Thursday, August 30, 2012

Sometimes, I don't want to hurt anymore...

   I honestly thought that my heart could not be broken further, could not be shattered into any more pieces...I thought I was as broken as broken can get. 



   I was wrong.

   I feel that each day I am broken even more. When I first learned about sex trafficking, I thought that was the most I'd cry for those women and girls that my heart hurts so much for. When I first realized that there were children who had no family, no one to care for them, I thought that was the most I'd feel for them. When I realized just how much injustice there really is in this world, I thought that would be the angriest that I'd be.

   But each day, it hurts more as I realize that it's just one more day that over 100,000 girls in America must live through the unimaginable as men use and reuse them over and over; just one more day that millions of children in Uganda (and all over the world) must live with no one to love them, no one to show them how lovely they are.

   And that utterly and completely shatters my heart.

   Sometimes, I find myself asking when this pain will cease, when I will be able to make it through a day without hurting for these people that I feel so deeply for. Sometimes, I don't want to hurt anymore.  
 
   But then I stop and really think about it...and I'm glad that it has not ceased yet because it motivates me, spurs me to move and work to end these cruelties. And that makes me hope that I will never stop feeling this. 

   Good things will come from my pain. 

Sunday, August 26, 2012

This is her story...

   She stands on the street corner just outside of the small town. Her clothes reveal who she is, what she does, to those passing by. 

They think I'm worthless...nothing...worse than dirt. In their eyes, the world would be a better place without me in it. 

   She is glad that the dark veil hides her face so that they cannot see who she really is. They can glare at her and they can judge her, but really they don't know her true identity. 

If only they knew...

   She is young in years on earth but old in life experience. She's been in love, been married twice; both times her husband has died.  

God must be punishing me.

   A man approaches her and she knows what he wants. 

That's why I'm here...to service men like this. 

   He tells her that he has no cash on him at the moment, but is sure that they can come to a compromise. She knows she has no choice. 

He'll just take what he wants without paying me if I don't agree.

   They barter for a few minutes and finally agree on the terms of service. He hands her his expensive watch and chain necklace for her to keep until he returns with his payment, and she takes him to a room. He seems eager for this exchange and it sickens her to think about. 
  
If only he knew...

   And then it's all over and the man is gone and she is left all alone in the world, surviving only by selling what she has...the only thing that she has to offer. 

He never even realized...

   A few months pass and she finds out that she's pregnant. 

What am I going to do?

   She's scared and alone and doesn't know who to turn to. And then it gets worse. Word gets around town that she is the prostitute that has been spending time on that street corner - her identity is revealed and her reputation is completely ruined. 

Oh, the judgment...the condescending looks...the degrading remarks made in passing...

   And one day, she is arrested and taken to prison for the solicitation of commercial sex - as if it's all her fault. Nevermind the men who have been with her countless times. Nevermind the man who has gotten her pregnant. Nevermind the circumstances that have forced her into that situation: selling her body just to get by. Nevermind the fact that both of her husbands have died and she is still in immense pain and confusion because of that. Nevermind the fact that her family kicked her out because her husbands died, which has only reinforced her fear of abandonment. 

Nevermind... Because she is the guilty one.   

If only they knew...

   The day of her trial comes and there are people all around her, surrounding her, who are condemning her because of what she has done. She looks around at the crowd and she recognizes man after man who have bought what she's been selling.

How do they sit there and judge me when they've done something just as wrong?

   And then her eyes come to rest upon one particular man and she is filled with hate and disgust and contempt. He is the one who got her pregnant. 

He doesn't even know...

   And she vows to never allow him to hurt her again, no matter what, as she stares with complete and utter hatred at her father-in-law. 





   Despite my changing a few details...this is the story of Tamar from Genesis 38. My eyes were opened to this story that I'd never heard of (or at least never really paid attention to) while reading From Congress to the Brothel by Linda Smith, founder of Shared Hope International. She relates Tamar's story with the stories of thousands of others around the world and, in fact, right here in America. 

   I'd like to point out that yes, this isn't just happening in India or Cambodia; it isn't just happening in L.A. or Las Vegas (although it's certainly happening in all of these places). It's happening here in Pickaway County. In Ashville. In Circleville. 

