South Asia or bust!

As most of you know, on Friday (Aug. 6), I’m headed out for a two week trip to South Asia to conduct interviews with International Justice Mission (IJM) staff who work with survivors of sex trafficking. I’m conducting these interviews as part of a research project I’m working on with one of my UNC Social Work professors. So you know a bit about what I’ll be up to, I’ve put together some information on International Justice Mission, sex trafficking in general, and the research project I’m working on. I’ll post a little bit each day in the next couple days about what I’ll be doing. And, I’ll post as much as I am able from South Asia, so you can follow what I’m up to.

For today, many of you have asked how you can pray for me while I’m on my trip, so I’ll provide some of those below. I really appreciate the prayer and support from each of you!

• Pray for safe and on-time travel! I’ve got a lot I need to do in a relatively short amount of time, so I would hate to have to reschedule things because of delayed flights.


• Pray that I stay healthy. Again, I really can’t afford to lose any time, so even a day or two of sickness could make it difficult to accomplish everything I need to. Last time I went to South Asia, I was able to avoid the stomach pitfalls of traveling in the developing world, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed I’ll have the same luck this time around.


• Pray that I would be an encouragement to the IJM staff and other aftercare organizations that I come in contact with. They are doing such amazing work, but it is also extremely difficult and heartbreaking. Just pray that my presence with them would be one of joy, and that they would be encouraged by their time with me.


• Pray for the people I interview for my research project to be open to sharing their experiences and thoughts. There is very little that has been published on aftercare for survivors of sex trafficking, and the people I will be speaking to have a goldmine of information that can be extremely helpful in informing programming. Pray that they would continue to be cooperative and open to answering all the questions I have for them.


• Pray for my heart as I confront the difficult issue of sex trafficking. I have been studying the topic, seen horrific things, heard heartbreaking stories, and met incredibly inspiring and strong women and girls who have suffered this type of abuse. Still – confronting evil is always difficult and it can easy to lose sight of God’s promises to rescue and redeem this broken world. Pray that I would be confident in the truth of His promises in the midst of evil and suffering, and that He would bless me with glimpses of His beauty, provision, and strength during my travel and studies.

And, if you want to shoot me an email while I'm traveling, I'll try my best to respond! My email address is curche@hotmail.com.