Book Review and Other Thoughts

I feel like I have to warn you that this post is passionate and graphic. I am overcome right now based on what I am currently reading.



Matthew 25:40 "And the King will answer them, Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."

I am currently reading the book Sudan by Art Ayris and Ninie Hammon. My husband providentially met Mr. Ayris when they sat next to each other on an airplane a few years ago. Since I don't believe in coincidence, then I know that my husband and this man were put on that airplane that day, in seats side by side for a reason. Furthermore, if you knew my husband, you would know that the simple fact that they had a conversation is obviously from God. When Stan is on an airplane, he is typically the one in the business suit whose very demeanour says, "don't talk to me." (He assures me he no longer glares at young families with crying babies - since we have four children of our own and too many times have found ourselves on the other side of that situation.)

Mr. Ayris is part of Kingstone Media (www.kingstonemediagroup.com) which is where you too can purchase this book and read it, which I highly recommend that you do.

I'm not even half way through it yet, I'm about to start chapter 10, but I had to stop and blog a little before I can continue. I am so overwhelmed with emotion and I have been crying out to God every time I open it and try to read. The book is comprised of "fictional" characters but the story is well researched and completely true.

It will break your heart.

Several months ago I read an article in World magazine about former US Congresswoman Linda Smith who founded an organization called Shared Hope International (www.sharedhope.org). Their mission is to "rescue and restore women and children in crisis." In other words they rescue women and children from sex slavery. They have offices all over the world and they are an international organization, but the really scary part of Shared Hope is just how many sex slaves they have uncovered in America! American little girls and women caught up in the shackles of slavery! I won't bother to quote all the numbers to you that you can find on the website, believe me when I tell you it is sickening and staggering what is going on right under our very noses. In every single town they investigated they found little girls trapped in the bondage of human trafficking.

In the book, the authors are exposing the issues of human sex slavery in the African country of Sudan. The descriptions of the raiding of the small villages and the kidnapping and torture of the children and women are graphic and vile. It will make you sick and it will make you want to close the book and pretend that it is not happening in the twenty-first century. You will want to believe that slavery was eradicated with Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in the late 1800s and that all men are now treated equally.

We all want to believe this.

However, let me assure you that it is not true. Not only is it not true, but by pretending that everything is great, I believe we are actually adding to the problem. The longer individuals and governments turn their heads on this barbaric behavior, the more the children are suffering. Right this second as I sit in my air conditioned home in total comfort, unspeakable things are happening to children and their parents are helpless to rescue them. Things that, in all my naivety, I could not even begin to imagine until I read this book. These horrific acts are happening all over the world to children the same ages as the ones I tuck into their warm beds every night. Just like me, their parents would give their lives and every penny they have to save their little ones, but they are totally and utterly powerless to do so.

I know that slavery has been going on since the beginning of time. We know that God Himself rescued His children, the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. I am sure that the slaveholders then were not lovely compassionate men who treated their slaves gently. We know from Scripture that they did not. I'm sure that men raped women and children then, as they have throughout history until the present time.

However, throughout history there have always been men and women, empowered by the Almighty, who stood for what was right. Moses was used of God to approach Pharaoh and convince him to let the people go. You know the story, I don't need to retell it for you.

William Wilberforce stood his ground in England on the issue to slavery.

Abraham Lincoln died for what he believed in concerning slavery in our own country.

Winston Churchill and others stood strong in the face of Hitler's reign during World War II.

Martin Luther King, Jr. did not hesitate to speak his mind concerning racism and civil rights in America.

There are countless others, thousands of missionaries and martyrs who have poured their lives out in the service of the least of these.

Where are the heroes of today? Could it be me - or you, that God is calling to take a stand against these heinous crimes?

I know there are many people all over the world working to bring relief to these people and stop these atrocities, but what I fear is that the worst battle of all is the complacency of the people of God. Yes, satan himself is behind these attacks, we battle not against flesh and blood but against the powers of evil in the heavenly realms. I believe that with all my heart. But, that battle has raged since the fall and it will continue to rage until Jesus Himself sets foot on the Mount and take His stand upon the earth.

The reason the situation of sex slavery is at an all time high is because we choose to look the other way. Why do we do that? Why do we think that we deserve to live cushy lives? Why should these atrocities not touch us? Do we truly think that we deserve peace and prosperity?

I am afraid that all too often we do. Myself included.

I dare say that most of you, if you are like me, have lived our entire lives virtually untouched by true horror. Some of you have lost loved ones, even spouses or children and I can not imagine any pain so deep and raw. I do not mean in any way to belittle that pain or the daily struggles that many of you are fighting. Please do not think that I am telling you that you are not "doing" enough. This is not about doing, and it may not be about you, other than your prayers. I think we are all called to pray. Some of you have issues that God has called you to, and you are pouring your lives into those things. Whatever He has called you to is enough.

I am pleading right now with myself, and those of you who may be like me. I live a life that is way too easy. I am aware of it, and it shames me. I am not saying that I want tragedy to befall me, please don't get me wrong. Anyone who has read my blog long knows that I am truly like Much Afraid, and if I could choose my own companions, I would pick Joy and Peace. However, this is not the life that matters. I know that and I accept it. In this life there is trouble and I do not deserve an exemption from that.

Our Christian brothers and sisters in Sudan are being butchered, today, for their faith. They are being massacred simply for refusing to convert to radical Islam. Little girls in America are being kidnapped and used by pimps and drug dealers as the reusable drug. The one that makes more money, over, and over, and over.

The numbers are staggering, the profit in human trafficking is high. Apparently, trading in young children is a lucrative business. The people involved in this go all the way up to the top levels of government. This is big business and someone needs to wake up about it!

I know this assaults your senses. I know it makes you want to vomit. I hope so anyway. I know I am passionate and sound a little out of control. That is kind of how I feel right now as I write this. I know I have to finish the book - there is no way I could stop now, but I don't want to read it. I don't want to know. It is easier if I don't know, because then I don't have to do anything.

All I can think about however, is the verse that says, "From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more." Luke 12:48

We in America, and me personally have been given much. I have been given much education, much money (so have you if you live in America no matter what you have), much compassion, much forgiveness, much freedom and much knowledge. I can not pretend I don't know, though that is what I would most like to do. When I look into the eyes of my own innocent and pure eleven and fifteen year old daughters and I know that beautiful little girls like them are being stolen, raped, and brutalized - ripped from the arms of their mothers and taken away, alone and terrified - I can't pretend that I don't know.

Now, neither can you.

I don't know what I am going to do. I wish I could give you a plan, but I can't. The first thing I'm going to do is finish this book. Then I am going to call Linda Smith and Art Ayris and ask them where to start. I will let you know what they say. Meanwhile, you can pray with me. Pray that God will give one of us a plan and a way to help. If He gives it to you first, please make sure you share it with me. I think this is going to be my calling and my passion. I'm not sure, but I feel strongly that there is a reason my husband asked me to read this book. He doesn't ask me to read too much, because he knows how stirred up I can get about injustice.

I warned him that if I read the book, we would have to do something - he agreed.

When our little girls turn their huge innocent eyes upon their daddy, the one they trust to protect them, I think he must feel the weight of all the ugliness in the world upon his shoulders. The main character in the book, a Dinka farmer named Idris, loves his little eleven year old daughter, too. He would give his very life to protect her, but he couldn't do it. She is missing, torn from her mother's arms by twisted men who trade in children. He couldn't stop them. He doubts he will ever see her dimpled face again, running to meet him when he comes in from the fields.

Please, please pray with me. Surely there is something that God would have us do to help the least of these.