Faces and Names
When we talk about sex trafficking, it is easy to reduce the victims to a number or a statistic.
Average age of a trafficking victim: 13 years old.
Average amount of time a woman survives sex trafficking: 7.
Number of girls and women in the sex industry in the United States: 2.3 million
Numbers numb me. Especially when those numbers are so staggering. And those numbers make me feel detached, distant, helpless.
It wasn’t until I saw the faces of trafficking victims that I realized how very real, and very damaging “the life” is. And when I read their names, I remembered that they are individuals. That they had someone who gave them a name and had hopes for them.
When I wrote Paint Chips, I wanted to convey the victims and survivors as flesh and bone, made in the image of God people. People with dreams and plans. Joy and pain.
As I wrote, I often looked at the faces of woman who walked the “track”. The Salvation Army’s Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking has made available the mug shots of woman, arrested for prostitution. From several different arrests (and in chronological order), the pictures are heartbreaking. This is, clearly, not a good life. It’s a difficult one. A soul strangling life.
It is clear from the gaze in their eyes.
Please take a moment. Look into the faces of these women.
You will see women who need redemption, mercy, and freedom.
Click HERE to view the faces and to read the names.
Sell, Sell, Sell
I have a confession to make.
There is one thing about being an author that I’m not in love with.
In fact, I fear it. I tremble at the thought of having to do it.
It…is…
Selling.
Now, I’ve been in sales before. At one point, I sold candles. Yeah. I didn’t do very well with that one. But I was mildly successful when selling for Better Way Imports. I sold LOTS of great things then. The thing was, it wasn’t my work I was selling. It was the work of gorgeous-hearted survivors of human trafficking. Seriously, that kind of thing is easy to sell.
But this. This is different. I’m selling my words. Something I worked on for a very long time. I’m selling a piece of who I am.
It feels self-serving. Ego-centric. Bragadocious.
*According to the Urban Dictionary, bragadocious is “The art of bragging”.
It’s like, every single day lately, I’m saying,
“Hey, I wrote a book. It got published by, like, a real publisher and stuff. I think it’s pretty good. You’ll think it’s awesome, too. So. Like. Buy it. Read it. Tell every single person you’ve ever met to do the same. Right now. Do it.”
It feels so wrong.
People have called me famous. It’s flattering. It makes me giggle a little. If I’m not careful, it gets to my head.
I need to remind myself of one thing…
I don’t want to be famous because of anything I write. I want God to be famous because of it.
And, if I really think about it the right way, I’m not selling my work. I’m selling that which God has gifted me to do. I’m selling the words He allowed me to write for His glory.
And, when I think about it that way, I’m a little more okay with it.
In My Own City
The other day someone asked, “So, why did you write a novel about Human Trafficking?”
I paused before I answered. I guess because I didn’t intend for Paint Chips to be about human trafficking. Or because it’s such a difficult topic.
That is a question I’ve been contemplating all weekend. I decided to share a story with you. A real story. Something that I saw while I was in the middle of writing the novel.
***
At the time, I worked as a Freedom Fighter for Better Way Imports. Really, it was a direct marketing gig. But I had the honor of selling items made by women who had been rescued from the brothels and red light areas of countries such as India, Cambodia, and Thailand. I’d speak about the evils of sex trafficking in those other lands. Then, the guests would purchase items, the money from the sales enabling those rescued women to have a job.
It was a pretty awesome job.
One night, I had one of my events all the way on the north side of Grand Rapids. I remember that the night was so cold that it hurt. After the event, I took a sip from my insulated mug of coffee that had been in my van. The cream in the coffee had turned to ice. That cold.
Along the way home, I got a bit lost. I couldn’t seem to find the entrance for the high way, so I took Division. I knew that road would lead me home.
Division has a bad reputation. It probably has deserved it over the years. It can be a pretty tough street. Especially at night. My clock told me that it was after 11 at night. So, I double and triple checked my door locks.
