Nefarious

>>God, please break my heart for the things that break yours….

I have to give you fair warning- reading this blog shouldn't be easy. It shouldn't be one you read and just go on to sip your coffee and wonder about your schedule for the day. Pray that it rocks your world to the point of action. Truly try to imagine these real life events happening to someone you are watching, and then just try to move on with life unchanged....

Nefarious: Wicked. Evil. Despicable. Immoral. Reprehensible.

Let’s take a journey today... we will travel the world and the word “nefarious” will forever be burned in our brain.

Imagine you see a beautiful little girl- dark brown eyes sparkle with light and joy. She’s barely skin and bones, but she uses the tiny bit of energy left to spin in circles dancing with her the other children in her village.  Her home is a shack, her food is literally garbage, and her family struggles to survive. She has learned more in her tiny body and more in her short life about survival than she ever should have had to. She is just a child, with a wonder of the world and an innocence that should never be touched. She is precious--- of incalculable value.

Her family is in the depths of poverty, but at least she has a mom and dad. You smile at how adorable she is as she plays and explores the curiosities of her little village- at least she has a magnificent joy!

You watch as one day a man whose dark eyes host an evil glare comes to the village. You see him speak with several parents, and then he hands them a small amount of money. Your heart pounds when he drags the girl in her tattered dress away from her family… her blood curdling scream will always haunt your memory.

Shaking and terrified, this petite babe is taken away to a place no girl should ever have to go. She is not old enough that anyone would even let her walk to school in America, yet she is put on display for lurking men to purchase. This is a child. A living, breathing human being who should be learning about the wonder of the world, not the fear that is required to keep her in submission. Men the age of her father now are destroying every ounce of innocence left in her spirit. Her soul has been been swallowed by the devil- a life destroyed one transaction at a time. They pay more because they want someone her age and innocence. One time she tried to refuse to work. A piece of cloth was shoved in her mouth so no one could hear her scream as she was raped by a customer. She experiences what no human being should ever have to feel, and she is just a tiny child. Tears only buy her beatings, so she learns to die inside so she stops feeling the repeated rape. Her dark brown eyes no longer sparkle… they are empty, lifeless, and numb.

This is not just another number or statistic of a girl sold into sex slavery… this is a person with a fingerprint that can never be replicated. At the expense of a man’s selfish touch, she will never stop shuttering at the thought of a gesture of towards her.

Imagine a teenage girl… bright blue eyes shine excitement for the life ahead. Her eastern European life has been fabulous, and now she has been promised a life of modeling in an incredible country just a passport away. Based on the looks of the guy who recruited her, she is in for a lovely modeling life with the most charming boyfriend on the universe. He treats her like gold as they travel to the new country. Oh, how lucky she feels! But all hell breaks lose when her passport and money is confiscated by the guy who brought her there so sweetly; he shoves her in an apartment with five other weeping teenage girls. Some appear bruised and beaten, others scrawny and emaciated. All appear extremely terrified. Before this bright eyed girl has time the chance to ask what is going on, the door swings open and four men stand there. Their faces are stern and inexpressive, as what they are about to do is beyond cruel. In the most forceful voice, one screams at them to strip down. A hesitation from the blameless girl instigates a brutal thrashing. Her bright blue eyes turn red with bloody tears. From this moment on, she has to learn men take what they want, leave her with the bruises they please, and toss her back to her pimp. When buyers come, they would make them take off their clothes as the men examine them like they were cattle. The skimpy amount of food provided is supplemented with drugs, and she comes to learn the drugs help numb the horrible pain. She just wants to die because she has no way out. The time she tried to run away she was found by the corrupt police and taken back to her pimp for little compensation. He taught her a lesson that intended to make sure she never attempted to leave again. She was once beautiful, educated, and filled with inspiration. She was going to be famous and married to a wonderful man someday. But you see her face to her knees rocking in the corner of the crowded apartment awaiting her next torture. Not even 18 years old, she never smiles any longer. She has no reason to. Just then, your heart drops as you see the door swing open once again….

It is like a bad dream- one that you can see and feel everything but cannot move fast enough to stop the evil from happening. You see a little girl in America in her pink and purple bed, unicorns on the walls. She is dreaming of being a princess in a faraway land rescued from a dragon, awaiting her prince charming.  The dream is shattered as the door creaks open, her eyes open wide in fear and the floorboards announce his drawing near. He tells her it is just their secret, and that she has to do this if she loves him. He gives her dolls and candy if she is good and doesn’t tell. She can’t quite understand what is happening to her, but it hurts so bad. Her mind is consumed with dreaming of a prince someday saving her from this man she thought was supposed to protect her.

You see this same girl in years to come- she is fourteen years old and now out on the streets wearing clothes that make her look twenty one. Fairytales are for children, and she knows no one will save her now after the years of loneliness and hiding the shame. She once was offered money for sex, and she couldn’t believe someone would give her money when she was so used to someone just taking from her before.  No matter how much it destroyed her soul, she has lost all sense of worth. People look at her bright makeup and short skirts and just scorn. She is rejected by society and discarded by her family, so the only place to turn is her “new family”- a man who claims to protect her as he takes his cut. She knows how to fake a smile to lure a man, but the pain never ceases. She has been beaten by Johns, kicked out of a moving car, and had a gun pointed at her head. But she knows if she can’t act like she is happy in her work, she will never make the money required of her to be able to come home. The night generally offers her forty different scenes to act like she is happy so she doesn’t get killed. Ah, you see instead of becoming a princess when she grew up, she has become the greatest actress of all.

Wreck my heart, God, for what wrecks Yours. 

1 out of every 3 girls is sexually abused as a child. 

1 out of every 5 boys is. 

When girls are trafficked, they can be gang raped, beaten, and starved for the soul purpose of "breaking their spirit"- seasoning her for the years of prostitution.

It is estimated 99% of all prostitutes were sexually abused as children.

The average age of entering prostitution is 13 years old.

Orphans are incredibly vulnerable to being trafficked due to the ability to make them disappear and no one even notices a thing about them missing. 

Fact: God desperately loves these victims, which means we are called to as well. He speaks to this topic on many occasions.

James 1:27

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. 

Exodus 22:22-24

You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.

Isaiah 1:17

Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.

Psalm 27:10

For my father and mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in.

Psalm 146:9

The Lord watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. 

Psalm 82:3

Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. 

Exodus 22:22

You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child.

Matthew 25:40

And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'

God, open our eyes. Never let us be the same.