URGENT: What You May NOT Know About...

SEX TRAFFICKING.

It's a subject most people in America don't really like to talk about. Actually, a subject most people everywhere don't like to talk about. But it's real. It's heartbreaking. I've hardly stopped crying after I started researching for this post. But stick with me and LISTEN UP. It needs to be told.

Facts:
1. After drugs and weapons, it is the world's third largest criminal enterprise. Can you believe it? 
2. There approximately two million children in the commercial sex trade. Children. 
3. Almost 80 percent of trafficking victims are women and girls. 50 percent are minors. Despicable.
4. Trafficking generates about $32 billion annually. Money coming from slaves.
5. Rape, unprotected sex, forced abortions, and manipulation can have many psychological and physical effects, including HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases or conditions. Children.
6. In commercial sexual exploitation, a child is treated as a sexual and commercial object. They are used in prostitution, pornography, trafficking and sex tourism. Unthinkable.
7. Over 100,000 U.S. children are forcefully engaged in prostitution or pornography each year.
8:

TWO CHILDREN ARE SOLD EVERY MINUTE.

I cannot read or type that fact without tears welling up. Every single minute. Two helpless children. We live in such a sinful, fallen, horrible world! I wish with all my heart that I could somehow raise all the money needed to help get these children out. That I could speak the word, and these women and children would no longer have to live in fear. But it doesn't work like that. We have to keep praying and speaking and fighting. There are missions that go undercover to root out brothels and free the slaves. Remember my mentioning that while there is slavery in every single nation on this planet, it is legal in none? International Justice Mission and Love146 are two missions that seek to end slavery all over the world. IJM works in all areas of modern day slavery, whereas Love146 works to end child slavery, especially in the sex industry. I encourage you to visit their sites, www.ijm.org and www.love146.org.

You may be wondering how "Love146" got it's name. Here is the story from Rob Morris, President and Co-founder of this organization. He and his partner were just starting the ministry and had gone undercover to South East Asia. Link: http://love146.org/love-story.

"We found ourselves standing shoulder to shoulder with predators in a small room, looking at little girls through a pane of glass. All of the girls wore red dresses with a number pinned to their dress for identification. They sat, blankly watching cartoons on TV. They were vacant, shells of what a child should be. There was no light in their eyes, no life left. Their light had been taken from them.  These children...raped each night... seven, ten, fifteen times every night. They were so young. Thirteen, eleven… it was hard to tell.  Sorrow covered their faces with nothingness. Except one girl. One girl who wouldn’t watch the cartoons. Her number was 146. She was looking beyond the glass. She was staring out at us, with a piercing gaze. There was still fight left in her eyes. There was still life left in this girl...

"...All of these emotions begin to wreck you. Break you. It is agony. It is aching. It is grief. It is sorrow. The reaction is intuitive, instinctive. It is visceral. It releases a wailing cry inside of you. It elicits gut-level indignation. It is unbearable. I remember wanting to break through the glass. To take her away from that place. To scoop up as many of them as I could into my arms. To take all of them away. I wanted to break through the glass to tell her to keep fighting. To not give up. To tell her that we were coming for her…"

“Because we went in as part of an ongoing, undercover investigation on this particular brothel, we were unable to immediately respond. Evidence had to be collected in order to bring about a raid, and eventually justice on those running the brothel.  It is an immensely difficult problem when an immediate response cannot address an emergency.  Some time later, there was a raid on this brothel and children were rescued.  But the girl who wore #146 was no longer there.  We do not know what happened to her, but we will never forget her.  She changed the course of all of our lives."

I hope this story and others you may read on the sites might change your life. Awaken you to the atrocities out there. This one girl inspired these men to tell the story of the thousands of others like her. I wept as I read this, and I hope that you have listened and will continue to speak, telling others her story. She represents millions of girls in her position. Tell their story.

I don't want to leave you too depressed, so take heart! You can take heart that both IJM and Love146 are cracking down on the sex trafficking industry. Money and resources are needed to further their progress, of course, but slaves are being freed. There is hope. Also, it is easy to read these accounts and feel so helpless. Feel as if this is a hopeless cause. But remember, God is in control! It's hard to understand, but we are assured in the Scriptures that He is sovereign, and He cares for His people. So, instead let these stories set you on fire to end this evil! Let them fuel your desire to see God's love and mercy shown to these children. Have faith that He will help you as you care for the oppressed. Have faith that we can make a difference through Him. Remember, as well, that these people need the hope of the gospel more than they need freedom. Pray that God might use you. Radical listening, remember?

Every minute, two are sold.

And the clock keeps ticking.

CAN YOU HEAR THEM CRY?

STOP. LISTEN. SPEAK. PRAY. GIVE. 

-With hope and faith,
Lauren

URGENT: SLAVERY NEWSFLASH

I was intending to share with you some of the stories of those who have gone through modern-day slavery and have been rescued from it. Instead, my mother brought to my attention an article pleading for prayer and help regarding slavery in Sudan. This is URGENT. LISTEN UP.

