hope

Slavery in America: A Conversation with International Justice Mission

Carrie Nye — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

In light of the courage and leadership of late President Lincoln for his work and voice to end slavery in his day and because today we celebrate his birth, this is a repost of an interview held with International Justice MIssion staff member Lauren Johnson. IJM currently is one of the world leaders in combatting slavery today.

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.

Carrie: Lauren, thank you for having this conversation with me today about human trafficking in the world and what IJM is doing. I wonder if you could share with us a little about what your role is in the church mobilization department here at IJM?

Lauren: My team is responsible for sharing with US churches about our work and the Biblical call that we have as Christians to seek justice on behalf of the poor and the oppressed. We walk alongside churches as they build justice ministry into all aspects of their church, including missions, discipleship, evangelism, worship. In my particular role, I resource churches with tools that will help them along in their own journey and keep them updated on IJM’s frontline casework around the world.. I also assist IJM speakers who travel to churches in the US to share about God’s call to justice with diverse congregations around the country.

Carrie: When you are sharing with these churches, how do you go about sharing about the work that IJM is doing and about this global issue of human trafficking and modern day slavery without paralyzing or scaring people?

Lauren: Well, we try to communicate a message of hope because the facts and realities are startling. National Geographic estimates there are 27 million slaves today and UNICEF estimates that there are about 2 million children exploited in the sex industry. Those are hard numbers to hear. But we also communicate that our God is big, and he’s bigger than even these statistics. He sees every person trapped in slavery. In scripture we see that he wants to redeem them and bring them out of the oppression. We also share stories of IJM clients who have been rescued from slavery or violent oppression. A big part of my job is sharing these stories of hope about God’s goodness and God’s grace. We have seen many incredible stories of rescue. Our field staff who do God’s work on the front lines are also a source of encouragement.

Carrie: What do you say to those who believe that modern day slavery is something that only happens in the developing world?

Lauren: We at IJM see that modern day slavery thrives in areas of the world where there is an absence of the rule of law, which makes it very easy for people to be trapped in slavery and for people to run businesses with slaves. But you are right; it does happen all over the world. I know you are writing this column about slavery happening in the U.S. and we’re grateful that you’re raising awareness of this issue. IJM’s particular area of expertise is working in areas where the public justice system is not functioning, so we do not conduct casework in the U.S., but slavery does exist in our country. Thank you for what you’re doing to equip people to fight it.

Carrie: Are there things that Americans living here in the US can do to lessen the demand in trafficking in the US and overseas?

Lauren: The first thing that comes to mind is what we are doing with our Justice Campaigns. We, as citizens of the United States of America are in very powerful positions to influence our leaders. So we’ve been asking people to contact their Senators and Representatives in congress and ask that they support measures against human trafficking and make decisions that will help people in the developing world who are victims of slavery and child exploitation. We are specifically asking people to ask their representatives to support exciting legislation called the Child Protection Compact Act (CPCA). If this bill is passed, it will give extra funds to the United States State Department’s Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Office to help them fight child slavery and child exploitation. So that would be the first thing that comes to mind. Another thing would be to consider the things we are purchasing. An organization that comes to mind is Trade As One, which is an organization that helps the Christian community think about the way they purchase items and use their spending power.

Carrie: How would you encourage CL user to get involved with IJM or in the issue at all and act?

Lauren: I’ll start with the Justice Campaign since I already talked a little about that. You can ask your representatives in Washington to stand up for victims of trafficking around the world - just visit www.IJM.org/justicecampaigns to get started. This really makes a difference. Also, we recognize this work is impossible without God’s help, so we take very seriously our need of prayer. We have Prayer Partners all around the world praying for us and we need more people join us in praying for our clients and casework. You can sign up to be a prayer partner on our website. Also, as a non-profit we encourage folks to support us financially. Our donors are vital partners in this work and paying for the rescue the poor cannot afford is a really valuable way to engage in the work of justice. We have a monthly giving program called the Freedom Partner Program – that is fantastic – you can invest in a certain area of the world or particular casework type.

Carrie: Our last question comes from a CL user. Ridley would like to know how IJM balances fighting for justice while at the same time exercising compassion and Christ’s love for those who are the ones inflicting the injustice?

