The Lion and the Lamb

Stop reading this.
 
Count to thirty.
 
Are you finished?
 
In those thirty seconds, a child was trafficked.*

 
While I was in Thailand working with women in the Red Light District, I watched the documentary Nefarious: Merchant of Souls, the first of three proposed documentaries on the sale of sex and the prevalence of sex trafficking around the world.  The documentary covered sex trafficking in Moldova, Thailand, Cambodia, and the US specifically. 
 
Sound familiar? 
 
It should… it’s my Race route.
 
I didn’t encounter trafficking in Moldova – at least, not that anyone pointed out to me.  I certainly worked with victims of trafficking in Thailand in the fact that these women’s vulnerability was consistently exploited. 
 
But Cambodia is a different beast altogether.  According to Nefarious, conservative estimates state that 60-70% of village parents sell their own children into sex trafficking – and not even out of necessity, but out of an appetite for more things.
 
A car.
A bigger TV.
Better living conditions.
 
One interviewee, an American missionary who runs an organization to help Cambodian children, asked a local Cambodian about it.  “Do the parents just not love their kids?” he asked. 
 

 

 

 
Before this year, I was never a “kid person.”  I prefer adults – at the very least, young people who are old enough and smart enough to hold a decent conversation.  Most of the time, I found babysitting exhausting and draining and not all that fun… Until very recently, I was waiting apprehensively for the month where my team was sent to an orphanage and I’d be surrounded by children at all hours of the day and night and Jesus would inevitably say, “Figure it out, Carly.”
 
Things started shifting month one in Romania —

and then in Moldova with Maxime and Yana.

Then the school kids in Nepal,

then the street kids in India,

then the neighborhood kids in Tanzania,

then the nursery school children in Rwanda,

then the kids from the church in Uganda,

 

then the flower girls in the bar district of Thailand.

God has been slowly melting my heart towards children around the world and, little by little, I find myself drawn towards the kids I meet.  I genuinely want to hold them and play with them and tell them stories and make them laugh – simply put, my eyes are new towards kids.
 
Then I watched that documentary.  And I saw those faces and heard their laughs and watched as a grown man cried over the state of their lives.

 
And I can’t quite fully describe what happened inside of my heart or my body, but my physical arms ached – my muscles literally tensed up – with desire to hold those kids.  To go and meet them face to face and to tell them that there is hope.  To be a presence of light and love and Jesus in their lives, no matter how fleetingly. 

Despite all appearances, despite the poverty and the danger that these kids live in, Jesus loves them deeply.  He is the one who said, "Let the little children come to me," and I'm finally starting to feel His hearbeat for them.  When He says, "It is better for a man to have a millstone tied around his neck and thrown into the sea than to make one of these little ones stumble," I agree — obviously.  We all agree, don't we?

Then why does this problem still exist?

It was heartbreaking to walk through the villages and know the statistics.  It was really, really awful to look into a veritable sea of children and wonder who had already been abused.  The easiest thing to do probably would have been to just tell the Bible story, hug a few kids, say a couple of prayers, pass out candy, and then leave and hope for the best.

However, I do not wage war as the world does.  The weapons I fight with are not the weapons of the world.  On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds, to demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God [2 Corinthians 10:3-5a].

So instead of just telling the Bible story, hugging a few kids, saying a couple of prayers, passing out candy, and then leaving and hoping for the best, my team and I prayed in faith that when we ask the Spirit to encounter these kids, He will.  We prayed in faith that when we asked the Spirit to protect the kids, He would.  We got to declare that those kids were the future of Cambodia — that generational curses and strongholds were broken off of them in Jesus' name.  We declared that those beautiful little girls were sacred and perfect and protected.  We prayed that those energetic little boys were pure and righteous and strong. 

Back in Thailand, I was deeply struck by the imagery of God as the Lion and the Lamb.  I see Him as Aslan, ferocious and angry and devouring all of the wicked who sell or buy or exploit His babies in any way.  But even as the Lion prowls ahead, so the soft and tender Lamb stays by our sides and sits with us where we are.  I believe that the Lion and the Lamb are busy in Cambodia.  I believe that there is hope for a nation, at once so old and so young.  I believe that this is the generation to stand up and say, "No more."

And I believe that you and I are called to be a part of it.

I would strongly [albeit cautiously] encourage you to find a copy of Nefarious and watch it.  Today.  It is the most atrocious and beautiful story you'll ever know.

But only watch it if you're serious.  Don't bother if you don't intend to do anything about it — whether that "anything" mean giving financially, praying fervently, or going to a place physically — because it might be better to be ignorant that to willfully allow something of this nature to flourish.

I've always liked kids in theory, but never as much in practice.  Now I love them.  I know their faces and their names and only a handful of their stories, and I love them.  I have no idea how God wants to use that, but I trust that He will, the same way that I trust Him to use any shred of compassion or willingness that you  have in your heart towards this issue.

 

*According to UNICEF statistics found at http://nefariousdocumentary.com/learn-more/
**Photo credits: Bri Danese [Romania], Jessica Robbins [Uganda], Elizabeth Huff [Tanzania], AJ Levan [Cambodia], and Stephanie May [India]
*** Why yes, I am currently in Vietnam writing Cambodia blogs… woops.