Caffeine Injection - May 2009
Jessica is one of the staff members in SEA, and this was her response to the Trafficking
Excursion:
It was absolutely horrible...the sex trafficking. The thought of what those little girls (women, little boys & even men) are forced to endure each night. I wanted to 'pay for' a couple of girls and give them a hotel room...to let them have a night away. I wanted to go Rambo on those that lock the chains around them. (Then, God completely broke me over the pimps, mama-sans, parents, and those who are in complete bondage to the idea that this is okay.) I mean 10-15 men each night -- much less the beatings from the men--much less the fear of the pimps--much less the rejection of one's own family--much less the feeling of hopelessness. I wanted to just hold them and let them know there is hope. I cried and prayed and did both again.
We walked through the 'slums' of this city that is nicknamed 'Hell on earth.' Heaps of trash and cardboard walled houses lined would-be roads steeped in raw sewage. The poverty of such a place is credited with being one of the main causes of the trafficking -- because mom & dad need money to continue their gambling habit or a new TV or in some cases food. So here are all these kids running around with no shoes and many no clothes with their bodies as the biggest asset in the neighborhood.
How do we react? Your heart all but explodes. What is love? How do we help? Where is justice? Who are the poor? Where is the Body? Who will stand in the gap?
I don't have the answers, but on many days my heart screams in the seeking. In the weeks leading up to the trip and even more so since we returned, God has had a central theme of 'who are the poor?' and what is my role in helping the 'least of these' and those whose lives are choked in the grips of such poverty and evil. The verses in John 15:13, I John 3:16-18, and James 1:22, 2:14-28 seem to jump out of the pages. (Actually, I could list several others, but that's a place to start.) At some point, inactivity and not being informed is not acceptable and even disobedient. Each of us is at different places, and God will lead each of us to respond differently. The thing is that I think we are all called to respond.
Within the Body, we want to argue that God hasn't 'called' me to do something, but what about "never grow tired of doing good" or "do not withhold good from those to whom is is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do so" or "Feed my sheep" or "if you have done it unto the least of these you have done it unto me" or what about the part out of I John that says "but whoever has this world's goods, and sees his bother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?" At what point are the words that He left in His word our call? On one of Frances Chan's podcasts, he actually made the point that we go to the movies or we watch TV without hearing a 'call' from God; but when it becomes an act of service to God or something that might pull us from our comforts, we want an audible voice. We can listen to sermons and read books and do studies and quote references, but at some point we have to act. We have got to 'exercise' our faith right NOW, wherever we are. We've got to act with more love and more vigor than the evil that is around us.
The urgency has changed a little in my heart, but I've seen the little girls and young women sitting outside the house with the literal red light glowing behind them. I don't know where you are supposed to 'walk' or what your 'hands' are supposed to do, but we have all been called to reach out. I believe we, as the Body, can do more than we are doing, but I fear we get lost in distractions.
-Suzi and Chris
