A couple of years ago, Tiffany and I (as a part of our first attempt at social justice) had the privilege of hosting Mark Brecke in Lansing for a film screening of They Turned Our Deserts Into Fire. Mark Brecke traveled to Darfur to photograph images of those who had indeed had their deserts turned into fire by the Sudanese government. The women who watched their children burn, the husbands tortured by the images of their wives raped, their villages decimated and their extended families vanished into thin air all translated in photos. He used the photos to show typical Americans on a train to D.C. the images and film their reactions.
Some of the reactions made me hopeful. Some just made me mad.
Today, while wandering the ever educational (and sometime not) world of Facebook, I saw that Mr. Mark Brecke "liked" The Price of Sex. So there are a few people on Facebook whose "likes" I pay attention too. Mark is one of them.
Remember a bit ago when Tiff used the word "HATE". Well, this movie is created and produced by a woman originally from Bulgaria who has made it her mission to give a voice and a face to the women of Eastern Europe who have survived human trafficking. I spent the afternoon watching the Multimedia Series frozen. A woman who has no way to know how many clients she saw in a day but imagines it could have been 50. Women (yep, that's plural) who threw themselves from balconies to escape. Children who are very much easy marks. Poverty, that evil threatening shadow, that drives populations out into the mouths of wolves.
As I listened to a woman say that it would have been better for her to never be born I had one image in my mind. It popped up like a screen saver. I saw myself with a white, metal bowl. The bowl had a little of the enamel washed away from the rim due to use. In it was warm, soapy water and a white towel. I was bringing it over to wash her feet.
I am in Lansing, Michigan. Far from the poor villages of Moldova. It is not physically possible for me to wash her feet. To look up into her eyes and show her the love of my Savior. To say nothing. To sit in solidarity and in tears over what this world of sin has done to her.
I know what it feels like to suffer in abuse for a few days in my youth. For a few horrific moments of heart and soul tearing. I sit in awe of 50 rips a day, every week for years and years. Women who are then discarded like trash to spend the rest of their lives...doing what? Healing, wallowing, suffering, surviving?
If you are reading this you are one of the richest women in the world. It's true. You probably have clean water on tap, a home, a vehicle and support one or more children with a steady income from either you or both you and your husband's job. What are you doing with your wealth? What are you using your free time for? What are you using your facebook posts for? Your tweets? Your coffee breaks over the water cooler? What kind of books are you reading?
The reason I ask is because you, if you are a Christian, are the legacy of Esther who went before a King to rescue an entire population at the risk of her own execution.
If I perish, I perish
Esther doesn't do it for you? Okay.
What about Rosa Parks? Or how about Elizabeth C. Stanton? Not yet? What about Eleanor Roosevelt? Or Mother Teresa who claimed, The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.
We as Christian women, borderline Feminists, stand at the end of a long line. A legacy of helping. A legacy of metaphorically washing feet in a cheap basin carrying love or in reality tending the sick, dying and discarded of our generation. A legacy of following Jesus into the darkest places of sin and sorrow with our little shining light.
So here is the cause I'd like to cast a light on today. What appears to be a powerful expose on the darkest, writhing in the night. Go "like" the page and keep up with The Price of Sex: Women Speak. Watch it when it comes out. Invite your friends over. Share the link on Facebook. Tweet it up. Shine a light.
Wash some feet.
Here are ways to get involved with the fight against human trafficking. One of our HATE words.
Get Involved with ThePriceofSex.Org
P.S. I'm twitterific @Mother_Flippin and of course, I have a Mother Flippin' Fan Page! :)
So hard to even imagine...I think you've captured a small piece of the complexity of these atrocities, and left us wondering what to do now. Christ would certainly not leave these women behind, so what can we do to wash their feet, to heal their hearts, to stop this violation? Honestly, the problem just seems too big and too evil and too far-reaching to make any impact. But, you're right--the only way to help them is to get our hands dirty, acknowledge this is really happening and try. Heart. Breaking.
ReplyDeleteTears are flowing.
ReplyDeletePowerful.
ReplyDeleteIt is so difficult to make ourselves look at this kind of horror.
But there are daughters and sisters who feel as if they are unseen and unloved. Pure evil has blocked their view, and they can't see God's proof of their value.
Thousands of starfish are washed up on the beach, to reference a familiar Mother Theresa story. We cannot possibly save every one. But to the ones we can get to, it matters.
My pastor has been doing a "questions God asks" series. One week it was "what do you have in your hand?" For Moses, it was a stick. It turned into a snake and ultimately took down the Egyptian empire and freed God's people. The little boy gave his lunch, and it fed thousands.
Thank you Tashmica, for your unflinching notice of these precious Daughters, and for reaching out your hand with what you have.
Thanks, Tashmica, for writing about this and caring about it in a real way. It's interesting; working at IJM you would think I hear about it so much that I become numb. However, when the stories are told, they are piercing each time.
ReplyDelete