Lauren: That’s a really great question. One important thing that we do at IJM is that we pray for the perpetrators. We recognize that like all of us, they are created in the image of God and we know that our Father is longing for their reconciliation to Him. So that’s what we pray for. We also believe that to treat the perpetrators with love is to restrain their hands from inflicting pain upon other people. We do celebrate the hope and healing of our victims but we obviously do not celebrate the pain inflicted upon them by the life of the perpetrator. But, we see an obvious call to seek justice and restrain the hand of people who are oppressing others.

Carrie: Lauren I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me about this issue and about what IJM is doing to fight for justice on behalf of the oppressed and enslaved. IJM’s work is truly inspiring and I believe that your mission is a kingdom one that is obedient to the call for justice we know our God desires for all his people. Thank you so much for your words of encouragement and press on with your good works for the Lord.

Lauren: Thank you. It is really exciting to walk with God in this journey of seeking justice on behalf of the oppressed. Justice is an aspect of God’s character that really is an exciting and challenging component of Christianity and of our faith walk. So I just encourage everybody to investigate justice ministries and see how God might be calling us to use our own resources, gifts, and power to rescue and bless those who are being oppressed.

Thanks for checking out the interview CL users. I’d love to hear from you regarding any comments you have or questions related to this interview with Lauren.

Giving Christmas Away

Carrie Nye — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:29:32 -0800

I cannot believe this Friday is Black Friday! Can you? This is an old post from a couple years ago that I thought I'd share again. I added a new option for gifts below and am wondering what you might add to the list.

Black Friday has begun and the flood gates of Christmas shopping are open. Last Christmas, I remember my husband and I walking through Target looking for “the perfect gifts” for our family members. We walked in, looked around for a bit and walked out empty handed. Every year it seems like a struggle to find gifts that fit for the people we care about. Companies compete with one another by conveying messages of all of the things that our friends and family NEED this season. Commercials bombard our homes with elves busy at Sears, singing BestBuy employees and Old Navy manikins wearing the latest Christmas sweaters.

Before you get cut off in parking lots this Black Friday or wander the isles of Target in search of the perfect gift, I thought I’d offer some suggestions on ways to give, yet in a more less traditional way.

We all want to give. We were created with that desire. We were made by the hands that designed the very nature of giving. When we understand this awesome truth it becomes inevitable that we give. Who better to explain this than singing vegetables wearing ugly Christmas sweaters.

If you’ve had enough with crowded parking lots and lines, consider this Christmas season the gift of hope, freedom, food, a new start or empowerment. Giving breeds giving. Here are a few places where you can do just that.

Heifer International – Gifts of animals for breeding, farming, food purposes
IJM – Purchase a freedom package for individuals upon their rescue from slavery
Gospel for Asia – Gifts for outreach, missionaries, compassion gifts and much more
Samaritan’s Purse – Gifts for children around the world

Slavery No More - Provides several links to organization that are helping to combat slavery in the world today.

Feel free to leave comments with more suggestions and happy shopping!

A Story of Forgiveness

Carrie Nye — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:48:11 -0800

Earlier this week I read an article on CNN's belief blog that threw me into a stewing pot of thoughts. At the core is one simple word that seems so complex to live out, even in the shallowest of circumstances.

Forgiveness.

Celebrity Portrait Photographer Jeremy Cowart set out on a mission with filmmaker Laura Waters Hinson (As We Forgive) to produce a photo series project called "Voices of Reconciliation." Cowart and Hinson went to Rwanda. They wanted to give Rwandans the opportunity to make their own statements to the world about the 1994 mass killings and uprooting that took place in their backyards.

In the article Cowart says, "I grew up in the church and am a practicing Christian. I've heard "love your neighbor" and "forgive others because God forgave you" my entire life. But I don't recall my church ever discussing the idea of forgiving killers."

With the season of Thanksgiving and Christmas knocking at the door, I have been thinking about the gifts I'd like to give to my friends and family. I'm beginning to wonder what this season might look like if I gave the gift of forgiveness where I need to with others and with myself.

"He who is devoid of the power to forgive, is devoid of the power to love." MLKJ

"Without forgiveness, there is no future." Desmond Tutu

"Forgiveness is the remission of sins. For it is by this that what has been lost, and was found, is saved from being lost again." Saint Augustine

"To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you." Lewis B. Smedes

Cowart goes on to say in his blog, "While incredibly difficult to accomplish - especially if the offender has not admitted their wrong and asked for forgiveness, it’s a force that has the power to tear down walls and free hearts."

