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Friday, January 11, 2013

Red Light District

Over the loud washer and dryer, a song plays from my laptop that brings faces to my memory.
{Ed Sheeran- The A Team. A true story to too many}

Today is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Having grown up in rather sheltered suburbia, I boarded a flight New Years Day 2006 and stepped into new world experiences, unforgettable memories.

More recently, one year ago, those memories resurfaced and I felt shy to face them, to remind them that I remember. I hadn't forgotten. I carry it with me, forever like the scar my daughter wears from her surgery. I wondered if this woman I was seeing 6 years later, now married with kids, knew how much my first meeting her has impacted my life.


In 2006 I spent 3 months in Greece. All throughout the country and region really. But the most vivid, the biggest impact was two night before I flew back home to New Hampshire.

New friends, American missionaries working in Northern Greece helped make arrangements for me to stay in a ministry apartment in Athens. It was a safe house for those leaving prostitution. Upon my arrival I met two young European girls doing a social work internship, they shared with me about the mission of the house and the person that last stayed in the room I was to sleep in for a few nights. A trans-gender man escaping prostitution had made it his safety. I wanted to throw up.

I had never been faced with such a raw reality. The kind that rocks a sheltered girl to her core. God broke me those few days. He broke my heart for what breaks His. Not to view His creation as dirty broken sinners, but to view them as His. Period. No judgement, but love. I'm not saying this happened overnight, or that it started there in Greece, it started way before this but I was finally confronted with a choice- I was either going to sin in my hatred and judgement (out of ignorance) or I was going to bring glory to God by choosing love and mercy and stepping into the reality of human despair.

Earlier that summer (2005) I heard a song while working on kitchen staff at a Young Life camp in Colorado. It was a song by Derek Webb called Wedding Dress. I was stunned that this song playing was by a guy I had grown up with hearing Christian songs by. Did he just use the word whore and bastard?! (in the correct context mind you)

The truth is this, I have this sin so built up in me that sometimes I do it over and over again. I get stuck in this way of life. And I repent and do it again. I curse myself for the way that I am, and I fail again. And doesn't He take me back? If your Biblical theology is grace and truth, filled with mercy, than you can't deny this. You can't deny offering this to others. Who was I to judge, to fear, to run and hid from others in pain. Who am I to judge.

I was faced with all of this and am thankful now for the written journal and video journal I did during this time. It marks the point in my life that I chose to stop living in ignorance and realize what was happening to people around me. I was invited to join them [those who worked in this ministry] on their regular outing visiting the brothels offering tea and cookies. My main job was to just pray as language was a barrier and they were the ones who had a relationship with these girls. When you see two men leaving a brothel, wedding bands, still adjusting their shirts and one with his pant leg tucked into his sock, it gets you in the gut and you can't forget that image. Watching a man come in to look at who was available, see him size her up and turn around filled me with emptiness as she was "rejected". Couldn't someone come in and rescue her? Show her that she is beautiful and loved?

And that they are. Each and every one of them. They are all beautiful in His sight. Their lives have meaning and value and they are greatly loved by the One who made them. So join me tonight, will you? And pray. Not just tonight. It is a battle we must warrior for in prayer and awareness. It isn't just an "overseas" thing that happens, it is sadly right here in our own Nations big cities and small towns. When it all seems too much, too overwhelming, rest in the peace that our God has justice in the end over anyone causing harm to another. And if you want to DO something or learn more, e-mail me and I'll be thrilled to connect you with people and/or resources. karissar87 at gmail dot com