Follow us on our Vision Trip through Thailand & Cambodia
to help free women through design! 
Starting in the fall, we are launching a new
fair trade business entitled Freed By Design which will directly help women who
have been and are being freed from the sex trade industry. We will work
alongside several amazing ministries to help redesign products and create new
lines of fashion that will not only make a statement, but bring about real
change in the lives of women around the world.
June 19-24th
Our journey starts in Phuket, Thailand, working with an
amazing ministry known as SHE (Self Help and Empowerment) (www.shethailand.org).
I will be personally hiring these women to make my new jewelry line I designed during
my time here in Spain while Dave will be busy in the kitchen working with the
catering side of SHE, teaching these women new delicious recipes such as his famous cinnamon rolls, scones and biscotti. We will be learning more about
how to best support these women and organizations and our main desire is to be a
source of great encouragement, fresh ideas and light.
June 24-July 3rd
We will be heading back to our home away from home, Chiang
Mai, in Northern Thailand to work alongside a ministry that has grown very dear
to our hearts, The Garden of Hope (www.thegardenofhope.org/). We will concentrate
on several important tasks including meeting up with the leaders of TGOH and discuss
new and creative business ideas (such as SAA mulberry paper products) to help
get and keep these women out of the bars. I am looking forward to visiting my
dear friends, Da and Ploy, two precious girls I met in the red light district
last year and who give me passion to do what I do. It means everything to me to
see them become FREED by design! I know Dave will be excited to work on his
voluntourism ideas by finding the best hotels, restaurants and excursions we will be doing in the future. The plan is to bring
volunteers on our Freed by Design trips, visiting and serving alongside these amazing organizations. I am personally looking forward
to taking my bar girl friends on an elephant ride!
July 3-8th
Last, but definitely not least, we will be heading over to
the capital city of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, to work with two other amazing faith
based organizations that reach out to victims of sex trafficking. StopStart (http://www.stopstart.com.au/node/9
), formerly called Hagar, has a line of recycled rice bags that I absolutely
fell in love with last year and would love to create my own line for Freed by
Design to be sold all over college campuses! Our last appointment will be with the CEO of Daughters (www.daughterscambodia.org/ ), a
fair trade business who is looking for new markets overseas to help sell their
hand sewn products. My goal is to
work with Daughters to create some amazing new lines of products that Freed by
Design can carry and in doing so, represent freedom for girls who were formerly
enslaved and did not know there was another way!
Praise God for the many ministries who work day and night
helping counsel, support and love on these women. We are thrilled to be a part
of their story and so can you! We need to raise another $3,000 to cover
flights, lodging and food for this packed out vision trip. Although we are
graduating from G42, you can support us through G42 through next June, 2011. Anything
we raise above and beyond this amount will go towards future trips and costs associated
with helping us help free these women through design.
http://www.g42leadershipacademy.org/donate
(Click on intern support tab)
Mail any checks to:
G42, Inc.
P.O. Box 130611
Houston, TX
77219 – 0611
You can also host a Freed by Design party or shop online
starting this fall! You will LOVE the products!!
Please be praying for us during the next month and stay
tuned to our blog for more updates including pictures and stories as we move
forward in the vision God has given us to help women know their true identity
in Christ.
Thank you for your continued love, encouragement and
support! We could not do this without YOU, at home, believing in the kingdom
message being brought around the world.
Micah 6:8 “Do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God”
Lindsay & Dave Hoogendam
