God is the Potter, We Are the Clay

These last few days have been intense. I met a lot of different people
and everyone has finally arrived at The House. Work at the Love
Kitchen is getting more exciting. I am learning more about the history
of the Love Kitchen. It's been around for 22 years. It was even more
exciting when it was first established and by exciting I mean it was
dangerous. Fights would erupt, drug deals were attempted, etc.
Fortunately, God is good. God kept The Love Kitchen strong and helped
it grow. God also brought many of the people who came to the Love
Kitchen back to Him.
After learning about the history of the Love Kitchen I was reminded of
the story of King Manasseh in 2 Chronicles 33:1-20 that was shared
with us by All Angels' Church last weekend. In the passage, Manasseh
was a king who turned away from God and did many evil deeds, such as
worshiping idols and offering human sacrifices to them. God tried to
bring Manasseh back to his sense but Manasseh was stubborn. As a
result, God sent an army from Assyria to Manasseh's kingdom. He was
captured and made a prisoner. During his time as a prisoner, Manasseh
turned back to God and repented for his sins. God reestablished
Manasseh as king of Judah and made even greater than before. Manasseh
did many great deeds and sensed God for the rest of His life.
To me, this passage showed just how much God loves us and to what
great lengths He would take in order to save us from our sins. The
period of time of trouble may be at times dreadful and very painful
for us, both physically and spiritually. But the end result of what
God creates out of our mess-ups is even better than what we could ever
imagine.
As Eddie, the chef of the Love Kitchen told me, "God is the potter and
we are the clay". Before being molded, the clay (us) needs to be
splattered, hard, onto the clay molding wheel. That big splat can be
painful but the form that is molded out of the clay is priceless. Many
of the people who have come to the Love Kitchen over these 22 years
have been "splatted" in many different ways, but they have become
beautiful treasures.

- Winston Tse

"Not Just a Rub-n-Tug" - Letter to Time Out New York

"Not Just a Rub-n-Tug" - Letter to Time Out NY

Time Out New York recently published an article in their Sex & Dating column titled, "Best Happy Ending Parlors in New York City". Upon clicking the link, the reader is met with "your spa visit will end with a smile when you visit the best rub-n-tug joints"; and goes on to list the top 5 places in Manhattan to receive sex for money. Essentially, advertising the top five brothels in Manhattan with recommended "tips" for how to act as well as how much to pay.

Based on the latest UN Trafficking in Persons report it is a high probability that the women in these "establishments" are victims of sex trafficking and/or debt bondage - two forms of modern-day slavery. Human Trafficking is now the leading illegal enterprise in the world today -surpassing drugs and weapons as a woman can be bought and sold several times over sometimes servicing more than 20 men a day. It is estimated that more than 15000 trafficked persons pass through NYC alone each year.

That being said, here is the Editor's Note:
Paying for sex is illegal in New York City, so use the information below at your own risk; Time Out New York is not responsible for your safety. At each location, your mileage may vary, depending on your masseuse, your look and your behavior. The services described below are not explicitly offered at the spas, which describe themselves as legitimate massage parlors. A decent tip is usually $40. The following five have been in operation for at least two years running.

No, Time Out New York is not responsible for your safety, nor are they responsible for the well-being of men and women that were born into poverty, manipulated, and brought to another country under the guise of finding a better life.

Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adults is wrong and one of the most popular publications in New York City only took the time to research what's written below:

West Garden Spa
243 W 30th St between Seventh and Eighth Aves (212-244-7711, westgardenspa.com)
Cost: $100 plus tip

"...you get a table wash (often by a petite Latina woman) and are directed (by an Asian woman of the spa’s choice) into a labyrinth of private white rooms, with Lite FM music piped in. After a decent massage (“Hard or soft?”), she’ll jerk you off."


My Heavenly Hands
Locations vary (646-460-0566, myheavenlyhands.com)
Cost: $130 for 30 minutes; $200 for an hour, plus tip

"...this service, run by self-proclaimed college girls (but who knows), employs Hispanic and black women, a nice alternative to the usual Asian fare."

