State of Desperation

A few facts for you:


“Trafficking in human beings is now the third-largest moneymaking venture in the world, after illegal weapons and drugs. In fact, the United Nations estimates that the trade nets organized crime more than $12 billion a year” (Victor Malarek The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade).

According to a CIA report, 700,000 to 2 million women and children worldwide are victimized by traffickers each year.

The UN estimates that around 4 million people a year are now traded against their will to work in some form of slavery.

As many as 50,000 women and children from Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe are brought to the U.S. under false pretenses each year and forced to work as prostitutes, abused laborers or servants (Joel Brinkley NYT citing CIA report).


While I have only been in Bangkok for four months, the longer I am here, the more I realize how terrified I am to embrace reality. I walk down streets everyday. I see the men, women, and children sitting on the foot bridges, cups held desperately in the air. I walk on, hoping that the lump in my throat will disist, and I can return to the comfort of my own mind.

I am afraid of seeing things as they are. I am afraid of acknowledging the suffering, heartache, brokenness of the people around me. If I pretend that everything is right in the world, then it is. Right?

No. Absolutely not.

Father, I walk around with my hands figuratively covering my own eyes. I refuse to allow myself to see. But I must! I must be willing to get my hands dirty, and my own heart broken that my fellow human beings might be able to even taste love here.

Two years ago, I began reading "A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael." Amy Carmichael started an orphanage in Darfur, India in the nineteenth century. Her mission: to rescue temple prostitutes. Amy Carmichael became a hero of mine.

A year ago, I began working with the Global Missions Outreach Team at Brentwood Church in Lynchburg. We began researching Thailand, and surrounding countries, aiming at starting safehouses for women and children involved in the international sex-trade. A few months after I began working with this team, Jon Dupin spoke on the issue. I was broken. I was floored. I allowed myself to be vulnerable to the feeling of injustice. I allowed myself to see the inhumanity, the perverseness---the pain. Something inside of me determined to not sit by and do nothing about it. The next thing I know, I'm in Bangkok.

Now what? Do I return to apathy? Do I make my life comfortable here? My heart has been guarded, but I don't want it to be anymore. Lord, teach me how to see reality. Teach me how to love how you love.

So now what? It's time to decide.