20 Questions with Faith Campbell

1. Name:  Faith Campbell

2. Age:  53

3.Hometown:  Strathmore, Alberta

4. Where you are on the planet right now: Strathmore

5: Favourite Books: The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman by Anne Ortlund

6. Favourite Movie: The Sound Of Music (perhaps because of the story of a young nun who was willing to serve God in a totally unexpected way – by becoming a mother to a ready made family and being ready to travel to a new life for the sake of freedom);Two influential movies that address ugly issues in Africa – The Constant Gardener and Blood Diamond

7. Favourite Band: I am old, so I wouldn’t really have a favorite band – but I do have a favorite singer – Steve Bell – because he is an advocate for living simply and thinking deeply – and he promotes the work of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank ;I also admire the songs of Sara Groves – particularly her work with International Justice Mission – she and several other artists did a musical tour to call peoples’ attention to the justice, compassion, and mercy work of IJM.

8. Favourite Food:  Ice Cream

9. What you wanted to be when you grew up: When I was a child and youth, I really wanted to be a career missionary – either a teacher or a nurse – or both, as in teaching nursing.  In my university years, I had the opportunity to visit my sister, a medical missionary (dentist) in Africa.  I knew when I almost fainted in the hospital after seeing a child with a snakebite (whose flesh was eaten away) that I would not make a nurse.  I was glad that I was already in University in the College of Education.  I married and began teaching.  We raised two daughters and the years flew by.  I never had a chance to teach overseas until 2004-05 when my husband and I went to Egypt on a sabbatical leave to teach at an American School.  During that year, we were privileged to work with Sudanese refugees, teaching English in evening classes.

10. Your ‘day job’: I am a special education teacher.  I work in a preschool intervention program with young children having special needs.  I know each day when I go to work, that God uses me to impact the lives of children and their families.  It is important, challenging, and fulfilling work to see children develop and grow.

11. Your dream: We have about 4 years left to teach to reach retirement.  Then we pray that God will have us do some work for Him somewhere in the world.  We don’t know what this will be – but we are pretty sure that it will involve issues of justice, compassion, and mercy.  I am particularly interested in educating women and girls.  I believe that education of women is the key to changing families, societies, cultures. 

12. What you do for fun: I love to run, travel, go camping, spend time with my husband and children (when we get together), and hang out with our Sudanese family in Calgary.

13. What opened your eyes to the reality of human trafficking: 
a) My Sudanese friends who had lost children to slavery during the war in Sudan first opened my eyes to modern day slavery – I knew that I could no longer say that slavery ended long ago.

b) Reading of the articles in 30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless caused me to face unpleasant truths about gender based injustice in our world – I could no longer keep this information to myself.  God made it clear to me that I needed to share this information with people and I started giving books to anyone who would read the articles and have their minds opened to the issues.

c) On December 26, 2008 I met a five year old girl in Cambodia who was almost sold – I actually met a child whose life could have been shattered by slavery if she had not been rescued at the 11^th hour.  While I do not know exactly what God has for my future, I am sure that I must be active – both now and in the future – in changing lives of women and children caught in gender-based injustice issues.

14: What you are doing to change it: Right now, I keep giving away books.  I have also had the opportunity to speak in several church congregations about this issue.  In one case, a group of over 30 people said that they would pray for 30 days.  In the other church, the congregation pledged to use the booklet to guide their study and prayer in the season leading to Easter (Lent)

15. Specific justice issue you’d like to address most: The justice issues are all important to address.  Those involving children are particularly close to my heart.  I believe that a big part of addressing justice issues is to educate women and children. 

16. Country you consider to have the greatest need: I know that the issues concerning human trafficking and sexual slavery in South East Asia are grave (having a journalist daughter who lives in Cambodia and is involved with agencies in compassion/justice/mercy). 

The African nations are so extremely needy – an overwhelming need to address educational needs of women

 17. Literature/ media you recommend to help people get acquainted with the issues: 30 Days of Prayer for the Voiceless, Raise Their Voice website, International Justice Mission website,  Hagar Ministries, Place of Rescue website, 

There is a book I must read called Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. I am also picking up two new books about human trafficking:  Terrify No More by Gary Haugen of International Justice Mission and Disposable People by Kevin Bales.

 18. Heros you look to for inspiration:

On December 26, 2008, I met Marie Enns at Place of Rescue in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (the place where I met the little girl who was almost sold).  She is a senior citizen with a mission.  In her retirement years (after a lifetime as a career missionary with the Christian and Missionary Alliance), Marie established a community just outside Phnom Penh where AIDS families can live together and get medical attention, along with providing homes for orphaned children, senior women, and others needing medical attention.  The community has a Cambodian pastor, school, fish ponds, and a large garden area where people work.  Amazing place – and a humble, godly woman with a vision given by God for transforming lives!

When we lived in Egypt, one of our Anglican priests was a Sudanese man named Father Joseph Ayok.  Joseph, once an Olympic athlete for Sudan in the 70-80’s, has lived his life to encourage his people in Sudan.  His work in Egypt involved mentoring Sudanese from all tribes there – providing education for children and adults through Son Shine School, establishing medical care for Sudanese refugees, providing spiritual guidance and teaching for the Sudanese.  Father Joseph encouraged my husband and I to teach Sudanese adults in evening ESL classes.  We were able to build relationships with Sudanese friends and were encouraged by their stories of God’s grace in tragic situations of war. Joseph and his wife Karin and their twin daughters went into Sudan just a few days after the peace treaty in January, 2005 – and they took our two daughters (who were visiting us for a month at Christmas) with them.  Our girls got to see NGOs bringing makeshift hospitals and news centers inside the borders in South Sudan, where they had previously been on the borders of neighboring countries.  Our girls got to experience, with Joseph’s clan, the excitement of the prospect of peace. Earlier, during the war, Joseph established Under Tree Schools – an organization that kept education simple, providing local teachers with supplies that could be carried into the jungle if a village was dispersed during the war, so that teaching could happen under the trees.  Now, in the years since the peace treaty, Joseph has been working to establish a permanent school and health facility in his home village.  The South Sudanese government has determined that, due to lack of funds, it will provide schools for boys, not girls.  However, the new permanent structure for Under Tree Schools will be a girls’ school – providing education and practical skill training for women, in order to advance Sudan by educating its women.  Joseph and Karin are definitely heroes to me!  They truly understand the phrase “building from the ground up” knowing that Sudan has time to be built one life at a time, from the grassroots.

 19. Organizations, groups you know of effectively addressing the injustice of human trafficking: Raise Their Voice, International Justice Mission,  Hagar Ministries, Place of Rescue

20. How the modern-day slave trade will be abolished:Prayer, education of women and girls, involvement by people in the Western World, allowing ourselves to be opened to the horror of injustice issues, by Christian people moving the message to others and pledging to do something about it, by letting ourselves be in relationship with immigrants here in Canada who need friends who will be “family” in their new country, by going ourselves to work in agencies doing the important work, by letting our children go to where God wants them to go, by re-evaluating what is really important and where God really wants us to be using our time, energy, money.