How can a loving God allow so much evil and suffering? How can a loving God allow things like human trafficking? These are the first questions I asked my students on the Abolitionist Plunge in Columbus, OH this past spring.
The Abolitionist Plunge is a week-long Urban Project where students are immersed in every aspect of the fight against human trafficking, or modern day slavery. During the course of the week students hear from trafficking survivors, volunteer with local organizations that are fighting against human trafficking, and learn about a God who wants to set all His children free.
Here’s are some excerpts from my daily journal about our experience this Spring on the Abolitionist Plunge:
3/11/2013:
It's almost 2:00am and I just got back from the Salvation Army building on East Main Street in Columbus, the place that served as our headquarters for street outreach this evening. After a three-hour training, we were divided into three groups to go out with a Salvation Army social worker and offer gift bags to women who are being trafficked on the streets of Columbus. Along with the gift bags, we offer a card with the local anti-trafficking hotline number. Between the three teams, we interacted with fourteen victims. We knew this would be a late night; we left the Salvation Army at 1:30am.
In the training, students learned a lot about life on the streets and how the trafficking industry is structured. They learned street terms like "dope boys," "tricks," "geeking,"and "bottom girl" and the trainer explained exactly what they would be seeing. The students came back shocked that trafficking was happening out in the open. Several also said that if they hadn't been trained to see it, they would not have realized it was happening.
3/12/2013:
After the late night last night, we gathered for breakfast and quiet times, then gathered into small groups to process the things they had experienced so far and how they were doing emotionally. Students used words like overwhelmed, burdened, amazed, and filled up. One commented about the "ever-looming presence of fear on the street" last night. Another expressed surprise that having a chance to give even a little love to people who are so love-deprived could mean so much, and another described the people they have met on the plunge who are leading these anti-trafficking efforts as "super-heroes."
We went to the Ohio Statehouse today and met with Rep. Teresa Fedor who has spearheaded efforts to strengthen Ohio's anti-trafficking laws. From the statehouse, we walked to the YMCA and had a delicious lunch prepared by Freedom a la Cart, a food cart business run by trafficking survivors. As you might imagine, even when a trafficking survivor is free, she (or he) has nothing to put on a resume, no skills for the job market, and no references. Freedom a la Cart gives survivors an opportunity to build a work history, develop kitchen skills (which are very transferable, so they will be able to get jobs later in other restaurants), and gain first-hand exposure to the basics of good nutrition. For people who have lived on heroin and Red Bull, the concept of eating fresh vegetables is foreign. Freedom a la Cart is teaching women with the worst health problems in the world – HIV, TBI, Hepatitis - how to garden and to shop and cook responsibly and healthfully. Here's a description of just one of the sandwiches we had today: "House Roasted Chicken Breast with Fresh Mozzarella, Basil, Cilantro, House Tomato Jam + our Garlic-Almond aioli." This was no peanut butter and jelly lunch! After we ate, one of the survivors came out from the kitchen and eloquently told us her story.
This evening students did a mini SOAP outreach at local hotels. SOAP stands for "Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution.” During the SOAP outreach we take specially labeled bars of soap to hotels so girls or boys who are being trafficked can get the National Human Trafficking Hotline number. Because of outreaches like this in the past, the Polaris Project, which receives hotline calls, reported that the number of calls typically doubles when there is a SOAP outreach in a city. Recently one girl was found and returned to her family and another was identified from the missing children poster that we give to hotel management along with the soap. Our students went to hotels in some of the sketchiest parts of town as well as some high-end places to offer the labeled soaps and give information to the front desk people about how to identify a trafficking situation, and in almost every case the students were very well received. God is at work!
3/13/2013:
This evening a group called "art 4 abolition" came to give us a taste of different ways the arts can be used to raise awareness about trafficking. We saw visual arts pieces, heard original songs and poetry, one woman read a children's book that she wrote, and another performed a dance. Some of the students connected strongly with the artists and I could almost see that ideas were exploding inside their heads as they considered how they might use the creative talents God has given them to spread awareness about human trafficking back on their campuses.
At the end of the evening, about a dozen students spontaneously gathered for an extended time of prayer. They were all extremely engaged in praying for the victims, the perpetrators, the "johns" (buyers of sex), the ministries that are working to combat trafficking and restore survivors, and were allowing God to do deep work in their own lives as well. Praise God!
3/14/2013:
This afternoon our group split up and took flyers to truck stops and nail salons. The nail salon idea originated yesterday when one participant commented that speaker after speaker had referred to pimps (traffickers) taking girls to get their nails done as part of their manipulation. She asked whether we might take the posters of missing children to nail salons in neighborhoods where trafficking is known to be taking place and talk to the owners and managers about what they could look for, just as we had done with hotels. Today was the inauguration of a nail salon outreach!
I ended the evening by going back to the questions I had asked at the beginning of the Plunge: how can a loving God allow so much evil and suffering? How can a loving God allow things like human trafficking? First I talked about the question itself; what is it that we want God to do? Strike people with lightening -- but only the people who deserve it (in my opinion)? Overwhelm someone's free will -- as long as my right to make my own choices remains intact?
What if we're asking the wrong question? What if it's the other way around? What if God is asking, "How can my people allow so much evil and suffering in the world? How can my people allow things like human trafficking?" It's clear in Scripture that God does have a plan to fight evils like human trafficking, and His plan is us!
But we don't just give ourselves to the fight against trafficking. We are not called to a cause, but to a Person. When a trafficking victim cries out "God, where are you? Do you see me?" the One who hears that prayer is the One who has been there, the One who has experienced what they have experienced. Trafficking victims cry out to the One who also has been rejected and neglected by His own people, betrayed by someone who had manipulated to gain a position of trust, sold for the price of a slave, abandoned by friends, arrested even though He was innocent, subjected to a judicial system that was stacked against Him, was beaten, mocked, tortured, and crucified. When a trafficking victim cries out, "God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus understands; He's been right there. God doesn't always give us an answer; but He always gives us Himself. And of course that Person rose again, victorious over evil and sin and death and yes, victorious over human trafficking. He is coming again and He will set things right and make all things new. Hallelujah!
Connie Anderson is the Director of Justice Ministries for InterVarsity in the Great Lakes East Region. She is also the director of the Abolitionist Plunge.
If you suspect someone may be a victim of human trafficking, call the national anti-trafficking 24 hour hotline 888-3737-888.
