Sunday, August 10, 2008

Human Slavery TODAY!

The faces of our shame-
trafficking in persons!

I wrote this about 2 weeks ago and can't get it out of my head:

I just watched a very disturbing report on network TV. There are more slaves now on the face of the earth than ever before in human history!!! Horrendous! Outrageous!!!

27 million of them!!!!!

Haiti is one of the worst!!!! An ABC reporter made a deal to buy a 10 or 11 year old girl for just $150.00! It took him less than 10 hours after leaving L.A. to make this "deal!" Haiti is so poor a country that parents often give their kids away to be slaves!!!!

WHY is this world allowing this travesty to continue and proliferate right under our noses??!! Do we just shove it aside, like other unpleasantries that offend our sensibilities???!!! After all, most ARE women and children!

WHY are so many people still focusing on the slaveries of past generations when right now, TODAY, it is happening to others???!!!

AND it is happening right in our own backyards, cities and communities, as well as other countries!!! We see a story every once-in-awhile on the news and think, 'How terrible, to think that could happen here!' Well it does happen here and we need to be aware! It is so easy to shut our eyes and ears and "mind our own business." We must hear the cries of the captives!

Until our LORD intervenes, we MUST intercede for these poor victims, who have NO voice! In prayer to God and also with calls, letters, e-mails, contributions ... and/or WHATever way we can help!

My heart cries out!!!!

I keep "hearing" the LORD demanding of Pharaoh, through Moses, "Let My people GO ... !" He demanded 7 times!!! Exodus 5:1, 7:16, 8:1, 8:20, 9:1, 9:13, 10:3

WHAT will it take for us??? The Egyptians never spoke up and Pharaoh's servants did not until just before the last plague! It was too late then to stop the suffering.

I am feeling a great urgency that we MUST, as Christians, STAND and stretch out our hands toward heaven!

I challenge every person who reads Shiloh Ranch Ramblings to:
  1. Pray: Intreat our LORD faithfully for the freedom of His people who are forced into bondage.
  2. Read: SIGNS TO LOOK FOR!
  3. Act: Pick one group in to support in some way. Whether it be your local area, your country, or a particular place or group that the Lord has laid heavily on your heart!
I have just begun to research this issue and I am already overwhelmed at the amount of information out there and the number of groups that are working to help stop the trafficking of human beings!

Here are a few places to get you started:
"Trafficking of humans is estimated to be the second-largest criminal industry in the world after drug dealing, and is the fastest growing." Arizona Republic Editorial - April 21, 2004

Won't you join me in making others aware of the scope of modern-day slavery atrocities in our "civilized" world?

If you are already ahead of me on this, I way covet your input! Especially the most effective ways to impact this problem.
OK, off the soapbox now :) I feel better ... HAD to write this!

1 comment:

carla's gateway said...

Oh my friend....what a heart you have! I have wept with you as I read this yesterday, and today as I drove into town I was asking of the LORD "what can I do?"....I felt so helpless, as if whatever I offered would only be a drop in the bucket of life for any of these "captives" of the wicked.. then I heard these words from Malachi... about the "day that is coming"... surely these are truly the "fatherless"... the ones without the protectors... somehow it gave me comfort in my helplessness....so I offer it to you, as I still ask of my sweet LORD... let me hear more! Lord let me have YOUR eyes as much as I can bear, and thank YOU for mercy... that endures! thank you friend for another moment with my God and "with you". cl

Malachi 4:

1 "Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire," says the Lord Almighty. "Not a root or a branch will be left to them. 2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. 3 Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things," says the Lord Almighty.

4 "Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel. 5 "See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse."