I Took a Van Tour This Week.
A Group of Us.
From the Suburbs of Katy, TX.
Touring the Sex Trade in a Big White Van.
Hearing Stories of Shattered, Stolen, Tortured Girls.
I Will Never Be the Same.
I live in Katy, TX. I
wake up every morning, and start laundry for my family, brew coffee, make
breakfast and sit on my big red chair and write. I pray.
I read the Bible. I take out
trash. I fill water bottles and pack
lunches. I get backpacks out ready for
the kiddos who use them and wake up precisely at 6:45. Because I love those
kiddos. I love the living daylights out
of their grumpy groggy faces. I will
move a herd of children through clothes, breakfast, teeth being brushed and out
the door. I feel horrible if I argue
with them in the morning. I feel like
they might live a whole day without knowing how much I love them. It makes me sick to my stomach, and I try to
say apologies and give hugs and kisses before they are out of my sight for 8
hours. They are my reward from
heaven. They are my reward. And I cannot bear the thought of anything
ever making them feel unloved…making them feel unworthy of love…making them
feel like love is only for other
people…
And I Assume this Is How Most Mommies Feel.
I Assume We All Die Inside When Our Kids Are Hurting.
I Assume that We All Would Run Into the Burning Building,
Weather the Storm,
Climb Any Mountain If That Is What It Took To Save Them…
We heard the story this Wednesday night of a young girl who had been brought to Houston from Thailand. She was handed a plane ticket with the promise of working in a restaurant. And she took the ticket and the promise and tucked them into her heart and took a leap of faith hoping for freedom. She was lied to. She was made a prisoner in a small room in a brothel. She was forced to have sex with 20-40 men a day. She was locked in her room. She was forced to use drugs. She was given no choices, no hope, no job in a restaurant. She was made to feel unloved and unlovable. She was told that no one cared and no one would rescue her. And years passed by. And men came and went. And they knew and saw that she was a prisoner…that she had no hope…and they did not love her…they had sex with her and left her to die another day in her prison. They left her.
We heard the story this Wednesday night of a young girl who had been brought to Houston from Thailand. She was handed a plane ticket with the promise of working in a restaurant. And she took the ticket and the promise and tucked them into her heart and took a leap of faith hoping for freedom. She was lied to. She was made a prisoner in a small room in a brothel. She was forced to have sex with 20-40 men a day. She was locked in her room. She was forced to use drugs. She was given no choices, no hope, no job in a restaurant. She was made to feel unloved and unlovable. She was told that no one cared and no one would rescue her. And years passed by. And men came and went. And they knew and saw that she was a prisoner…that she had no hope…and they did not love her…they had sex with her and left her to die another day in her prison. They left her.
I Asked My Children What They Would Do
If They Knew Where Children Were Being Held Prisoner…
If They Knew That Evil People Stole Children and Locked Them Away…
They Said, “Save Them.”
My Children Who are 10, 9, and 7 Would Save Them.
So, the girl lived for years in the tiny room. She lived across from the room where the
traffickers “break in” or “season” the new girls. And yes, that is as horrible as it sounds. She lived in the darkness and filth and evil
that is the sex trade. And I wonder if
she hoped each man would be different, and take her with him when he left. I wonder when she stopped wondering who would
lead her to freedom. I wonder when she
stopped wishing she had never gotten on that plane. I wonder when she stopped missing the feeling
of standing outside in broad daylight with no one watching…to feel the rain or
the sun or see the sky.
The brothel where she lived is no longer a brothel. It has since been converted, by people who
love Jesus, into the headquarters for Elijah Rising and Rescue Houston, two
organizations standing on the battlefield rescuing children. They are remodeling. They are tearing up floors and tearing down
walls. They are painting. They are cleaning the filth away. And every time they redo another room,
another hallway, another prison cell they find mementos of lives lost….of
childhoods stolen and gone.
A Prayer Written in Thai.
A Pipe for Drugs.
Trinkets.
Tiny Treasures.
A Soul Died Here.
And as they remodeled her room…turned it from her prison
into a regular old office…they tore down a paper thin wall. Paper thin.
And inside that wall, on the other side, was a window. A single window. A window that would have meant freedom. A window that would have meant hope. A window she never saw.
Tiny Windows of Hope.
They are Hidden Everywhere.
And y’all, here is the deal, here is the call to action…a
tiny window, behind a paper thin wall, was not found…was not discovered…was not
revealed…until people who love Jesus came and tore the wall to the ground. And there are children all over in search of
windows, or who gave up searching for windows long ago, and we have to find
them…we have to tear down walls to set them free…because in all of us, whether
we are parents or not, is this heart beating for children. There is this heart that beats inside of us
and cries and breaks and tries not to know because knowing means we have to do
something. And I don’t care what you
do…just do something…because we cannot let another window go unnoticed,
unfound, untouched, unseen. And let
another little girl go…into a windowless dark room without hope…without freedom…without
love.
We Are the Windows of Hope.
We are the Way to Freedom.
We are Made to Tear Down Paper Thin Walls.
Destroy Prisons.
Save Precious Children…
Who Believed Enough in a Restaurant Dream to Brave a Plane Ride to
America.
So, tonight, my four babies are sound asleep…they are tucked
into beds with special bears, special blankets, special books and cups of
water. They were kissed. They were prayed over. They were told, “I Love You,” again and again
and again. And this love resonates in my
soul. It is the love every child should
know. And if we commit to tear down just
one wall…just one…and be a window to one child who is broken by the prison of
sex trafficking…just one…it is worth it all…it is worth every minute taken out
of our lives to save one…One. Each one
is worth a window of hope. Each one.
“See that you do not despise one
of these little ones. For I tell you
that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of
them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to
look for the one that wandered off? And
if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about
the ninety-nine that did not wander off.
In the same way you Father in heaven is not willing that any of these
little ones should perish.” (Matthew 18:
10-14)
Jesus is Big Enough to End Sex Trafficking.
Shalom Y’all.
Thank you, Jackie, for beautifully expressing what God wants us to know.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading and knowing...thank you.
DeleteWow. The really sad thing that I see in our culture today is an attitude that's been around for ages and we still haven't taught our young men that it's wrong--It's that 'that ho is doing what she wants' attitude. Every time it comes up in an attitude or a comment, I spread the word--prostitutes are SLAVES. They don't choose to be where they are. No one would choose that life.
ReplyDeleteAmen! We have to begin to see it as slavery. In the words of an amazing woman, "Who needs handcuffs to hold someone prisoner when there are hundreds of pounds of chains around their soul?"
DeleteJackie, thanks for the hard work you are doing. For the writing and sharing.
ReplyDeletethank you...thank you for the encouragement and the words.
DeletePowerful. Some of live so comfortably feeling sad that our car is old. The reminder that this atrocity happens not that far away is stunning!
ReplyDeleteLet it be your call to action. Let it be all of ours call to be a window of hope.
DeleteThis hurts me as a Mom and as a Daughter of the King....no child should ever be treated this way. My God is bigger then the evil that lives in the hearts of man.....and He has given us the power to break these chains.....
ReplyDeleteHe IS bigger. I know this to be true. And we are the ones to reveal this to girls waiting for freedom...
Delete