Tardy: Filling darkness with light

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GCU women's volleyball player, Natalie Tardy, made a two-week trip to Thailand and Cambodia with Grand Canyon University and through an organization, Destiny Rescue. Tardy shares her experience about traveling overseas and giving back to others along with her fellow GCU students.

NATALIE TARDY / WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL

W ow, what an experience. My long and strenuous trek overseas to Thailand and Cambodia is one that I think about often. Not a day goes by when I'm not replaying images in my head that I saw in those countries. I was blessed to have the opportunity to experience these places, while representing GCU and shining God's light in dark places.

Let me take a step back: I went on a two-week mission trip through Destiny Rescue with other GCU students. Destiny Rescue is an organization that combats the sex trafficking industry, exclusively working with children. One of the many remarkable things that this organization does is take team trips over to these traffick-ridden countries and invites these teams to witness all of their work to fight this tragic and heart-wrenching business.

Tardy was named to the preseason All-WAC team before this season.

Our trip was nonstop, since we had a lot on our itinerary and we faced challenges from the start. We went to six different rescue homes, three in each country, where DR has saved children out of the industry. Each home was different; a different vibe, a different look, a different task, and different types of girls altogether. In some rescue homes we painted rooms, cleaned out old items, or just played and laughed with the girls there. There was never a consistent amount of girls or a predictable task to do at any of the homes, so we had to be flexible every minute of the trip. Our visits with the girls generally consisted of a few activities. The typical forms of entertainment was arts and crafts, embarrassing skits, testimonies, worship music, and teaching American dances. My personal favorite was teaching all the little Cambodian and Thai girls how to do the "whip and nae nae." Each house that we visited had a different job for us to do, in addition to goofing off with the girls. A few of the places needed us to paint various things, while others needed us to prepare extra rooms and houses for more girls to move in, and some had us prepare for a farm.

I was blessed to have the opportunity to experience these places, while representing GCU and shining God's light in dark places.

The layout of the trip was designed with purpose. We felt the utter darkness through devastating experiences like walking through the Red Light District, visiting the Killing Fields and Genocide Museum in Cambodia, and hearing horror stories of what some of the trafficked victims had to withstand. However, there was positive and joyful moments in our trip to balance out the difficult moments. Just being around the girls that had been rescued out of this trip was enough hope on its own to keep us going, but we were also able to do elephant rides, barter in the night markets for souvenirs, and see the glory and history of Angkor Wat temples.

It has been two months since I've been back from this life-altering trip, but it feels like I was there just yesterday. I'm going to miss being engulfed in the culture and around such a drastic comparison to what life is like in the states. Many people have asked me what my favorite part about the trip was and I still have no idea. It could be the simplicity of the people there, or the new knowledge of the Cambodian genocide and how it still affects the culture. But my most impactful takeaway from the trip would be the transformation of the rescued girls that came from the darkest and seediest spots where they were treated like cattle with certain prices for their services, to the joyful and restored women in the homes that are filled with the type of hope only experienced through Jesus.

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Players Mentioned

Natalie Tardy

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