Yesterday's post introduced a book, Stop the Traffik, dealing with human slave labor and trafficking today. Throughout his Word, God is clear that we are to defend the weak, the widow, the orphan, the foreigner.
That clearly applies to this situation and so as followers of Jesus we can't find a way to excuse this sort of atrocity.
Some comments on the book:
The authors are passionate about their cause and present, through a series of anecdotes and statistics, a strong case for joining the cause against such trafficking.
Printed on glossy pages with creative graphics and compelling photos (not graphic at all), the book is a quality publishing project.
Although this book isn't written from a Christian point of view, neither does it denigrate churches but sees them as allies.
Sadly, because it is not from a Christian point of view, its points of actions do not include any sort of prayer or trust in God. The assumption is that we alone must make a difference.
And, the assumption is that the solution lies in the direction of new laws and state-sponsored initiatives. If we can raise awareness, the suggestion goes, then the state will rise up to wipe out the traffickers.
I would recommend this book as an bold and insightful look at the problem of humans sinning against weaker humans. The problem cannot be ignored and it is hideous.
But I would suggest some of the answers can be found in putting God's Word into action. We can pray and we can act as agents of God's generosity. This issue is a huge one but not overwhelming to those who live in the shadow of God's grace.
The evening started off with the Whitaker family going to a restaurant for dinner. Nothing especially unusual about that. The home, one of many on the well-kept block in Sugarland, Texas. The family, typical. Average. Loving. Churchgoing. Indeed, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the Whitakers until an assailant's gun changed the course of their lives.
A few hours later, in ICU, Kent, who had been wounded, felt God's insistence that Kent decide whether he would forgive the attacker. Kent did, never dreaming that the assailant was part of a plan set in motion by his own son Bart, who now awaits execution on Texas' death row for plotting to kill his father, mother, and younger brother. Only Kent survived the shooting.
"The first night in the hospital, I forgave everyone who was involved in this," Whitaker told CBS News in an October 18, 2007 interview. "It is a gift from God that allows me to do this. I think he gave me that gift so that when I found out that it was my son, that it would be legitimate forgiveness."
ABC's 20/20 will broadcast a segment on Friday, May 1 at 10pm ET/PT in which the Whitaker family tragedy will be explored and Kent will explain why he chose to forgive everyone involved. The story is also highlighted in the bestselling book MURDER BY FAMILY, A True Story of Greed, Grief, and Forgiveness (Howard Publishing, a division of Simon and Schuster).
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
I will post a review of this book tomorrow. It addresses an important issue: slavery today. I have several comments on content.
Cherie Blair is a human rights lawyer and campaigner on women's rights and empowerment, wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and author of Speaking for Myself. Steve Chalke is UN.GIFT special advisor on human trafficking, and founder of Stop the Traffik. He is the author of several books, including Change Agents, Intelligent Church, The Lost Message of Jesus, and Trust.
List Price: $16.95 Paperback: 160 pages Publisher: Lion UK (April 1, 2009) Language: English ISBN-10: 0745953603 ISBN-13: 978-0745953601
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Wihini, aged nine, and her brother Sunni, aged seven, loved on Thane train station in Mumbai, India with their parents—both alcoholics. Wihini and Sunni went to a day centre where they learned to read and write and were given the chance to play.
One day Sunni and Wihini simply didn’t turn up. Street children often tend to disappear for days, as they try to scrape a living sweeping long-distance trains, but they had been attending the center daily for three months, so when a week or so went by the project staff became worried, and went in search of their parents. The workers found the father lying drunk on the station platform. When they roused him and asked about the children, he admitted that a man had come to him one morning offering money for them. He needed money for alcohol, so he agreed. The trafficker had taken Sunni and Wihini away for the equivalent of just 20 British pounds (currently equivalent to $30 US dollars). The father was angry because he had never received his money. Their mother wouldn’t speak about it. The children were never seen again.
What happened to Sunni and Wihini? Nobody knows. In that area of Mumbai, children often disappeared. They are kidnapped or sold into prostitution, forced labor, adoption, or even child sacrifice. The workers at the Asha Seep center had seen this before. But this was once too often.
Wihini and Sunni’s story proved to be a catalyst. The story was picked up and passed on and as evidence gathered we realized this is happening on a huge scale, around the world—and even on our own doorsteps. Not 200 years ago. Not even fifty years ago. It was—and is—happening today. And so STOP THE TRAFFIK was born.
Human Tafficking—A Definition
Human trafficking is the dislocation of someone by deception or coercion for exploitation, through forced prostitution, forced labor, or other forms of slavery.