In terms of those in Rwanda who are the forgivers, Hinson said, "“For the victims, forgiving their offenders is a way of setting themselves free from the chains of anger and bitterness.”

Forgiveness is a powerful act. One that cannot be divorced from that of love. I'm incredibly touched by the radical grace these Rwandans have extended to each other despite the cruelest and most horrifying circumstances. I am humbled by their acts of love and forgiveness towards each other. It takes a lot of courage to snuff out the darkness with a ray of light.

Cowart touches on the fact that this type of radical forgiveness is not part of our culture. In fact, it's counter-cultural on every level. Forgiveness of this magnitude is Kingdom forgiveness. It's the kind of forgiveness that turns the ground over and sifts through muck. It up roots and replants. It seeps in deep and transforms from the inside out. It's redeems and it heals. It offers second chances and it sets us all free.

I hope this season of thanksgiving and Christmas gift giving is full of kingdom type radical love and forgiveness.

Check out Cowarts photo series of those Rwandans who have courageously chosen to forgiveness and love and who are now teaching the world to do the same; starting with me.

America and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Caroline Ferdinandsen — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 16:20:38 -0800

It’s no secret that journalism thrives on nasty bacteria more than life-giving oxygen. But this week’s relentless coverage of Very Bad People is making me want to wash my hands every five minutes.

Kim Kardashian’s faux-marriage reminds me that, at least in Celebrity-America, marriage equals marketing. Justin Bieber and Herman Cain, whom I would never place in the same sentence at any other time in history, both face sordid charges of power-groping. Conrad Murray (Michael Jackson’s unprincipled physician and convict-of-the-week) showed us all that the Hippocratic Oath means about as much as Kardashian’s Oath. And finally, the entire Penn State football program appears ready to implode over horrific charges of a pedophilia cover-up.

Just when I’m about to take up drinking, I realize that these are only the national stories. My hometown (and yours) has little celebrity symbolism but all of the same stories: the trivialization of marriage, the misuse of power, the abuse of innocent children. The two-dimensional news stories have real people behind them--people whose sins infect the entire world.

How does a follower of Jesus Christ find light and hope in the midst of such sorrow?

My answer is so surprisingly simple that you might never want to read another of my essays again. It’s an antidote to darkness so effective that we miss it entirely. It’s a push-back that keeps me from losing my freaking mind in the middle of all the teeth-gnashing. It’s the cheesiest answer on the planet.

What’s the answer?

Love.

No way, you might say. Love sounds too easy, too obvious, too wussy. You’d rather I call for righteous anger and butt-kicking justice. You’d rather I rally everyone to political anger or legislative action or vague national outrage. You might rather I drop hate into internet comment threads and let the infection spread. But I will suggest that none of these have ever changed a heart or healed a victim.

I am encouraged by the mind-bending truth of my Bible: And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Colossians 3:14) Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins (I Peter 4:8) This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. (I John 3:16) Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth (I John 3:18) Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (I John 4:8)

What does love look like for me today? First of all, vague Christian love will not counteract vague national outrage. Love takes care of a community’s children and supports lifelong marriages in daily, relentless consistency. It works its way into small conversations about God and man. It resists corruption by following the principles of Jesus Christ at our jobs and in our churches. You and I are the million news stories that are made of flesh and blood, the bigger story that contradicts America’s ugly front page.

When I write, I like to be smart and current and edgy. I like to make people think of things they haven’t considered before. But today, in the middle of a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week, I have nothing clever to say, nothing rhetorical that can heal a marriage or restore a life. I can only offer what Jesus Christ tells me is the single most important antidote to sin and hopelessness.

For every life-sapping, spirit-draining thing you read this week, push back with Jesus Christ’s love. Meditate on it. Dwell on the hope of salvation. Tell your children that Jesus’ love is more powerful than man’s despair.

Salacious journalism might seem to have the edge, but children of God can spread a viral hope faster than any news story. That said, I think I’m ready for my Wonderful, Beautiful, All Good, Very-God Day.

