A Movie or a Movement?

While America salutes and spars over “Barbenheimer,” I decided to circle a different wagon and checked out the Sound of Freedom. And Whoa.

Just Whoa.

Spoiler alert – the movie is about trafficking children for sex and make no mistake about it, there’s nothing “entertaining” or “comfortable” about those two hours and fifteen minutes.

And yet, I loved it. Not in the way I love chocolate, or Paul, or books. But I loved it because it stirred the proverbial hornet’s nest and it’s got us all talking about something far more important than The Bear or high school football.

All the social media platforms are reverberating with posts from the (predominately Christian) viewers who are disgusted and angry about this “atrocity.” Messages like the following abound:

• Every Christian needs to see this movie!
• Did you know the “left” didn’t even want this movie made?
• Watch your children!“They” (traffickers) are everywhere!
• Stay away from the mall! “They” (traffickers) are all over the mall!
• This is why I don’t travel abroad!
• Somebody (else) needs to do something!

By all means, let’s feel the anger and the rage. Rage! Rage! Child sex trafficking is evil at its core.  But honestly, friends, the responses above are based in fear and really do absolutely nothing to stop the hemorrhaging. If creating a raging population is the culmination of this movie, then what good is it really? Awareness is nothingness if not paired with action. We Christians love to get all worked up about things. What we don’t seem to love as much is DOING something about those things.

In the words of the great Lorax: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”  Dr. Seuss

To be honest, I found myself quite frustrated with this movie mostly for what was NOT said. Where was the call to action? Where was the QR code at the end of the movie that connects us to anti-trafficking agencies? Why wasn’t a list of organizations fighting against child sex trafficking offered up in the credits? At the VERY least, tell us how to donate to Tim Ballard’s own organization: Operation Underground Railroad (OUR).

THIS collective blood boiling simply cannot be the end of the conversation.

This movie needs to spark a MOVEMENT.

Paul and I first heard about the sex trafficking of children about 20 years ago from the founder of International Justice Mission (IJM), Gary Hougan. (In fact, OUR is a fairly young operation and was “made in the image” of IJM). Gary had been invited to speak at our church and talked very frankly about the global crisis of child sex trafficking. Never has a congregation sat so still and so quiet. I was especially shaken by the account of a 5-year-old girl in Cambodia who had been chained to a bed and raped over 10 times a day before IJM rescued her. At that time, our own daughter, Grace, was also five years. I could NOT get past the contradiction that while Grace – all dolled up in her purple corduroy dress and white tights – was learning about Jesus and eating goldfish crackers in her safe and serene Sunday School classroom, another little girl EXACTLY HER AGE was, somewhere in the world, chained to a bed and being raped all day long. I ran to the bathroom to rinse out the puke in my mouth.

Near the end of his talk, Gary said people often approach him after he has shared about IJM and ask what they can do. Some want to fly to Thailand, or Cambodia, or Honduras, or Columbia and raid the brothels with him. They want to “go after” the bad guys. Others want to “love on” the poor children rescued from these terrorists. Fresh with new information that leaves us reeling, some well-intentioned people offer to jump in and try to “fix” it. As the quintessential act-first-think-second-person that I am, that is EXACTLY what had been going through my mind: “Lord, tell me what I should do. I must DO something! There’s got to be a way IJM can use a nurse and an accountant! Send us, Lord! Send us!!!”

But Gary’s last statement was the most pointed of all and it was directed right at me. He said, “The problem is, if you’re not a well-trained cross-cultural lawyer, or if you’re not a therapist with PTSD expertise, or if you’re not a bad-ass private investigator who’s willing to go face-to-face with the world’s worst criminals, then I can’t use you. We just don’t need doctors or nurses, engineers, accountants, teachers, and mechanics.” (Of course, he had to list OUR two professions…) And then he went on: “If you REALLY want to help rescue children sold into sex slavery but you’re not from one of those three very specific professions, then what we really need is your money. The bottom line is this: with more money, we can hire more professionals and we can rescue more people – especially children – who are trapped in the sex trade. If you want to make a difference, just go work hard at the job God has given you and then send money.”

After the service, we asked Gary what kind of response he usually gets after speaking to a crowd like this. He looked around at the huge sanctuary (we were a church of around 8,000 – 10,000 at the time) and said, “Initially, there’s significant interest. But in a month? There will most likely be just a few of you still involved. People tend to push hard stuff to the back of their minds which leads to forgetting about it.”

Our family has traveled to Guatemala multiple times with a ministry that primarily focuses on feeding programs for starving widows and children in the poorest mountain regions of Guatemala. The ministry hosts church groups week after week, month after month, year after year to help foster a “marriage” between the “haves” and the “have-nots” in the world. On one of those trips, while winding our way through the mountains toward Chichicastanengo, I had a rare private moment with the director so I pummeled him with questions: “With all the groups you host down here, what percentage would you say continue to stay in touch and support the work here in Guatemala? His answer nearly doubled me over: “Probably less than 5%. Most often, I never hear from the teams serving here again. But we must do all the work to host all these people all year round in order to find that 5% because that 5% represent most of our financial support. Most people just get busy back in America and forget about us.”

Oh, Jesus-people of the world! Let us not get too busy that we forget about these precious children enslaved in sex trafficking!

The Least of These

“Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You as a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?”

The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done for me.” Matthew 25:35 – 40

We traveled with our kids to some crazy, off-the-wall, eye-opening places in their younger years. And no matter how young they were at the time – we would follow it up with: “With knowledge comes responsibility. So, now, the challenge is yours, child: what will you do with this knowledge?”

(I know, I know… we messed our kids up good with that kind of talk. But I have no regrets.)

So, dear friends, what are we going to do with this knowledge of child sex trafficking?

We can no longer say, “I just didn’t know.”

Now, we all know.

Set me free, Lord. Set me free.

I believe this movie can do even more than just help children in sex bondage be set free. I believe this movie has the power to set us ALL free.

• Free from the traps that make us fist-clench our money.

• Free from the fear that we’ll never have “enough” in our bank accounts.

• Free from the lie that a 10% tithe is enough. (In truth, American Christians, on average, tithe 2.5% of their annual income. My husband, the public accountant who practices in THE MOST philanthropic county in America where you’d expect giving to be off the charts, confirms this statistic.)

• Free from the lie that we need a “X” amount of money saved up for a potential unforeseen crisis or for retirement. (Who dictates this anyway? I don’t know, but I know it is driven by fear.)

• Free from the lie:“If we only had EXTRA cash like so-n-so does”we’d be able to give more. (“Extra”is so nebulous. I don’t consider myself “extra”, but I just counted and I have 23 pairs of shoes. Oh dear God – we ALL have so much “extra.”)

• Free from the false belief that we can only give generously when we have serious excess. (Let’s be honest, we tend to give from our excess, not our first fruits.)

Oh Lord, set us free from these lies so that we can go forth with ridiculous, EXTRAVAGANT generosity and help these little sons and daughters made in your image to be set free from the tyranny of sex trafficking. Because the actual truth is that we all have too much. Every single one of us can dig a little deeper and give a little more. I wonder if there are any of us that have ever given until it actually hurt? I know I haven’t. And yet, I believe these exploited children deserve nothing less.

WE are God’s plan. He put YOU and ME here on this planet for such a time as this. There is no PLAN B.

Let’s do this, friends. Let’s go.

.

Organizations that fight against sex-trafficking (click link to access website):

International Justice Mission

Operation Underground Railroad

Sacred Beginnings

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