As I drove along, I noticed that not many people were out. Pretty much just me and the occasional police squad car.
But then, ahead of me, I saw something moving. Like something moved back and forth off to the side. As I got closer, I realized that it was a bag or purse that someone was swinging. That someone was standing on the corner.
“It is too cold to be out like that,” I thought.
Then, I realized that it was a woman. A girl. And the way she looked into my van, I knew that she was looking for a “date”. She looked right at me, then turned her head when she realized that I was a woman.
But, in that flash of eye contact, I realized that she was far too young. More girl than woman. I knew the statistics. That, even in my own city, the average age of a prostituted person was 14 years old.
The average.
That doesn’t mean that younger girls aren’t out there.
And I knew that the youngest of them don’t walk the “track”.
But this girl sure looked young.
And I couldn’t help her. To stop and pick her up could have put both of us in danger. I had no idea where I would have taken her. What I would have said.
Half an hour before, I had advocated for women around the world. Thousands of miles away. I’d actually helped them.
But, in that moment, driving past that girl, I was powerless.
I cannot tell you the gut clench I get even remembering the hard look in her eyes. And that I was powerless to do anything.
What I can do is write. To be a voice for that girl. To tell a story that might be at least a little similar to hers. So that people won’t just drive by, thinking that she’s dirty. Or that she’s a sinner. Or that she chose that life.
No one chooses that life.
At least no one I’ve met who has walked that track.
I didn’t want to write a novel about Human Trafficking.
I wanted to write a novel about a couple of survivors. Survivors who never stopped being human, even as slaves. Survivors who were deeply and wonderfully loved by their God.
Just like we’re loved by Him.
Because I hope…really hope…that the girl I saw on the below freezing night has become a survivor. That somehow she has felt the love of her Father.
And that she is safe. And free.
Sign Me UP!
The last week and a half has been INSANELY surreal. Three book signings/parties will do that to a girl.
Salman Rushdie story HERE
After the Baker Book Signing, I had a more relaxed release party in Middleville, Michigan.
Then, a release party at Great Lakes Christian College. Ryan Apple and I teamed up. He signed his CD’s, I signed a few books.
Needless to say (but I’m going to say it anyway), it has been an exhilarating, amazing, terrifying few weeks. And there is even more to come!
Sorry that I don’t have a video for you this week. I sound like a frog and look like Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer. Not really all that attractive.
We’ll save a video for when I sound like a canary and look like, well, me.
Let It Go
If you haven’t yet, make sure you check out the contest! Details HERE!
I’ve had a headache for as long as I remember. Seriously. A throbbing, annoying, sometimes agonizing headache.
I learned to live with it. Took LOTS of ibuprofen. Talked to doctors. Ignored it.
A few weeks ago, I did a little research online. Don’t worry, I stayed away from WebMD. It’s a great service unless you’re completely neurotic like I am. If you’re like me, you find out on that site that you are surely dying. That you need to say your final goodbyes, get the will in order, and try to find a purple casket (hm. I wonder if they have purple caskets? Quick Google search says…YES).
Okay. Back on topic. I looked up my symptoms. Headache. Icky tummy (you don’t need details). Eczema. All arrows pointed to gluten as the problem. So I quit. I let it go. Cut it out.
And, you know what? The second day, I didn’t have a headache. Not even a tiny one. And my tummy felt fine. And by the fourth day, the eczema started to clear up a little. I am not kidding you.
Someone was talking about numbers the other day…and I UNDERSTOOD what she was saying. My brain is so much clearer.
I just had to let go of about 50% of the food I normally eat. Guess what. It’s worth it!
In my writing life, I’ve found that, at times, I have to let some things go in order to have a good story. (Good transition, huh? Don’t judge me…I have a sinus infection).
Monday, on Novel Matters, Patti Hill wrote about deleted scenes in books. How letting go of certain bits of writing can be beneficial.
I have a few characters that I need to push out of the book. A few scenes that need tightening. I need to let it go.
