Suffocating for Freedom

As we rounded the corner, I took in a sharp breath. My chest suddenly felt suffocated like a heavy blanket had been thrown over my face. This time, it wasn’t from the shock of the humidity. For, when I had left Swaziland, it was “winter” but when I arrived in Thailand, I was hit with the heavy air of humidity. This time, though, it wasn’t the humidity that felt heavy. It was something else.

When I walked those same streets earlier that day, everything was quiet, calm, with not a hint of evil. But now, tonight, it was like walking into a completely different realm.

The red light district. Indeed, it is its own dark world.

Before I saw anything, I felt it. The dark wolf-skin blanket hovering over the strip of clubs. My chest felt like it was being pressed upon, and my spiritual senses set off alarms. I was walking into a battlefield masked by music, loud laughter, curtains, and carts and carts of items being sold. All that to mask the BODIES being sold and the SOULS being bound.

I saw with my eyes, but I tried not to see. All it took was one – to make my heart come undone.

Our eyes met for maybe a millisecond. I had looked in the open doors as we continued walking through street, but when I met her eyes, I wished I hadn’t. She was one of at least a dozen women standing on a stage. She was holding a pole as if it was her life support, as if nothing else and no one else would hold her up. She and the other dozen women were wearing ironically white bikinis. But the only thing pure about the scene was the pure cry for help hidden beneath their eyes. That I could see – clear as water droplets in the midst of a storm – their hearts suffocating for freedom.

There’s a scene in Taken where the daughter is the last “item” up for bid, and as she’s “unveiled,” she wobbles around and looks as if she’s a zombie – like she’s not even in her own body. Multiply that by a dozen women is what it looked like on that stage. They were zombie-like, lifeless, wobbling, empty.

A once undercover investigator who was a part of busting brothels and sex-trafficking businesses said, “Sexual abuse is perhaps the very worst crime against humanity…It strips them of their heart and soul. It murders the person, but leaves their bodies alive” (Daniel Walker, God in a Brothel). “They appear to be in a trance, or under a dark magician’s spell,” he explained.

That’s exactly what I saw that night and that’s exactly what I see in the eyes of women on the streets in Swaziland, too. Each place might look different, each country, region, street/club masked by different “reasons,” but the heart of the issue is the same everywhere.  

Sex-trafficking - and the sick idea that buying someone, even for a few minutes, an hour, or a night - is a world-wide problem, a globally operating network of corruption, lust, greed, and dehumanization. African women as far south as Zambia were found trafficked to Bangkok, Thailand where I had visited. Luckily for a few, they are discovered, rescued, and even able to be transferred back to their home country. But “rescue” is not enough. Freedom is not just physical, it is psychological, emotional, spiritual. There must be a holistic approach to rescue/restoration, and the fight to end sex-trafficking as a whole. Thankfully, there is hope!

Rescue: Freedom International is an organization that exists to partner with and connect organizations worldwide who are fighting sex-trafficking. We have been so blessed that they chose us, Hosea’s Heart, as one of their partners! We are so eager to continue broadening and expanding our own efforts in Swaziland to impact the global anti sex-trafficking network as a whole. And the best news yet? YOU can be part of this global initiative, this global fight, as we celebrate Freedom Week starting July 1st!

Since sex-trafficking is an ORGANIZED, well-connected corrupted business world-wide (connecting country to country), we MUST then be a well-connected incorruptible world-wide network (connecting country to country, org to org, person to person) in order to fight it.

To end the network, we must BECOME the network.

Don’t wait. Whether it’s through your time, talent, or donation, please join us now.

www.hoseasheart.org

Our network of abolitionists through Rescue: Freedom International

Cold as a Courtroom

            My body is pulsing with slight shivers, and I curl my toes to bring heat back to my iced feet. It’s Swaziland, so it can’t be that cold, right? But the wooden courtroom bench beneath me is stony and the air above feels as if the sun hasn’t shone in weeks. For her, it must feel like years. She stands like a statue, her hands clenched behind her back while I sit and stare at the defense attorney who has been questioning her for over an hour and a half already.