   There are girls being sold for sex as if they were objects simply to be used for mens' pleasure. There are girls fighting to survive and, in order to do so, must sell their bodies to meet their basic human needs such as food, shelter, etc. 

   These girls are not the criminals. They do not intentionally corrupt our community. They do what they do as a result of the already corrupted community...because they know that they can survive by doing it. Sometimes pimps keep them scared and brainwashed to the point that they will never even think about leaving because they know what the consequence will be. Sometimes their circumstances lead them to this situation and they know that they will die if they don't find a way to make money. Sometimes it's a desperate act. But it's still slavery...they are still trapped by something that they cannot control. 

   And that is the heart-breaking truth of our society today.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Holy Discontent

Holy discontent.

    This is a phrase I had never heard until last night, yet it so fully describes what I have been feeling the past few years. At my life group at church last week, Suzy began talking about holy discontent. She describes it as when you are so uncomfortable with something in the world that you have to do something about it because you can no longer stand it being tolerated. Holy discontent does not mean something you simply think is wrong and disagree with; it does not mean an injustice that you are aware of. It means action. It means that you are so utterly uncomfortable with an injustice that you simply have to do something about it. It means a literal ache in your heart an dyour soul and your very being about something that you know is wrong. It means a call to action that you are so willing to take because you know exactly whta is at risk if you don't: a LIFE.

Human trafficking.

   Three years ago, my heart was completely and utterly shattered. And I thank the Lord that it was.

   When I was sixteen, Linda was teaching the high school Sunday School class through the book "Do Hard Things" by Alex and Brett Harris. It is about teenagers being expected to do literally nothing during their teen years because it's their time to have fun before they have to enter "the real world". These brothers defied that stereotype and challenged themselves and other teenagers to do great things for the Kingdom of God during their teenage years. 

   As we read through this book together, Linda challenged us to pray and ask God to break our hearts with what breaks His. I decided to do it and prayed daily for God to show me what He wanted my heart to break over. It turns out that you should be careful what you pray for...God just might do exactly what you ask. He did for me. 

   But it took a while and just when I began to get discouraged because I didn't think that He was listening, He answered. One Sunday morning, Linda read from "Do Hard Things" and it was about a boy named Zach Hunter who had begun a campaign called Loose Change 2 Loosen Chains, which empowers students to raise money and awareness about modern-day slavery. I was shocked. As a history and book lover, I knew about slavery in the 1700's and 1800's and I knew about Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, which supposedly gave all human beings in America freedom. I did not know that there are still over 27 million slaves worldwide today.

   That day, I went home and did extensive research about human trafficking. I ran across story after story of trafficking survivors and I cried as I realized that this was happening in America. Most of all, I was devastated that no one had told me about this before then and, as I began talking to others about human trafficking, I became angry that no one at all seemed to know about it. I knew then that this was something that I was designed to be broken by, that I was designed to do something about. 

   Sometimes, I get so overwhelmed by this injustice that I just want to find the people who are in bondage and free them myself no matter what I may have to do in order to do so. I just want to go looking for them because I so desperately want them to know that someone loves them, that they are worthy, that they were created by Him for a purpose, that everything that they have endured is not their fault. 

   Sometimes, I even want to find the traffickers because I want them to know the love and grace of God as well, as twisted as that sounds. When I say things like that, people get so angry with me because they think that I'm condoning what these people have done, the heinous crimes that they have committed. I'm not. I simply don't think we are anyone to judge them. Maybe we haven't sold a ten-year-old into a brothel where she's raped fifteen times a night. Maybe we haven't tricked a sixteen-year-old into leaving the only home he's ever known for a "good job" only to enslave with a lifetime of debt, which he will pay off making bricks in a crowded factory where the death count grows at a tremendous rate. Maybe we haven't forced a seven-year-old to roll cigarettes for eighteen hours a day while she's chained to the table and given only a cup of water and a few crumbs of bread. Maybe we haven't committed these crimes.

But we have been tolerant of other people committing these crimes.

Do you really think your hands are clean? Mine aren't. 

