So here's the deal....

Did you know that Toledo, Ohio is 4^th most trafficked city in the country?  That more than 1000 women and underage girls are being trafficked through Ohio right now to be sexually exploited?  Did you also know that the Daughter Project is the only faith based house in Toledo that is designed specifically to rehabilitate these women?  They provide educational, legal, and many other services planned to guide these women on their road to recovery. 

                When my best friend texted me the other night with a brief, “Sooo i think you should do one dress one month.  Bring it to ou”  I thought to myself, Why not? it’s something I’ve been prayerfully considering for a long time now anyway.  The idea of wearing one dress for an entire month is a little radical, and sounds a little unhygienic (no need to fear, I’ll wash the dress at least every other day so I don’t stink).  But if in doing so I can wake just a few people up to the realities of what is going on around them, then my month of drabness in a rather plain dress will have been worth it.  

                Unlike the women and young girls who can never take off their “dress,” who cannot shed their life of forced prostitution, I can trade “the dress” in for jeans and a t-shirt at any point I’d like.  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared of wearing “the dress.”  One month, the SAME dress?  I like to think that people notice what I wear and how I look.  I know that I care too much what other people think of me.  As superficial as it is, I’m afraid that people will look at me strangely for wearing the same thing EVERYDAY.  I’m also afraid that I will be doing this for the wrong reasons.  I fear that my sick, sinful little mind will twist my good intentions into an attention-seeking stunt, and I certainly don’t want that to happen.

I'm afraid that wearing this dress for a month will draw more attention to me, and less to the issue at hand.  For this reason, I absolutely do NOT want to do this alone, I'd much rather have other friends and fellow students involved. But I'll do it, if only for the daughters.

I'm turning to God for all of this and recognizing that this is a kind of fast.  Only instead of avoiding food, I'm avoiding different clothes; and this is a fast that EVERYONE can see. 

Hopefully, I'll help people here at Ohio University realize that hundreds of women and girls are disappearing everyday into the terrifying world of sexual exploitation.

I have one week to get the information out to as many people as possible. Which is the ONLY reason I created this silly blog. I want to document my progress, and I want the word to get out.

But for now, I'm going to bed.  I'm off to buy "the dress" early tomorrow morning.