End It

Ministries for Trafficking:

http://worldrelief.org/Page.aspx?pid=3064

http://exoduscry.com/

http://stoptraffickfashion.com

http://daughtershouse.wordpress.com/resources/

http://magdalenestl.org/

http://www.gems-girls.org/get-involved http://www.gems-girls.org/about/research-resources

http://www.somaly.org/

http://www.love146.org/

http://www.thea21campaign.org/

http://3strandsglobal.com/index.cfm?pID=3331

http://www.worldvision.org/our-impact/child-protection

http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/

http://run2rescue.com/faq.html

http://www.hagarusa.org/

Love Alone is Worth the Fight

Ways to Fight Trafficking (adapted from various sources including: http://projectrescue.com/5-ways-you-can-fight-sexual-slavery/)

Learn

-Read articles about trafficking occurring in Missouri, the US, and overseas
-Read book on trafficking. I personally can recommend these books: Half the Sky:Turning Opression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. "Girls Like Us" by Rachel Lloyd. "Passport through Darkness" By Kimberly L Smith. Terrify No More by Gary Haugen.

-Watch a documentary on trafficking. 

-Read in the Bible what God has to say about justice and the oppressed

Pray

-Set aside time to pray for those in slavery

-Organize a prayer group

Give

-Support and/or fund-raise for a ministry that fights trafficking through prevention, rescue, and after-care. 

-Host a fund-raise party where people can buy products that vulnerable women make to help prevent trafficking

-Sponsor a child who is vulnerable to being trafficked

Serve/Educate

-Tell your friends, family, church, etc. about what you have learned about trafficking

-Host a documentary night or a book study 

-Get involved with organizations that fight trafficking

-Learn how to identify victims of sexual slavery and trafficking from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Rescue & Restore Campaign.

-Lobby Politicians

Not for Sale

The Problem( source: http://courageworldwide.org/the-problem/)

"Police and government agencies report they have seen the phenomenon of child sex trafficking increase tenfold over the last two years, and the abuse is still on the rise. The internet is being used as a tool to sell children for sex. There are countless ads that offer “erotic services” with juveniles photographed in the ads. This problem is wide-spread and the ease of use and secrecy of the internet furthers the hidden nature of this crime. Police report that vicious pimp circuits and organized crime rings exist that force children and teenagers into sexual exploitation. Police are successfully uncovering and prosecuting the perpetrators of this crime. The greatest factor in promoting child sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation is the demand for younger and younger victims. Most women in prostitution are trafficked into the sex industry as children. Worldwide, the average age of entrance into prostitution is 13.” 

"Children exploited through prostitution report they typically are given a quota by their trafficker/pimp of 10 to 15 buyers per night…Utilizing a conservative estimate, a domestic minor sex trafficking victim …would be raped by 6,000 buyers during the course of her victimization through prostitution."

For more information on human and sex trafficking click on this link:  http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/human-trafficking/

Tread on Trafficking

As I made the decision to run the MO' Cowbell Half Marathon, I decided to also support an organization, Love146, that supports a cause I strongly believe in: ending child trafficking and exploitation. I will have regular updates on this blog and on this website Running for Freedom. If 25 people give $13 to match the 13 miles I will be running, I will achieve my goal of $325. Follow along and consider supporting these efforts to fight trafficking!

Restorer

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard...if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong;and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in."
Isaiah 58:6-8,10-12

I am thankful for our LORD who brings healing, satisfaction, protection, and restoration to His children. He came for the oppressed, the hungry, the homeless, the naked, the shamed, the sick, the poor, the broken. You and I are those broken people. We need Him.

I have been learning about women who feel an oppression I will probably never experience or ever fully understand. These are women who are trapped in sex-trafficking, who need the LORD to bring full restoration to their lives. Their spiritual need is no greater than mine and their lives are just as precious to God as mine.

• "The most common age of entry into the commercial sex industry is 12-14 years old." (http://www.gems-girls.org/)
• "Sex traffickers frequently target vulnerable people with histories of abuse and then use violence, threats, lies, false promises, debt bondage, or other forms of control and manipulation to keep victims involved in the sex industry." (http://www.polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/sex-trafficking-in-the-us)
• Sex-trafficking looks different all around the world, but it is taking place in the US and not all that far from our homes. Last year, Angela Schmidt came to Crossroads to speak about Daughters' House, an organization that does outreach in our community to women who are sexually exploited or abused. She shared that the ministry is growing and in great need of people to pray and to come alongside these women to share Christ's love and offer assistance to find food, shelter, toiletries, work, etc. It takes more than a few people and a few encounters with these women to undo the lies that they have been taught to believe about who they are, why they exist, and how much they are valued. (http://restorestlouis.org/daughtershouse/)

This passage in Isaiah cannot be ignored by any one of us, although it makes me uncomfortable as I struggle with what that looks like for me to live a life that reflects this. But it clearly calls for God's people to take action, to be a part of God's story of restoration. We are by no means required to save the world, yet we must pray that God would be at work, restoring our city, making all things new. Asking for His guidance on where He may be calling us to serve Him. The incredible part of Isaiah 58 is seeing that just as God was present with his people Israel, He is with us and He will guide us, strengthen us, and equip us to do this work that He has given us.

