On the 15th of September I embarked on a journey of opportunity I have
only dreamed of. I will live in Freetown, Sierra Leone, as a field reporter for
World Hope International, documenting the stories of human trafficking survivors. These voices will be powerful tools for education, advocacy and government relations in the global community.

I have always loved to travel. To meet people
and experience cultures
so different from my own. The thrill of exploring
new places, learning
new customs, loving new people has compelled
me to travel with the intention of soaking up
all that I can from the new place I am discovering. This conviction and God's blessing has provided me the opportunity to travel quite extensively in my 23 years, throughout Central America, across parts of Europe, to the villages of Kenya and up the coast of Australia. The more I travel the better I understand God's heart for His people all throughout the world, and the more I see of how His heart breaks for all those who suffer.

Upon attending Azusa Pacific University my understanding of the God I desire to honor and serve grew immensely. My whole life was changed when I took a class on the books in the Bible, Luke and Acts. In these books, Jesus blatantly reveals his desire for us to love and care for those around us. Caring for the poor is not just something He would like us to do, but actually mandates us to do—not becasue He wants to give us rules and commands to follow but because that is why he created us. To love God and love eachother. It was at this same time that I heard a song by Hillsong called "Hosanna". The song continues to bring me to tears and has become my lifelong prayer. "Heal my heart and make it clean. Open up my eyes to the things unseen. Show me how to love like you, have loved me. Break my heart for what breaks yours. Everything I am for your kingdoms cause. As I go from nothing, to Eternity."

I began to understand that God was calling me to a life of love and service to the poorest—in health, spirit, condition or wealth—among us. Although it would not always make sense within the standards of this world, it would be a life that would be glorifing to God and would bring me the greatest joy and happiness.

Also at APU I discovered the powerful gift of writing that God has given me. I fell in love with journalism and the abilty to unveil realities of this world to people who would otherwise not know or see. Upon doing some research, I discovered that the Rwandan Genocide, during which over 800,000 Rwandans, mostly of the Tutsi tribe, were brutally murdered in a vicious ethnic cleansing, and took place in three short months in 1994—the same three months of the OJ Simpson trial. In 1994 I was eight-years-old and I remember hearing everyone talking about OJ Simpson . I remember hearing about it on the news, seeing pictures in newspapers. But I remember nothing of an ethnic cleansing that took the lives of 800,000 fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, aunts, grandparents, and cousins.

Eight hundred thousand lives. Brutially murdered. Futures and dreams shattered. Families forever torn apart. And the world simply turned away, far to interested in the drama of OJ Simpson to care.

A story is a powerful tool. Numbers can be compelling, but also pushed out of sight and out of mind, our attention changed as easily as the channel on the TV. But a voice, pleading to be heard, is hard to ignore.

I discovered the powerful tool of journalism and the gift of writing that God had given me. I knew that He would use this gift to bring truth to a very blind world. To be a voice for the voiceless, and sight to those who cannot see firsthand. After graduating from APU in May 2008 I moved to Washington, D.C. to intern in the communication department at International Justice Mission. IJM is a non-profit human rights organization that works in 14 field offices throughout the world investigating and proscuting extreme human rights violations and ensuring aftercare for victims of these abuses. IJM works mostly on cases of human trafficking, slavery, unprosecuting rape and unlawful land seizure. I was faced with the injustices so many face throughout the world, but also the hope of lives restored to the glory God desires for every one of His children.

Through IJM I learned of World Hope International, a faith-based relief and development organzation. World Hope runs the aftercare center in Cambodia where IJM brings girls rescued from prostitution and sex slavery. World Hope works in 25 countries throughout the world with many different programs including anti-trafficking, micro-finance, HIV/AIDS, rural development, education and others. These are both incredibly amazing organizations making significant impacts on people's lives and truly living out the mandate to love and care for those suffering throughout our word.

I am both excited and humbled to be working and growing alongside amazing people within these organziations.

