I don't often urge people with great earnestness to read my posts. This one I will. Please, read it! It has to do with modern day slavery. Most people believe slavery was done away with after the Emancipation Proclamation (Jan. 1, 1863) was put into effect in. Sadly, this is not true. In fact, slavery is on the rise. According to the latest figures compiled by various organizations, there are more people in slavery today than ever before. "Estimates range from 25 to 27,000,000 people.
Some
pertinent facts include: Globally, the average cost of a slave is
$90. According to some estimates, approximately 80% of trafficking
involves sexual exploitation, and 19% involves labor
exploitation. Traffickers primarily force their victims into: 1.)
Prostitution 2.) Involuntary servitude and 3.) Compel them to
commit sex acts for the purpose of creating pornography. 80% of the
victims are women or girls, while the other 20% are men or
boys. Half are children. The average age a teen enters
the sex trade in the U.S. is 12 to 14-year-old. Many victims are runaway girls
who were sexually abused as children. According to the U.S State
Department, 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international
borders every year, and the tally of victims brought into the U.S. by
traffickers each year might be as high as 17,500 people."
"I found myself speaking at a conference in Greece around the time that a little girl named Madeline went missing in Portugal. Her picture was plastered across the TV, in airports and in magazines. Interpol was searching for this little girl, but I didn't know her. I hadn't met her. My sympathies were aroused, but what could I do?... Then I saw a second poster for another girl that was missing. This child was named Sophia -- the same name as my second daughter. Suddenly these missing children weren't simply numbers. They were real -- someone's daughters. Someone's sisters and classmates. I stopped and began to wonder what I would do if that were my Sophia on the poster. What wouldn't I do to find her? What wouldn't I give up to see her safe?...
I
found out later that these children were the alleged victims of human
trafficking, something that at that time I didn't even know existed. I
assumed that the slave trade was abolished with William Wilberforce, but I was
wrong. On my watch, in my generation, the current state of slavery has
been flourishing in the dark rooms of the world. With all our great
Christian gatherings, our tremendous churches, our wealth of worship songs and
resources, right now in the 21st century, there are more slaves on earth than
ever before. It was incomprehensible to me. How could this be true?
How could this happen in our day? How could the gospel have spread and
flourished in so many areas, and yet not made a massive dent in something as
simple and insidious as slavery? Yet it is true. During our day,
more people are being trafficked and sold for labor or sex than ever before in
human history. This is unacceptable not merely from the standpoint of human
rights; it's unacceptable from the standpoint of the teaching of Jesus. [The
parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:29-37 is a primary example, where we
are shown that we should want to act on behalf of those who are hurt and
wounded and victims of injustice, because compassion isn't compassion until it
inspires action. It was the action of the Samaritan that separated him from the
rest.]...
That
being the case, here's the poignant question for all of us: What are you going
to do? Are you going to walk past on the other side, hurrying to your
next event, or are you going to cross the street and actually get
involved? This was my moment to decide if these people, scattered
throughout the world, were going to be people with names and faces, or if they
were going to turn into just another pair of empty shoes (like the thousands
I'd seen at Auschwitz). With knowledge comes responsibility. We
know the slave trade is alive and well right now. We KNOW this, and because we
do, we are responsible to do something about it. In our choice about
whether to cross the road, we must begin by realizing that at one point or
another, we were the one lying in the ditch and Jesus crossed the road for us.
I am a rescued person.
I
did not discover that I was adopted until I was thirty-three years old. Though
our parents never told us the truth, on a single day we discovered this family
secret and the truth was jarring to say the least. Suddenly I didn't know who I
was anymore. I didn't know whether I was conceived in an adulterous affair or a
one night stand. I didn't know if I was the result of a rape or an underage
pregnancy. As the panic started to set in though, the Lord reminded me
that I didn't have to know those specific facts to know who I am. Because I
encountered Jesus, I know something larger and more important than those
circumstantial details. The Word of God tells me that I am not the result
of a rape or the product of an affair, it tells me I am the workmanship of God,
reborn in Christ Jesus, specifically for the good work he prepared
for me beforehand to walk in (Ephesians 2:8-10). I may not know who I was, but
I know who I am. I have been rescued by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.
