This year, we’ve focused on stories inspired by our We Are the World Race Campaign. This month, we’re sharing stories inspired by women on the mission field. (Don’t worry guys, your turn is coming next month!) Our experiences with women worldwide have taught us what womanhood really means. Women are wired for intimate relationships and deep, abiding love. And even when that “love” is used to take advantage of them—things like human trafficking, prostitution, and exploitation, to name a few—women teach us about beauty, femininity, joy, and God’s love for each one of his daughters. This month we want to celebrate all things women-in-missions related, and give you a chance to share your story as well.
Kent Cranford of January 2013 M squad followed his Race to Thailand. What he discovered was the hard reality these parents face daily in the midst of poverty. Kent shows us this story through the eyes of a mother and her decision to sell her daughters.
Pretend for a minute you’re a mother who can’t provide for your family.
You watch the homes of other parents around you being built. Because those parents made the decision they did, the clothes they wear get a little nicer and there’s more food on their table than your own. So you make that choice and you take an offer to sell your child.
You watch as he takes your oldest daughter. The understanding that you may never see her again not yet hitting you. Two days and she’ll be back home in your arms. It’s only for a weekend, right?
But it will be different. The innocence and the joy won’t be there anymore. Where there once was light will be covered by darkness.
One weekend will turn into two and three and then more than you can count.
A new week starts and a man brings you the money your daughter made, thirty-six dollars. You take it saying this will be the last time. But greed and selfishness take over when the man notices you have another daughter.
He offers double for her.You tell him she’s only eight, but money isn’t an issue. He triples it, and you take it.
Just like the daughter before, you’ll never see her again.You’ll see only the remains of the child she was.She’ll be forced to grow up faster than others her age. The images and experiences she has will be replayed in her mind for a lifetime.
A year later the man returns saying your oldest daughter has died of disease and that you’ll have to pay the rest of the money she was due to bring in.
Though you’ve spent everything, the bill must be paid.And before he can speak again a baby cries from inside the house.
Moments later, the house is empty.
The man who was in the doorway is driving off. Your bill is paid and in your hand is twenty-six dollars.
Can you even imagine this?
I could write a blog explaining my heart and where God has me at this moment, but I can’t. I’m still processing. I’m processing the idea that my past sin has helped aid the industry I’m trying to stop.
I’m processing and wondering how a mother can sell her daughter for twenty-six dollars.
While the story above is pretend for you and me, it’s reality for countless parents in Thailand. Each day they are faced with this scenario. Each day parents say goodbye to their children to never see them again.
Kent’s story above might be fictionalized, but the reality of children being sold by their parents into sex slavery is very real. With God, we have the power to take the stories of human trafficking victims to the world and help bring justice to the helpless children being sold daily.
We know these things break God’s heart, and they break ours too. In sharing these stories, we want to bring awareness to the reality of life for 27 million men, women, and children around the world. We believe in faith together that we can end this thing. While we know simple awareness will never end these issues, we also know they’ll never end without it.
You could be the one to answer the Lord’s call to be a voice for the voiceless. Your hands could hold the hurting. Your voice could spread the name of Jesus. Will you go? Click here to apply for your own World Race journey.
