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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. 
 
This week’s story comes from Annie Heathorn of the September 2012 J Squad. Annie and her team spent a month in Thailand serving at Remember Nhu, a home that rescues children who were going to be sold into sex trafficking. They saw firsthand the villages many of these girls come from and witnessed some of the factors that contribute to trafficking. Annie learned that prevention is key to ending human trafficking. 
The air echoed with children’s laughter, ripples of freedom breaking the quiet of the afternoon. I felt little fingers reach up and tickle my sides and then the patter of feet scrambling to get away. As I chased after TaTa, I felt like a three-year-old again, lost in the game of tickle tag. 
 
Every afternoon, my heart is enveloped by the joy that radiates from these children. This home of 130 kids is drenched and dripping in love. And as I look into this toddler’s face, I am overtaken with a deep emotion for her. For an instant I think I glimpse what the Lord sees when he looks at his daughter.
 
But then without intending to, my thoughts wander to the life this little girl could have had, the hellish industry that she was destined for.  

And as I stare into the eyes of innocence, I simply cannot see it. I cannot envision her as the slave to the perverted pleasure of another, nor do I want to. She is too pure, too full of joy, too innocent. The fiery emotion of anger mixed with disgust wells up from my core. Although TaTa gets to ride a bike through the jungle trees, thousands of girls and boys just like her across the country are sacrificed to evil.

 
 Last week we visited the hilltown where Tata was born. Immediately I was struck by the contrast between this town and the home in which she now lives. The stench of poverty thickend the air. Weary faces peeked out of the bamboo shacks and wandered the eerily quiet streets. 
 
But what was etched in my mind long after we left was not the rotted teeth of the aging woman nor the sight of the one bedroom shacks that housed entire families. It was the little mansion that stood right in the middle of the tiny huts.
 
It was the house of the family of Le, the village prostitute. Selling her life away to men in Bangkok, the young girl sent her wages home enabling her family to grow wealthier and wealthier. With the only car in the town parked in the driveway and intricate designs decorating the exterior of the house, the home stood as a powerful incentive to the rest of the girls in the town. They looked up to Le. She was their role model, almost an idol.

Every day they walked past the display of wealth and honor that her work brought to her family, and they thought maybe one day their beauty could bring hope to their family’s situation as hers had. 

 
Back at Remember Nhu I swing the baby of the house up into my arms, and whisper blessings into her ear. My mind is perplexed with the deep complexities of the sex industry. It’s not always like Hollywood portrays it – little girls kidnapped from their homes into a life of prostitution. So often these girls choose it year after year, hoping to honor to their parents, hoping to make a better life for the ones that they love by sacrificing themselves. 
 
 Here, this toddler will grow up with dolls and bikes, protected from that life. She will go to school, learn a trade, or even attend university. But most of all she would grow up soaked in love. She will live in innocence. 
 
There is something very special about these girls, and as I run around with them I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that more and more of them are trafficked every year. I simply can’t understand it, and most of the time I don’t let myself try. It is too gross to me. 
All I know is they are here. They are safe to be little girls, to grow into women, to one day fight for the other girls in their town, and to destroy the spreading cancer of slavery that is unstoppable unless treated from within.

Annie and her team got a glimpse of the girls’ lives before trafficking. They got to see some of what causes human trafficking, and they saw the need for education in the hill tribes to prevent future trafficking. Ending human trafficking is not a short assignment or a quick solution. It requires prevention, intervention, and restoration, and you can help.

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.