-800,000 people are trafficked across borders each year (US State Department)
-It is estimated that two children per minute are trafficked for sexual exploitation. This amounts to an estimated 1.2 million children trafficked every year (UNICEF)
-In 2004, between 14,500 and 17,500 people were trafficked into the United States (US State Department)
-Human trafficking generates between 10 and 12 billion dollars a year (UNICEF)
-Total profit from human trafficking is second only to the trafficking of drugs (The European Police Office; Eurpol)
The numbers tell you the huge scale of this problem. But behind each number is a sea of faces. Behind the statistics are mothers and father, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, torn apart by trafficking; these are innocent lives ruined by abuse. These are human rights violations on a grotesque scale. And the problem is getting worse.
You probably know how to boil a frog, don’t you? You put a frog in a pot of cool water and slowly bring up the temperature. A frog would leap out if placed into a pot of boiling water but will remain in cool water, not noticing as the temperature slowly climbs.
We've been looking at Paul's instructions to Titus as he discipled the church at Crete.
Paul was concerned that the church there was like a frog, accepting gradual changes that would eventually kill them.
The believers had to be different from the world around them, not gradually getting used to the world’s ideas and ways.
Paul wanted the believers to do good because their actions, like ours, show what really mattered to them. Doing good didn't bring them eternal lilfe but revealed their perspective.
We have the same issues today as the Cretans had. Are we drawn to the world around us, which would have us become conformed to a common image, chasing after the same pleasures and goals that they pursue? They make their way look like the good life.
But notice again what Paul said in Titus 3:3. We were deceived and enslaved by the old life, which is the way of the world.
We're in an age where we can't coast anymore. We have to stop adjusting to the water that's about to boil us. We have to evaluate our lives.
What enslaves us? What are we doing or believing or considering that keeps us away from God's best?
Paul asked the believers at Crete to evaluate their actions an decisions. If we follow Jesus, we will be set apart from the world around us.
But when the goodness and love for man appeared from God our Savior, He saved us.
I wonder if Carrie Prejean had a rush of adrenaline as Perez Hilton was announced as her questioner. You’ve probably heard the uproar this week as Carrie may have lost her chance at Miss America because of the answer to one question. (If not, take a moment and read this article.)
It appears that Hilton set the table for her defeat, asking a question designed to expose her Christian convictions.
Carrie didn’t toe the Hollywood company line. In fact, since that time a number of Hollywood celebrities have (nervously?) stepped up to show that they comply with the expectations of Hollywood.
Carrie honored her own convictions and her family. Knowing that her answer would unleash a blast of bitter retribution, she spoke simply and honestly. That’s courage on the front lines.
The Hollywood stance does not reflect a majority of American’s view; Carrie does. Many people are squeamish about homosexual marriage but afraid of the furnace blasts of the politically correct. Look at the state initiatives regularly passed by voters that define marriage as between a man and a woman.
Although Carrie was accused of being a hate-monger, the ugly words and hatred came from the politically-correct side. I haven’t yet seen any reports of accusations or insults from Carrie, and I suspect the press would love to find those. Rage would describe the response from Hilton’s side.
This is persecution. We can’t discuss “someday persecution” in America anymore. When we are not free to follow God’s teachings, when we are not free to express our opinions, we are being persecuted.
I want to let Carrie know that I appreciate her bravery and I hope that we can learn to stand with the courage she showed. Following Jesus historically has meant traveling through the dark valley of threats and attacks. But we are citizens of heaven and we can go where others have led.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me. Psalms 23:4
It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!
You never know when I might play a wild card on you!
Kamal Saleem was born under another name into a large Sunni Muslim family in Lebanon. At age seven, he was recruited by the Muslim Brotherhood and immediately entered a Palestinian Liberation Organization terror training camp in Lebanon. After being involved in terror campaigns in Israel, Europe, Afghanistan, and Africa, and finally making radical Islam converts in the United States, Saleem renounced jihad and became an American citizen. He has appeared on CNN, CBS News, and Fox News programs, and has spoken on terrorism and radical Islam at Stanford University, the University of California, the Air Force Academy, and other institutions nationwide.
Collaborator Writer, Lynn Vincent: Lynn Vincent, a U.S. Navy veteran, is features editor at WORLD Magazine, a national news biweekly. She is the author or co-author of six books, including the New York Times bestseller, Same of Kind of Different as Me.
This true story of an ex-terrorist reveals the life and mindset of radical Muslims. Now a US citizen, Kamal heralds a wake-up call to America.
