Tiny Hands International

This post is a little premature, as I haven't written yet about the decision I have made, but I only have these items a short while, so posting on THI now.  More information about my decision and other human trafficking/fair trade agencies will be coming soon.

One of the choices I made was to raise money for human trafficking and to buy fair trade when/where possible.  I perused the Internet for quite some time - several months - and found Tiny Hands International (THI).  THI allows those of us with the desire, to become part of their mission.  You can donate, pray, become informed, become an advocate, volunteer, or host a product party.

According to the THI website at http://tinyhandsinternational.org/:

Tiny Hands is a Christian non-profit organization dedicated to empowering the church in the developing world to help the poor overcome poverty and become lights of the world. We are committed to finding the greatest injustices in the world, and working towards relieving them however possible. We are particularly called to orphans, street children, and the victims of the sex-trafficking industry. We want to find those who are already doing the work, who are called and faithful, and help them do it in greater ways and with more efficiency. We do it all in obedience to, and for the glory of Jesus Christ.

This post I am going to talk about the product party.  We are having a Human Trafficking Awareness day at church this Sunday.  Jean Roberson from WMU will be speaking during the services.  After church is over, we are having a fair trade/slave free meal and there will be fair trade items for sale.  Tony from Three Story Coffee (more about him in another post...what a great guy) will be there with coffee and I will have THI products.  According to THI website at http://tinyhandsinternational.org/get-involved:

Many of the women who have been trafficked or have been vulnerable to trafficking have learned to make jewelry for a living as part of their aftercare. Each of these handcraft necklaces, earrings, bracelets and pendants are uniquely crafted. We also sell Tiny Hands bags, purses, fleece jackets, pashmina scarves, and more! Putting on a Tiny Hands product party in your home is a fun way to support the ministry as 100% of the profits from the sale of these items at product parties goes to fund the ministry.
They make participating easy, which allows you to participate in an important ministry.  Here are a few of the items they sent my way.  If you are interested in Tiny Hands International, I encourage you to check them out.  Read about who they are and what they do.  If nothing else, you can become informed about them and know how you can pray for their ministry.

In the Beginning (previously posted on March 30, 2013)

This post was previously posted on my other blog on March 30, 2013.  I wrote it, these are my words.  I have removed the names of the innocent.

Two years ago, I sat in my office in the Howerton Building, where I worked for the State, reading a bill on human trafficking for a fiscal note. I am embarrassed to say that I couldn't imagine why our legislators were wasting precious time on a bill that didn't impact us when so many other more important bills were not being read.

How naive. How uninformed. How sad.

I had no idea then what it was about, nor did I have any idea that one day that very topic would mean so very much to me.

A little over a year ago, one of [my daugther's] friends had a vision. She wanted to bring human trafficking awareness to California. Rather than do 30 hour famine, she asked our youth pastor if we could do a human trafficking weekend. I thought it was a good idea, but I didn't really want to give up 30 hour famine. After all, it was about feeding those who didn't have food. Or clean water. What is more important than that? Why are we wasting time on an issue that isn't ours when we could feed the hungry. Still naive. Uninformed. Sad.

I participated a little during the weekend, but couldn't participate in the whole thing. I saw a glimpse of the horror. Just a glimpse. And that glimpse changed my perspective. Human trafficking was real. It was really a problem. Here. In Missouri.

I read up on it a little and signed up to get a newsletter from A21 Campaign, but was still naive just really what it all meant, why it mattered. Then in July I went to Chalfont St Peter, UK, to participate in a Run the Race event during the Olympics {loved it!!} and one of the night events was a Stop the Traffik (misspelled on purpose) night. I heard more about human trafficking. The speaker talked about a book called Trafficked by Sophie Hayes, a British girl who was trafficked by her best friend and sold as a sex slave to many men each night. I was stunned. I was ashamed. I was addicted. I started reading everything I could about this issue. I signed up for website after website and newsletter after newsletter. I didn't still do anything other than read about it and pray about it sometimes.

In November 2013, I went to a women's retreat and again, human trafficking was mentioned. That is when I said, "Okay, God. I hear you. You have placed this issue in front of me three times in 8 months. I ask that you show me what you would have me do about it." For the last 4 months I have continually asked God to show me what my role in the abolishment of slavery would be. I asked a few people to also pray for me. I was not sure whether I was supposed to just spread awareness, get a job in the fight, a mix of both, or be a prayer warrior. I told God that I would do as He asked if He would just let me know what it is I was to do.

