— By Elizabeth

During worship this morning, we sang these words:

Later during the service, as usual, I took Faith to the unstaffed nursery. And as usual, I talked with other parents. But not as usual, I listened to one parent talk about an anti-trafficking ministry in a particular part of town. There, parents sell their children for the day, often as punishment for irritating the parents. These children aren’t permanent residents of any brothels but they’re abused nonetheless. This ministry offers daytime care for the children and parenting classes as a prevention strategy. One of their goals is to be able provide overnight shelter for the children during holidays.  These children and their parents are technically homeless, so in preparation of the holiday festivities, men, women, and children are cleared off the streets, forced into containers and taken out of the city.  Families are separated.  There are no toilet facilities in the containers. Adults abuse the children during their containment.  Afterwards children must find their parents on their own

Who does that to children? To families? To human beings?  Smells like . . . Holocaust.

After that conversation I met a lady who works with an after-care organization. They provide safe houses and counseling for rescued girls.  One of their after-care facilities is actually next door to us.  Girls living there are mid-teens who have been through the initial rescue and intensive counseling but whose homes are not safe to go back to — often because it was their families who trafficked them in the first place. We’ve noticed how teen boys flock to this house.  The woman who spoke with me today told me that these sexual issues are never fully settled for the girls. The issues return when they have their first boyfriend. The issues return when they get married. The issues return when they have their first baby.

I stood there and cried.

You see, I fell in love for the first time when I was 17. And it was beautiful. I married that same boy when I was 18.  And it was beautiful. We had our first baby when I was 22. And again, it was beautiful.

Sexual slavery did not mar the blessings of love, marriage, and babies for me. The “God of faithfulness, without injustice” was faithful for me.

Is He faithful and just for girls in Asia?

May it be that you – and I – can proclaim, along with Corrie ten Boom, “There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.”