I want to have a clear book. One that isn’t muddied up by things that I actually like. Because those things (especially certain characters) only serve to complicate my plot.
It’s the same for most things in life. Getting rid of clutter makes life easier. Clearing up a calendar can serve to rid us of stress.
Sometimes letting go is just so soothing.
How about you? What have you let go recently? Has it made life easier or harder? Is there something you need to let go of?
Changing Things Up…And Making Them Fun
Friends of mine,
I had every intention of recording this for your viewing pleasure. However, that pleasure would have been horror if you heard my husky man voice. No. I’m not turning into a Sasquatch. It’s just some sinus/sore throat/upper respiratory thing. Ugh. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
That’s the changing things up (because I’m writing this, not speaking it).
Here’s the Making Them Fun…
Here in Michigan, we have a coffee shop called “Biggby“. They have some of the most loyal customers. I mean it. These people are die-hard. Anyway. The customers take a signature Biggby cup with them, taking pictures of it all over the place. Then, Biggby uses those pictures to make a collage.
I’m totally taking that idea and running with it.
That’s where you come in.
I’m going to have a photo contest! Here’s how it will work…
1. Take pictures of your copy of Paint Chips (you can even do this with the copy on your digital device) in fun, interesting places. (TIP: Make sure you don’t just get the cover in the photo…I’d love to see WHERE the photo is being taken. Even better if YOU get into the picture). The more creative, the better!
2. Upload that picture to Facebook and TAG ME! It won’t be an official entry until you tag me. 🙂
3. Share it on Twitter, Pinterest, Etc for extra love.
4. Also share the link to the Amazon or Barnes and Noble site where the book can be purchased.
5. Only one entry per person, please. So make sure to enter your favorite one!
6. Just know that tagging me in the picture is your way of giving me permission to use your photo on this blog and for promo materials. Tagging me means you aren’t going to sue me. 🙂
7. On May 10, I will post all the pictures on this blog and we’ll vote on the best ones (in a few different categories: Giggles, Striking, Crazy Creative, and Best Over All).
8. Voting will remain open all weekend and winners will be announced Monday, May 13.
9. Best Over All wins a $15 gift certificate to Better Way Imports and a signed, paperback copy of Paint Chips to keep or give away. Winners in the other 3 categories will win a $5 gift certificate to Better Way Imports and a digital copy of Paint Chips to keep or give away!
NOTE: Gift certificates orders must be placed with Kathi Hanson (Freedom Fighter working with Better Way Imports). I promise you, she is awesome. It’s a well documented fact. She is fabulous. Truth. I will link you up with Kathi when the winners are announced. You’ll love her.
Okey Dokey. Time for Fun!
Ready. Set. GOOOOOOO!
Up and Down. Down and Up.
The past week has been a roller coaster. The kind that is part thrill, part terror. Excitement mixed with anxiety with a chaser of joy added to grief.
Book signing and friends coming to visit and encouragement.
Bombs and floods and explosions and bad news about a friend.
And writing a second novel that is using up all my emotional strength. And a novel that I’m falling in love with as I write it. More for the characters than anything. And knowing the pain they have to endure. Because we all live through pain. Don’t we?
We all have to learn how to navigate the
Up and Down. Down and Up.
But, in the Down, it’s so hard to trust.
And, this week, I’ve had to do more trusting than I like to do.
So, right now, I’m choosing to trust God in one thing at a time.
It’s what I can do.
Today, I’m trusting Him to hold me together. And to show me mercy. Which He’s already done today.
I’ll trust Him as I go
Up and Down.
Down and Up.
(many thanks to Jeff Manion for his sermon on trust this weekend. Little did I know how much I would need that message this week)
Alone – A story inspired by Trevor O’Brien
Trevor O’Brien was the most talented poet I’ve ever known. His words were his breath and his blood. They were him. He was them. As most poets do, he struggled. Wondered. Doubted. Suffered. And, like most poets, he never realized how really valuable he was. I wish I hadn’t gotten that phone call from a friend who saw the news. I wish that the news didn’t have to report on anything about Trevor. Unless, of course he had been named poet laureate. Instead, many people who found value in Trevor are devastated. Including me.
