Saturday night I had the great privilege of performing in support of the Canadian arm of International Justice Mission. The organization was founded in 1997 in the U.S. by Gary Haugen, an attorney who had worked in the U.S. Department of Justice and as the United Nations’ Investigator in Charge in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. According to IJM, over 27 million human beings (many of them children) are currently illegally enslaved on our planet (either through bonded labor or the sex trade).

IJM Canada's director, Jamie McIntosh, can tell you a thousand heart-breaking stories about children being held against their will and sexually exploited, or about whole families being tricked into bonded labor over trumped up debts. (A man may borrow $20 or $50 to obtain desperately needed food or medicine, the loaner applies 1200% interest and ensures the debt can never be repaid. What the loaner really wants is the unending, back-breaking labor of the man, his wife, his children, and eventually his grandchildren.)

But Jamie can also tell you hundreds of jaw-dropping rescue and liberation stories with more drama and adventure than you'll see at any cineplex this year. IJM consists primarily of attorneys, judges, police officers and other advocates who use the existing (but often unenforced) laws in these countries around the world to SHUT THE BAD GUYS DOWN. My ten-year-old son heard (and now loves telling his buddies) a typical IJM story about a raid on an illegal South East Asian brick factory that liberated over 80 slaves. There was survellience (Ben calls these guys "Samaritan Spies"), a big raid and take-down, you name it. And now there is freedom for those 80 humans who had no future but endless inhumane hours of grueling work for the profit of a greedy master who considered them disposable. They have their own brick co-op now, they run it the way they see fit, and where the masters' initials used to be on each brick, they engrave their own.

Jamie mentioned that his own three-and-a-half year old son J.J. introduced himself to another kid at a McDonalds playplace the other day as a "superhero". The way I see it, J.J. has a good shot at that vocation. After all, his dad already is one.

Sometimes the good guys win. And the real superheroes "seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God." (Micah 6:8)