I have said for a long time Jesus needs some new P.R. You know what I mean? The people who are calling themselves Christians haven’t been the best (especially lately) at showing the world what would Jesus do. Maybe because the bracelets have gone off trend.

This year (2020) has been one of unavoidable suffering for many, if not all, of us in some way. There have been varying degrees of struggle and hardship but I think it is safe to say we are all walking a little heavier these days with the combination of natural disasters, wild fires, a global pandemic, murders, riots, protests, personal loss of human life and racial tension. All of this on top of our routines, structures, and ability to gather socially being taken away; the past 8 months truly have been wrought with grief. 

The other day I read an article about how people in the church have taken up the mantle of justice and then found themselves on the outside of church tradition. Being someone who sees pursuing justice as the way to live out the gospel and someone who has not had a huge welcoming committee by the big C church as I do this, articles like this interest me. Truth be told, I don’t believe being a Jesus Follower marked by justice has much of anything to do with being a part of church tradition. However, there are things that mark God’s justice that are different than the world’s version of justice, or religion’s idea about justice.

Take a walk with me, I have something to show you. 

I see you friend, you need a minute, a safe place where you can breathe. As we walk through the dark streets, arrows fly past our faces. Someone is hurt and in agony, yet we need to keep moving. Fear mixed with rage that points to the true feelings of deep sadness and grief over what has become of the city around us swirl under the surface. Front yards with playing children, back patios made for BBQ have all been turned into a war zone. 

A few weeks ago I wrote a post titled, “In 6 Months Will You Still Care About Child Sex Trafficking?” and it received much attention. Whether the motives behind the hashtags “save our children” and “save the children” are politically motivated or not, human trafficking is getting a lot of attention on social media and because of that I thought I would write another post about how we can create habits to actually help save the children, both now and as we look to the future.

The other morning I received a text from a nonprofit director friend; she was commenting on one of the recent podcasts Stories Foundation had just released. Her comment was encouraging to me and in it she relayed something I had said that challenged her. Reading the words I had apparently spoken typed back to me, surprised me.  She quoted me as using the word “stingy”. I thought, oh no, that isn’t a kind word, did I really say that in the podcast? I went and asked my co-worker if I had used the word stingy, and she confirmed it. To me, stingy isn’t a particularly kind word and I truly do desire to be kind even when talking about hard things. Nevertheless, apparently it was the right word for the right moment,  it came out, was recorded and helped someone else. Since then, I have found myself thinking about the word often and how stinginess sneakily plays out in our day to day lives. So now it is not only immortalized in a podcast, I am writing a whole post about it. 

Everywhere I look people are getting on their soap box. We have an “us and them” mentality that is putting human beings in two camps. We are making people black or white when all we are is color, and I am not talking about race. As I read individuals on both “sides” of every issue passionately let loose their opinions I keep saying over and over “It’s more complicated than that.”. And it is, because friends, we are more complicated than that. We are nuanced, each and every one of us. When we come to the table we, each of us, bring our puzzle of pieces that have formed our opinions, perspectives and outlooks.

So to have, all of a sudden, an influx of people passionately posting about child sex trafficking, I feel a little overwhelmed and I am not quite sure what to think. Part of me is glad, finally people are realizing the huge issue we have in our country, under our noses, in our communities. But then, it feels off. It seems to me the internet is co-opting child sex trafficking and using it to create an even bigger divide between people, which is not at all what we need. So today, I want to ask you some questions that will hopefully broaden your perspective on the realities of human trafficking in our communities and what we can do about them.

When George Floyd died here in Minneapolis, a huge spot light was shone on the systemic racism that not only exists in our city and state, but is hiding in neighborhoods, governments, police stations and homes all around the United States of America. 

The year was 2006, I was a brand new mom and Chris and I were living in New Orleans doing flood relief work when we received the news that his Grandpa had died. We quickly made arrangements to fly back to Canada to attend the funeral. Before we went, we had filed paperwork for Chris to get his work permit in the states, what we didn’t know was that in between him sending in his paperwork and us attending the funeral, the United States had sent back his paperwork because the fees had changed and we hadn’t sent the appropriate amounts.