I began posting human trafficking information on my Facebook page. The more I learned the more I wanted to share. I wanted others to see the suffering so that we can end this. I made it my goal - no, my commitment - to post or share at least one thing about trafficking every single day. Some days I flood Facebook and/or Twitter with images, stories, and facts. Other days I only have a brief note. Some days I am ready to tackle this and the next I am completely overwhelmed by the magnitude.

It is on those days I have to remind myself that God is still sovereign. He is still on His throne. And I have to remember that I don't have to tell God how big the problem is. He knows. He put this in front of me continually until I got it. I am a little slow at times.

That leads me to the month of March. A beautiful friend of mine asked me to do a {short} presentation on human trafficking at her women's conference at her church. Apparently regardless of my height, I don't know what short means. I researched and read; studied and wrote. Satan tried to thwart this presentation, but he is a punk. My God is bigger. Once I began talking, it felt like home. It felt right. Not only was I spreading awareness about this issue, God was revealing to me His plan.

How is that for a cliffhanger? Okay, it isn't a nail-biter like a season finale of NCIS, but I hope you stay tuned for "the rest of the story".

Revealing (previously posted on March 25, 2013)

This post was previously posted on March 25, 2013, on another blog. I wrote it. It deals with my role in abolishing human trafficking, so I am re-posting on this blog.

After much praying over many months, God has begun to reveal what my role will be in the abolishment of human trafficking/modern day slavery. A friend of mine had a vision very similar to one I was having of my future. Her vision gave credence to my thoughts, that they weren't just my thoughts, but were from the Holy Spirit.

So, in the coming days, I ask that you pray for me, that His divine will be made known to me. I know the direction I have discerned that He has chosen for me, but how I get from here to there is still a mystery to me. I do know that God will make it possible for me to find the way so I have faith that He will lead me to it. Prayer will be your contribution to the task of ending modern day slavery.

More information regarding human trafficking/modern day slavery/fair trade will be coming in the next few weeks. I have done considerable amount of research and reading books to increase my knowledge. I want to share it with you.

As for what my role is? That is still between God, my prayer warrior friend, and me. I expect that you will see it revealed in the coming months.

Until then, please pray. Pray for those trapped in slavery ~ whether it be the little girls, teens, or women trapped in sexual slavery; children, adults, and seniors trapped in labor servitude - that they will find and know God ~ and also pray for their captors. That God will show up big in their lives and all will know that He is the I AM.

Thank you so much to those who were praying for me for discernment. He has big plans, I'm excited to be a small part.

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
~Micah 6:8

Undaunted (previously posted on February 11, 2013)

This post was previously posted on my other blog on February 11, 2013.  I wrote it ~ well I wrote some of it.  It is my blog post with the brilliant words from Christine Caine, co-founder of A21. 

 

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.   

Human Trafficking (previously posted on November 12, 2012)

This was previously posted on November 12, 2012, on another blog.  I wrote it.  It is the first time I sat down and tried to wrap my mind around the issue of human trafficking in writing.  It is the first time I really began to understand that God may have a plan for me.   I am re-posting on this blog.  I have removed the names of the innocent.

Last spring, the youth at our church had a human trafficking weekend. I had heard about human trafficking only briefly while I worked for the State, as a bill was moving through the legislature. At the time, I really didn't get it or why there would be a bill in Missouri. Then [my daughter's friend] had a vision for a trafficking weekend at our church and the youth pastor agreed it was a great topic.

I began learning about human trafficking during that weekend. I heard some of the stories, some even as close as Missouri. It was shocking the things that people here in the US had done and some of them with their own children. We heard about kids and women who had been trafficked for the sex industry, the coffee industry, and chocolate industry, as well as many others. These things were shocking to me. I just really had no idea before then.

I thought about human trafficking but I really wasn't sure what to do about it. What can I do to prevent it? There are 1.3 million women in sexual servitude in the world. This is not including the children who are kidnapped and made to work in coffee bean or cocoa bean fields with no pay, or any other sweat shop type industry. How can one person ~ in the middle of the Bible belt ~ have any impact on worldwide human trafficking? So while I thought about it, I didn't do much about it.

God may have had other plans though. While in Gerrard's Cross, UK in July at the Run the Race event, we had a Stop the Traffik night. Someone from the Stop the Traffik organization from that local area came to speak to us about it. She mentioned a book called Trafficked by Sophie Hayes. I immediately bought it on my Kindle and started reading it. 3.5 months later, I still haven't finished it as it is a haunting story of how this girl, around Hayley's age, was trafficked by someone she considered a close personal friend. I can't quite read it now that I am at the part where the betrayal actually occurs. But I am slowly making it through. I just really started thinking that some things needed to change. Again, though, what could I possibly do?

