When you buy a woman, you’re buying stolen goods. When you purchase a child, you’re purchasing someone’s innocence. When you give money in exchange for a body, you turn something beautiful into something broken. When you buy a child you are destroying this world one dollar at a time, you are putting a price on the value of life.
A man named Tom Davis from Children’s HopeChest came to training camp on Wednesday July 28th and talked to us about human trafficking. He told us about how orphaned women in Russia are targeted and forced into prostitution. We were shown a video in which some of these women told us their stories, told us of the fear, the pain, the confusion, the beatings, the entrapment, and the agony that they went through. Throughout the presentation he had picked up this small grey bag a couple of times, and after the video was over, and we were deeply silent, he picked up the bag again, reached in, and pulled out a small red towel and held it up to us. He had taken this towel from a Sauna Brothel in Russia where himself and a team had gone in to bring freedom to the women there. His hand went into the bag again and this time he brought out a pair of red and pink flip flops that barely fit in his hand and told us they were from a brothel raid he was a part of in Thailand.
I wept. My tears and the tears of those around me poured out for the broken, our voices cracked as we called out to God for those in despair, my heart and spirit were completely wrecked. Now I don’t live in a safe little box, I’m well aware that human trafficking exists, and it weighs heavily on my heart, but something inside of me changed when a pair of small shoes were only a few feet from my face, knowing that they had belonged to a child who’s feet wore those sandals into rooms where unspeakable things were done to them. I prayed what felt like useless prayers when my whole body burned to be there, to pick up those women and children and protect them, to tell them they have value beyond measure and that I would do whatever I could to keep them safe from harm. I kept crying, kept calling out to God, and then I was silent. I got up and walked around the Pavillion thinking I was done crying, but the sobs kept coming and I felt no peace in my spirit, I just felt gut wrenched and angry. I made my way around the outside and came in by the side and sat down again.
People had gone up and taken flags from countries we will be going to and they held them and interceded for those countries and those people. I was a few feet from my squad mate Michael, who has a boldness and passion for God that humbles me. He had Thailand’s flag gripped in his hands, raised over his head, and he was crying, “Thailand is yours, God! Give us Thailand!” I bowed my head in my hands and thought about Thailand – a country I fell in love with four years ago on a backpacking trip, a country I still dream about, a country that I feel I left a part of myself in, a country that I rejoiced over seeing on the Race route, a country that I will be going to so that I can tell the women, children, ladyboys, and anyone who will listen that there is hope. So I prayed for strength and valuable words, and still I felt hopeless. All I could see in my mind were those tiny, tiny pink and red flip flops.
Then I thought about the people buying the women and children, and something inside of me broke and flooded my heart with prayers.
When you pray for a rapist something inside of you changes, something in God’s Kingdom changes. When you pray for those men who buy and sell the wholeness of others, those dark rooms in the brothels and sex houses get a little brighter. When you stop praying for God to crush them and start praying for God’s justice you realize that God’s love is so big it even extends to those who commit such horrible acts. That’s a mind-blowing and challenging experience. I pray that God will prepare my heart for the people we will meet in Thailand, and that my eyes and heart will be as open as possible to give all that I can.
Isaiah 54:11-14 “O storm-battered city, troubled and desolate! I will rebuild you with precious jewels and make your foundations from lapis lazuli. I will make your towers of sparkling rubies, your gates of shining gems, and your walls of precious stones. I will teach all your children and they will enjoy great peace. You will be secure under a government that is just and fair. Your enemies will stay far away. You will live in peace, and terror will not come near.”
Children of Thailand, we’re coming.
