Human Trafficking: Not Just Foreigners - It Could be the Girl Next Door

(link takes you to a 7min MSNBC interview with Theresa)

As a 15 year old in a middle class Detroit suburb, Theresa Flores was made into a sex slave by local teenage boys and forcibly taken from her home several nights a week under her parents’ nose. This is a really painful story and she shares it in her book, “The Slave Across the Street”. 

Reflecting on some of the things Theresa shared in the video about why she didn’t tell her parents, there is clearly something wrong with the idea that a victim should be shamed into such a terrible state of fear - especially by what she was taught in her church. As a Christian, I believe that the cross not only propitiates God’s wrath for our sins and imputes Christ’s righteousness to us, it also makes us clean of those sins committed against us. If we are failing to teach this clearly in our presentation of the gospel to young people, no wonder they are crippled by shame as victims. Considering the popularly cited statistics on how many girls and women are sexually assaulted at some point in their lives, this is especially tragic. The sermon “Christ on the Cross: Jesus Died to Cleanse Our Filth” by Mark Driscoll helps to drive this home with plenty of scripture references.

Quoting Pastor Mark: 

The answer for such people is outlined by Jesus’ best friend, John, who wrote, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:7-9).

Simply, John is stating that sin touches everyone and confines life to the defiling darkness of shame, guilt, and isolation that either denies our woundedness or labors to hide it. Conversely, cleansing comes through living an open and honest life that brings our defilement into the light for Jesus and trustworthy Christian friends to see so that they can be the agents of healing in our life. It is Jesus’ death on the cross that forgives our sins and cleanses the stains (resulting from sins we have committed and that have been committed against us) on our soul. The glorious result is a life purified of all unrighteousness, no longer defiled but rather cleansed through a lifelong relationship with Jesus and His people because of His death on the cross to remove sin and its stain of filth.

I must say that I have been quite affected by Theresa’s story and those of the 2.5 million people per year sold into human slavery and I’m going to be researching ministries that are combating human trafficking to learn more about how I can help.

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