I would challenge you to look at the passions and abilities that God has gifted you with and to think about where God is calling you to redeem our culture. Are you pouring yourself out as the LORD poured himself out for you?

"For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads,with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness."
Romans 12:3-8

Hunger Pains

It was Monday, my first day with the medical team in Haiti and I was triaging the children at the orphanage. I would ask if they were having any problems, any pain.

photo credit: Junia Mulia

The first little boy (pictured above and below) came and sat down in the little chair next to mine. He responded to my question by telling me that his stomach hurt. I asked for further details, like when did it hurt? He told me it hurt because he was hungry. What do I say? What do I tell a little boy who is hungry that it's probably because he needs to be eating more and more than the 2 times a day the children are fed. Because that's not really an option for him. I wanted to sneak him my extra granola bar, but we've been told that to do something like that is extremely unwise, unless we want a mob scene on our hands. I wished I had an extra granola bar for all of the kids.

photo credit: John Bone

We had been told that the children had previously only had white rice to eat and that recently beans had been added to their diets, which was somewhat encouraging but also very sad to me. I kept thinking that if the people back home knew that there were kids eating only rice for every meal, that they'd want to do something about it. The thought of eating only rice and beans everyday is not something I had ever thought of and it sounded horrible. Maybe not horrible when your only option is nothing to eat.
The day before I had seen a young boy who looked to be about 9 years old and was told he was actually more like 15 years old. It wasn't hard to figure out that undernutrition was a big factor in this. Many of the children in Haiti did look younger than they actually were. (For more information on undernutrition: http://www.unicef.org/nutrition/training/2.3/contents.html)

I love food and I love eating. It is so easy to justify spending money on food, because everyone has to eat! But instead of eating out even just that one time, what if you spent that money on sponsoring a child? I know solving the problem of hunger isn't going to be solved by sponsoring one child, but for that one child it makes all the difference to know that someone cares for them.

El Shaddai Ministries International, the organization I went with to Haiti, says that it cost's $90/child to pay for different needs, including support the mission itself (housing, food, house moms, teachers, staff, pastor, facility, and grounds maintenance, etc.). They do give the option of support at $30, $60 or the full $90/mo or just a one-time gift.
If you are interested in sponsoring a child from Haiti, please comment below or send me an email at  jhancockphotography@gmail.com and I can send you more information!

And you get a really nice picture of a super cute kid, like this one:

photo credit: John Bone

Here are some other highly reliable organizations where you can sponsor a child:
http://www.mtw.org/Pages/OneChild_Stories.aspx
www.worldvision.org/sponsor
www.compassion.com

Adventures in Haiti, Part 3: Savanne

The Church in Savanne is a place with an incredible story of revival. But I will have to share that story another time.

In Savanne I met Jessica, a shy and sweet 17 year-old, as I was working triage.

She began to tell me more than just her physical symptoms. At first I didn't connect with what she was saying and wasn't sure what to do with the information she was sharing with me. I was wondering if I should send her on her way to the doctors, but then, through my translator Ezekiel and our team leader Ted, I learned that her parents had died in the earthquake of 2010 and their bodies may not have been found. She lived with her grandma, but something had happened so that now she was on her own living with friends. She wants to go to Church but feels she can't because she only has the 1 skirt that she now wears, and no Sunday clothes to wear. She asks that I pray for her heart and for her to be able to go to school next year, because she hasn't been able to. School costs and she has not been in a few years and it is seemingly impossible for her to go without a lot of assistance.
After I finish praying, I tell her that I will get her connected with the Pastor of the Church to make sure she can get the help she needs and make sure she gets the clothes she needs to come to Church. The interpreter tells me she is crying, so I just stand there rubbing her back. I don't know this kind of grief but when we meet as a team that night and there are so many other needs shared one after another, I weep for her loss and for others who have lost so much, who have experienced so many forms of injustice.
Pray with me for those in Haiti like Jessica who may have a physical need, but ultimately need the comfort, hope and love that only a relationship with Jesus Christ can offer. I pray that God would work in Jessica's heart and the hearts of the men, women and children we met, that they would have seen God's love for them through the time we had with them.

  

One of two stop lights I saw in Haiti (the only one I saw working)