   But I refuse to allow this kind of atrocity to prevail in this world in which I live any longer. I am sick of it and I will work to end it. People have asked me if I really think that I can make any different in such a big world and such a big problem. My answer is simple: I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me, because He has deemed human trafficking as my holy discontent for a purpose - and I will honor that.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

I dream...

   A few days ago, I created another blog. I just deleted it.

   I thought that if I had something else, another social justice issue, another passion, to write about, I needed to create another blog. I thought I needed to keep my passions separate because they don't belong together because they are so different from each other.

   At first, this blog dreaming of a far away land was about Uganda and its people and my intense longing to go there, to experience life the way that they do, to help...to bring the love of Jesus into their lives. The description of this blog used to read: "Slowly, but surely (and definitely not all at once) I began to fall in love with Uganda. I fell in love with its people who love Jesus with all their hearts but own almost nothing, who put their trust in Him though they sometimes don't know where their next meal will come from. It's odd that I can be so in love with a land and people that I have never met. But all of my uncertainty is overpowered by my love of the Lord who has given me this strange but wonderful love for these people."

   My second blog's description said this: "Three years ago, my heart was completely and utterly shattered. And I thank the Lord that it was. I asked God to break my heart with what breaks His - and He did. Three years ago, I did not know that there are over 27 million slaves in the world right now. Three years ago, I thought America was the land of the free; I thought everyone was treated equally and fairly; I thought our days of owning one another had ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. I was wrong. But I refuse to allow this kind of atrocity to prevail in this world in which I live any longer. I am sick of it and I will work to end it. People have asked me if I really think that I can make any difference in such a big world and such a big problem. My answer is simple: I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me, because He has deemed human trafficking as my holy discontent for a purpose - and I will honor that."

    The people of a country I've never seen and people whose freedom is locked tight by another. I thought that these two passions were way too different to combine together, to share a blog. But then I started thinking. I have one purpose when working with both of these communities of people: to bring the hope and healing and love of God into their lives.

   I have two passions...so what? I have no doubt - in fact, I have complete faith - that the Lord will use both of them for His glory. I used to think that I had to choose one because I needed to give my entire life to one certain thing. I was wrong, again. My one purpose in life is to live for God and to work for the glory of His kingdom. I can do that wherever I am, in whatever I am doing. I know that there's a reason that I have a heart for both the people of Uganda and victims of human trafficking. If there weren't, God wouldn't have laid both so heavily on my heart.

   So now dreaming of a far away land is about more than just Uganda and its people. This blog is about me living for Jesus, however that may be.

   I dream about Uganda. I dream about the red dirt that covers everything that I've heard so much about. I dream about children playing in the streets, waving to passersby. I dream about women gathering to make beads to earn a living. I dream about all of these beautiful things. And then I think about the reality of most of the people in this foreign country...and my heart breaks. I think about children, starving to death because they were abandoned two years ago. I think about mothers being forced to sell themselves on street corners to earn enough money to feed their children. I think about fathers leaving and never coming home to their families. And I realize how broken the world is. And I long to jump on a plane and go to Uganda and see these children and mothers and fathers that I dream and think about so often.

   I dream of a ministry that shelters those rescued from sex trafficking and prostitution in Pickaway County. I dream about room after room of nice beds and bathrooms in a safe place so that they may sleep soundly. I dream about Christian social workers and psychologists and doctors and lawyers coming together to help these women and girls overcome their fear of the world. I dream of people coming to Christ and learning to love again, softening hearts. And then I think about the circumstances that these people first must be in to fuel this kind of ministry...and my heart shatters. I think about girls who have not yet reached puberty being raped twenty times a night. I think about women who have been enslaved more of their lives than free. I think about girls being beaten, physically and emotionally, until they are no longer human, until they are just a shell of the person that they used to be...because its easier to sell something that's submissive and obedient rather than someone who will stand up and refuse to be broken.

   In short, I dream of heaven. I dream of a new earth. I dream of a world free of sin and evil. And I know that it will come; that I will no longer have to dream one day because it will be a reality. When Jesus returns, He will create a new heaven and a new earth - and it will be beautiful.