A few years ago, Trevor gave me the idea for this story. I think a lot of people feel this way tonight.
I am grieving tonight. Because an artist poet is gone.
Character: Elizaveta is a 74 year old, impoverished Russian immigrant. She has live in the United States for the past 35 years.
Conflict: Her husband on 50 years has just passed away. She is returning home after the funeral, feeling very alone.
They’d never had children. Elizaveta and Lev. Lev had always said it was better. When they moved away from Russia, he said it was better to travel without children. When they opened the bakery, he said it was easier to run a business without children. When they sold the bakery after 30 years in business, he said they avoided battles over the money that they would have had with children.
“Life is easier without children,” he said so many times.
But as she unlocked their small apartment and pushed open the door, she wondered if he’d been right. She was alone. No one to comfort her. No one to help her. She’d felt alone for most of her life. No family in America. Friends had been near impossible to come by. But at least she’d had Lev.
Elizaveta put her purse on the old rocking chair. Lev had found it so many years ago in a dumpster.
“It’s perfectly fine,” he’d said. “It just needs a little wood glue. Good as new.”
He’d never been able to fix the creaking as it rocked.
She went into the kitchen. The dishes from three days ago were still in the sink. Lev’s plate with toast crumbs and his tea cup with a bag still sticking to the side. She couldn’t bring herself to wash them. Or to throw out the tea bag.
He’d sat at the table that morning. Three days before. Biting into his dry toast, sipping his tea he’d laughed loudly while reading the comics from the newspaper.
“Veta,” he’d said. “Come look at this. Come look. So funny.”
“No, Lev,” she’d answered. “You know I don’t like those fool papers. They are never funny to me.”
“Oh, but this cat is so funny.” He’d laughed. “He loves his lasagna.”
The newspaper was still on the table. The comics section folded and crinkled from his hands.
The telephone rang. Elizaveta jumped. The apartment had been so quiet since Lev…
It had been so quiet for the past few days. She went to the telephone that sat on the kitchen counter.
“Hello?” she answered. “This is Elizaveta…no…I am not interested.”
She hung up. Sales calls. Always a sales call. Never a family member wishing condolences. Never a former customer asking to bring a meal.
All alone. The apartment had been cold without Lev. Quiet. He’d fallen down right there. By the door to the bedroom. His heart had given out.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor at the hospital had said. “We couldn’t bring him back.”
“He’s?” she’d said, voice quivering.
“I’m sorry.” The doctor had put his hand on her shoulder. “He’s gone.”
“Gone?” she’d repeated.
“Is there anyone I can call for you? Anyone to come give you a ride?”
“No.” She gathered her purse. “I’ll take a taxi.”
“Please. Let me find someone to drive you.”
“I can manage.”
The next day she made arrangements at the funeral home. Lev had wanted to be cremated. She’d asked the funeral director to find someone who could say a short prayer. Only a few people would come to the memorial. Perhaps no one but her. She didn’t know. But she hadn’t wanted a luncheon afterward.
It had been a quiet funeral. And brief. A man’s whole life memorialized in less than ten minutes.
“When I die,” Lev had said. “I want you to take my ashes home.”
“I couldn’t have your ashes sitting on the kitchen table,” she’d said to him. “It isn’t clean.”
“No. I want you to take them back to Russia. Go to the grave yard and put me in a whole next to my brother’s headstone.”
“That’s insane, Lev.”
“Yes. It is.”
Elizaveta sat, rocking in the chair, letting it creak and thinking of how she would get Lev home.
—
“How does one sell everything?” Elizaveta asked her land lord the day after the funeral.
“You want to sell everything?” he’d asked.
“I do. Except for my clothing.”
