There comes a time in your life when someone paints a picture for you that hits you so hard you can’t pretend you never saw it. Mine kept me awake at night. It was the knowledge of a living hell that so many people around the world are facing. A life unimaginable, and far from wanted by me or anybody else. The life of a person being sex-trafficked.
There was a blind woman on the streets of Chicago who was sold into prostitution. Her pimp was always nearby and he’d tell her which way to walk so that she could meet up with the John who stood waiting for her.
A young teenage girl who felt neglected by her parents found her way onto a chat room where she met Jeremy, a pimp in disguise. She ran away with him, naively thinking he would show her all of the love and affection he’d promised. Instead, he sold her. Her body was found a few months later, strangled in a motel room less than 50 miles from her parents home.
A thirteen year old girl was raped and impregnated by her drug addicted father. She was thrown onto the streets where she lived the life of a ‘whore’ after being lured in with talk of money and provision.
These stories happened here in the greater Chicago area, where an estimated 18,000-22,000 women and children are sex-trafficked each year. The staggering numbers in the US and the rest of the planet are unfathomable.
There are literally millions of people around the world who are emotionally crippled because of the horror they are going through. Hopelessness is their reality, day in and day out.
Can you imagine?
A friend recently asked why I have such a heart for these women and children. My immediate response was, “I would never want to be forced to have sex. Ever.” That’s the truth. Sex is the greatest intimacy we could possibly have with another person, and for it to be taken from these women and children, sometimes 10+ times a day is enough to make me fall to my knees to thank Father God that it’s not me.
The more I know about the realities of a human trafficking circle, the stronger the longing in my heart to reach out becomes. I so badly want to embrace even just one individual and give them a real hug; something some of them haven’t felt in a really long time. Even just one.
I want to share Jesus with the victims, the Johns, and the pimps of human trafficking. I want to share Jesus with them so that their spirits can be completely transformed. They are worthy of the love that has changed so many lives; the love only our Lord Jesus is capable of giving.
This is the desire God has placed in my heart. With Him, anything is possible and he fills the desired of our hearts. Somehow on my World Race it will happen. He will make it happen.
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13
