Not OK: How God Wants to Use You to End Human Trafficking

In cooperation with End It Movement, we’re spending Tuesdays for the next month shining a light on slavery and human trafficking. Slavery is not OK, and our missionaries around the world have had raw, firsthand experiences fighting it. 

 

Our first story comes from Jessica Johnson, a Passport Thailand participant. Jessica and her team spent two months walking the streets of Thailand’s red light district and befriending the girls caught in sex tourism to offer them a way out. They took part in the spiritual battle raging in the human trafficking industry, and this is what they found.

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There are so many times we feel alone in this world. So often we can’t see or feel the presence of the Lord and his armies around us in our times of need, struggle, or even triumph. 

 

We have been in Thailand for about four weeks now. We have struggled with so many things here. We’ve been attacked spiritually in ways as subtle as apathy and as blatant as bring up our pasts again. We’ve seen hopelessness in the girls’ eyes in the bars night after night. And we’ve seen the purposeless gazes in the eyes of the men who are buying them. We’ve looked around at the vast number of people lost in this industry and been discouraged at times.

 

But we have also had many victories. We have seen our prayers answered on Bangla Road and its side streets. We’ve seen our girls come into healing and freedom. We’ve seen the Lord begin to open the eyes, ears, and hearts of his beloved. He is showing us his heart. He is opening eyes to spiritual things. He is giving his children good gifts.

 

We have seen the atmosphere on Bangla Road shift, and the Lord has allowed us to be bolder in our ministry there. People watch us. They tell us we are different – that they see Jesus in our eyes and our presence brings joy. All these things would not be happening if not for the Lord and his armies.  

 

Over the past month the Lord has laid a heavy desire on my heart to see angels. To feel their presence, see their works, and to join the in worship in the heavens. He has been teaching me about his unseen armies. As he gives me words for his beloved girls and tells me things to pray over his lost. He has whispered to me that we are in the presence of his angels. He has been teaching me more about faith – preparing my heart for the things unseen. In time I know he will allow me to see these things. 

 

Like Elisha, my team and I have been praying, “O Lord open our eyes so we may see.” The Lord is faithful and desires his children to know him in the most intimate ways. As we grow in faith and in closeness with him he shares more of his heart with us. 

 

He opens our mind and eyes to him. He allows us to see in the natural what is happening in the spiritual. He allows us to see the things unseen. He talks to us and through us. He shows us things before they happen. He allows us to perform miracles for his glory. It is his joy to partner with us for the glory of his name and it is our joy to be chosen and found worthy of this task. 

 

The Lord is moving here in Thailand. He is opening the eyes of all, and it has been absolutely beautiful to watch and experience. And if you ask, he’ll open your eyes too.

 

*Photos by Kristen

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Take Action:

Like Jessica and her team experienced in Thailand, God is moving around the world to bring freedom to the millions of people caught in slavery today. And we can be part of it. We can ask him to open our eyes to injustice and atrocity, and we can prepare so we’re ready when we see something that needs to be stopped.

Sex slavery and human trafficking don’t just happen overseas. They happen everyday in our own hometowns and backyards.

Thanks to the Polaris Project, now there’s a way for all of us to blow the whistle when we think someone is being trafficked. Even if you’re not an anti-trafficking expert, you can stop another person from being sold. 

The National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) is a national, toll-free hotline, available to answer calls from anywhere in the country, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of the year.

Anyone can call this number to report a tip of possible trafficking, connect with anti-trafficking services in your area, or request training, assistance, resources, and information to fight human trafficking.

So here it is. Save this number in your phone, and if you see something that isn’t right, make the call.