Julie Gumm - Author

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Not JUST Work

07.07.2010 by juliegumm@yahoo.com //

Despite three long days at the music festival, our time in Michigan was not just all work and I’m so glad Mark and I got to take the trip together.

One of the World Orphans board members has a lake house about 30 minutes from Gaylord, Michigan where the festival was and he invited our whole crew (13 of us) to stay with them.

Let me tell you, I want to grow old on this porch! The home was so beautiful and they were the best hosts every – feeding us all kinds of yummy food – grilled fish, tenderloin, great salads. Yummo!

They also have “The Barn” which upstairs is kind of party central with a pool table, ping pong, table shuffleboard and a big media room where I first entered the world of “Rock Band”.

And now I’m a little addicted.

I stayed up until 2 a.m. one morning play with Luke and our host, Mark. I tend to stick with Bass because it’s a tad easier. Mark did a rousing rendition of Livin’ on a Prayer that brought the crowd to tears. I wish I had pictures. 🙂

Sunday before we left I got to take a bit of a spin on the Waverunner. So fun! Got that baby up to about 48mph.

It was so nice at the end of a long day of hobnobbing with rock stars to have someplace relaxing and fun to come back to 🙂

Categories // Featured Articles, Orphans & Social Justice Tags // Big Ticket Music Festival, Michigan, Mullet Lake, World Orphans

Fighting for Victims of Trafficking

07.06.2010 by juliegumm@yahoo.com //

I’ve had the privilege of working on a really cool project the last six weeks or so at work – a new campaign we’ve launched called Traffic Jam. It’s designed to unite musicians and their fans to raise awareness and funds for anti-trafficking work that World Orphans and their partner organizations do.

Sometimes I take for granted that everyone realizes the statistics behind some of this issues but it is obvious from various conversations that it’s just not true. In fact a survey shows that 48% of Americans aren’t aware of the magnitude of the problem.

  • The truth is that there are an estimated 27 million people enslaved in human trafficking today!
  • Human trafficking is the third largest revenue-generating illegal trade – behind drugs and guns. Estimates range from $10-32 billion per year.
  • 600,000 to 800,000 people are smuggled over international borders every year.
  • 80% of them are women. 75% are part of the sex industry.
  • The average cost of a human slave? $90
  • The average age a girl enters into prostitution is 14 years old.

Those are just the numbers, these are the faces – Neah, Mary, Christopher, and Anna.

We took the Traffic Jam message up to Northern Michigan for the Big Ticket Musical Festival where we sponsored the Rock Stage for 3 days and got to share our message with the fans of Superchick, Disciple, Attaboy, Decyfer Down, Kronicles, Devil Wears Prada, Sargent Avenue and more.

Our purpose was threefold while we were there:

  1. Connect with Christian musicians to let them know about the campaign and find those who had a similar passion
  2. Share the message with the nearly 12,000 fans in attendance
  3. Get a bunch of guitars autographed by the artists that can be auctioned off later to raise funds for anti-trafficking projects

All 3 were a huge success. We met a ton of great bands. I don’t have a single piece of photographic proof (since I was behind the camera taking pics of the boss with all these guys) but I got to meet Casting Crowns, Newsboys, Lincoln Brewster, Bluetree, Kutless, Brandon Heath and a bunch of other great artists – all super nice!

Personally my favorite “find” of the festival was Attaboy – they played on our rock stage and I got a chance to visit with two of their band members at length. I bought their new album “Remade” and have listened to it pretty much on repeat every since then. Love every single song. You can preview the album on their Facebook page!

If you want to find out more about Traffic Jam and what we’re going to be doing with all those really cool guitars (can you say Christmas gifts anyone?) you can either sign up for the mailing list or join the Traffic Jam Facebook page.

Categories // Featured Articles, Orphans & Social Justice Tags // advocacy, anti-trafficking, Attaboy, awareness, Big Ticket Festival, Casting Crowns, sex trafficking, slavery, Traffic Jam, World Orphans

World Orphans Ethiopia Video

06.05.2010 by juliegumm@yahoo.com //

I realized the other night that I don’t think I’ve ever posted this video that was made back before I too was working for World Orphans. Just another part of our adoption story, captured for posterity.

World Orphans currently has 3 projects in Ethiopia. You can find out more about them on the web site – www.worldorphans.org

Left Behind – Ethiopia Orphans from Mark Gumm on Vimeo.

Categories // Featured Articles, Orphans & Social Justice Tags // adoption, advocacy, Ethiopia, orphans, World Orphans

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About Me

Writer. Wife. Mother. Traveler. Coffee-addict. Book-lover. Television-Junkie. I love stories. Hearing them, watching them, telling them, living them.

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