Thanks to our Detroit Team R4R Runners!

We want to take a minute and acknowledge our Michigan team members who ran in the Detroit Marathon last week.  Here is a great email that they sent to us about the event and their experiences leading up to it.

“Fifteen of us made up three relay teams in the Detroit Marathon last weekend. We had already been running to train for it, but the training took on a new and deeper dimension when we started to focus our efforts towards Running 4 Revolution. Our longest training run was 6 miles, and we spent most of that time praying against injustice and oppression. It changes your perspective when you start out a run and thank God that you’re not trapped inside a brothel. It moves your heart when you run across the top of a dam and pray for rain in Kenya so that their dams start providing enough power for the country again and so that people there can simply eat. It leaves you with a deep sense of satisfaction knowing that you spent that hour on your run praying for the precious orphaned child your friends are adopting, for the HIV+ widows you met in an African slum, for the refugee women who made the purse you bought, for the end of slavery, oppression, corruption, injustice, and more. It humbles you to know that you don’t deserve to have the energy to run any more than the field workers around the world who must simply rest in all their free time because they don’t take in enough calories to spare any in sport. It changes you when you run for all of them.

I think all of us in R4R wish we could have talked to even more people at the race about the Revolution we’re running for, about the injustices in the world that we want to fight. We were a bit hindered by some glitches over the course of the day: spinning out on the freeway on the way there, getting stuck in traffic so bad that we had to hike up the side of the freeway and run to be on time for the relay shuttle, change drivers in the middle of the street so the first one could get to the starting line, and losing two of our team members in the crowd for almost an hour after they crossed the finish line. But hey, no revolution goes unopposed, right? It was an adventure, but we all finished the race and we ran it for the “least of these” that our God is so passionate about. Here’s to many more races for Revolution!”

.
We couldn’t have said it better!  Here are some photos from the event.

Ardmore 5k

Team Run 4 Revolution was represented this morning by the pregnant team of Lindsey Broere and Carmen Black!  Lindsey and Carmen are both late in their pregnancies, which added even more attention to them.  They put up a great time of 25:10.  This was a great “test-event” for how we are hoping to structure our upcoming sponsorships.  Lindsey and Carmen both had generous sponsors that they were running for today.  We can’t thank them enough for their contributions to Team R4R and International Justice Mission.

The running bet was if Lindsey and Carmen would run a leisurely paced race and be satisfied to spread the word about Team R4R or if their competitive side would take over.  Safe to say, quite a few folks got passed by two pregnant chicks this morning in Winston Salem!

Here are some photos and videos of the event:

Run 4 Revolution at the Ardmore 5k from Black Daffodil Films on Vimeo.

Little Layla representing Team R4R!

“When these little girls walked into the courtroom, they did so with more support than their oppressor ever imagined they might have.”

By Kaign Christy, IJM Director of Operations, Southeast Asia

Two years ago, I came to IJM’s D.C. headquarters to become director of operations for our Southeast Asia field offices after three years as IJM’s field office director in Cambodia. When I return to the field, I am always struck with the sheer magnitude of the obstacles our teams face in bringing relief to victims. Their determination to overcome these obstacles inspires me more than anything. But, I am equally struck by the fact that there are things that we at IJM just could not do without the help of our friends and partners.

..
A Network of Strength

Epicurus said, “It is not so much our friends’ help that helps us, as the confidence of their help.” IJM has many friends who we can with confidence ask for help knowing that they will readily join us in the struggle for justice for the clients that we serve. Nothing illustrates that for me more than the help we have received in bringing Malcolm Phillips* to justice.

Phillips, a retired U.S. Marine captain, worked as a civilian university professor in Phnom Penh. He hired a prostitute to serve as his broker; she procured young girls from their families, and Phillips kept the children at his home, where he subjected them to brutal and violent sexual abuse. Phillips may have believed that his connections – from his own position of power to the woman he employed to traffic his victims – would enable him to act with impunity. But what Phillips did not know was that his seemingly powerless victims had an incredible network of support – a network that begins with you, the friends who sent IJM’s investigators into the field through your financial partnership and prayer. … Continue Reading

Donation Matching Program

We were so excited to hear that Autumn Song Photography will be matching all donations made for the Ardmore 5k that co-founder Lindsey Broere will be running in on October 17.  If you would like to sponsor Lindsey and have your donation matched (up to $100) click here.  Be sure to mention Lindsey’s name when prompted in the donation form.

For more info on Autumn Song’s matching program and their commitment to Team R4R, click here.

New Way to Help Spread the Word

We developed a new widget that can be posted on your blog, facebook page, myspace page, and any other page that you may have.  This is a great way to help spread the word about Run 4 Revolution, trafficking, and IJM.  Its basically a “mini-webpage” that you can embed on your page.  Within the widget, you can click on any of the buttons (“Who Are We”, “Why We Need U”, etc.) and it will take you to a new page…all within the widget!  There are also links embedded within the widget that take you to our “Join R4R” page and International Justice Mission’s website.  We would love for you to encourage readers of your blog/website to embed it on their pages, as well.  It is sized so that it should fit on the side panels of most blog sites.

If you have trouble with the “share” button on the widget above, click here. You will be taken to a site that has the embed code that you can copy and paste onto your site. Let us know what you think!