Continue reading »]]> Happy Birthday to me.  Yep, this is an entry to quickly celebrate my own day, by sharing a few blessings.  First and foremost, the love of my beloved wife Sandra, and my beloved daughter Adelina.  My first congrats actually came from Adelina, who, being in Vietnam, celebrated Sept. 1st ahead of me.  So, below is an appropriate photo sent to me yesterday.  Very appropriate I will say, since I spent the afternoon, yesterday, napping, and trying to ward off a nasty cold going around the office.

motoNap

Then came a greeting from Uncle Henry, my favorite uncle in Palo Alto, which included the following Haiku:

“A BIRTHDAY HAIKU POEM FOR THE MAN

Biker with a cause:
Kicking off the Fall with God.
He is don Carlos!”

Pretty cool; referring of course to my pending motorcycle trip, that will start in two days.

This morning I was taken to special breakfast by Sandra, and the owners of Barnaby’s surprised me with French Toast, as a gift after my migas.

Birthday French Toast

At work I got to see Adelina’s smile as we chatted on Skype for a bit, and loads of facebook congrats have come my way.  What a blessed day.

And to consider that today is the beginning of Human Trafficking Awareness Month.

Continue reading »]]> This is a letter that IJM (International Justice Ministry) sent to me, as one of the 21,000 co-signers, as a follow up to the petition that IJM members sent to President Barak Obama, calling for the eradication of modern day slavery. By joining organizations such as IJM and the NotForSale campaign, you too can make a difference.

Dear Carlos,

Thank you for joining with IJM and calling on President Obama to make the eradication of modern-day slavery a priority for his Administration. Last week, I had the honor of delivering our letter – signed by you and nearly 21,000 other modern-day abolitionists! – to Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to President Obama and Senior Director at the National Security Council. Ms. Smith is responsible for global development and

Watch a special thank you from Holly Burkhalter >>

humanitarian assistance issues for the Obama Administration, and has been a leading voice on foreign aid reform. I talked with her about how we can secure more resources for combating slavery around the world, especially in the context of proposed deep cuts in U.S. foreign aid.

Ms. Smith told me, “It is amazing that when there’s so much going on in our own country,21,000 Americans want the President to know that they care about trafficking victims abroad.” She said that the strong bipartisan support around the country is very important to confronting slavery.

Your help does make a difference. Thanks in part to those of you who supported this effort last year, the President requested an increase of $400,000 more for the Trafficking in Persons office in 2012 over his request for the previous year. Having been active in the human rights field for twenty-five years, I am increasingly aware that building the political will to protect the most vulnerable among us requires an active constituency of people who care enough to speak up to those in power. Thank you for raising your voice on behalf of children, women and men who are living in bondage. IJM greatly appreciates your partnership in this work.

