{Photo 1 via Pinterest} 

A Lesson in Humility

Nicole Jones, March 20th

Since it's been five days since Rachel and I started the Black Bow Project, I've decided to formally announce the sorry truth: I'm an introvert. And I'm not just saying that. Honest! The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator only proved the suspicions I had long held. That being the case, it is understandably way, way out of my comfort zone to ask people for donations.

 Even when I organized an entire Freedom Ball, which raised loads of money to help victims of sex trafficking, it was different. Almost everyone who contributed that money paid for a service. We gave them dinner, a dance, and a program. Some people kindly donated their time, energy, and talent, but there were very few monetary donations. For the most part, people gave with the full knowledge that they were getting something in return.

 A quarter, or a handful of change, isn't much to ask for. In fact, these days, quarters are small change, as common as copper pennies. Still, there is something in me that shudders to ask even for a quarter. Perhaps it's an injury to my pride or something – lowering myself to beg for change. I suddenly get just a taste of how the homeless guys feel, standing out on the street with their pitiful cardboard signs. People, they weren't doing it because it's fun, or it's a lazy way to collect free cash. I'm positively convinced of it. There is nothing so shameful as standing on the sidewalk waving your “Anything helps. God bless you” sign. It takes real gumph, and perhaps absolute desperation. 

 It's humbling – that's what. Humbling for them to ask for granola bars, and for me to ask for quarters. This is what occurred to me when I wondered at myself for being so reluctant about asking for donations. It's a quarter, for goodness sake, not a person's life's savings! I'm asking them to donate the change they would normally pop in their pockets, forget about, and loose somewhere in the washing machine. Why am I ashamed?

 When I started asking myself these questions, something else struck me. I'm not asking for myself. Perhaps this hesitancy to ask for handouts would be understandable and excusable if I was just collecting money for a personal new laptop. But these quarters? They're not for me. They are for suffering girls, who have been hurt very deeply in the sex trafficking trade. For girls who need support while they receive care, counseling, and therapy to recover from painful physical, emotional, and mental scars. Frankly, I want money to be the last thing on their mind.

 There is nothing selfish in my request for spare change. There is nothing to be ashamed of. Yes, it's humbling. But humility, I'm starting to learn, is a virtue, not a vice. And if God begins this Black Bow journey by gifting me with a healthy dose of humility, then it's just gonna get better from here. After all, this is what I've prayed for. I've asked Him that this project would not simply be about helping out the Cinderella House and praying for the girls there, but that it be a learning and growing experience for me to personally become more conformed to His image.

 A very wise man (ok, so it was my pastor) once told me that God doesn't want our ministry as much as He wants us. He wants us to be near Him, to long for Him, to know Him, to serve Him, to give our lives to Him. In the end, the Black Bow Project isn't about the quarters at all. It's about radically loving God and loving our neighbor better, learning what He wants to teach us in the process.

 That said, if the first lesson He wants to teach me is humility... deep breath....

I'm ready.

 

 

 

{Photo via Pinterest.}