Freed People Free People

Dr. Tomi Grover, author of Compelled

“Freed people free people,” said modern-day abolitionist, Dr. Tomi Grover speaking at Baptist Temple this past Sunday. Dr. Grover is the Executive Director of TraffickStop, which serves to educate, advocate, and engage people on the issue of human trafficking, and the author of Compelled.

More than 27 million people are enslaved around the world; half are children. According to Polaris Project, there are 100,000 to 300,000 children prostituted in America.

At an estimated $32 billion a year, human trafficking is the world's second largest criminal enterprise (drug trafficking is #1). People are lured with false promises of employment and, then, held against their will to work in the sex industry or provide free labor. In San Antonio, 22% of the contemporary slaves are forced into prostitution. Seventy-eight percent are forced to work as domestic servants or labor at farms and factories.

Baptist Temple's campus sits on Interstate 10; declared by the Texas Department of Justice to be a human trafficking superhighway. It connects four of the 10 largest cities in America (#2 Los Angeles, #3 Houston, #5 Pheonix, #7 San Antonio) and is the closest east-west corridor to the Mexican border. More than 20% of identified trafficking victims in the US are found in Texas.

Using the story of Moses at the burning bush, Grover outlined a plan for a Christian response to human trafficking.

1. God is aware and cares about human trafficking.

“I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.” (Exodus 3:7)

2. God responds.

“So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey...”(Exodus 3:8)

3. God sends his people.

“So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:10)

Jesus is concerned about human trafficking. Quoting Isaiah, he proclaimed, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19) As people freed from the slavery of sin, we are compelled to free those who are enslaved today.

Grover cautions against taking direct action. Human traffickers are violent people and probably won't hesitate to harm a person who is interfering with their business. Suspicious activities should be brought to the attention of local law enforcement. Furthermore, you can call the national hotline: 888.373.7888.

Churches and individuals can become educated and raise awareness.

The Polaris Project

Freedom Youth Project

San Antonio Against Slavery

Purchase Dr. Tomi Grover's book

Stealing children

Guest blog by Dan Trevino

Seeking an education, a boy falls into a trap and becomes a victim of human trafficking.

I will call him Mark in order to protect his privacy and his life. I met Mark during a worship service in one of the camps at which I have been privileged to preach during the last 2 months.

Just before the service, I asked if there was anyone who would like to volunteer to read the scripture for me in Spanish during during worship. Mark volunteered.

We visited as the other young men filed into the cafeteria that was large enough to accommodate all of the young men and boys for worship. I asked Mark how he was. He said he was so thankful to God for the protection he has had and that he was praying that someone would help him through this ordeal.

Mark shared that when he was younger, he felt the call to be a minister of some sort but that he didn’t know exactly what God wanted him to do. He was hoping to get into a good school but was taken away from his family and forced to do imaginable things. Things that made him begin to doubt that God had chosen him for anything but bad.

He asked me, “If God really loves me, why is this happening to me?”

Mark was forced from his family and led into a life of drug dealing and stealing. Mark believed that he was no longer one of God’s children but that he belonged to another family; a family that educated him to live and hide in the streets.

When I asked Mark if he would elaborate on this. He told me that he was too ashamed and embarrassed to tell a pastor what he has done but that much of what he did was with someone watching him closely and many times at gunpoint.

In a daring move, Mark ran away from his keepers and became one of the thousands of young people who are seeking a better life in the United States. Some, unfortunately, fall into the hands of human traffickers painting false images to young people seeking a better life. Mark is one of the fortunate to escape. He shared with me that many of the young men and girls he knew died trying to find a better life and running from their captors.

Mark re-dedicated his life to Christ during that day and wants to obey God’s calling in his life. I shared with him about Baptist University of the Americas, his face lit up but, then, saddened because he did not know what his fate was going to be. I pray for Mark every day. I gave him one of my cards and I pray that he will one day contact me that he is ready to prepare for the ministry.

Mark is one of thousands who need our prayers and protection from human trafficking predators.

Dan Trevino is Associate Pastor of Baptist Temple Church in San Antonio. In the past month and a half, he has led 14 worship services for victims of human trafficking. The result has been 821 professions of faith, 577 re-dedications. Additionally, 58 staff members have, also, made professions of faith.

The fight to end slavery continues

Amazing Grace has been recorded over 3200 times; more than any other song. It was written by John Newton, a slave trader who sold over 20,000 slaves into captivity until a near-death experience at sea prompted him to leave the slave trade and dedicate his life to Christ. The lyrics of Amazing Grace tell of the remarkable transformation God created in his life. Newton said of himself, "Only God's amazing grace could and would take a rude, profane, slave-trading sailor and transform him into a child of God."

John Newton was a mentor to William Wilberforce and encouraged him in his fight to abolish slavery. Elected to parliament at the age of 21, Wilberforce led a life-long fight to end slavery. Although continually defeated over 20 years, a law to end slavery in England was passed in 1807, the year that John Newton died.

Wilberforce continued to fight for the abolition of slavery in all British colonies for 26 more years. The law was finally passed three days before his death.

Two hundred years after the British Parliament abolished slavery and 144 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, there are still 27 million people living in slavery; more than at any other time in history.

* 27 Million: Number of people in modern-day slavery across the world
* 800,000: Number of persons trafficked across international borders each year
* 17,500: Number of foreign nationals who are trafficked into the U.S. every year
* 91: Number of cities in the United States with reported cases of trafficking
* 50: Percent of all victims are children
* 20 Million: Number of bonded laborers in the world
* 218 Million: Estimated number of children working aged between five and seventeen
* 126 Million: Estimated number of children who work in the worst forms of child labor - one in every twelve of the world's five to seventeen year olds.
* 300,000: Estimated number of child soldiers involved in over 30 areas of conflict worldwide, some younger than 10 years old.

    ***MAY 2014 UPDATE***

• Texas ranks second in calls to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center Hotline.

• 25% of international human trafficking victims are in Texas.
  

• Interstate 10 is the #1 human trafficking corridor in America.