Found

We and the world, my children, will always be at war. 

Retreat is impossible.

Arm yourselves.

LEIF ENGER

Today (for a few more minutes) is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day.

I should tell you that I believe people are sacred, personally crafted and dreamed up by the hand of God, Himself.  If there was a CSI of hearts, God’s fingerprints would be all over us all, whether we acknowledge Him or not.  And try to scrub Him off, though we may, we cannot get rid of His DNA, whether we twist and pervert His dream or not.  We have an enemy of our souls, one who hates the One represented in our fabric, whether we believe in him or not.

And if you weren’t convinced before that life is sacred and that a force throws all it has at cutting life off at the knees, the 27 million people—men, women, children—bound and silenced by slavery today should scream its truth at you.

I’ve mentioned them before, but I love the organization, IJM.  The International Justice Mission not only rescues those prey to abusers, but they prosecute offenders and work in countries worldwide, changing laws in order to protect Humanity’s citizens. 

In India alone more than three million people wake each morning to the bars and chains of sexual slavery.  More than one million?  Children...  Children like Suhana, uniquely made by God’s own hands...dreamed up for life.  Suhana—trafficked and trapped in a brothel at thirteen.  Rescued by IJM workers, healing in an aftercare program...only to be tricked and re-trafficked...dumped off and lost in Mumbai, a city of 18 million people.

And IJM found her...again.

My team was unwilling to give up.

(IJM Worker) 

One person?  In a city of 18 million?  That’s insane.  Or maybe just a few people armed with the knowledge of Insane Love, Himself…

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

EDMUND BURKE

I believe that people are irreplaceable.  Each of us has a role to fill...there’s no one else to hire.  It’s your job.  It belongs to you.  

I don’t know if you belong to Jesus or not.  But wouldn’t it be incredible to stand together, to refuse to look the other way when we know our fellow image-bearers are being stripped of their God-dreamed-up right to life?  It doesn’t have to be to IJM—there are lots of great organizations that battle human trafficking—but would you consider to give something, even something small just to say, on this day, “I refuse to slip silently into the night, pretending I do not see...hear...know…”

In the heat of battle it ceases to be an idea for which we fight. Or a flag. Rather we fight for the man on our left, and we fight for the man on our right. And when armies are scattered and the empires fall away, all that remains is the memory of those precious moments that we spent side by side. 

 The Four Feathers

It isn’t about standing against the idea of trafficking, though that’s vital.  It’s about standing up for the precious persons affected by it.  It’s about speaking for those who have no voice, no one to defend them.  Let’s speak with our money and time and prayer together and say, “You matter.  You were created for life, full and free.  And we see you.” 

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To learn more about IJM or to give through their organization, click here.

Please do watch more of Suhana’s story.

And thanks to my sister, Anna, for the new banner.  My littles live in her hats.  You can check her out on Etsy, here.