did you know...?

(now tuck your toes in)...there are 27 million...yeah read that number again...27 MILLION slaves in our world today?...not metaphorical slaves...actual slaves! That is more than the amount of people stolen from their homes and lives from Africa during 400 years of the transatlantic slave trade. Many of them are in Southeast Asia...BUT there some HERE in North America. Likely right in your neighborhood...yeah Canada and America. Vancouver is a gateway for sex slavery (you know "rape for profit").

Sometimes when I read history I often wondered what I would have done had I been alive in Nazi Europe or in the South during the time of the great plantations and slavery. would I have been part of the Underground Railroad?...you know...LONG AGO in a land far far away...? Would I have helped to save people or would I have let all those people pass me by and die...kept my eyes closed to all the horror because of fear for my own life and that of my family...self preservation? What would I have done?

What would I have done in 1993 in Rwanda? When the Tutsis where massacring their neighboring Hutus?...Where approximately 800,000 people where murdered in just 8 weeks.

I just read a book about a man who worked for the Department of Justice (U.S.A.) and was loaned to the United Nations to direct the genocide investigation team in Rwanda. do you know what he found in all his tromping through mass graves and massacre sites? Here's what he says,

"Massive man-made disasters of epic proportions...are not of a distant era;

they are the tragedies of history taking place on our watch. Among

the most common disasters are global sex trafficking (the massive business

of rape for profit), slavery, illegal detention, and sexual violence...In the

face of such massive suffering, one has to ask: 'Why does such great evil

triumph in the world?'...I believe one of the greatest insights was articulated

by Edmond Burke about 200 years ago "All that is necessary for the triumph

of evil is that good men do nothing"...This was certainly true for the Rwandan

genocide. The history now written makes on thing clear. It could have been

stopped. And we missed it"

What would I have done for Darfur...450,000 dead 2.5 million displaced...oh wait that's not history that's happening right now! Isn't it nice to read those numbers from the safety of my house and say..."Oh brutal...that sucks...wonder what's on T.V."

Psalm 10:18 says, "defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more." (NIV translation) I just read a book that got it's title from the very last 3 words...TERRIFY NO MORE.

Psalm 10 says it well...the cry of a man over 4,000 years ago..His son was the wisest man who ever lived and he said "there is nothing new under the sun"... I would say that is absolutely true... Psalm 10 (The Message translation)

"God, are you avoiding me? Where are you when I need you? Full of hot air, the wicked are hot on the trail of the poor. Trip them up, tangle them up in their fine-tuned plots. The wicked are windbags, the swindlers have foul breath. The wicked snub God, their noses stuck high in the air. Their graffiti are scrawled on the walls: "Catch us if you can!" "God is dead." They care nothing for what you think; if you get in their way, they blow you off. They live (they think) a charmed life: "We can't go wrong. This is our lucky year!" They carry a mouthful of hexes, their tongues spit venom like adders. They hide behind ordinary people, then pounce on their victims. They mark the luckless, then wait like a hunter in a blind; When the poor wretch wanders too close, they stab him in the back. The hapless fool is kicked to the ground, the unlucky victim is brutally axed. He thinks God has dumped him, he's sure that God is indifferent to his plight. Time to get up, God—get moving. The luckless think they're Godforsaken. They wonder why the wicked scorn God and get away with it, Why the wicked are so cocksure they'll never come up for audit. But you know all about it—the contempt, the abuse. I dare to believe that the luckless will get lucky someday in you. You won't let them down: orphans won't be orphans forever. Break the wicked right arms, break all the evil left arms. Search and destroy every sign of crime. God's grace and order wins; godlessness loses. The victim's faint pulse picks up; the hearts of the hopeless pump red blood as you put your ear to their lips. Orphans get parents, the homeless get homes. The reign of terror is over, the rule of the gang lords is ended."

I need to learn to pray like that...Over and over and over again the Bible makes it VERY clear why God gives some power and wealth...something we have in the West in abundance. IT has NOTHING to do with them...It is only to help others. That's a very strange thing to say in the North American culture. Isaiah 1:17 says, "Say no to wrong. Learn to do good. Work for justice. Help the down-and-out Stand up for the homeless. Go to bat for the defenseless." There are SO many passages like that.

The man who was the director for all those investigations in Rwanda went on to start an organization call International Justice Mission. (http://www.ijm.org/). Their mission statement is this "to help people suffering injustice and oppression who cannot rely on local authorities for relief." They document and monitor conditions of abuse and oppression, educate people about these abuses, and mobilize intervention on behalf of the victims. AMAZING STUFF! They are all highly trained professionals in their fields of human rights work.

That all sounds neat and tidy doesn't it...us north americans don't like to go down the road, in our mind's eye, of what that actually means do we? It would be too graphic and disturbing. And we all know we don't like to be disturbed from our nice life. It might get ugly and we might have to DO something about it. No better go to the mall and buy one more thing or watch another movie and be entertained, or drink more alcohol to live in an alternate reality for a few minutes...I mean who wants to think? And then if we ever venture into the area of ,having thought, wanting to do something about it? It might just change our world and rock the boat...never mind...except I can no longer do that...you see the only thing is I have 2 beautiful innocent daughters who are 2 and 4. There are (well the youngest documented) 3 year olds that are forced into rape for profit. Wee beautiful little girls that are robbed of all innocence, brutalized, dehumanized, tortured, beaten if they don't smile and enjoy it, before they even get a chance to be a child. So the next time you see a 3-5 year old and she happens to be a daughter, a sister, a niece...imagine that life for her. What is a life worth to you (besides your own)? Are you going to turn a blind eye and not say a word? Am I?

Shaun and I are currently looking into an organization right here in Vancouver who helps people right here in Vancouver...who are brought in for slavery...we are going to see what we can do...we are tired of feeling the rage and helplessness. We WILL do something. It's not a world away...it's right here.

ok you can untuck your toes...as the saying goes.