Take Heart

Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all you that hope in the LORD. Psalm 31:24                                                                                    

I recently came across the Blue Heart Campaign. It is a campaign to spread awareness and bring a stop to Human Trafficking (United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime). And it got me thinking more about trafficking. http://www.unodc.org/blueheart/                                                                                      

Evil is all around. You can pretend that it doesn't exist, but that doesn't mean it is not there. No matter where you are in the world, you do not have to look far to find evil. I'm talking about what I feel is the most horrific evil going on even in your city. Human Trafficking.

Sex is a multi-billion dollar industry. And I mean, we all know that sex sells. Prostitution is an original profession; it is even mentioned in the Bible. Pornography is a big industry, with even Christians struggling to stay away from its addicting images. And the world tells us that these two are okay. I mean, how many prominent figures of government have been caught in prostitution, how many pastors addicted to porn? Prostitution and Pornography are two "sex" issues that society has accustomed to seeing,  and even fueling. We do not train people to believe that sex before marriage is a sin, we do not take the time to teach that God ordained sex to be a beautiful thing between husband and wife, in a God-fearing committed marriage. We say that divorce is okay, you need to be fulfilled in life, go ahead seek something else to fill that emptiness in you. And they keep seeking, and keep seeking without finding fulfillment to their hunger. But when you think about a man craving a little girl...imagine a little girl, maybe 11 or 12 years old, standing on a street corner, or drugged, lying in a brothel, being raped over and over, your heart drops, and that is not okay with you.  We need to stop fueling are society to think that it is okay to seek fulfillment anywhere but in Christ.

Human Trafficking is evil. CNN, as well as other organizations,have documentaries about the realities of Human Trafficking( http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/). "An estimated 600,000 to 820,000 men, women, and children [are] trafficked across international borders each year, approximately 70 percent are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors. The data also illustrates that the majority of transnational victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation."-US Department of State.

I encourage you to take the blinders off. Stop pretending that evil like this doesn't exist. Let your heart break for the things that are happening around the world even to little children. 

Not only are people being raped, people, and children are being held in slavery. I'm not talking about the past, I am talking about right now. Up to 27 million people, human beings, like you and me, are enslaved. The clothes you are wearing right now, the chocolate bar you had as a snack, that coffee you drank for breakfast, that diamond on your finger, the processor in your computer, all could be tainted with blood, sweat and tears of a slave. 

Go here and you can find out about how many slaves are working for you: http://slaveryfootprint.org/. For me, I had 41.


We fuel the injustice.

My mom and I have recommitted ourselves to fighting against Human Trafficking. Being even more intentional in taking preventive measures to ensure that the kids we work with understand what trafficking is, and what to do if they see it, or are involved in it. During the Passion Conference that I watched online, one of the guest speakers they had talked about what we can do, as the body of Christ, and that is we can all pray. She told a story about how they had tweeted for everyone to pray for people being enslaved from the “stan” countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan...). Three days later, several girls were rescued out of Greece who were from the somewhere in the “stan” countries. And the girls saved had been praying to Allah to save them from the Hell they were in, and it wasn’t working. Then one girl remembered her relative telling her about the European God, whose name was Jesus, so they prayed to Jesus and were saved from not only their situation but from their sin bondage too.

That story impacted me, and I retold it, how I took it in, but the point is prayer can move mountains! The Holy Spirit can rain down and we, God’s people, can impact the world! We can ensure freedom, not only from physical slavery, but from the slavery of sin. Jesus is the answer!

So take heart, dear brothers and sisters! First let your heart break for the matters of the world, then take heart, confidently in prayer go before the throne and pray for those who are being held captive!

And of course, being that my heart is for the people of Ukraine, join with me in praying that the kids we work with will not fall in to preying hands. Pray that Ukraine will stop exploiting women, and take a stand to stop Human Trafficking. Pray against the corruption in the government and police stations! Pray for spiritual awakening in this Nation, so that Jesus can be the answer to the hurt here!