That is why I keep bringing it up on Women's Ministry newsletters. That is why I need to pray about it. That is why I am trying to figure out how to afford fair trade chocolate and coffee in our house, instead of the US companies that insist on making profits off the backs and through the blood of enslaved children. That is why I need to know what my role is.

James 4:17 ~ If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

I keep hearing about human trafficking. I keep learning more about it, although still I have only touched the tip of the iceberg. 

James 2:14-17 ~ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

James 1:27 ~ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

James. The brother of Jesus. He is constantly convicting me of things ~ not taming my tongue, not submitting to God, boasting about tomorrow, etc. But this time I am going to try to heed his word. I want to know what it is I should do, then DO IT. I want to look after orphans and widows in their distress. I want to help those who have been trafficked, who think there is no hope, who don't know that there is a God who loves them more than He even loves the sparrows for whom He provides.

What does that look like? I still don't know.

But I know that it will be in the Women's Ministry newsletters each time. I know that [my husband's] coffee bill just went up. I know that our chocolate bill went up. I know that I will be praying for them. I will be figuring out how to be a part of this. I will be writing letters to these precious souls who have been rescued, to let them know they are treasured and loved. After that, I don't know. But I do know that I am praying for discernment ~ only God knows where this will take me. Maybe only as a prayer warrior. Maybe more.

I will be talking about this in the future. Trafficking. Please pray for those currently in bondage. Please pray for those who are doing the trafficking or are the slave masters/brothel owners/pimps/slave owners/etc. They need Jesus just as much as those who are enslaved.

Father God ~ I lift these lives up to You. I pray that You will put a hedge of protection around these little children who are beaten and starved, yet work more during the day than I do during the week. Protect them God, because they cannot protect themselves. Help us as Americans to realize that our coffee and chocolate addictions are not worth the blood of these children. God I lift up those women and children who find themselves slaves to the sex industry. I pray for their release and freedom Lord. I pray that they will be rescued and will learn that You love them. I pray they will find You. Father, I lift up those who are inflicting this evil on these people. I pray that You convict them, You grab hold of their hearts, and You turn them. I pray that they release these people. I pray that they find You. Lord, I don't know my role in this yet, so I am asking for discernment. I need to know what it is You would have me do. I don't believe this is something that I am just supposed to hear but do nothing about. It has been brought to my attention at FBC during trafficking weekend, at GX during Stop the Traffik night, and again this weekend at the Heart Retreat when Chelsea told us about Project Rescue. Help me see my role then help me fulfill it to the best of my ability. I know that only through You can I do what You would have me do. Thank You for my freedom. Thank You for my salvation. Thank You for bringing this to my attention. Three different times. I know that you will work all this for the good, as I love You God, and I am called according to Your purpose. Work through me. In Your name I lift my praise and prayer. Amen.

Once U Know

Once you know, you can't go back.

You can't go back to completely normal.  It isn't possible if you have a pulse.

For some, it will be just a blip on their radar, something they now know about but want to pretend it doesn't exist.  They may think that it didn't impact them at all, but the effort to forget about it will be there.  They can't really pretend they don't know.

Others will be outraged.  They will want change and want it now.  Their enthusiasm is commendable.  But when they leave the event or wake up the next day, they move on and pretend to forget.

Still others will be in it for a little longer haul.  They want things to change, and they put in some effort to do so.  But slowly, it will fade and things will go back to semi-normal.

There are others who will hear it and take note.  They will pray and they will plan.  They will plant seeds and allow the roots to take hold.  They will blossom and grow.

It doesn't matter to which group you or I belong, once we know, we can't ever un-know.  We can't ever go back to a life where we thought slavery didn't exist. 

I don't know where you are in the groups above.  I know where I am and where I want to be.  My goal is to make myself more aware.  To pray about this and to plan.  To plant seeds, to watch them grow.  To ensure those around me know 1) I love Jesus, 2) slavery still exists today, more so now than ever before, and 3) there IS something that every person can do about it.  Not everyone will speak, will rescue a girl or boy, will raise funds to help organizations, or blog about it to be in that last group.  But everyone CAN become informed.  And everyone can pray. 

The more we are aware, the harder it will be for traffickers to take our children, to sell our women and girls, to beat and starve our neighbors. 

This blog is my effort to ensure that I don't fade away from this topic.  That I don't become outraged one day and passive the next.  That I plant a seed, no matter how small, and maybe, just maybe, God will bless that seed and help it blossom.  I can't do everything, but I can do something. 

And now that I know, I will never be the same again.

* This video is not mine, but is a video done by daphez2009 on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yptnKmsVmgo)