Hope

I am struggling with the topic I need to write about today. In fact, this is about the fifth time I have called up this post and tried to finish. It is hard. It is disgusting. To be quite frank, it makes me sick.

Literally.

When the Lord first began to turn my heart toward this topic a couple of years ago, I was completely blown away by the enormity of the issue - in America!

The topic I am speaking about is Human Trafficking. Selling women and girls into bondage as sex slaves. I know this is very indelicate and I hope that you are as disgusted as I am. Because there is more. Much more.

Yes, I knew that trafficking was a problem - in Asia and Africa and India - and please do not get me wrong, those women and girls are no different than American women and girls. But, let's face it, those places seem a long way off. They are places we read about in books and see on the news. Then, we turn off our plasma televisions and get in our soft beds and forget. The problem is, those women and girls in bondage never have the opportunity to forget. And neither does God.

Then, because the wolf has been fed in the darkness for so long, now he is knocking on our door.

In fact, he has blown down the door.

Did you know that by the end of this year Human Trafficking will be the #1 crime worldwide?

Did you know that if you live in FL, you live in the biggest trafficking state and if you live in South FL, you live in the highest trafficking area in the entire country?

This is huge and we need to wake up! We should have woken up years ago and been the voice for those in the faraway places. Now, we must wake up, because the wolf wants your little girl!! The target age for traffickers is 11-14. Apparently, little girls bring the highest prices. I know, at least I hope, you are feeling sick to your stomach about now, but please don't stop reading. Don't stop, because stopping is what has brought us to this place. I believe that frankly, we do not want to examine ourselves as a people or as a nation. We truly do not want to admit that behind our neighbor's doors or in the basement level of our favorite restaurant, there are little girls chained in cages waiting for night to fall so that they can be raped over and over again, night after night after night. Raped by American men, who during the day work in your bank, your grocery store, and maybe even sit behind you at your child's soccer game. Men who are so perverted by the culture they have grown up in that somehow they have justified in their minds that sex with children is an acceptable "thrill."

When I look at my two girls - one of whom falls smack in the middle of that target age and the other who is barely out of it, I know that someone has got to take a stand for these children. Someone has got to say enough is enough! Thank God, there are many such someones that God is raising up right now. I happen to personally know a man and woman who have started an organization to help these young girls. There are safe houses being set up all over America and all over the world through their organization to give these rescued girls a place to heal.

In America alone there are an estimated 150,000 young girls being held in trafficking rings and the number rises to over a million worldwide. I am talking about little girls - like mine, and like yours. Little girls, many whom should still be playing with baby dolls, completely stripped of their innocence. Brutalized for money, over and over and over. The reusable "drug."

I realize this is hard. It is disgusting, but it escalates because of that very thing. No one wants to talk about it or hear about it. It is just too horrific to comprehend. But, that leaves these girls with no hope that anyone cares. They have no choice but to comprehend it, every single day. I believe though, that people do care - or would if they knew the problem. Most of us just don't have to see it as our day to day reality - and we should thank God for that more than we likely do, because the truth of it is that over 2 million America men are using these little girls. Paying their "pimp" for 20 minutes of terror - each girl used 7-9 times per night, 7 nights a week!

Try to swallow that.

Through the years pedophiles have always been viewed as "unacceptable." Even in prisons, fraught with murderers and drug dealers, men who sexually abuse children have always been treated unmercifully by inmates. I assume they still are. The issue with child trafficking is that there are not enough stereotypical pedophiles in the United States for them to be the only ones who are raping these little girls. What I hope you understand me to say is that many of these men are NOT stereotypical pedophiles - they are stereotypical "soccer dads," raised in a culture that exalts sexuality. A culture where hard core porn is pumped into our homes at the stroke of a keyboard.  They have been brought up on a diet of illicit sex, to the point that they are desensitized and bored. Making love to their wives, in a bed at home is boring now. The thrill that God intended in that relationship is gone for these men. They have seen and experimented with everything by the age of 20.

We can place part of the blame for this industry right at our own doors. We have allowed the pornography industry to run wild and rampant and now we are all going to pay the price.

I hate having to write about this, but I can not do anything else. It is on my heart all the time. I try not to be fearful, but I worry about my girls. I worry about my boys who are growing up in this culture. I worry about the church, who for the most part is standing silent on this issue. God is clear - anyone who causes one of His little ones to sin would be better off never having been born. These little girls are being forced to sin, night after night, while most of us do nothing to help them. It is enough. It is time for this madness to end. I have to believe that God will not remain silent on this issue very much longer, and personally when His wrath pours forth on those who have tortured these innocent children, I do not want to be standing there saying that I knew it was happening and did nothing!

There will be more to come on this topic. My church is having an awareness meeting the end of this month. If you are interested in finding out what is going on in your area to stop these crimes, please leave a comment and I will get back to you.

Also, check out the website sharedhope.org -- they are operating in many larger cities in America and around the world and they will let you know how you can get involved. Above all, please pray. God moves to the prayers of His people.