Ray of Hope: Suhana's Story

Carrie Nye — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 08:13:21 -0700

The International Justice Mission has released a new short film in which, Suhana, a young human trafficking victim in India, has transformed into a survivor of the slave trade; not once, but twice. This is her miracle:

Why now? Why hope? Why colors? Why art?

Richard Dahlstrom — Tue, 10 May 2011 16:58:37 -0700

I just returned from an inspiring afternoon with a few hundred people, interacting around the topics of the gospel and social justice, and I wanted to take a moment and share why I'm so passionate about this topic, and hence the book I've just written. My hope and prayer is that this new book finds its way into many hands because I believe that millions are floundering in their faith, or on the sidelines, or simply having the wrong conversations because they've not yet truly grasped the significance of the incredible life to which we're called in Christ.

The book, as many of you already know, is called The Colors of Hope. You can read a free chapter here. You can join a Facebook discussion here. But before you do any of that, I thought answering a few questions would be a helpful:

Why is now the time for this book?

Our culture has never been more polarized politically, and it seems that the church has followed suit. There are endless debates about the state of Rob Bell's soul, as emergent churches shout at neo-Calvinists, and pastors debate attractional and missional models of doing church. On the internet, among church leaders, it's loud, it's judgmental, and it misses the point. I want to stand up and shout sometimes: "Can we please stop shooting at each other? The world doesn't care about our in-house arguments! But they do care about children dying of treatable diseases, and income disparity, and global poverty, and human trafficking, and the AIDS crisis. And Jesus does too."

This book calls us back to the conversation that the prophets of the Bible called us to, a conversation that challenges us to make the invisible God visible in this world through acts of mercy, justice, and love. Our world is desperate for this just now, and it kills me to see us obsessing over the wrongs things while ignoring that which is central to the gospel.

Why Hope? Because the gospel declares that Jesus resurrection has initiated an entirely new trajectory to history, we who follow Christ are able to give more than food, water, economic empowerment. We're able to invite people into an entirely different story, not a story of survival, but a story of hope. We're able to invite people into an entirely different trajectory of history. We're able to invite people to a wholeness that will never come about through economics alone. This message is the hope of the world and we are the messengers!

Why Colors? Because God has boiled the whole thing down to three exhortations, three primary colors: mercy, justice, and love. I lived life for years using only two colors, and I can tell you it's wrong. But when we utilize all three colors, all the beauty and vibrancy that our world needs can come to life as Christ followers build clinics, bring clean water, plant tomatoes for neighbors, love the elderly and ill, befriend immigrants, stand in the gap for victims of economic oppression and human trafficking, and so much more. The world is waiting for these colors. This book is about why painting these colors is the responsibility of every Christian... and it's about how to do that.

Why Art? Because bringing hope to the world requires discipline, just like art. It requires clearly understanding one's subject, just like an artist must know the object they're painting. There are setbacks, just like artists have. There's weariness, and not enough time, and the need to paint during the margins of life because life gets in the way. There's the question of what exactly to paint, as we stare at the canvass that is our future. And yet, paint we must, because we're born to be creative. I share stories of people who've found their craft and are doing it - faithfully, in the midst of setbacks, slowly over time becoming a voice a hope in their world. It's beautiful to see, and it's the calling of us all.

I hope you'll share a link to this, or the video below, freely because this is a message, I believe more than ever, that we American Christians need to hear, and to live. Thanks!

I'll give a couple books away randomly to those who retweet, or post this on Facebook.

Learning to Hope

Holly Ordway — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 08:00:43 -0800

I am cautious with my heart, not by nature but through experience. Yet Trust has been a recurring call in my journey with Christ – trust, and pain, and hope.

The first call I heard from the Lord was: Trust Me to make you whole. I had accepted Christ as my Savior, but I was anything but whole. I didn’t know how healing could happen; I could not imagine any world in which I did not carry this pain with me. Persistently and gently, though, the Lord called to me: Trust Me to heal you. Like the woman who reached out to touch merely the hem of Jesus’ robe, I hardly dared ask for His attention – and He turned and gave me the fullness of His healing grace. Even now, I am staggered by the power and grace with which Christ worked in the dark places of my heart.

The second time I heard that call was in the context of writing my book and – even more so – doing publicity interviews this past summer. I was forced to confront the agony of my own vulnerability. Would I be respected? Would I be liked? Or would I be a failure? And here, sharp and clear, came the Lord’s call: Trust me to lead you.

