MICHAEL & HEATHER COLLETTO

Or, should I say, an outrageous and emotional declaration is, well, an outrageous and emotional declaration, darn it.

On March 5, 2010, I declared the following via my Twitter feed (@heathercolletto):  “Grand Rapids, if u dare follow a week of sun after a sunless winter w/ another blizzard, so help me! I’ll move to southeast Asia, I will!”

Yesterday, our neighbor was sitting outside on a blanket in the grass, reading a book and drinking iced tea.  Today, there are two inches of snow on the ground.

Well, there you have it. We’re moving to Thailand.

No, but seriously.

In the few weeks after returning from our trip to Thailand in January with The SOLD Project, the pull we’d felt while there had only become stronger and we decided to dedicate the next year of our lives to living and working with SOLD in northern Thailand. It was a decision that was a result of suspicious leanings during our January visit, then lots of conversations and prayer while we cleaned and dressed Mike’s motorbike wound on the edge of the bathtub.

More than a year ago while working with TWR in Europe, we learned about human trafficking and, each in our own way, have tried to discover ever since then where we might fit in the solution. For a while, it seemed that, unless we went back to graduate school to pursue social work or law, there weren’t really any options. So, grad school (and education debt) here we come! But life (read: God) keeps things interesting, and some circumstances changed last summer and again this fall that made graduate study seem impossible. Heather continued volunteering full-time with several non-profits in the Grand Rapids area and learned more about different ways organizations fight for trafficking victims both domestically and globally. She also learned exactly the sort of ways she would not like to contribute. So we continued seeking God’s direction.

Just before our trip to Thailand, a lot of doors seemed to be closing in the Grand Rapids area, and we gave it a few passing thoughts while we flew over the Pacific Ocean to a new continent.

Experiencing SOLD’s work—from the red light districts of Bangkok to the laughs of impoverished children in Chiang Rai—and learning more about the organization’s immediate and long-term needs, we had a surprising thought:  “Huh. We’re qualified for this.” It was a new concept for us in the world of anti-trafficking. Never before had our professional skills and personal desires so clearly aligned. Before we’d even fully processed this realization, the current leaders of SOLD none-too-subtly hinted that they’d love to bring us on board and began encouraging us to consider moving to Thailand. God began dropping hints as well.

Resistance seemed futile.

Put simply, our new roles at SOLD’s Communication Directors are an unbelievable answer to prayer. Eager to begin, we started working immediately from our little home office here in Michigan and are so proud to be part of this team. But the best is yet to come! We get to live in Thailand for a year and tell the stories of children affected by trafficking to people just like you. We’ll be working on a daily basis with SOLD’s new prevention groundwork, The FREEDOM Project.  Not only do we get to work on the ground with the people trafficking directly affects, but we get to use our God-given skills as writers and use our words to tell the stories of these people.

We’re moving from Grand Rapids on April 1 to spend the next three months traveling across the country in our little Honda until we fly to Thailand at the beginning of July. The purpose of our road trip (called Driven by Freedom) is to raise awareness for The SOLD Project and raise support for our living expenses while we’re in Thailand. More details to come.We’ll have a website up soon with a lot more information, links, and ways to support us and the incredible work SOLD is doing.

In the meantime, we figured we’d better let you know our address is changing. Again. And our physical location will be on God’s good humor for quite some time. Hopefully forever. Because that’s the sort of vulnerable place—that scary place that leaves us no other options but to trust Him instead of ourselves and our bright ideas for a successful future—we promised Him we’d be willing to go.

Posted by: collettostories Category: Uncategorized Tags: child prostitution, Driven by Freedom, moving, Thailand, the FREEDOM project, The SOLD Project, trafficking