I would love for you to join me on this journey. I could do none of this without all the love, encouragement and support of my dear family and friends. Without parents who taught by example that you can do anything you put your heart and mind to, without friendships that gave me the courage to step out into the unknown to experience God's protection and embrace God's provision, and without the love, grace and redemtion of my Lord Jesus Christ who has given me a hope, a dream and a future—this story would never be written.

Visit my blog for further updates on my time in Sierra Leone and the amazing work of World Hope International and FAAST. The following is an excerpt from my first day in Freetown.

THE ROOSTER IS CROWING and I can hear children playing outside—shouting things I can’t understand. But laughter, the sound of happiness, is universal.

It takes me a moment to realize the white cloud I’m enshroud in is just my mosquito netting. My face is a little damp. My whole body is a little damp. I think dampness must become my friend. Otherwise it will be a constant unwelcome companion—and who wants someone annoying hanging around all the time? The dampness does bring the mosquitoes, which are annoying—which reminds me, doxicyline time. The sooner I take it in the AM on an empty stomach, the sooner I can eat breaky. Sometimes it makes me think my body is fighting the war against the malaria right then and there. But my body will win, the nausea will pass. It’s amazing to me how the one tiny tablet, seemingly insignificant, smaller than a peanut, could protect me from the #1 cause of death in Africa.

And I have it.

I paid fifty cents a day for it. I fundraised and got donations for it. But why me? Why me and not the feverous boy on the streets just on the other side of my compound wall? Why me and not the mother of five who can no longer work because of her aching head, so intense she can no longer stand to fold the laundry. Why me and not the millions more who deserve it just as much? This is the first of many of these questions. Questions that will be strung together like heavy beads on a frail chain. Brilliantly colorful beads that reflect light and create dancing images of different colors flying through the room. Beads that are so old, their origin is unknown. Beads that are sometimes seen as a nuisance because of their heaviness, the weight they carry.

Those that have, those that have not. Those that are healthy, those that are not. Those that are safe, those that are not. Those that yearn for destiny, dreams, futures…and those that yearn for food on the table and can’t see past that which will sustain them one more day. Why me?

As I rose above the clouds of London on my way to Sierra Leone, I realized I was leaving a world of haves, a world I am used to. A world of organization, of order. A world I can understand and predict. A world of $5 coffee, designer jeans, make up, do ups, whatever ups. Street cleaners and park cleaners whose job is to make the trash and themselves invisible. I have left my clean, pristine, organized, routine, complicated life—for one much simpler.

It is now 7:30 am and I hear the world is alive outside, not just the rooster.

I am tired. I don’t even know what time it is at home. But I am excited. To see my new life splashed with daylight, colored in—and maybe not all within the lines. Maybe a little messier than I am used to. The simple beauty of a painting that does not claim perfectionism—but rather realism. Because life here is messy. Life everywhere is messy, but here they don’t try as hard to complicate it by making it look neat and put together. Simple, beautiful, messy, chaos.

But will my heart be content? Will my selfish, egocentric, instant gratification seeking heart be content?

It is 8 am. The NPA just left the country. No, not some political group. Just the National Power Authority, which rations the countries power to different areas at different times everyday without warning. To most in this country, they will barely notice. Simple, beautiful, messy, chaos.

I take off the heavy string of questions that hang inquisitively around my neck.

It is time for a cup of coffee and the beginning of a brand new day, a brand new story.

How You Can Support Me

1. Support me financially

2. Purchase a set of Crissa's Cards

3. Cover me in prayer
• Pray for World Hope's work in Sierra Leone
• Pray for me
» For trust in God to continue to provide for my physical, emotional and spiritual needs
» For an anointing on the words I write, that they would not be my own but the voice of those who need their stories to be told
» For protection, health, safety and strength
» For decrement and direction in where God is leading me

5. Email me (crissa.nelson@gmail.com)