Breaking the Chains: One Heartbeat at a Time
Issue 015
MAY 23, 2018
WRITTEN BY MEG JOHNSON
Meg Johnson serves as the ministry leader for 121Hope, Northland Church's response to human trafficking. 121Hope brings hope to victims and survivors and empowers local abolitionists, all through one-to-one discipleship. Meg received her Bachelor's degree in Political Science from Radford University and Master's degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Arkansas, Little Rock. She served as a United States Probation Officer for more than 16 years and taught undergraduate level courses on social injustices. Her work has taken her abroad and she has learned the importance of the Great Commission in helping to eradicate human trafficking, both locally and globally.
I was sitting in a drop-in center located in the heart of the red light district, saying goodbye to many new friends whom I had met during my time in San Jose, Costa Rica. Some of them were Americans serving as missionaries, some were local residents who had a heart to serve the marginalized, and others were recipients of the support and care offered to those trapped in the sex trade industry. The latter group...those are the people who stole my heart.
It was late afternoon and I could hear the noises outside and feeling the stagnant hot air of inner city living. It felt like a modern day version of the Dark Ages. I peered out the window, lost in thought and found myself staring into the faces of those who walked by the center. I thought to myself, “I wonder what their story is and what brought them into the red light district.” Men, women and children of varying ages and nationalities were present. People with scars, both hidden and unhidden. But one thing appeared the same, they all looked lost. Not in terms of geographical presence but in the sense of having lost souls. More importantly, I wondered why they chose to walk by the noticeable red door and not come in from the dangers of society for respite care.
The leader of my group called for all of us to form a circle, breaking me away from my chains of bewilderment. She asked each person in the circle to offer parting words of their experience. A recipient, whom I will name Myra, spoke these haunting words which are now etched on my heart forever, “Please remember us. We are not a ghost of a population.”
My new friend was speaking about the men, women, and children like herself who are enslaved in the world of human trafficking. Roughly, 40.3 million people worldwide are caught in modern day slavery which takes on many forms. I really do not like referring to statistics when speaking about human trafficking because the numbers are always changing and truth be told, the numbers only mask the faces of those represented. People are not numbers. They are not figments of our imagination. They are my brothers and sisters who had different life journeys, tousled in the wind and used by predators. Oftentimes, people do not believe their stories of slavery. Some mock them and accuse them of living reckless lifestyles that led to their trafficking. Others watch short films or read national headlines about children being kidnapped and sold into slavery; only then do their hearts start to ache for captives. This, of course, slowly fades away with the reading of tomorrow’s latest tragedy. So in some ways, Myra’s haunting words ring true.
But my friend’s words did not fade away in me and neither did her face. Neither have the young women I have come to know through my work as a Christian victim advocate with trafficked survivors. Like Myra, relational walls come down over time and survivors face their fears in a productive way, sometimes in the setting of a drop-in center. Their difficulties fade for a little while as they learn to laugh and play again. Today, my fellow advocates and I walk alongside women in hope of pointing them to the transforming love of God and the power of the Gospel in their everyday lives. Each survivor is the author of her destiny with God’s provisions and when accepting the life-changing message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
“We want to offer light in the darkness, comfort for the restless, and hope to the hopeless. We pray that we can lead people to the Shepherd of their souls so that they might know true peace, no matter the time frame.”
Now that I am back in the States, I reflect on the time when men and women who called the red light district their home, accepted the invitation to come in out of the darkness, if only for an afternoon. Silences were broken, grief was dealt with in a positive manner, and laughter was an encouragement to everyone. The recipients of God’s grace gained new outlooks on their painful pasts and hope for tomorrow’s future. Myra and other women still cling to hope despite their knowing the future is uncertain. These beautiful souls want the same things as most everyone else in the world: A safe place for their family to live, a brighter future for their children, and a day when they are not being forced to use their bodies as commodities for the pleasure of others. They want to be loved and accepted.
Then there was my experience standing outside the most famous brothel in Costa Rica with my teammates as we prayed from across the street, sadly watching American men descend into the abyss. We offered coffee to buyers to engage them in conversation, some actually accepting our gestures. We had bold conversations with a few, yearning to understand their actions and wondering if they ever had a personal relationship with God. Some men scoffed and laughed in our faces and one man said, “Sure, I know of your God.”
My God? “No,” I said, “Our God. Yours and mine, if you will accept Him.”
I was unable to sleep as images of the evening flooded my mind. I opened my Bible and read Paul’s testimony to King Agrippa wherein he recounted his journey on the Damascus Road. He heard the Lord said to him, “I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among those sanctified by faith in Me.” Acts 26:15.
The King then said to Paul, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?” Paul replied, “Short time or long - I pray to God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.” Acts 26:28-29.
Christian victim advocate services extend beyond physical aid and breaking the chains because we seek to care for aching souls. We want to offer light in the darkness, comfort for the restless, and hope to the hopeless. We pray that we can lead people to the Shepherd of their souls so that they might know true peace, no matter the time frame. Friends like Myra and I might be living two worlds apart but together we became one heart.