Break Every Chain

After only 3 hours, both Molly and I wanted to get back to the Prayer Center.  It wasn’t a lot of sleep, but both of us got 3 very good hours of sleep.  I love that we got to be the ones to launch the 24/7 prayer.  It was out of my comfort zone, but so worth it!  In fact, every time that I have stepped out of my comfort zone in response to God’s call, I have enjoyed it and been blessed.

And speaking of being called out of my comfort zone, God has encouraged me to speak to people here in Malta—strangers!  Those who know me might be surprised, but I’m really quite shy, especially when it comes to talking to strangers.  My mom is really good at striking up a conversation with a stranger, and seems to be able to do it anytime and anywhere, with grace and freedom.  I have not enjoyed such ability or success whenever I have tried.  But, since it is God that is calling me out of my comfort zone, I will do it, and will enjoy it and will be blessed.

In obedience, I have started to greet everyone I see on the street (except the ones that are talking on their phones).  Most people have responded in a friendly way.  In Texas I used to greet everyone on the street, even strangers.  But in Milan and in the northeastern US, I have gotten such odd and sometimes hostile reactions that I stopped doing it.  I spoke to the man next to me on the bus this morning, but found that his accent and the background noise made it really hard to understand him.  Although he didn’t seem to be quite awake, he responded in a friendly way.  When we got to the end of the line, he wished me a nice day.

Yesterday we had more prayer requests from the other Transform teams, and had a prayer meeting with local believers.  One couple came with their 10 year old son, but soon after worship started, they suddenly left.  I don’t know if they were offended by the freedom of our worship or if they had some unrelated issue.  It definitely was not our intent to offend anyone.  Malta is even more religiously Catholic than Italy—celebrating saint days with colored lights and garlands and fireworks and parades of statues in the streets.  The Renewal Movement (Charismatic Catholicism) has begun here, but it is not the majority by any means.  Most Catholics here, as in Italy, are nominal, ritualistically religious, or superstitiously religious.  True faith is rare here in Malta.  But it won’t stay that way.

Another issue for the Maltese is refugee boat people from Africa.  Most of the boat people drown before making land, but such is the desperation of these people that they just keep coming.  The same current that caused the Apostle Paul’s boat to shipwreck on Malta brings the African boats to these shores instead of to Italy (though many do land in Italy).  The European Union has told Malta that they must keep the boat people, so the population of the island has changed dramatically.  Many Maltese resent the presence of the Africans, feeling that their island has been invaded, their jobs taken, and their economy drained.  The fact is that the European Union financially helps Malta, though I don’t know how much.  Refugees are put into detention centers for a year while their backgrounds are checked.  As you can imagine, this is not a quick process, working in cooperation with various African governments that do not want to have these people returned to be a drain on their own struggling economies.  Then the refugees are released to find work that nobody else wants to do because of low pay or the danger involved.

Molly, who is a black African, discovered firsthand the anger and resentment of the Maltese for the African refugees.  She was walking with 2 other girls from our team, and they spoke to people in the park.  They asked one older man if they could pray for him.  An ugly look came over his face and he pointed his finger at Molly, shouting: “Pray about them!”

The unexpected venom of his anger startled and hurt Molly.  But later as she told us about the incident, Molly prayed for the man, forgiving him and releasing him to God’s love.  While walking with Molly, I saw another older man who scowled at Molly.  I turned to her and said, “Molly, I’m so sorry for the way that man spoke to you!”  How terrible to be hated so much just because of the color of your skin!  The man had no idea what a sweet person Molly is, or that she had come for the specific purpose of praying for his country.

Jesus is the chain-breaker, and He will break every chain and proclaim freedom to the captives.  Yes, Lord!  Break every chain!  God is good!

The Light Shines in the Darkness

I have written a few stories of actual people who have been trafficked (in both “Look, Listen, Love” and “Laughing in My Dreams”).  Those were people that my friend, Clara, the pastor’s wife in Romania told me about.  Buck and Nadia work with women in prostitution, and they have been telling me about the women they know.

The first time the issue of human trafficking came to their attention was in the small town three hours from Sofia, where they were pastoring a church.  The head of the children’s program at their church came to them with the desire to tell her story.  She had gone with a friend to Macedonia because of the promise of a job, and their documents were confiscated and they were told that they would be prostitutes.  She was a virgin and lost her virginity to a stranger in his car.  Her friend ran away, but was caught, and as the other girls watched, they broke both her legs.  Amazingly, the girl did eventually manage to get away, but now, years later, she still struggles with her past.

They said that they tried not to look shocked, but they were.  They had never heard of such a thing.  But little by little they became aware of the magnitude of the problem.  Often, even if the girl manages to get away, the police are reluctant to do anything about the trafficking.  The police and local officials are often involved either financially or as non-paying customers.  And the girls are mostly foreign and without legal identity documents—they are essentially non-persons.  So even non-corrupt police would rather ignore their complaints than get into the massive legal hassles required to help undocumented persons.

