It was only a few moments, a couple of minutes total but I felt like I was being smacked in the face.
I watched a girl walk down the street in a barely-there dress trying desperately and hopelessly to cover up some of her bare skin…out of the corner of my eye I saw a man slide his arm around a young woman’s shoulders as she stood by the side of the road and guide her away…driving down the road I noticed a cluster of girls standing tightly together waiting for customers to come by. All of these scenes broke my heart. And they only added up to a few minutes of my life, but sex trafficking is their life.
I’ve read countless articles about the subject, supported different anti-trafficking organizations, I’ve even written a research paper on the topic and yet nothing prepared me for the punch in the gut I have received over the last few days as I have seen what trafficking looks like in person. Nothing could have prepared me for this. No amount of reading or research could have conveyed to me the scenes and emotions that I have witnessed and felt over the course of one weekend.
I knew that trafficking, in a wide array of variations, existed and that it was not just a problem isolated to far off countries, it happens in the US too, but I suppose like many other things I have encountered on the race I had never really considered what trafficking actually meant and what it actually looked like in the real world. I selfishly had been living in my own little bubble where I helped a little but I had never really connected all the dots or thought too much about it because it didn’t directly affect me. It feels horrible to write those words but they are the truth. I had always thought of human trafficking as something that happened in places other than where I lived. Even when I learned that trafficking was occurring in southern Maine, my own state I still didn’t feel like I had to do anything more than buy a few bracelets or t-shirts. I can’t do that anymore.
I have never felt more broken-hearted or frustrated with the human race than in these moments as I watched beautiful, precious girls, daughters of the Most High, princesses and heirs with Christ believe that they have to sell their bodies in order to survive. These girls, cherished children of God believe that they have no other option to make money. They believe there is no escape. Watching all those girls as they travel the streets of Phnom Penh I wanted to break down and weep at the injustice of it all. Seeing this makes me ask the question: How is it that I can know the Father’s love and yet these girls perhaps feel as if they know no love at all? Where is there fairness in that? There is none. Where is the hope?… There is hope.
The same weekend that I saw these scenes I was able to visit two amazing places on the riverside of Phnom Penh that rescue women just like these girls from sex trafficking and they help them not only survive, but thrive. I walked into a store called Made which is part of Agape International Missions and it was filled with clothes, wallets, and jewelry that were all made by women rescued from trafficking. Just a short walk down the street I walked into a darling cafe called Daughters of Cambodia for lunch. Downstairs was a shop that was once again filled with items made by rescued women and upstairs there was a small but quaint cafe area. What struck me most about this place was that all the women working there were rescued from trafficking. My waitress that day had been rescued from a terrible life and looking at her that day you would have never known. She smiled and was helpful and it was such an amazing thing to me to see that and think about the other girls I had noticed the past few nights, whom she had once been.
To see the transformation that love can make still astounds me. I am amazed at these women and amazed at these organizations and amazed at my God. During these brief moments and encounters I discovered a better understanding of the Lord’s unrelenting redemptive love than I ever have before because these girls, they are us before we know Jesus.
We sometimes feel like we’re all out of options like they do. We think that we can’t come back from the dark places we’ve been. We think, like I imagine they do, that there is no escape, no chance at redemption. But praise the Lord there is! The Lord rescues us from the darkness inside us just like these girls are rescued by organizations like AIM and Daughters. And through the Father’s love we become someone new. Someone completely unrecognizable from who we once were. Gone is our fear and despair and it is replaced by healing though a all-encompassing love. These girls were transformed by love, but it took time. They had to let go of their fear and be willing to trust that the people caring for them really do want to help them.
I often find that my fear gets in the way of feeling the Father’s love. There are things I’d rather hold onto rather than give myself over to feeling just how much the Lord loves me. Just like these girls’ rescuers had to be patient and earn their trust my Father is patient with me. He doesn’t need to earn my trust but He wants it. He will wait as I struggle back and forth trying to let things go but continuing to run back to them when things get hard. He will wait and He will love and He will be there when I am ready to let go. He will be there when I am ready to see hope in the world rather than despair. Love can transform in a way that nothing else can I pray that I never forget those beautiful girls and what trafficking looks like around the world. I pray that one day human beings stop viewing each other as things to be bought and sold. And I pray that the Father’s redemptive love never ceases to amaze me.
