My difference catches me off-guard. Entering into new situations, I’m just being myself — not suspecting anything, doing the things that I do — when an odd, slightly off comment, a stray remark makes me realize that the person across from me is not interacting with me. Instead, they are interacting with a perception of who they think people like me are: Asian, woman.
Unidentified Khmer girl in Kampong Phlukm, Cambodia. Andrey Bayda / Shutterstock.com
And usually that perception does not include “leader.”
I’m different sounding. I’m different looking. I’m different leading.
As a leader, one question has helped me try to stay in my sweet spot and stick to my true voice, even when it’s different from those around me. What is the unique joy that I bring to God’s heart? When I feel the blister forming from too many frictional interactions, it’s this question that takes me back to my center.
Embracing the differences God gave me to steward, to shelter in my body, I continue on, knowing that perhaps for someone, somewhere, this will be a good fit.
The past gives me hope. With manic desperation, I collect, protect, and curate stories of change ushered in via women. They are stories of God’s change, midwifed by unlikely women, birthed in impossible circumstances. When I get tired, a bit weary, feel a bit beaten, overwhelmed, misunderstood, or confused I sit myself at the feet of these women.
Rosa Parks is that picture to me. How impossible the change must have seemed, when she chose to sit on her bus bench. The systems, the power, the structures, the people, everything was stacked against her. And yet she did it.
A closer example to me is my International Justice Mission colleague, Sharon. She was one of many, who ushered in change in Cambodia.
It was summer in the early 2000s. I had spent my summer sitting at the feet of local leaders working in intense urban contexts around the world. From the garbage villages in Cairo, to Kibera in Kenya, our trip ended with a short stay with folks in Klong Toey in Bangkok. There I was exposed to the extraordinary world of sex trafficking in Southeast Asia. What we saw in Thailand was terrible. But people said it was even worse in Cambodia. Cambodia had become a new epicenter. The testimonies, the stories, the on-the-ground reality of young children, available for sexual services shattered me. Videos of 5-year-olds ripped apart any ability to deny or to turn away. And the faces of the people and children in these terrible situations looked familiar. Parts of my face, my flat nose, my black brown hair, were found in theirs. That was when I made the decision to opt-in, to choose to care, to choose to be involved.
Here we are, more than a decade later. Cambodia is still a really complex place, with many challenges, including labor and human rights issues. But through the small, tireless acts of faithful women like Sharon, a lawyer, who chases down those who would offer minors for sexual services, the unbelievable, dare-to-dream-it possibility is this — the Cambodia of 2000s is not the Cambodia of today. Pedophile message boards tell others that the party at Siem Reap is shut down. Finding young minors for sale for sex is harder and harder — almost non-existent. Cambodia is not perfect. But in this one area, in the area of young minors available for sex, there’s a change. It is an almost miraculous shift that happened in just over 10 years.
And this is how I choose to opt-in — by looking at, stopping to remember, or slowing down to notice the impossible stories that God is writing in our midst. These fuel me as a woman of color. They point to a God who is real, who is active, and who truly does care about those at the margins. They point to God’s ability to use small acts of faithfulness now, to re-write history, and set up new foundations for the future.
Nikki Toyama-Szeto is Senior Director of the IJM Institute for Biblical Justice.
Image: Unidentified Khmer girl in Kampong Phlukm, Cambodia. Andrey Bayda / Shutterstock.com
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