When they began working with prostitutes these stories of trafficking became more and more common.  One girl told how she had been living with her grandmother and helping her, but she needed to return to her own home about an hour away.  She ran into an old friend who invited her to have coffee.  Over coffee she told him that she needed to go back to their town, and he offered her a ride.  On the way they stopped at a coffee shop, and she didn’t think anything unusual about it except that her brought her a soda that was already opened.  Back on the road, she began to feel strange and physically paralyzed.  He had slipped her the date rape drug.  They went to her house, got her identity card, and he took her to Macedonia.  Because of the relaxed borders of the European Union, all he had to do was show both their identity cards to the border guard.  Then she saw him receive money for her, and she was put into a brothel and told that this would be her work from now on.  She became pregnant in the line of her work and was severely beaten for refusing to have an abortion.  Somehow she got away and into a halfway house for girls coming out of prostitution.  She said that whenever she looks at her baby, she tries not to remember how he was conceived.

The stories go on and on about husbands who send their wives out to work as prostitutes, and husbands who don’t like for their wives to work as prostitutes, but tolerate it because they like the money.  Many of the girls cope by pretending that they are a different person when they are working, and trying not to be present in their bodies during the act.  But these are only temporary and imperfect fixes.  There is nothing in the world like becoming a truly new creation in Christ Jesus.

No matter where you live, there is human trafficking going on in your country, and probably in your state, and possibly in your own town.  Check out the slavery map: http://www.slaverymap.org/.

God is good.  God is love.  Jesus is the ultimate expression of God’s love for humankind.  Love cannot allow this evil and injustice to continue against approximately 30 million people worldwide.  Love demands a response.  What are you going to do about it?

A Heartbreakingly Beautiful Girl

When Clara (the pastor’s wife and my hostess) tells me the ugly truths about life in Romania her voice and face are drained of all emotion, while mine are breaking up from emotions that can’t be contained.  That is how she told me about Sandy.  Clara and Leo have four children, and care for two other girls.  I had met one of them, Ruth, last year.  Ruth’s parents left her with her grandmother while they were divorcing.  When each parent re-married, neither wanted Ruth, so she stayed with her grandmother until the grandmother’s death.  At the time of the grandmother’s death, Ruth was six years old, and both parents had children with their new spouses.  Clara and Leo took her in.  The parents visit Ruth periodically, but Clara and Leo have legal guardianship of her.

When I heard Ruth’s story last year, I wondered how heartless people could be toward their own child—until this morning when I heard Sandy’s story.  Clara and Leo took Sandy into their home on weekends two years ago after her mother died and her father left her with her grandmother.  Clara asked about the mother’s death and learned that she had been forced into prostitution by her husband, and had died after a few years.  She didn’t say what she had died of, but considering all the risks of prostitution it could be anything:  AIDS or another STD, a drug overdose, murder, or suicide.  Clara didn’t say, but it really doesn’t matter, it was a result of prostitution.

When she saw the look on my face, Clara said, “I don’t know if he tried to get work or just wanted the easy way.”  I marveled at her refusal to judge a man who had prostituted the mother of his children.  She went on to tell me that the grandmother is in poor health, and that Sandy has a handicapped brother, so she helps them after school, but stays with Clara and Leo on the weekends so that she can go to church and have a chance to be a kid.  Knowing Clara the way I do, she probably also gives the grandmother money to help buy groceries and pay the bills.

But I wasn’t prepared for what came next.  Clara told me that she worries about Sandy’s dad returning to take her and sell her into prostitution because she’s tall and pretty like her mother was.  Sandy is twelve years old.

Again my face betrayed me.  Clara shrugged and said, “This is a common story in Romania.”  She said that some of the older girls from church send her notes, asking her and Leo to pray for them.  They respond to advertisements for well-paying summer jobs in Budapest, and go with their parents’ blessing.  Then when they arrive they learn that the work is prostitution.  Too ashamed to tell their parents, they work as prostitutes for the summer, then come back home with much-needed money for the family, and resume normal life as a student.  The notes always end the same way: begging Clara and Leo not to tell their parents.

Last year I had asked Clara about the issue of human trafficking.  I had heard that Romania is one of the places where the women enslaved into prostitution come from.  She told me about a little girl from their little city, Biberon: Christina was a pretty little blonde with blue eyes who her daughter, Elizabeth, knew from school.  One day Christina was walking home from school with a friend.  Just two blocks from home a man in a car pulled up to the curb and with urgency in his voice said to Christina, “Hurry! Get in the car!  Your mother sent me to get you!”  She got into the car and has never been seen or heard from again.  Christina’s friend hadn’t thought to notice anything about the man or his car because she had also believed his story.  This happened two years ago, when Christina was only ten years old.  Most likely Christina has been raped, beaten, and trafficked to a country in Western Europe because she doesn’t need a passport to move about within the European Union.

Human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar a year industry, and slavery is illegal in virtually every country in the world.  There are estimated to be more slaves today than in all the years of human history added together.  And if you think it’s not happening where you live, think again.  Check out your hometown on the slavery map:  http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/.  To read more about human trafficking, see: http://humantrafficking.org/.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”  Edmund Burke