Moving forward in the dark, trusting that the Lord knows where all this leads, has become easier with practice – honestly, in large part because the Lord has had mercy on me, weak as I am, and has graciously showed me some of the ways that my work has borne fruit.

As I have trusted the Lord with my pain and my fears, I have discovered peace: no longer fearing the loss of the good things in my life, no longer to try to hedge against a dark and unknown future, but rather giving thanks from a grateful heart to the Lord who has so abundantly blessed my life.

I thought I had learned all I needed to learn about trust. But I hadn’t.

I had still not trusted Him with my hopes.

In this new season of my life, this springtime after a long dry spell, I have begun to hope and long for more – and the awakening of hope bites deeply, with its own peculiar agony.

To reach out means the possibility of rejection. To love means the possibility of being hurt. To speak means the possibility of getting tangled up in words and saying the wrong thing.

And so the pain of hope can mute the heart that wants so badly to sing out.

In my old life, I had learned to hope for nothing. Having been hurt, my hopes not just shattered but trampled on, I had learned to settle for as little as possible; after all, one cannot be disappointed if one expects nothing. But now, in this new life (and what a gift, what an unmerited and gracious gift is this life!) all that was changed: I was being called to not just life, but life in abundance.

Here was the third and most difficult call: Trust me with your deepest hopes.

I realized that I had only been willing to trust the Lord with those hopes for which I had a backup plan to address by my own efforts. For the things I hoped for that are out of my control – my desire for deep and meaningful connections, for love - I was afraid to even pray.

Part of me thought I was a fool: how was it possible that I should deserve such hopes? And deep down I feared that if I admitted to the Father that I longed for more, He would certainly deny me the very thing I hoped for.

I had it all wrong, so completely wrong. It is not a question of my own merit, for I have none. “I am not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table.” It is not a question of negotiating with the Lord over how many good things I am allowed to have – as if I were allowed to be blessed to a certain extent, and no more. No.

It is a question of who I am.

By the grace of God, I know who I am. I am the daughter of the Father, the adopted sister of the Son, the temple of the Holy Spirit. Unchangeably so. Not through anything I did or could ever do, but because of what Christ did for me.

I had been reflecting and praying about this for months, all through the fall and winter. It all came into focus at the beginning of this year, late one afternoon when I knelt at evening prayer.

I realized – fully and deeply – that God’s love for me is not an abstract idea, but a living and present reality. In holding back my hopes, I was failing to trust the One who loves me more deeply and fully than I can comprehend.

I wept. I repented of my own failure to trust. Turning to Christ, I asked my Savior to bring me, prodigal that I am, into the Father’s presence; to cover me with his righteousness, to set my hopes and dreams – all of them – before the Father on my behalf.

It was as though something shattered, something transparent that had yet stood between me and my Father’s love. For the first time, I was able to say Mary’s words with joy rather than resignation: “Let it be to me according to your word.”

And I find, to my surprise, I that knowing who I am – knowing my identity in Christ – has set me free in a way I never expected. Given me not just freedom from fear – but also freedom to hope. Freedom to love.

Hope is hard, I have found; I suspect love is, also. But as I pray each day in this new season, I discover that it is hard in a good way, the same way that disciplining oneself as an athlete is hard: it takes practice, and it doesn’t happen all at once. Everything I have discovered about trust is just the beginning: an invitation to take a chance, to be vulnerable, to step out into that future of God’s plans as yet unknown to me. No longer in fear, because I know who I am and I know that I am secure in Christ’s love. So here and now, in my own halting, awkward way, I lift my hopes – all of them – to the Lord who loves me.

I am a Human Being

Carrie Nye — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:55:12 -0800

There is a lot of crap in the world today, no doubt about it. Sin is everywhere and people are hurting. There is no denying it. Tonight I gave a presentation on Human Trafficking to some cool local college students. As they discovered, this issue is dark. The only hope I see in it all, is the light of Christ which reveals itself in those who know Christ on the personal level. As Moses' face radiated after seeing God, so do Christ's followers radiate light where there is darkness. This video is what light looks like when shone over the dark. I am a human being. I am loved. I am a work of art. I am precious. I am created with purpose. I am no different than any other person God has created. Here is a man who gets what it means to be a created human being and live with purpose. It's awesome really what one person can do. This guy could be you.

