This morning, as I approached my car in the parking deck of my apartment complex, I noticed a “business card” lodged on the window of my driver side door. This is not an uncommon form of advertising here, so I didn’t think anything of it.
I picked up the card, glanced at it, and immediately realized it was a service that provided “pretty girls” for their clients, complete with a 24 hour service line to call. Unfortunately, I was not taken back, because this type of service is also not uncommon in this part of the world.
There are many emotions and thoughts as I get “business cards” like this one and the world they represent. Bondage. Depression. Desperation. Sadness.
“The sex trade” and “human trafficking” have become buzz phrases on social media. It has become a cause for many. I am grateful for this. It is a massive, massive issue in many parts of the world. In many parts of Asia, it is a way of life for the middle class and beyond.
For instance, one of the cities of which I have lived in Asia has an estimated 700,000 prostitutes. It’s hard to wrap my mind around this number. Each one of these women is someone’s daughter. Many are mothers themselves. Each one is tragic.
Women are sold, traded, tricked, and cajoled into lifestyles which are barbaric and sub-human. It is beyond words and imagination the hell those caught in this world must suffer. Though I have lived around it for most of my professional life, I cannot comprehend it.
Through it all, questions like “why” and “how” are constantly on my mind. How did it get to this point? How does the sacredness of sex become a commodity to be sold, bartered, and traded on the same level as trinkets and t-shirts hawked on the streets?
No one as a child dreams of selling their body for money to the highest bidder, but it happens. Survival becomes necessary, bad decisions are made (or forced upon them), and bondage sets in. Either by their own volition (which is rare) or forced upon by the dominance of others (which is tragically prevalent in this corner of the world), bondage and emotional carnage is the inevitable result.
No one as a child dreams of getting to the point of addiction and desperation of paying for that which should be freely given within the context of a secure, loving, and committed relationship. However, this happens all other the world.
I’m sure there are many, many reasons and ways you could approach this question of “why”. However, my thought for now is the simple reality that we as people are often stuck in the temporary.
We are eternal beings made for an eternal home. I am convinced of this. The Bible teaches this and our souls echo this. This life is NOT it, but rather the prelude to an eternity with our Creator and Friend, Christ Jesus.
In Philippians 3:18-21 of the Bible, Paul writes of how the “enemies of God” and essentially the enemies of man are those whom simply take their eyes off of God and eternity and place them on “earthly things”.
Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.
However, the answer to this malady is clear. Keep our minds wrapped around the reality that this life is temporary and the next one is eternal. We are made for the next life, not this one. Paul goes on to encourage us in saying. . .
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
We are eternal beings, made for an eternal home. When we take our eyes off of this reality, all of life gets messed up.
In the case of the sex trade issue, the purveyors of this heinous crime against humanity focus on objectives such as the accumulation of personal wealth and power. As Paul says, their minds are “set on earthly things” and not that of the eternal, making them “enemies of God”. Their efforts are all for a temporal world which will pass. However, they either don’t believe or chose to ignore this fact. The result is seeing people (young girls in most cases) as commodities to be used and sold for personal gain.
For the customers of the sex trade, they take tragic short cuts. Their “god is their belly” and they “glory in their shame”. Instead of fighting for real relationships committed in love and mutual care, they pay for something of which should never be bartered. They have taken their eyes off of the eternal beauty of love and the dignity of human life. They have set their eyes upon the temporary value of gratifying immediate base desires.
I am no different. I may not indulge in the sex trade, however, when I take my heart and mind off the reality of the eternal and shift it to the urgency of the temporary, then I am in trouble. My values get skewed very quickly. Love can shift to that of manipulation and lust. Hope shifts to fear. Generosity and concern for others shifts to the satiation of self-centered personal desires.
As I look at this “business card”, which pedals women off to the highest bidder, I am also thinking about this passage in Philippians. In this, I am prompted to pray for three things.
First, I’m praying for the victims of such crimes. I’m praying for the women that are behind this very card. Somewhere very close to my apartment here in Asia, there are women trapped in a living hell of shame, guilt, and physical abuse. Lord Jesus, please free them. Please bring them to You. Please bring them redemption, both physical and spiritual.
Second, I am praying for both the purveyors of the trade behind this card and also the customers which are keeping this company in business. I am praying AGAINST the evil that is behind this enterprise and for its destruction. I’m praying for honest, bone chilling repentance and redemption for both of these parties. If the Lord can redeem a former slave trader like John Newton and cause him to be a wonderful instrument for the Kingdom of God, then why can’t he do the same here? I’m praying for this.
Third, I’m praying for my friends, colleagues, and myself in this regard. May we live every day with the presence of Christ, the confidence of eternity, and the strength of the security which comes from both of these realities. I am praying that the temptations and lies of this temporal world will be suppressed and the longings for our heavenly home and our eternal Savior, Christ Jesus, will increase daily.
I am praying that while we are living in the temporal, we will fight daily to keep our hearts and minds on the eternal.
Sex trade and human trafficking happens all over the world. As long as there are paying customers sex trade continues. I pray for the victims of such crimes. END IT, Shine a Light on Slavery, well said. I enjoyed your blog, well written and covered all aspects of this horrible crime. Hugs!!!