22 West Spa
22 W 38th St between Fifth and Sixth Aves, first floor (212-997-2228)
Cost: $60 for 30 minutes; $80 for an hour, plus tip

"We’ve heard of people going in for a quick happy ending and getting a blow job (without a condom), a make-out session (while being tugged) or full-on sex. Our reporter never went that far, but he did enjoy what his health teacher once called “mutual masturbation” while a breast was in his mouth"

New York Health Spa
5 W 37th St between Fifth and Sixth Aves (212-575-5600)
Cost: $80 plus tip

Miga Spa
238 W 78th St between Amsterdam Ave and Broadway (212-501-7750)
Cost: $70 plus tip

They did not however take the time to ponder the possibility that they may be willing participants in sex-trafficking and investing in the rape and molestation of women and boys taken and held against their will.

I cringe when I think that business is booming for the pimps and traffickers as they reap the benefits of Time Out's readership. It bothers me that the eyes that usually comb the back pages of the New York Post or adult services on Craigslist can now click to a well-known publication and find exactly what they're looking for.

I can only hope that modern-day abolitionists are reading too, so that we know where to go as well.

Operation Exodus vs. Merrill Lynch

Well, I’m writing this because apparently Jonathan and others want to hear about it, but I’m thinking to myself “What should I say?” It’s not that words or images aren’t coming to my mind and I have writer’s block or whatever, but really it’s quite the opposite. There’s simply too much to talk about and writing the experience in attending these two internships in one week (which I've only done once so far btw) in less than the length of a book is difficult, but I’ll try :). This is a compilation of a week's worth of thinking and typing, so hopefully this will be enjoyable for you to read, hah.

Comparing Exodus to ML is like comparing black to white, but not really. On one side, I’m dealing with young professionals and interns who are all relatively well-educated and who all come from middle-class+ families. On another side, I’m dealing with under served children who perform 2-3 grade levels below national standards and who come from below poverty level families. However, whichever side I’m on, I find myself surrounded by people who do not know God – people who, regardless of their wealth, education, family backgrounds, societal status, etc. through the eyes of Jesus deserve the grace and mercy of God just as much as any of us believers do.

At Operation Exodus, God’s work is in the process all the time. The kids (though they themselves may not realize it) experience injustice in many forms. They’re growing up in an environment both at home and at school that I think many of us aren’t familiar with. I mean, just as an example, youth teams from churches come to this specific program to "help" these kids. Imagine if that had happened to you when you were in elementary or middle school. What would you feel like or what would be running through your mind when you see volunteers come and go every week of the summer? Also, what kind of "help" do these children need? Many of these children don’t even speak English at home, so this is one of many disadvantages for them to overcome at school. Many of these children live in poor families, so they don’t have the resources to expand their knowledge and most likely don't have a chance to move above the poverty level. Many of these children aren’t pushed or challenged by their teachers or mentors to step outside of the box, so they will most likely stay in the Heights for the rest of their lives and have kids that will probably go through the same cycle. Ultimately, I believe these kids need an enormous amount of help in terms of worldly standards, but I also believe Christ is the biggest help these children can receive. Hopefully what we, the staff members and the volunteers, are doing is helping these children see the door to a Savior, a Healer. Hopefully when I'm there, God is using me to be a light even though I'm a chinese guy awkwardly placed in a latino-dominated classroom. I can only pray that God does His thing.