⁶ “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
⁹ Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
¹⁰ and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
¹¹ The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
¹² Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. Is. 58:6-12

Bigger Joys

Jim Farmer — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 23:57:04 -0800

This past weekend, on a creative whim, I decided to head to the beach to photograph the sunset. I had noticed some gorgeous sunsets in a perfectly clear sky over the last few days and decided I needed to document at least one of them.

I hopped in my car and headed to the beach and noticed just how cloudy it was getting. I walked down to the shore and saw this:

It was more dreary than I expected. I thought the cloud cover would block any good light and the trip would be a bust. But, I decided to stick around - just in case.

After a few minutes, I was struck by the beauty of the sun peaking through the pylons of Huntington Beach pier:

I was excited - and breathed a sigh of relief. I grabbed a couple of interesting photos of this perfect alignment and was quite content.

Then, I noticed a growing orange glow:

I was struck by the warmth of the glow and genuinely thought this was a nice sunset. Thinking I had captured what I needed of the sunset, I turned my back and grabbed some random photos of lifeguard towers, strangers, seagulls, and the like.

Then, I heard an audible gasp from someone in my vicinity. When I turned around, I saw this:

I gasped myself. I realized then I was foolish for short changing God. He was in charge of this sunset and He wanted to put on a spectacular show. Just when I thought the colors couldn’t get more intense, I would see this:

And finally, this:

As I drove home, I couldn’t help but wonder - how many times in my life have I settled for the small joy God has for me, only to turn my back on the huge, vibrant, breathtaking joy God actually has in store?

13 Yr. Old Prince has a Dream for Congo

Carrie Nye — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:36:48 -0800

Have you ever thought about what you might say if you drafted your own version of Martin Luther King Jr.’s, I Have a Dream speech? What dreams do you have? What hopes do you have for yourself and for your community?

Prince lives in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Four years ago, Prince, who is one of many street kids born in a war zone and living on the streets, asked my friend Esther if she could help him go to school. Now 13 years old, Prince and his classmates recently studied the life of Martin Luther King Jr. This past November, Prince stood in front of his class and recited MLKJ’s I Have a Dream speech. As he finished, his classmates applauded and Esther told him he did a great job and that he could take a seat again.

Prince stood there in front of the class. He hesitated for only a moment and then said, “But that was MLKJ’s dream for America. I have a dream for Congo.”

And then he confidently declared from the front of his class these words:

As Martin Luther King had a dream for USA, I also have a dream for DR Congo.

I have a dream that one day DR Congo will rise up and return to his destiny.

I believe deeply that things are going to be different in this rich country, whose population is poor and unhappy, in which children are in the streets, women and girls are raped, small children forced in the army instead of going to school; ladies become prostitute for nobody takes care of them, and many of them are HIV positive.

Even though Eastern Congo is thorned by violence and wars, famine destroys many families, many people died because they don’t get health care. Cries become the chorus of our songs; Listen, very soon the chorus is going to change to praises to God!

I have a dream that this country is going to be transformed to a paradise, where foreigners will not come to bring aid but to find rest and peace, because God has decided to bless this country; he is bringing hope back in Congo.

I have a dream that very soon Congo is going to be an oasis of Peace and development in Africa. God is going to restore the leadership in this country, Congolese will choose to work hard and develop their own country.

I have a dream today.

Prince NTWALI, 13

Young Prince hasn’t stopped with that profound and prophetic speech. He is currently writing a book he has titled, The Fearless Leader.

Over the past few years, I’ve written many posts on the tragedy and horror taking place in the DRC. The war has raged for 15 years and 6 million people have lost their lives as a result. Millions of others are displaced, orphaned, damaged and drowning in their own tears. Prince is living proof that God has different plans for Congo. Jesus is the ruler of all and his perfect peace will overcome the chaos, his light will pierce the darkness and evil will be stomped out.

2 Chronicles 16:9 says that the eyes of the Lord scan the earth to strengthen the hearts of those committed to him. I believe God sees Prince and God will use him to restore Congo.

So what’s your dream? What do you hope for?

Be assured God not only hears you, he also sees you and the foundation of the throne he sits upon is a foundation of justice. That justice will prevail.