            I can’t tell if my stomach is quivering because it’s cold or because it’s keeping me from standing up and punching him.

            “I put it to you, _________” he says her name as if he knows her, and it feels like nails on a chalkboard. “You are lying. Tell us, when did you become such a promiscuous girl and wayward child? You were having a relationship with __________ and tried to hide it by blaming the accused.”

            “I don’t know anything of that. What I know is he raped me,” she responded, her voice cracking like icicles melting.

            She was eleven years old during the time that this occurred. And this defense attorney is telling her she was promiscuous and wayward and willingly having a relationship with an old man – and to cover it up, she made up a story about the accused who sits there soaking up this moment of watching her squirm.

            “Why didn’t you report it right away? Why did you wait three years to report it?”

            “Because he threatened to kill me.”

            “No, I put it to you, __________, that you didn’t report it for three years because it never happened. You reported it to get on better graces with your grandma who didn’t like the accused.”

            “I don’t know anything of that. I know that he threatened to kill me,” she repeats.

           

            It went on like this for two straight hours. She stood for TWO hours as this attorney spat pointed questions – no, not even questions! Half of his approach was telling her things, making statements and then saying, “What do you have to say about that?”

            There was a point where he kept mentioning things like, “If you were really traumatized, you would have reported… or You wouldn’t have gone back to him when he called you… or You wouldn’t have listened to so-called threats…etc.  I wanted to yell at him that he was simply making a fool of himself by clearly knowing NOTHING about trauma.

            Ooh, he was horrifically good at his job. So much so that I can’t picture him sleeping that night, recounting the abusive comments he spat out at a victim while defending so relentlessly the perpetrator.

           

            He actually came to confront me at the end, though. It was about a letter of complaint that I had submitted to the Ministry of Justice about him and his “convenient” lack of appearance for the past SEVEN court attempts. Over the past FIVE YEARS, the case has been in existence, and the defense attorney never showed up once. So the case was always postponed. Thanks to the advice from some local Swazis, I followed their steps and submitted a letter of complaint to the correct offices. The authorities were quite upset and moved by the complaint and carried out their investigation. I don’t know what he – the defense attorney – was told, but he had serious pressure breathing down his back. And he came to confront me about the letter, claiming it was pointed and unfair.

            I simply repeated, “No, sir, what’s UNFAIR is this girl having to tell her story SEVEN times over and over, to be traumatized, exposed to her perpetrator, and undefended in a place where justice is supposed to reign. Not excuses from the defense attorney to not show up.”

            “But, they were good excuses…”

            He continued talking and I couldn’t help but scoff. He said something like, let’s all focus on her and how to finish this case, and I said that’s exactly what the letter is for. While he still tried intimidating us that the letter could cause problems, I stood unmoved by his pity party. And I gloried in the fact that someone in authority had clearly warned him something severe. He ended by saying although the letter was unfair and blah blah blah, he respected me for taking the right steps and not taking it to the media. Again…thinking only of himself.   

            Meanwhile, the girl whose trial it stood there while he and I bantered back and forth until he left after his last comment. When I left, I asked her what she thought of this whole process and me personally getting involved. Did she think I was overstepping anything? She had read through and approved my letter of complaint, but she was so silent that day, I couldn’t tell if she was bothered more or not. She wrote me a letter the next day entitled: To my Wonder Woman:

            “How blessed I am to have someone to call her mother. Educated people say a true mother fights for her child…Thank you for choosing me and for making sure my case proceeds, really my case was not going to proceed without you. The letter you wrote was perfect. In the end, whether he is found guilty or not, I don’t’ care for he knows the truth deep within his heard, which is the one that will set him free. You stood for the forgotten, least and the last, and by doing so you brought peace, joy, and freedom in my heart. You are my hero, Mom.”  

