Undaunted

I am not going to lie.  This post is mostly the brilliant brain child and heart-wrenching thoughts of another.  But it touched ME so deeply I must share.  I am reading Undaunted: Daring to do what God calls you to do by Christine Caine.  She is the co-founder of A21 Campaign (http://www.thea21campaign.org/index.php#.URlSY1_naHs), an organization whose mission is to abolish injustice in the 21st century.  They exist for prevention, protection, prosecution, and partnerships.  I found A21 about 9 months ago and have learned so much from them regarding human trafficking.  I decided to read Christine's book and am convicted in the first chapter.

The first chapter starts out with her visiting fourteen young women that were recently rescued from sex trafficking.  She listened to their stories, told them about the One who can rescue them, and one girl yelled, "If what you are telling me is true, if what you say about your God is true - then where were you?  Where have you been?  Why didn't you come sooner?"

"Why didn't you come sooner?"

Christine runs this question through her mind and she said "The question seemed to echo."  She thought of the pain in her own life, thought of their pain, and admitted to herself but not out loud that she hadn't known about them.  However she didn't offer that excuse.  The next is the part that haunts me:

"A scene from the movie Schindler's List  began to roll through my mind.  The movie, produced and directed by Steven Spielberg in 1993, is the story of Oskar Schindler, a Gentile businessman in Nazi Germany who saved the lives of more than a thousand Jews by breaking the law to keep them working in his factories.  In a powerful scene at the end of that movie, Schindler, played by Liam Neeson, is being thanked for what he has done by a crowd of those he has rescued - just before he flees for his own life.  The grateful Jews present him with a ring on the inside of which is inscribed a saying from the Talmud: 'Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.'  But, distressed, Schindler says, 'I could have got more out.  I could have got more.  I don't know...if I had just...I threw away so much money.  You have no idea...I didn't do enough.'  He looks at his car.  'Why did I keep the car?  Ten people right there.'  He pulls a pin from his lapel.  'This pin.  This is gold.  Two more people...and I didn't.  I didn't.'  And then he collapses into tears, overcome by the realization not of all that he did do, but that the pin in his lapel was apparently worth more to him than the lives of two people.

This moment, sitting at that table in Thessaloniki with those women so recently saved from slavery and yet still so devastated, was my Schindler's List moment.  It was my moment of wondering what, in my life, had been my golden pin like Schindler's, the thing so precious to me that it never occurred to me to use it to ransom the life of someone else."

Powerful?  Convicting?

What in my life means more to me than helping to save someone's life?  A car?  A 40" tv?  A retirement fund?  It reminds me of Jesus talking to the rich young man who wanted eternal life and said he had followed all of the commands. 

"Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”  When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth."  Matthew 19: 21-22.

I have said before I don't know what my role is in the fight against human trafficking, but I need to seek His will, ask for discernment, and be prepared to give it all up to do as He says.  If I don't, I am no better than the rich young man who wouldn't give up his wealth. 

I can't sit here and think that there is any material possession that I wouldn't give up if it meant saving the life of one person.

Would you consider praying for me?  Pray for discernment. Pray I will bow to His will.  Pray that I will know my role and be comfortable in it.  And pray for the victims.  Pray for the traffickers, the sellers, the pimps, the slave bosses, the men who hire these women ~ pray their hearts will be turned from their wicked ways, they will free these people (men, women, and children) and that they too will turn their eyes upon Jesus.

And want a good read?  Here are two I have read or am reading.

Trafficked by Sophie Hayes
Undaunted by Christine Caine

Excerpts in bold italics from the book:
Caine, Christine.  Undaunted: Daring to do what God calls you to do.  Grand Rapids, MI. Zondervan, 2012. ePub.