Our week with Hannah Newlin

Wow!!! I have to say that God really used Hannah to open my eyes to many things in society that i didn't know existed until recently!

First of all, Hannah is such an amazing young woman! She is fun, compassionate, and loves God! She also has a sweet Texan accent! I think she really conected with most of us here at Cross Current because this morning after class we were all like "Hannah don't leave us! u have to come back and teach us for another week!" She said she would if she could but didn't think her boss would let her! but i guess it is the thought that counts! She is also super flexible and easy going when it comes to scheduling cuz some of the stuff that was supposed to happen didn't actually happen due to difficulties.

Anyways, God used Hannah to help me realize all the needy people around me this week! One of the things we talked about this week was human traffiking. To be honest, untill i watched the movie "Taken" i had never known this was happening around me all over the world! It got me thinking and on Monday we watched a movie called "Trade" which was kind of like "Taken" except from the girls point of view instead of the parent's point of view! On Tuesday we watched a documentary on Human traffiking in India with actual footage from the "Red light District" (the name for the prostitution areas). After this I was thinking,"Wow, this could be me!" I was also thinking about how i could help all of these girls because 73.7% of the girls need to be rescued if they are ever going to get away from that life! It just makes me so mad that the government officials know exactly where everything is in this industry but do absolutely nothing to stop the people in charge!

On Wednesday, we talked about prison. I don't know anybody that has ever been to jail so i have never given it any thought before. Prison is hard! Sometimes the guards will beat a prisoner till they die! I just don't understand how they can get away with that and why the government is ok with that! I feel like going to the government or the jail guards and saying,"Hello! Prisoners are people too just like everyone else in this world!" I wish there was no need for prisons/jails!

Yesterday we went into Winnipeg and did two things. First we went to Portage Place to look for homeless people to talk to and give things to if they would accept our gifts! Up until 2 years ago at a youth retreat i had never seen a homeless person up close so i really had no idea what to look for! It was hard because of this and i didn't want to stereotype anybody into being homeless when really they just didn't care about how they looked! I think that maybe if we would be more involved with the street ministry we would've had more luck finding people to talk to yesterday! I hope we can volunteer at UGM or Siloam Mission sometime soon because I really want to learn more about homelessness! The second thing we did was go the head office of Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS). I am familiar with their work because there are men from my Church who have worked with MDS before but i didn't know what exactly they did. I learned that they are still working in communities in the southern states that were devastated by huricanne Katrina! That was 5 years ago when that hit! I also learned that MDS only works in Canada and the United States! The two ladies that talked to us yesterday both had worked for MDS for about 3.5 years now but i think i would've gotten more out of the presentation if they would've been more passionate about their work!

All in all, i learned a lot this week about the needs of people around me and that it is better to help sooner rather than later! I also had a lot of fun! I feel the need to help but i don't know how!