Time to wake up, American Christians

Some things need to be repeated often until Jesus returns and this world as we know it comes to an end and evil is no more.  Until then, the incredible need for ministries like Make Way Partners is one of those things.  Click on the newsletter image to go to the full PDF version, read it, and then decide to make a difference before it’s too late for you and for those you could have helped.

And you know, you may not fully agree with some of the theology of the people behind Make Way Partners or other similar ministries — I don’t, and I tend to be a “truth” guy.  But the 9-year-old orphan that we’ve “adopted” and are supporting monthly isn’t very concerned about our theology.  What’s important to her at this point is that she has food to eat, a bed to sleep in, she’s no longer in danger of being killed by wild dogs while she’s sleeping on the ground or in a tree, and the likelihood of her being captured and forced into the horrors of slavery is almost gone.  Do I care about her spiritual life?  Definitely, and our family prays regularly that she will come to believe the gospel and know Jesus Christ as he is revealed in the truth of Scripture.

Jesus, who refers to himself as “the way, the truth and the life” in John 14:6, said in Matthew 25 that “he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’. . . ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’

Yeah, time to wake up.

July 2009 Make Way Partners newsletter

“Shame of the Cities” – Time for different tactics?

The latest issue of World Magazine has an article called “Shame of the Cities,” and it’s one of several articles that are available online from this issue.  You can read it here. 

Lezlie Sterling/Sacramento Bee/MCT/Newscom

The promotional blurb reads as follows, “Tens of thousands of young girls are being forced into prostitution in the United States; activist Linda Smith wants to know what Americans — and Christians — are prepared to do about it.”  That’s a good question, and it ties in well with several posts on this blog as of late, such as this one, this one, this one, this one, and this page.

The article highlights the efforts of Linda Smith and Shared Hope International, a non-profit organization with the mission of rescuing and restoring victims of sex trafficking.

So what are the different tactics I mentioned in the title of this post?

Not For Sale – the book

The introduction of Not for Sale opens with these words:

Twenty-seven million slaves exist in our world today.  Girls and boys, women and men of all ages are forced to toil in the rug loom sheds of Nepal, sell their bodies in the brothels of Rome, break rocks in the quarries of Pakistan, and fight wars in the jungles of Africa.

Go behind the facade in any major town or city in the world today and you are likely to find a thriving commerce in human beings.  You may even find slavery in your own backyard.

Should you read this book?

“We traded our three-year-old son for this color television.”

We didn’t, but a family in Albania did.  Consider the following paragraph:

Abolitionists fighting sex trafficking in both Southeast Asia and Latin America report that parents commonly sell their kids so that they can make an improvement on their home or purchase a vehicle or other consumer item.  These stories align with a report in the New York Times that parents in Albania sold their children to traffickers so that they could buy a color television.

That paragraph is from the book Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade — and How We Can Fight It, written by David Batstone.  The New York Times article that is referenced in that paragraph can be found here.