At ML, I work with full-timers and other interns who all come from middle class families or above. For those of you who have/are working in a professional corporate setting, surely you can agree with me that most of these people are relatively smart and knowledgeable and have ambitions that are relatively limited to only the privileged. For the most part, they've all been well-educated growing up and have attended decent to well-known universities. Each of them has a chance to make six digits easily and can achieve worldly success in the eyes of their peers. However, can money and worldly success give enough meaning to life and grant happiness to all of those who have it? I honestly believe sooner or later, these individuals will start to wonder if there's more to life than just success. The only reason I say this is because I've seen it, I've experienced that sense of feeling coming from them. I'd like to believe they're smart individuals who can think for themselves about issues such as gay rights, politics or religion. For example, most of my team asks me "how was your weekend" or "how is your week so far" and I tell them the truth - I've been working with under served children or with homeless people and living the Heights. Most of their responses were: "You mean Washington Heights? Isn't that a not-so-great neighborhood??" and I'm like "yep..." and I explain what I'm doing and every single one of them responded positively or even commended me. The question I ask when I'm at ML is what can I do to serve and witness to them when I'm only a summer intern? Just as with the Exodus children, I hope that I can help these individuals see the door to the God of this universe and I can only pray that God does His thing here too.

To me, comparing Exodus to ML is like comparing black and white in terms of worldly standards, but in terms of God's standards they're both places filled with people who do not know Christ. Despite what some of you may think, the young professionals I encounter actually have morals. I think there’s a common misconception that all the people working in banks or financial services industries are working for their personal wealth and ambition and worldly success. No. I think that statement can be true in various degrees for many of the individuals, but to generalize and say that all of them, for example, don’t even care about social welfare or the poor is ridiculous. Many of them have families. Would it be unfair to say they’re working for the money in order to allow their families to live comfortably? Is that bad morals? My boss hosts a golf tournament every year where all proceeds and donations go to cancer research. Does that surprise you? I think they’re just like the children at Exodus in the sense that they need direction - a direction that points towards God.

Whether if I look to my left and see under served children or look to my right and see financially strong intellectuals, I'm only trying to look towards the third way, the middle way - the way Christ would view both of these societal groups (which is not children who need tons of help or superior intellectuals who have it all). Because the fact of the matter is, both of these groups of people can still feel satisfied and content with their lifestyle even if we (believers) don't think they would simply because they don't know Christ or because we see them drop out of school. This is one characteristic that they both share. And another shared characteristic is that whether you're a businessman in a suit or some no-name at the very bottom of society, Christ views you as a sheep that needs to be shepherd towards His right hand side. My opportunity in being able to intern at both of these places has given me the experience and the sight of what one of the realities of this city is really like, and what God's kingdom on earth can look like.

Empowering Women

On Saturday Briana and I went to a volunteer training session with an organization that works with RestoreNYC, a non-profit that helps rehabilitate former sex trafficked victims. The partnering organization assists women who are domestic abuse victims, providing services such as finding housing to connecting women with legal counsel.

Briana and I were surprised to learn that as volunteers, much of our training taught us not what to do but also what not to do. A lot of what we learned was how to establish healthy boundaries.

Domestic violence can take many forms but it stems from control and power. An abuser exerts power over their partner through controlling their finances, emotional manipulation, or physical assault.

Although I walked out of the training session feeling restricted in how I can interact with clients from the shelter, I realized later the center allows the women to reclaim empowerment by making their own decisions according to their own timeline within a safe environment. It was humbling to learn how best to love these women and children by respecting their decisions and looking after their safety.

Utilizing Globalization for Humanity

During the first week of NYCUP, my fellow Nomi Nomad, Lucy, and I focused much of our energies on writing a 24-page paper for our internship at Nomi Network. Because Nomi Network is a start-up non-profit that is still in search of a permanent location (hence the coining of our Nomi Nomad identities), much of the writing for the paper took place in Columbia’s Business School and Butler Libraries, various Cosi locations, a Marriott hotel, and wherever else we could snag some free wi-fi in Manhattan. The topic of the paper, which we co-wrote along with Nomi volunteer, Stephen Bauer, and Nomi Executive Director, Alissa Moore, was about technology and its intersections with the trafficking industry as well as the ways in which it has greatly enhanced anti-trafficking efforts. We submitted the final version to the editor of American Behaviorial Scientist, an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal, for their special issue on Media and World Events.