Thanks Jane!
Praying for End to injustice of these Precious Souls & thankful for those who rescue them. So sad to think about how many lives are involved in human slavery.
Have a great trip to Virginia!
I know there are countless books on the topic, but there are 2 which have truly inspired me and which authors are great examples for me:
“Not for sale” (David Batstone)
“Sex trade indide the business of modern Slavery” (Siddharth Kara)
Great. . . thanks for the resources!
Sorry for the typos, the book is “Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery”
Thanks for the info!
Although many women are being trafficked here also, it’s the children of Indonesia who are being kidnapped and/or sold as sex slaves in alarming numbers.Sometimes it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed and discouraged when it comes to human trafficking. It’s just so big…everywhere! Thanks for the reminder of the transformed life of John Newton. Such a powerful story! There’s hardly a day which passes that I do not hear/read about human trafficking, Seems God is shining his light on this issue and calling his people to prayer/action.Thank you for doing the same! Grace & peace
Alexis, yeah, it is rough on this side of the globe in particular. It think anywhere you have extreme wealth and extreme poverty co-existing, this is a natural, albeit, tragic side effect.
God bless you and your friends as your persevere in His grace!
Thoreau once said, “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root…” He was referencing poverty, but this quote has stirred many hours of thought and prayer. What is the “root” of the sex trade—else we merely prune the very branches of what we are desperately seeking to destroy? After months of seeking a response, I agree with you. I do believe the only answer is eternal. We all have an almost insatiable desire for intimacy. It is ultimately for God, but we are given beautiful glimpses here on earth. Intimacy is not easy and rarely quick, so we can settle for the temporal. Such a lie or perversion will never satisfy or bring peace, but it can become a cycle for the momentary high…that is anything but the living water. The eternal is definitely our hope, and graciously He is an amazing hope. I am sorry that the business card was on your window…for innumerable reasons, but thank you for praying and exhorting others to it as well.
Wow, beautifully and thoughtfully said. Thanks for your words here, Jess. . . I am tremendously encouraged!
Thanks John. I’ll be praying with you…
Thanks Jhanice!
Great blog, John. You know I was talking about something related to your Bible quotes in Sunday School this morning. There is an immediacy in the tone and language found in the New Testament that often focuses on our eternal lives. I really believe that if one remembers the demographics of the audience both Jesus and Paul were speaking to, you can understand why they spoke about heaven. Indeed, I’m sure as Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, there were probably Jews hanging from trees nearby. The Jewish people were hostages to the Roman Empire, the injustices they had to daily withstand were both difficult and insurmountable. The notion that they would be unshackled from this oppression in the afterlife was a very powerful idea. However, the world which most of us inhabit today is very different. We are not oppressed or abused by another nation. Therefore, it frees us up to concentrate on experiencing Heaven right here on earth. Today. Right now. The kingdom of God is in our hearts right now and by following the teachings of Jesus we will be able to experience the joy and unconditional love immediately. We need not die to access it. For example, what joy I feel when I live out Matthew 25:35. When I visit the sick, and kind to my neighbor, I do it not to procure a ticket into Heaven but to feel the warm glow in my heart that radiates into every part of my life today. I think many people forget that to take up the yoke of Jesus is to experience a measurable increase in joy in our lives right now. Getting into Heaven after I die is just a bonus.
Anyway, great article !
Well said, Curtis, very well said. I finally have my internet back up and running! Good chatting earlier.
I read your comment on the worldmag.com artlcle, Cotton Kids, on Lois Lee and Children of the Night. Had the author done her due diligence in researching her story, she would have learned that Lois Lee and Children of the Night were both involved in somewhat shady activities back in 1989, trying to take out another charity, Thursday’s Child, which resulted in violence and guns. In fact, the mother of a 17 year old volunteer, who was there, former child actress, Priscilla Weems, who was 17 years old at the time, claims to this day that Lois Lee had aimed a gun with a silencer point blank range at her daughter, threatening to murder her if she did not release the arm of her 23 year old employee, who was pretending to be a runaway girl. I was beaten. The mother, a former Oregon police officer, was beaten. Four sheriff’s deputies, who had assisted Lee in these questionable acts, were suspended. And, by the way, in 2012, according to their 990’s Lois Lee made $220,000. In 1982 when Thursday’s Child began, we were warned to “get out of the business, because you’ll compete with our fundraising.” In 1989, both I and Priscilla Weems had guns aimed at our chests (I by the later suspended off-duty cop who was at the scene) and we both nearly died, were nearly murdered, because of this woman’s insanity. Several years ago, Lois Lee awarded Hugh Hefner with the Founder’s Hero of the Hearts Award for his help to rescue teenage girls (several years ago, Hefner, at age 84, Hefner was “dating” two teenage girls). Also, some years prior, one 14 year old girl was sodomized inside the Children of the Night shelter. Would I want my daughter being “rescued” by Lois Lee and in her shelter? Not even if Hell froze over. I believe that if my daughter were being trafficked, she would be better off being with the trafficker than being helped by Children of the Night.
Wow, I had no idea. I had never heard of them/her until that article.
Thanks for the warning.