Warmly,

Holly J. Burkhalter

Vice President for Government Relations

Continue reading »]]>

free2work

Continue reading »]]> RE:  Human Trafficking during Final Four

Continue reading »]]> This has been an interesting day.  It has been a day of contrasts. A day when saying good bye as part of letting go for simplicity’s sake comes about as new life springs all around me.
The story goes a bit like this.  As I looked in my closet, this afternoon, I spotted, in the corner, my motorcycle riding boots.  They have been sitting there since I returned from the Chains-Breaking-Chains ride to Death Valley last year.  These boots are not meant for walking.  They are meant for motorcycle riding.  At this job they are outstanding.  We have been adventuring together for more that eight years, and boy have they done a great job.  These boots are made for motorcycle riding, and as such they have built in protection on the ankles, the shins and the toes.  They are waterproof, and they are strong.
These boots proved themselves worthy just a few days after I got them.  I was on my way to the Texas Hill Country to do a photo study on the painted churches of Texas when, less than three miles away from my apartment, I got hit from behind by a woman who accelerated while looking to her left.  As I fell down, the landed on my leg, with the engine trapping my foot underneath.  Miraculously my foot was not crushed.  The boots did their job.
In the years that followed we rode thousands of miles together.  I wore these boots when I rode from Denver to Houston, in what was my first long distance motorcycle endeavor.   I also wore these boots when I took my first ride, just a few months after back surgery, and which took me on an exploration of the east and west sides of the Mississippi river, all the way to Memphis.  This was a ride designed to be a living testimony of God’s unending love for all of us, and of His amazing healing power.
A year later, these boots were on my feet while I rode from Houston to Bonneville, in northern Utah, to fulfill the dream of seeing and riding on the Salt Flats, while I was recovering from back surgery.  These boots were also on my feet as I rode to Death Valley last year, as I strove to raise funds to aide victims of modern day slavery, and to raise awareness about this dark crime. In the middle of this trip I started noticing the soles had started separating and I even wondered if they would hold up until I made it home.
In the middle of these big adventures there were lots of shorter trips involved.  Some of these trips were one-day trips, and some of them are were weekend trips.  But regardless of the length of the trips, and the marvels that I witnessed along the way, a common element was the protection I got from flying debris, mega soakers brought about by sudden storms in the middle of the Arizona desert, while riding the windy and icy curves of Wold Creek Pass in Colorado, and day long storms while riding with fellow Christian Bikers.  These boots bear on them a testimony of adventure and trial.  They have done an amazing job, and the once lustrous black surface has long been turned into scuffed and dull leather, with the soles hanging on just by a thread.
So today the time has come to say good bye.  Wonderful memories will remain, as we part ways in an effort not to cling to material things from the past, and in an effort to live a simpler, less cluttered life.  It just so happens too, that this is taking place the day when Sandra and I went out for a walk and I noticed that in our own, very small front yard, the life that comes about with spring starts to make itself manifest with vigor and power.
Just a couple of weeks ago I took the chainsaw to our crepe myrtle, and the oleanders, and did some serious pruning.  When I did the cutting I knew that these resilient trees would come back.  What filled me with surprise today was the fact that the new and tender leaves were not coming out from the strong and thick branches that remained, but rather, from the almost hair like branches that barely seem to cling on the sides.  Life was also making itself manifest in the myriads of yellow aphids that are eagerly sticking their beaks into the tender shoots of the oleander, using the muscles in their mouth parts, not to suck out the juices of the plant, but to regulate the flow of these high pressure, nutritious fluids into their bodies.  Like small, shiny yellow pinheads, these wonderful insects appeared seemingly from nowhere, providing what our former preacher used to call “an ocular demonstration” of the miracle of life.
In the middle of this moment of letting go, and of the welcoming of new life amongst us, I have take the time and pray that, just as life gets renewed in spring, we, as followers of Christ, can make a decision to bring about a renewal for the millions of people that are caught in modern day slavery.  I pray that as we seek to becomes God’s agents of change, we can see that lots can be achieved by doing small things with greatlove, and that we can make a difference in the life and suffering of others.

Continue reading »]]> It is now two am.  I have only been able to sleep for a couple of hours.

Like I said in an earlier post to twitter, I am feeling restless.  The persistent thought that the city of Houston is the number one city in this country when it comes to slave trafficking keeps steeling my sleep.  The orange color of abolition that runs through my veins is boiling.  The thought that things are about to get worst by the beginning of April, with the arrival of the Final Four to this city, increases my shame.  The thought that the media and our city government has not brought this to the public’s attention just totally blows my mind.

The thought that we were all filled with indignation when were were called the ” fattest city in the nation”, but only manage to briefly hold our breath and shake our heads when we find out the one out every five slaves in this country is trafficked through Houston stands like a scream of irrationality and immorality.  The thought that minors are charged with prostitution defies my logic all together.  The thought that we find ‘bad hair days’ more fascinating and important than human lives, more important than broken children’s lives is one that crashes against all that I believe in.

Where is our sense of humanity, city of Houston, when we care more about athletes and sporting events so much that we sweep into the shadows and the darkness the lives of children that get taken at 11 years of age, and broken on an daily basis to satisfy what can not be described without the need to vomit, and without outrage, by anyone with an ounce of decency?  What about the thousands of children and women to whom this will happen over and over again while people scream and high-five because someone just scored two more points?

What do we need to know to raise up as a city and say “We will be known as the City of Freedom” ?

Freedom Rise

Continue reading »]]> The following is the Freedom Prayer, written by Sandra, that was read today at City of Refuge as part of the Freedom Sunday service.

Continue reading »]]>

Today, City of Refuge Church in Houston, along with 2,3oo churches in around the globe participated in the yearly Freedom Sunday Service.  The service is a call for the global Christian community to come together in a call for prayer and action to set the victims of modern day slavery free.

I was honored to be asked to provide a testimony of my travel in the fight against slavery.  This was done in the form of an interview, which Rev. Keith Bower conducted with me during the service.  I am sharing with you the transcript of the interview.  The interview was followed by a prayer written by my wife Sandra, and then by a wonderfully choreographed dance by Sandra,  performed by members of our church to Day of Freedom by Rachael Lampa.  During the dance, the petitions for the captives were read by members of our congregations.

We were blessed this morning, and I pray that we can all turn our words into -action.