           

The case still has a long ways to go. At least she is done with her part. The witnessed will be called to stand next month. And then the defense still has his part after that. I don't know when this case will be concluded, but I am now reassured that at least she feels fought for - not just by me, but by those in authority in this country. We are deeply grateful for the positive feedback from the Ministry of Justice and the DPP. <3 p="">

Journals Unplugged: Calloused Heart

2-26-18

            God, I am tired.

            Tired of forgiving. Tired of waiting. Tired of pursuing and reaching out with no return. Tired of feeling not good enough. Tired because I don’t get enough sleep because there aren’t enough hours in a day. Tired of getting behind. Tired of satan’s stupid antics attacking the girls. Tired of girl drama around boys. Tired of secrets and lies. Tired of having no one pursue me, no man to find me enchanting, captivating, beautiful. Tired of giving. Tired of being a mom to those who take me for granted. Tired of failing at being a good mom. Tired of responsibility. Tired of so much resting on my shoulders. Tired of no money coming in. Tired of T’s drama and the pain she brings. Tired of this world. Of myself. Just…tired.

But Mother Teresa says, “Don’t think that love, in order to be genuine, needs to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.”

Mother T calls me out and wins me over again. :) 

3-22-18

            Abba, I am hurting about T. How could nearly ten years come to this? It seems like somehow a tease that she showed up for 2 weeks in a row (after not seeing her once for 6 months), so set on real help, rehab, and waiting to rebuild relationships with me and the kids – and then NOTHING. Gone, disappeared. No communication. Help me deal with the pain and not just ignore it. Heal her. Wherever she is, touch her, Jesus.

4-2-18

            I don’t know how to heal from T. I don’t understand myself. I’m not angry at her anymore, but Sarah described it best: calloused. I have a calloused heart.

            Callous: skin becoming hard as a rock due to being exposed to too much friction or exerted pressure

            It’s been almost ten years since I first met her; ten years of friction which has finally hardened into a protective layer over my heart. I can’t feel. I look at her picture, and I feel nothing. I look at her kids, and I don’t see her anymore. Or perhaps, it’s that I don’t want to see her, I don’t want to see the callous.  

            -hardened, insensitive, indifferent, thickened

           

            To get rid of callouses, you soak your feet in hot water and scrape the dead skin with a pumice stone. Repeat and be patient.

-->             So how do I soak my heart? How do I scrape my head of all these negative thoughts? I need to immerse myself in Spiritual Waters. Jesus, soak me. I need to scrape away the hard, stubborn, insensitive thoughts. Jesus, purify me. Make my heart soft as clay in your Hands. If I remain in your hands, I can never be hardened. I can never be broken; instead I’ll be constantly remolded, reworked, restored. 

Journal Unplugged: The Lost Ship and the Lighthouse

Journal Entry 2-12-18

            Oh the agony. The anger. I was bitter, burdened, a bomb waiting to explode. I chose Christ, but this cross is too heavy. Let it be a symbol of Victory, not a source of pain. I suffer. I ache. I cry. I fear. Then You say, “Arise, and do not be afraid.”

            A lighthouse. Waves crashing against it. Satan incited the sea to war against the stone platform of the lighthouse. No storm, no amount of rain, no force of a hurricane can stop the light. The lighthouse shines on, for the Builder’s glory. The Builder’s heart. The hear that desires every ship to reach safely home. The Builder uses the lighthouse every night and day, to bring her home. Her, the wanderer. The wanton heart, the wanting heart. She lands her ship but never stays long. Too safe. Too many memories. Too confusing. She sets off again and again but no matter how far out she gets, she can never bury the light. No matter how many left turns, the light is always in the distance, showing her that she can make it right.

            The Builder climbs the tower every night, searching for the lost ship. Those on the island think he’s gone mad. But he continues to search anyway. He continues to fix the lighthouse when it starts to wear and tear. When it gets tired of disappointment and wants to keep the light for itself. The Builder always makes it stronger.

            Jesus, I am that lighthouse. You are the Builder. Fix me that I may shine for you. Remembering that it’s not about me or her, but about your heart for us.

            Complete the work you have started in me for her. Bring it to completion and let me rejoice with you at her homecoming.