You Are Not Forgotten
You Are Not Forgotten
Today is Freedom Sunday in North America. Thousands of churches stood in solidarity to be a part of combating modern day slavery in our country and around the world.
It’s easy to forget that horrible things like human slavery still exist. There are 27 million people currently in slavery today. More than any other time in human history.
For most of us, this is not right in front of our faces.
Or is it?
I drove down 1st Ave the other night in downtown Minneapolis. Local authorities believe that more human trafficking and prostitution goes down on that street than any other in our city.
When we go to the Mall of America, a tourism hot spot, we don’t think of it as also a hot spot for pimps to convince young at-risk children that they could have a better life if they just came with them.
In 2012 the FBI ranked Minneapolis as the 13th largest center for human trafficking of children in the country.
These are people: women, men, children who are being forgotten. These are our neighbors.
It’s so easy not to see and it’s easy to forget.
So you might be able to imagine my surprise when a young woman named Jennifer came up to me at an event I was speaking at this fall and told me she had, just a week earlier, come off the streets.
She explained that she had been convinced by a man to run away from home and join his crew. Little did she know she was joining a brothel right here in Minneapolis.
She told me about some of the horrific experiences she had over the last three years, starting when she was only 13. She couldn’t quite explain why she finally went home.
“It must have been God I guess, I can’t explain it any other way.” Jennifer said.
Her parents, her dad a local pastor, were kind and loving and took her back in immediately with open arms.
We talked about how she still felt that she deserved everything that had been done to her, she heard these messages in her mind telling her how she isn’t worth anything and she will never be loved for more than what she can offer the “Johns” she had been with.
She cried as she described the fear she experiences when she goes to public places like malls and movie theatres and sees the faces of the men who have taken so much from her.
It haunts her every move.
By the time she finished her story, she told me that she wanted to share all this with me because she wanted me to pray for her.
What a small gesture that seemed like I could offer after hearing her story.
So as we both cried, I prayed for this 16 year old girl and I could physically feel the enemy’s presence as I prayed against the lies she had heard for so many years. I was aware of the pure evil in our city and surrounding this young woman at that moment even though she is a daughter of the King.
I prayed for healing, for restoration and for comfort. I prayed for safety and for God to keep her strong in her current decision to stay off the streets. Much of what I prayed for, I didn’t even realize what I was saying because I knew it was one of those moments where it’s absolutely necessary to rely on the Holy Spirit to intercede with “groans that words cannot express”.
After I prayed, she told me, “I wish someone would pray for me that way every day.”
“I have for a long time and others are too,” I told her.
I thought about the many prayers I had prayed for victims of human trafficking and slavery over the years since I became aware of this reality. I thought about others who have come to God with this response to their awareness as well.
But I couldn’t help but think about what it would mean for women like Jennifer to have people pray for her in the flesh. What would it look like for a group of people who want to take action to be a spiritual family to women like Jennifer?
What would it mean for a community on mission, right here in Minneapolis, to start to boldly ask God how they can take action against human trafficking in our city. What if they had the courage to respond, together, as a family?
God has been birthing this vision into reality in our city through a ministry my friends lead called The Annex.
This vision has been lived out in our city by my friend Jadah and her organization MATTOO (Men against the trafficking of others).
And now God is stirring up the people of my community to take action as well, right here in our neighborhoods by being the hands and feet of this global movement. If God has given you a burden to be a modern day abolitionist, let us know.
But no matter what, we can start with a commitment not to forget women like Jennifer who are literally battling pure evil every day on the streets of Minneapolis.
My friend Elizabeth wrote this song, it’s a reminder that God doesn’t forget and no matter how alone we may feel, we are never alone:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4GB6xDr2hE]
Elizabeth has also written a song called “Freedom” written from the perspective of a modern day victim of sex trafficking. To listen to this song and more check out her site:
http://www.elizabethhunnicutt.com/store/undone/
You Are Not Forgotten
Today is Freedom Sunday in North America. Thousands of churches stood in solidarity to be a part of combating modern day slavery in our country and around the world.