Even though I was writing this paper in the very same environments that I write my other papers for school, the harsh realities of the topic and its implications distinguished the imminence of the subject from all my other graded papers. As I learned and wrote about the extent to which the internet can enable human trafficking, I thought about how much our generation is wired to these rapid technological advances. What may be convenient forms of communication for us could also serve as easy methods to perpetuate the crimes of traffickers. One example we used was that of Craigslist, and how the anonymity and widespread access it offers to its users are often exploited by traffickers who both recruit their victims and advertise their services through the online classifieds website.

While this paper exposed me to these atrocities, it also gave me the opportunity to learn more about the ways in which Nomi is truly riding on the waves of globalization to counter trafficking. Not only does Nomi’s unique business model create economic opportunities for trafficking victims by adding social value to the supply chain of today’s globalized production process, but it is also utilizing technological advances and the internet as a platform on which it can more deeply engage a wide audience. One of Nomi’s primary projects is to connect anti-trafficking NGOs with designers and private factories so that former trafficking victims who have received vocational skills can produce highly-marketable items for consumers in the US. Essentially, Nomi is trying to reshape the supply-side of production while promoting a more conscientious product demand.

As a Political Economy major at Barnard, it was really amazing to be able to apply what I’ve learned from my studies to really understand the sex trafficking industry as a form of organized crime largely driven by economics. My background in economics has also made me really appreciate the opportunity that I have this summer to learn from an organization that is on the cusp of all the changes in today’s global economy. After so many years of theoretical learning, it is so great to finally put both my knowledge and passion into practice.

--Hei-Yue

"From Darkness to Light" - www.slaverymap.org

"Slavery thrives in the shadows. An estimated 27 million live in bondage today – yet we know about the plight of so few of them. The battle to end slavery begins by revealing it.

Slave labor is alive and well but it's hard for us to believe it's in our own backyards, next door, or a couple floors up. This tool will help us to shed light on cases that are happening in our neighborhoods so that we can begin to grasp the scope of this rising issue and serve as fuel for change in legislation, social consciousness and grow our effectiveness to combat this growing problem.

Slavery Map was born out of University of San Francisco Professor David Batstone's Not For Sale Campaign, which began when the death of Seetha Vemireddy, a 17 year-old bonded slave at the Pasand restaurant in Berkeley, CA, came to Batstone's attention. By learning to recognize forced labor and report it, you can help people like Seetha gain their freedom. Slavery Map was created for this purpose."

- David Batstone, "Not For Sale"

Modern slavery is one of the many social justice issues studied by the interns involved with the New York City Urban Project. In order for people to join in the fight against injustice, people have to know what they are up against. Slavery Map allows modern day abolitionists to alert the ears of mainstream society to the cries of the oppressed. It provides a way for the public to gauge the sheer magnitude of this evil that plagues the city and the world. The Map is covered with yellow flags, each one signifying an instance of human trafficking that has been reported to law enforcement. The already overwhelming image of New York City peppered with yellow flags intensifies when the number of incidents that remain unreported or undiscovered are taken into consideration. Slavery Map renders impossible the excuse of ignorance, transforming the way people see their neighborhood. This crucial tool powerfully educates the viewers about both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of human trafficking around the world.

"A Costco in the South Bronx"

Walking through the World Vision Storehouse was like shopping at Costco. The warehouse is an amazing collection of gifts-in-kind, mostly essentials (and hundreds of WWE belt buckles and other paraphernalia) for community groups, schools, and churches. I'm pretty sure my heart skipped a beat when Sal (who's in charge of the warehouse, I believe) told us we could help assemble furniture. I LOVE assembling furniture, so needless to say, I was uber excited. At home, I used to assemble all the desks, bookshelves, cabinets, and other storage units my family bought. At school, I only had the luxury of putting together a shoe rack, because my dorm room was already furnished. Even though I had to leave early and did not get to see the final product, I had a lot of fun with Hei-Yue and Winston putting together a cabinet. It also made me really happy to see volunteers from another church there as well, also assembling furniture. I think that the furniture and everything else in the Storehouse's inventory (OK, maybe not the belt buckles) can dramatically impact people's lives. Even though I only stayed there an hour, it was definitely worth it.