Using a Passion to Make a Difference | Fly Fishing Collaborative

I was talking with a friend at work on Monday about New Year's resolutions. He was telling me that their pastor had challenged them with, instead of creating resolutions, to ask themselves the question "What breaks my heart, and where can I begin to involve myself to change it?" I've been thinking about that question since then. To be honest, I am not sure I know exactly what it is that breaks my heart. And then, to be truly embarrassingly honest, I know that the only things that really break my heart are the things that have a very direct impact on me. Selfish, right? If I am concerned about a newsworthy type tragedy, it's only in an abstract way unless I am personally involved somehow. Now I am not sure if this means I am just some special kind of insular, sociopathic jerk or if this is a trait of human nature that some overcome, some resist, some pretend to, and some just embrace. At the very least, I'd like to be able to categorize myself in the resists group above.

It was as I was thinking on these things that I came across a reference in the Revive Fly Fishing Journal to a group called the Fly Fishing Collaborative. Below is a brief description of their vision for using fly fishing to help raise funds for creating sustainable livelihoods and economic support to rescue and prevent more children from being sold into the sex slave industry. At first blush, you might think 'How could fly fishing have any kind of impact on the global slave trade?' Check out the video and url below. It's a pretty cool idea.



The Vision of FFC

We exist to use our passion for fly fishing for a good and just cause. According to United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), human trafficking is the world’s third largest enterprise after drugs and weapons. Over 2 million children are affected annually. Studies show that children caught in sex trafficking are victimized by 100–1500 perpetrators each year. We formed the FFC so that we can use our tools in fly fishing to give children the protection and healing they need. By partnering with professional fly fishing outfitters and guides around the world, we have the incredible opportunity to join the fight for freedom and recovery for these precious children.

The Fly Fishing Collaborative is offering professionally guided fly fishing trips and selling custom-made leather fly wallets. The money raised will be given to orphanages and caregivers around the world. This will go towards creating sustainable livelihoods and economic support to rescue and prevent more children from being sold into the sex slave industry.

Every $10,000 we raise will provide a totally sustainable tilapia farm that will be built for an orphanage in order to provide them with food, income, water, and fresh produce. Additionally, this will empower their leaders to care for more children that would otherwise be sold into slavery.

flyfishingcollaborative.org


Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?”  

He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?”

He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”

“Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”

Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”

Jesus answered by telling a story. 

“There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man. A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.’ “What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?”

“The one who treated him kindly,” the religion scholar responded.

Jesus said, “Go and do the same.

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