It’s easy to forget that horrible things like human slavery still exist. There are 27 million people currently in slavery today. More than any other time in human history.
For most of us, this is not right in front of our faces.
Or is it?
I drove down 1st Ave the other night in downtown Minneapolis. Local authorities believe that more human trafficking and prostitution goes down on that street than any other in our city.
When we go to the Mall of America, a tourism hot spot, we don’t think of it as also a hot spot for pimps to convince young at-risk children that they could have a better life if they just came with them.
In 2012 the FBI ranked Minneapolis as the 13th largest center for human trafficking of children in the country.
These are people: women, men, children who are being forgotten. These are our neighbors.
It’s so easy not to see and it’s easy to forget.
So you might be able to imagine my surprise when a young woman named Jennifer came up to me at an event I was speaking at this fall and told me she had, just a week earlier, come off the streets.
She explained that she had been convinced by a man to run away from home and join his crew. Little did she know she was joining a brothel right here in Minneapolis.
She told me about some of the horrific experiences she had over the last three years, starting when she was only 13. She couldn’t quite explain why she finally went home.
“It must have been God I guess, I can’t explain it any other way.” Jennifer said.
Her parents, her dad a local pastor, were kind and loving and took her back in immediately with open arms.
We talked about how she still felt that she deserved everything that had been done to her, she heard these messages in her mind telling her how she isn’t worth anything and she will never be loved for more than what she can offer the “Johns” she had been with.
She cried as she described the fear she experiences when she goes to public places like malls and movie theatres and sees the faces of the men who have taken so much from her.
It haunts her every move.
By the time she finished her story, she told me that she wanted to share all this with me because she wanted me to pray for her.
What a small gesture that seemed like I could offer after hearing her story.
So as we both cried, I prayed for this 16 year old girl and I could physically feel the enemy’s presence as I prayed against the lies she had heard for so many years. I was aware of the pure evil in our city and surrounding this young woman at that moment even though she is a daughter of the King.
I prayed for healing, for restoration and for comfort. I prayed for safety and for God to keep her strong in her current decision to stay off the streets. Much of what I prayed for, I didn’t even realize what I was saying because I knew it was one of those moments where it’s absolutely necessary to rely on the Holy Spirit to intercede with “groans that words cannot express”.
After I prayed, she told me, “I wish someone would pray for me that way every day.”
“I have for a long time and others are too,” I told her.
I thought about the many prayers I had prayed for victims of human trafficking and slavery over the years since I became aware of this reality. I thought about others who have come to God with this response to their awareness as well.
But I couldn’t help but think about what it would mean for women like Jennifer to have people pray for her in the flesh. What would it look like for a group of people who want to take action to be a spiritual family to women like Jennifer?
What would it mean for a community on mission, right here in Minneapolis, to start to boldly ask God how they can take action against human trafficking in our city. What if they had the courage to respond, together, as a family?
God has been birthing this vision into reality in our city through a ministry my friends lead called The Annex.
This vision has been lived out in our city by my friend Jadah and her organization MATTOO (Men against the trafficking of others).
And now God is stirring up the people of my community to take action as well, right here in our neighborhoods by being the hands and feet of this global movement. If God has given you a burden to be a modern day abolitionist, let us know.
But no matter what, we can start with a commitment not to forget women like Jennifer who are literally battling pure evil every day on the streets of Minneapolis.
My friend Elizabeth wrote this song, it’s a reminder that God doesn’t forget and no matter how alone we may feel, we are never alone:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4GB6xDr2hE]
Elizabeth has also written a song called “Freedom” written from the perspective of a modern day victim of sex trafficking. To listen to this song and more check out her site: http://www.elizabethhunnicutt.com/store/undone/
[…] couple years ago I had my first conversation with a woman who had been […]