Last month I visited the International Justice Mission headquarters, not far from the Pentagon and just outside our nation’s capitol.  It was a beautiful day. The air was crisp and cool and the ground layered with the remnants of the recent snow storm.

Inside IJM, you’ll find a quant, but inspirational photo gallery. The walls are lined with telling photographs of beautiful people who are part of IJM’s work abroad. Each face on each photo has a story to tell of survival, of redemption and of justice at work.

An IJM church mobilizer, Lauren Johnson met me in the gallery. Upon meeting Lauren, it was clear that God has orchestrated her life’s path perfectly by placing her at IJM during this time. She was a terrific host. After a tour of the floor offices, Lauren and I sat down and we had a conversation about human trafficking.

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This series on slavery in America will continue next week with an interview from International Justice Mission in Washington, DC. In the meantime, here is a recent news story video of a few girls who are speaking out for the first time after being trafficked from Guatemala to Los Angeles 5 years ago. Having heard the stories of two girls rescued in Orange County, CA recently, I have witnessed the amount of courage it takes for them to speak up and tell their stories. This crime of slavery is happening all over our free nation.

We can help stop it from happening in our communities. Check back next week to hear what IJM suggests we do to abolish modern day slavery in America.

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America is a unique place. It is a nation governed by its own people.

As I write this column, the third of a series on slavery in America, I am at a hotel just a few miles from our nations Capitol. The hotel is themed appropriately with halls named after former Presidents and national leaders.

International Justice Mission (IJM) is not far from my hotel. IJM is a 300+ person organization that is made up of case workers, advocates, church modilizers and lawyers. Started in 1997 by former lawyer for the US Dept. of Justice, Gary Haugen, IJM has worked alongside governments and law enforcements around the world in efforts to abolish modern day slavery. Taken directly from their website, one of IJM’s core commitments sums up what they strive to do:

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What do you think? Can the church be both attractive and missional? What would this look like? Or should church be only attractive or only missional? How do churches continually mobilize their congregants to be missional, taking church outside the church walls and into their communities?

Slavery is not new to America. It was the year 1619 when the first African slaves arrived in Virginia. Allow for just a moment for the reality of that situation to sink in. Men, women and children were involuntarily uprooted from their homes, violently packed onto a ship like canned sardines and taken to a new land where they would be worked to the bone day after day.

Over the next 250 years, America would see many slaves step onto its soil. The US Constitution would make slavery illegal in the Northwest Territory in 1787 but Congress would not ban the slave trade until 1808. The demand for slave labor sky rocketed at the invention of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin in 1793. Those who tried to revolt were hanged. Those who tried to escape and were caught were returned to their slave master per a federal law. In 1863 President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring “that all persons held as slaves” within the Confederate state “are, and henceforward shall be free.” Two years later the thirteenth amendment abolishes slavery throughout the United States. However, it would be 2 months before slaves in Texas heard the news they had been freed.

“It has been called by a great many names and it will call itself by yet another, and all of us had better wait and see what new form this old monster will assume.” –Frederick Douglass

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“The American people have a right to know that what they are buying was not made on the backs of slaves.” That somber statement, along with several other halting comments and statistics, are part of what you hear watching “At the End of Slavery”, an International Justice Mission (IJM) production.

January 11th was national Human Trafficking (HT) awareness day. The church I attend hosted a showing of At the End of Slavery to help unveil the realities of HT in today’s world. Not only did the film provide a look into the world of modern day slavery, it touched upon the realities of it happening right here in the United States.  After the film we heard from a young woman who is a survivor of human trafficking and who lived as a domestic slave for years in Irvine, CA. For those who are unfamiliar with the area, Irvine is considered one of the safest places to live in America as well as being one of the wealthiest cities in Orange County. This woman’s story of survival is incredible. She is a testament to the reality that slavery does exist in America and that it can be stopped.

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"Instead of waiting until crisis problems develop which result in panic praying for others, we need to trust God to protect them as we pray Spirit-led, thoughtful, caring prayers before the problems overwhelm them, and they are unable to cope. We need to engage in major battles, not just minor skirmishes, moving from surface praying to in-depth praying. We need to pray both defensively and offensively."  -Dr. Will Bruce

South Africa is currently preparing for what will no doubt be an exciting time in the life of soccer players and fans worldwide. The FIFA 2010 World Cup taking place in South Africa this summer is creating a number of jobs for locals as they prepare to host the thousands of tourists who be arriving.

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I received this video update from my friend Stuart who is on the ground in Haiti now. His team from a church in CT were there when the quake hit.

Stuart had this to share in an email only a few hours ago:

Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and prayers. Our team is still in Haiti, and we are doing fine. We have been working on various ways of getting out of the country. We are just taking it day by day. It has now been 4 nights since the quake and still most Haitians are sleeping on the streets, in open places, and huddled together. Most of them just have a sheet around them, or not even that. At 4am this morning I saw a man in shorts sleeping on the hard cement. They are sticking together though - it is vary rare to see people sleeping alone at night. We have continued to sleep outside as well, as the tremors are still rumbling quite powerfully. Please pray that the tremors would stop, that it would be safe enough for people to begin the long process of rebuilding there lives. Yesterday we were able to help find a number of Haitians whose relatives in the U.S. had heard no word from them. They are all alive. Today we will go out with different families in the community and visit their homes, pray with them, and help in any way we can. The smell in the air is getting worse as the morgues are overflowing. Though, being 40 miles outside Port-au-Prince, we are in a safe zone. Things sound to be getting pretty bad there, as bodies are lining the streets, and anger is rising as the days continue, the reality sinks in, and the scarcity of food and water makes its impact.

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It’s breaking news everywhere. Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, shook yesterday as a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the tiny island country. An earthquake of this size is devastating regardless of where it strikes. In poverty stricken Haiti, it is of the highest level of trauma. Haiti, comparative in size to the state of Maryland, lacks infrastructure and the means to enable recovery from such a force as this quake. Haiti needed help before the quake and Haiti needs help now.

In 2007, Haiti ranked 43^rd in the world for highest number of people living with HIV/AIDS. The risk of contracting a major infectious disease is high for Haitians due to unclean water. While 80% of Haitians identify themselves as Catholic and 16% as Protestant, nearly half of the 9 million island inhabitants practice voodoo.*

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I heard about an African woman sharing a story with a women’s Bible study group from the US. The African woman was describing how the typical Pastor from the area where she was from, prepared his sermons each week. These Pastors she spoke of, and there were several, shared one Bible among themselves. Each would travel miles, mostly on foot, to reach the shared Bible, scribble down a few verses on paper and trek back to their home to pray over them and prepare the coming Sunday’s message.

 

The women of this Bible study were shocked to hear of the need for Bibles in the African woman’s country. They immediately took up a donation among themselves and within minutes, had enough money to purchase 1,000 Bible to be delivered to these Pastors and members of their congregations.

 

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