List Price: $23.99 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Howard Books (April 7, 2009) Language: English ISBN-10: 1416577807 ISBN-13: 978-1416577805
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Beirut, Lebanon
1963
1 It was at my mother's kitchen table, surrounded by the smells of herbed olive oils and pomegranates, that I first learned of jihad. Every day, my brothers and I gathered around the low table for madrassa, our lessons in Islam. I always tried to sit facing east, toward the window above the long marble sink where a huge tree with sweet white berries brushed against the window panes. Made of a warm, reddish wood, our table sat in the middle of the kitchen and was surrounded by tesats, small rugs that kept us off the cool tile. Mother sat at the head of the table and read to us from the Koran and also from the hadith, which records the wisdom and instruction of Allah's prophet, Muhammad.
Mother's Koran had a hard black cover etched ornately in gold and scarlet. Her grandfather had given the Book to her father, who had given it her. Even as a small boy I knew my mother and father were devout Sunni Muslims. So devout, in fact, that other Sunnis held themselves a little straighter in our family's presence. My mother never went out without her hijab, only her coffee-colored eyes peering above the cloth that shielded her face, which no man outside our family had ever seen. My father, respected in our mosque, earned an honest living as a blacksmith. He had learned the trade from my grandfather, a slim Turk who wore a red fez, walked with a limp, and cherished thick, cinnamon-laced coffee.
Each day at madrassa, Mother pulled her treasured Koran from a soft bag made of ivory cloth and when she opened it, the breath of its frail, aging pages floated down the table. Mother would read to us about the glory of Islam, about the good Muslims, and about what the Jews did to us. As a four-year-old boy, my favorite parts were the stories of war.
I vividly remember the day in madrassa when we heard the story of a merciless bandit who went about robbing caravans and killing innocent travelers. "This bandit was an evil, evil man," Mother said, spinning the tale as she sketched pictures of swords for us to color.
An evil bandit? She had my attention.
"One day, there was a great battle between the Jews and the sons of Islam," she went on. "The bandit decided to join the fight for the cause of Allah. He charged in on a great, black horse, sweeping his heavy sword left and right, cutting down the infidel warriors."
My eyes grew wider. I held my breath so as not to miss a word.
"The bandit fought bravely for Allah, killing several of the enemy until the sword of an infidel pierced the bandit's heart. He tumbled from his horse and died on the battlefield."
Disappointment deflated my chest. What good is a story like that?
I could hear children outside, shouting and playing. A breeze from the Mediterranean shimmered in the berry tree. Mother's yaknah simmered on the stove — green beans snapped fresh, cooked with olive oil, tomato, onion, and garlic. She would serve it cool that evening with pita bread, fresh mint, and cucumbers. My stomach rumbled.
"After the bandit died," Mother was saying in her storytelling voice, "his mother had a dream. In this dream, she saw her son sitting on the shore of an endless crystal river, surrounded by a multitude of women who were feeding him and tending to him."
I turned back toward Mother. Maybe this story was not so bad after all.
"The bandit's mother was an observant woman, obedient to her husband and to Allah and Muhammad," my mother said. "This woman knew her son was a robber and a murderer. 'How dare you be sitting here in paradise?' she scolded him. 'You don't belong here. You belong in hell!' But her son answered, 'I died for the glory of Allah and when I woke up, He welcomed me into jannah.' "
Paradise.
My mother swept her eyes around the kitchen table. "So you see, my sons, even the most sinful man is able to redeem himself with one drop of an infidel's blood."
The spike had a word on it and I tried hard to read it as the soldier drew back his mallet to pound it in. I wish I hadn't looked:
Foolishness
That’s what the spike said.
More spikes lay close by, ready for use. There were words on them, too:
disobedience
deceived
I was getting a little uncomfortable.
There were more spikes ready to be driven:
selfish pleasures
malice
envy
hate
These nails were, one by one, being driven through flesh, pinning the man to the wood.
I knew the man was Jesus and I knew the nails were mine. Those were my pegs holding him to the cross.
Why would he allow the soldiers to pierce him with the nails meant for me? I was standing free and unpierced while he took my punishment.
Why would he do that? I lived a life of foolishness and disobedience and envy and hate…. All the things written on those spikes.
We weren't saved because of our clean living. Paul reminded Titus that God saved, not because of the righteous things we've done, but because of his mercy.
We forget about mercy sometimes as we pursue moral living. There's nothing wrong with righteous living until we trust it to get us to God.
We are heirs of eternal life, not because of anything we've done. We stood on the sidelines while Jesus did the hard work and we walk in victory by his grace.
that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. Titus 3:7
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