——————

Transcript:

Continue reading »]]> For the children that harvest your cocoa
For the slaves the mine minerals for your phone
for the boys made soldiers
for the women that pick your coffee
for the men that tap the rubber for your tires
for the captives making the shoes you wear
for the enslaved families that harvest the fruits on your plate
for the people abused to make the players for your tunes
for girls that weave the rugs under your feet
for the children captured to fulfill men’s darkest sins

Continue reading »]]>

————————————————————————–

This installation was built at Big Bend, on the banks of the Rio Grande rives, in late February of 2010.  It draws inspiration from the work of Andrew Goldsworthy, incorporating orange fabric, as the symbol of the movement to end globals slavery.  Unlike Goldsworhty’s art though, which remains in place at the mercy of the elements, the Ring of Freedom was to remain intact only for as long as I stayed there.  By the end of my stay there, the removal of the orange fabric would partially bring down the Ring.

There was an element of dependency on nature, and its cycles, though.  Creeping shadows were part of the project, and as the photos show, they disappear as the sun sinks behind the cliffs on the west bank of the Rio Grande.

Continue reading »]]> I am taking a break from a number of flows, or lines here.  The final day of my trip still remains to be documented.  The main lessons learned from that trip also await in the digital ink well.  I am not watching my usual movie episode while I eat lunch.  It feels like God is calling again.  I feel like the spiritual phone has rung twice, and things are stirring in my soul again. I imagine myself like Samuel, being called by the Lord, and not answering him, being confused by a perceived source of the call.  Let me try to explain.

Sometime in 2009, I feel like the first call came in.  I was attending a talk by Dale Dawson on his work in Africa through Bridge2Rwanda, and his effort to help rebuild this nation.  At that time, for days, I felt my spirit and energy moved towards trying to figure out how to put my God given talents into service for a project like this.  Over time, though, I let myself be buried by the day to day things of my life.  A small flame, which actually had started burning before that talk, still kept burning.  A flame driven by the thought that our activities and practices, should not be divorced from the notion that in this world, things are more linked together than ever.  A flame fanned by the knowledge that the choices we exercise in consumption, including eating,  our clothes, our tires, and our precious digital gadgetry have a profound impact on the lives of people across the globe.

Yesterday, God hit me over the head with a not so subtle hammer, to make me understand why I had been able to open my eyes that morning.  At 7 pm last night, my team at work recorded and delivered over the web a presentation on human trafficking and slavery, entitled Not For Sale.  The presenter, David Batstone, delivered a powerful and hard-hitting talk about the variety of aspects of our lives that invisibly, for us, are touched by slavery.  He covered sex trade practices here and abroad, tires, chocolate, and cell phones, to name just a few.  David is more than an academician.  He is a creative thinker and writer that does not allow himself to be distracted by the enormity of the task at hand.  Like writing a book, in which the author plows through page by page, he moves forward in his humanitarian and faith-driven mission to end exploitation of people.  Through the Not For Sale campaign,  he offers a wealth of information, and a starting point for creative initiatives, for each of us to be driven to become part of the solution, and leverage, to end slavery.

As a Christian, I have come to believe that the true church lives outside the walls of the buildings where we congregate on Sundays to praise our Lord.  It is what we do outside, in our day to day lives that really will bring about the Kingdom of God, and glory to His Name.  So the challenge for us, believers and non-believers, is right in from of us.  The history of our faith is high lighted by the delivery of the Jewish people from the bondage of Egypt, symbolized by one of the most monumental visions, the parting of a sea, to see them through to freedom, and to drown the forces of their oppression.  In a more significant gesture though, God sent His only Son to  live on this earth, and suffer and die, in indescribable pain, to free us from the slavery of sin.  How are we, who are indebted to God into eternity, dealing with, or ignoring, slavery in this world that we have been entrusted with?

How can I use my talents, and passions in life to help in this campaign for freedom?  What are first steps in hearing this call?  My mind has been in a slow boil since last night.  For me it will start with a few things. Firstly, I will continue, my practices around coffee.  Starting last year, I have only bought Fair Trade coffee.  Further, I stay away from convenience, and do not prepare coffee with the now infamous ‘Coffee Pods’, such as the ones sold by Keurig, as they only occasionally use fair trade coffee, and produce literally mountains of unrecyclable plastic pods.  On a side note, it is ironic that one of the pod providers is Green Mountain Coffee.

Next on my list is tires.  A little known fact to the non-biker community is that motorcycles go through tires a lot more quickly than cars.  This is due to the physics of motorcycling, and how the shape and composition of tires us an essential, and critical component of steering.  I will be careful in my selection of tires for my car, and motorcycle (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1208-07.htm).

Other areas in simmer?  I have been dreaming for about two years of setting up a benefit that is directly driven by my passion for long distance motorcycle travel.  Like march of dimes, I have envisioned a benefit where contributors pledge a certain amount per mile ridden on certain events.  As I write believe I will call it Miles to Break Chains.  Will you join?