“Why do you want to sell it?” The land lord looked at her sideways. “Are you and Lev having a hard time making the rent.”
“Lev is dead,” she said. “I have to go to Russia.”
“So, does that mean you’re moving out?”
“Possibly. But I need to have some money first.” She looked at the man. “Would you like to purchase my furniture? Rent the apartment as a furnished room?”
“I don’t know.”
“You could charge more in rent.” She smoothed her blouse. “You could make more on other tenants. We haven’t had our rent increased in over twenty years.”
“How much do you want for the furniture?”
—
After selling her furniture to the land lord and her jewelry and silverware to a pawn shop, Elizaveta had enough money for a plane ticket to Russia. She packed one suitcase full of her clothing and her purse with a small bit of Lev’s remains in a package.
A shuttle had just arrived to take her to the airport. She turned and looked at the apartment one last time.
“Lev and I loved living here,” she whispered. “Be a good home for another family.”
She closed the door lightly and gently walked down the steps to the shuttle.
—
The flight had been long. Elizaveta’s body was stiff. She stood in the St. Petersburg airport and drank in her homeland. She hadn’t realized how she’d missed the language, the smells, the way in which her people carried themselves. It had been too long. Thirty-five years.
She knew that she would need to rest before going to the cemetery in the morning. She took a taxi to a motel. She slept for hours.
—
She dreamed of Lev. When they were young. The way he looked deeply into her eyes. Their life together.
“I’ve brought you home,” she woke herself up saying.
—
The morning was cold. The taxi ride took ten minutes.
“Wait here,” she told the driver. “I’ll only be but a few minutes.”
The driver shrugged.
She remembered the grave of Lev’s brother. It wasn’t difficult to find. They’d visited it every Saturday for ten years before they moved to America.
By the weeds that overtook the headstone, Elizaveta wondered if anyone had visited since then. She bent down, trying to tear a few of the leaves away.
“I’m too old for all this,” she muttered.
She slowly lowered herself to kneel by the grave. She took a spoon from her purse and dug a whole in the ground. She pulled the small package of Lev’s remains from her purse. Holding it in her hand, she smiled.
She didn’t say a word. She wondered if she should pray. But knew that her actions were a sort of prayer in themselves. She kissed her fingers and touched the packet. Little pieces of him were in her hand.
Lowering Lev into the small hole, she let out a bit of a whimper.
Getting up after filling in the hole proved to be quite a bit more difficult than she’d expected.
Walking away from the last trace of Lev was quite a bit easier.
Alone, she walked back to the taxi.
FLOOD!
Congratulations to Jamie Young! You won the lovely Paint Chips tote bag! Make sure you email me with your address. Thanks to all of you for pushing Paint Chips on your friends. It’s working! If you want…let them all know that PC is on sale at Barnes & Noble for only $13.08 (online only). It appears that Amazon has a delay in shipping (maybe they sold all their copies?), so we really need to start emptying B&N now!
Last week, my neighborhood flooded. Waist deep in some areas. Chest deep in others.
100 of my neighbors were evacuated. They packed up a few valuables and walked down the side walk and onto school buses that took them to a Red Cross shelter.
50 of my neighbors had to get boat rides out of their homes.
1 family, a street over, had their basement wall cave in.
A whole bunch of people are drying out their basements. Trying to recover what they can.
My house is completely dry. 100 yards down the street both ways, massive puddles turned into destructive flooding.
But we were okay.
The police set up check points to restrict traffic on our road and to prevent looters.
My family had offers from several friends to let us stay in their homes, to help with any flood clean up we might need, the use of a super awesome generator (so our milk wouldn’t spoil), a coffee for me and hot cocoa for the kiddos when it got cold.
I don’t mind telling you that having people who want to take care of us and help us makes this girl feel very loved.
Stay tuned. Wednesday, I’ll announce another really fun contest. Oh…and watch for pictures from my very first ever book signing!
susiefinkbeiner.com 