Jesus crossed the road between heaven and earth so that I might cross the road
for the sake of others. I was saved by grace that I might walk in the way Jesus
did in the world. This is the plan of God -- to use rescued people to
rescue people... Jesus has set us free so that we might set others
free. He rescued us so that we might rise up, reach back, and rescue
others...
If
I was not born in Australia, but had instead been born in Greece, Moldova,
Romania, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Nepal, or any one of countless other countries, I
could have been one of those girls. In fact, if you could see my birth
certificate right now, all you would see is a number. I was number 2508 in
1966. That's it. It's just another number, just another statistic. I could be
any one of the 27,000,000 slaves in the world right now. But that
27,000,000 must cease to be a number. Just like you and me, these people are
living, breathing human beings, created in the image of Almighty God -- full of
God-given destiny and God-given promise. The same Jesus who set me free can set
them free. But how will they hear those words if we do not go? How will
they ever know the truth if we, together, don't raise our voices and declare
that we will not allow this injustice to prevail? The Apostle Paul said
that it is for freedom that Christ has set us free -- and we must take that
declaration to the world
Not
long ago, I was sitting at one of our shelters with Sonia, one of fourteen
rescued victims. One of these young women, one that wasn't a statistic
anymore began telling me about how she was shipped to Istanbul in a container
with sixty other girls. During the trip the oxygen tank broke, and when the
crate was actually opened, thirty of the sixty girls were dead. The ones left
alive had no passports because the traffickers had taken them. They were locked
in an apartment and then raped several times a day by men wearing
law-enforcement uniforms so the girls would not trust the police. Then they
were put in a little rubber dingy to be taken from Istanbul to Athens through
the Greek Islands. While en route, the traffickers were spotted by a coast
guard patrol, and so they threw the girls overboard. (Keep in mind these girls
were from villages and had barely seen running water, let alone been in a body
of water to swim. Only five survived.) Sonia was one of them. She
was eventually brought to our shelter when the police raided a brothel in
Athens.
It
was about this time in this unbelievable story that a Russian girl sitting
near us, who had also been rescued only a day before Sonia, began to yell
at me in broken Greek: "Why did you come?" As best I could, I
began to tell her about how Jesus had rescued me and so I wanted to help.
I told her that God has a plan, a purpose, and a destiny for her life. That it
didn't matter what she had gone through, God was big enough to redeem her
past. But it's what she said next that I'll never forget. As I was
telling her this good news she yelled back at me, "If what you are telling
me about your God is true, then why didn't you come sooner?"
Why
hadn't I come sooner? Those are haunting words. What is so important in our
temporal lives that it will distract us from the eternal purpose God put us on
earth for? What deserves more attention than the very people Jesus died
for? Safety, comfort, and security are not the goal of Christianity;
freedom is. Because it is, we must rise together to declare that this will not
happen on our watch. Not today, not ever again."
Hearing
such facts and stories is unsettling I know. At least it should be to anyone
with an ounce of love in their heart.
Yet
the question is not, "Did I feel a twinge of compassion when
reading this?" The two men who walked by the wounded, beaten and
discarded man in Jesus parable -- the priest and the Levite --
surely felt a twinge of compassion for the man. But as Christine points
out, compassion isn't truly compassion until it inspires action. The
question we must ask in light of the Good Samaritan story, is will those
feelings of compassion move me to some type of action on behalf of the
suffering and exploited. Is my faith all about me, or all about God and
what He would have me do to bring the good news of my faith in Jesus to
others? Will it move me to action. All who know their Bible's well
know the answer. If compassion (fed by the love of God poured
into our hearts by the Holy Spirit) doesn't move us to any type of
response, it is not true godly compassion but mere sentimentality -- and
sentimentality (though possibly better than nothing) is not what God calls for
from His people. Those who have experienced His love are called to show
that same type of love to others.
May
God gracious move on our hearts (mine included) to do what we can, where we
can, however we can, Pastor Jeff