Make Way Partners uses the hope of the gospel and goes to the most vulnerable peoples of the world to protect them from human trafficking and sex slavery. They currently have an orphanage called New Life Ministry in Sudan with five hundred and fifty orphans. Sudan is plagued with a civil war. The radical Islamic government that has taken control of northern Sudan is unleashing heavy assaults on southern Sudan, aided by the help of LRA, the Lord's Resistance Army, made up of rebels from Uganda. The orphanage is asking for PRAYER that God would PROTECT the orphans, and WISDOM on if and when they should evacuate the orphans. Here is the story of what happened when the LRA invaded a nearby village. LISTEN and WEEP for these CHILDREN.

“It is really so very terrible! They gathered all the little children together and started killing their people right in front of their eyes. The children were so terrorized. The LRA then made the children begin killing their own parents. After the slaughter, the boys were forced to carry large metal barrels, and the girls were forced to fetch water to fill the barrels. They then had to build fires around the barrels. While the water began to boil, the children were forced to hack up their parents and fellows bodies and throw their dismembered parts in the boiling water. After sometime, the children were forced to eat their own parents and fellows flesh…once the LRA knew the children were so traumatized they would do anything, kill anyone, and not try to run away, they left the village with their new soldiers and sex slaves.”

Can you believe this is happening? Well, it is. WAKE UP. PRAY. These are people created in God's image. These are CHILDREN being put through these horrible things. How can we SIT here and not do anything? Not even PRAY? This is a time for the CHURCH, for US, to rise up and plead with God to PROTECT them. To GIVE if we can. To GO if we are able. To most definitely SPEAK. Become a VOICE for these children!

I beg with you to pray for these children who are taken. To pray for the protection of the children in this orphanage, that their hearts might be comforted in all this terror. God is there! HE listens to the VOICES of HIS children! Pray that more people might come to know what is going on. Pray that God might use you to be a VOICE. Pray for wisdom for the leaders of Make Way Partners. Pray for peace in Sudan. The world is a much scarier place than we as Americans like to think. Wake up to the horrors of this world, and SPEAK. PRAY.

Children, made in the image of our God.

CAN YOU HEAR THEM CRY?

STOP. LISTEN. SPEAK.

PRAY!

With sorrow,
-Lauren

Original Article by Stephanie Anderson

SLAVERY

The first topic I want to speak about is SLAVERY. "Slavery?" you say. "That was over, like, 150 years ago!" Actually, no. Slavery exists all over the world. In fact, there are more slaves on earth today than there probably have ever been, even though it is illegal everywhere. Tonight I just want to give you the facts. Maybe shock you a little bit with the awful truth. So LISTEN up.

27 MILLION. That's 27,000,000 people imprisoned, subdued to incredible injustice all over the world. And yes, it is going on right under your very nose. There are an estimated 100,000 slaves in America today, and about 17,500 more are trafficked in every year. 91 U.S. cities have reported cases of human trafficking. Here's something perhaps a little disturbing. Our government's budget for efforts against human trafficking? $50 MILLION. "That's a lot of money!" you say. Just wait. U.S. Government's budget for efforts against drug trafficking? $19 BILLION. Yeah, that's BILLION. Shocking?

There are 800,000 people trafficked across international borders each year. 50% of all trafficking victims are children. Modern-day slavery presents itself in the "disguise" of forced labor, debt bondage, servile marriage, and child labor. I am not going to take the time tonight to share with you some of the many heart-breaking stories, because I think that the numbers along give plenty of food for thought. Below is an interactive map from www.freetheslaves.net. This site is an excellent place to go to if you want to learn more immediately. Most of the facts I shared with you tonight I learned when I read "Be the Change" by Zach Hunter, a teenager inspired to fight modern-day slavery. I encourage you to read it.

27,000,000.

CAN YOU HEAR THEM CRY?

STOP. LISTEN. SPEAK.

-With hope,
Lauren


Free the Slaves - Interactive Map

STOP and LISTEN

Hello! My name is LAUREN. I hope to enlighten you, my reader, on a series of matters overlooked in our society. Troubles and atrocities forgotten about in the protected society of America that we live in. My request is that you STOP. To LISTEN. Can you hear the cries of those mistreated around the world? Those stuck in horrifying conditions? It can be very hard, because these people have no VOICE. They have little to no ways of getting out and communicating to the world what they are living through. They are practically IGNORED by their governments and the people in their countries. People in places like America, who have the ability to do something about these problems, have no clue what is going on, and would be happy to help if they did, Through what I tell you, I hope to be a VOICE for those who have none. I wish to inspire you to JOIN the cry and make the voice even louder. They deserve to be HEARD. They deserve a chance. They are human. We are human. So, every once in a while (about once a week to be precise), STOP by here. LISTEN for a while. See if you can't take what you have heard, and make the VOICE stronger. I like to call that RADICAL LISTENING. Don't just listen, SPEAK. Expand. Inspire. If you are a Christian, PRAY. It doesn't take much effort to tell someone what they might not know, but would be totally interested in hearing.
STOP. LISTEN. SPEAK.

-Yours Truly,
LAUREN