In the Begining

Lord, you simply blow my mind. I don’t know how else to put it. The past four days, I haven’t made it through much more then an hour without falling to my knees in tears, completely humbled and in awe of Your faithfulness. Heavenly Father, I am so unworthy. SO unworthy. And yet, you love me. You see me. You hear me. You KNOW me…intimately. Your know my heart. You gave me eyes to see…to see this injustice. As broken as my heart is for these girls, I cannot imagine what you are experiencing as you watch ALL of it. I am overwhelmed by thought of one young woman enduring this hell on earth and yet every second you must watch over 1.2 million girls in 137 countries being beaten, burned, caged, drugged, stolen, starved, enslaved, raped, tormented, and tortured over and over and over. I can’t go there. My brain literally cannot go there.

About seven months ago, God began breaking my heart for the girls enslaved by human trafficking. I didn’t know what it meant at the time really. I mean, here I am, a twenty year old college student who changes her major everyday (okay every other day), doesn’t know how to balance a check book, lives dollar to dollar most weeks, buys that dress she can’t afford, skips that class that bores her, wonders how far the car will make it after the gas meter reaches the red zone because stopping to fill up is too time-consuming, can’t seem to figure out why the chicken always burns in the pan (no matter how many different ways I’ve tried to make it), has yet to master the skill of moving the clean laundry from the pile on the floor to the hangers (that is before there is no longer a difference between the clean and dirty piles that cover the carpet), and may never get over that kid in 5th grade who called me fat. Yet here I am. Here is all of me…the messy, insecure, prideful, impractical, foolish, selfish, needy, whiny, and indecisive me…just an emotional dreamer, usually in need of quite the reality check. I guess that’s why my two best friends are the most practical and grounded people I have ever met. Thank you Lord, what a gift! (or some form of insurance.) Okay so here I am…here I am. Waiting. Praying. Sitting. Dreaming. Crying. Waiting some more.
RESTLESS.
Lord, I want to do something, but you know all of the above…what the heck could I do that would be of any use? I’m just a girl. In college. Broke. Barely know anyone. Why in the world are you doing this to me? Breaking my heart for something at a time in my life when clearly, there is nothing I can do about it.
RESTLESS.
After about six months of cycling through these thoughts and moans, God revealed a tiny little speck of His plan for my life--- the call I believe He has placed on me to serve these enslaved women for years to come. A lifelong vision, if you will.
I knew that a group of women from the body of believers I am surrounded by in St. Louis had just recently been awakened to the cries of these precious girls as well. Over the past couple years, a ministry called Faith that Works has been helping women to put their faith into action. In fact, many of these women have played an intimate role in my life and encouraged me in so many ways. Actually, FTW paid much of my way to Australia this past summer on my first mission trip. They have given to and served Mercy Ministries, both residents in the home and graduates in the life after Mercy, so faithfully.
They also came alongside a non-profit called International Crisis Aid (ICA). ICA does a lot of work with orphans, feeding programs, and human trafficking both in the states and around the world. At the beginning of this year, this group of women traveled to the red light district of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to visit the safe home for girls rescued out of trafficking which they had been supporting for awhile and also to go visit girls who were still in the district. Upon returning home to the States, Terri Stipanovich, the founder and visionary of FTW wrote a heart-wrenching blog about a young girl they met in the red light district who so desperately wanted to get out. She had a baby girl who she slid underneath her bed every time she had to serve a client in her little shanty, the size of my closet. Terri explained how her heart was broken and she felt helpless. They had to tell her that they could not rescue her that day because there was no where to put her; the safe home was already full. They promised to come back for her.
After reading this, something about it stuck a chord deep inside me. Yes, I had definitely been shaken by these stories before. But this was real…I mean I know these women…the knowledge of the hell the girls there are living in became something I felt accountable to for the first time. That by sitting here and feeling broken for them, but doing nothing about it, I was actually harming them…by staying quiet about this injustice, I was just as guilty as the man forcing himself upon that young mother.
I emailed Terri the next day and just told her that I was behind them in this cause and praying for them in whatever the Lord led them to do. I poured out some of my heart as well and just how the Lord had been breaking my heart for trafficking.
She responded the following day and told me that she had been praying for a young person to come along with a sincere desire to do something about trafficking. She gently explained to me that often she has found young people with a whole lot of dreams and whole lack of follow through. Young people who want to make a difference and do something, but easily sway from this once passionate commitment to bring change. Anyhow, we went back and forth a bit more and chatted on the phone.
The rest was simply the sovereign hand of our faithful Lord whose perfect plans and timing will never cease in stunning me…

(to be continued)