My action.

For a few years now, my heart has been particularly burdened for victims of injustice of any kind all over the world. Via the media, I've watched helplessly as thousands upon thousands of my fellow humans have been enslaved or killed at the hands of merciless men and it has turned my stomach and started the flow of tears every time. And now I live in a part of the world where enormous injustices happen around me daily. I see handicapped men crawling down the road to the cardboard box they will sleep in. I see children sewing cargo shorts in a congested shop and stifling heat for $1 a day. I see fathers pimping out their five year old daughters from their taxis. I see atrocities that I don't want to talk about. And I wonder where God is in the midst of these things. I struggle to understand what my role is in following the God of justice. God loves these children, so I must love these children. Every day, men and women around me are being oppressed by communism, buddhism, poverty, horrid water conditions, rivers of sewage, relentless civil war. And I believe God hates it. So we must hate it. And we must do something about it. I must do something about it.

I spent the last two weeks trying to see firsthand what is being done to prevent or end the trafficking of children and women in Southeast Asia for sexual exploitation. After spending a few days in Dirty Town, I traveled eight hours with my team to Border Town. My understanding was that it is the place for seeing the truth about trafficking. What I found there broke my heart. There are a number of NGOs and even Christian organizations working there - encouraging. There are some really great projects going on to educate communities about traffickers' schemes and how to report suspected traffickers - encouraging. There are schools being built to keep border kids from going across into Other Country for work, making them more vulnerable to being trafficked - encouraging. But there was only one organization in the city that was working directly at protecting or rescuing girls - distressing. How can these organizations see and feel the evil that is apparent from the main street to the Red Light District and not do anything to help? My heart broke.

As we met with people from different organizations, hoping to find someone to partner with in the future, we continued to hear the same things: "Well, we don't really have anything to do with trafficking per se..." or "Yeah, that's a really big problem here." We even heard someone from Prestigious Worldwide Christian Organization say, "Well, once they get here there's not really anything you can do anyway." Broken heart. Enraged heart! Where is their rage?? Where is their disgust?? Where is their contempt for these villains who steal lives for profit?? I do not understand. It's remarkable to me that anyone in Border Town can sleep, let alone function, apart from trying to get help for these victims. The evil is tangible there, hanging like a shroud, ready to choke at any minute. I walked 200 meteres down the street alone and was so overwhelmed by the oppression and what I can only imagine were propositions spewing from mouths of drunken men that I hailed the first motorbike taxi I found and returned to the safety of my team.

Trafficking and prostitution are just parts of life here. It is completely acceptable for men in many parts of Asia to have extramarital affairs with prostitutes - the younger the better for most. Virginity is sold at exorbitant rates and girls are sewn up and forced to have sex again before their wounds heal so that the bleeding makes their fake virginity seem real. Children as young as 5 stand in rooms crowded with their peers and battle to perform oral sex on customers at $5 a piece. Men from every corner of the Western world travel to Southeast Asia to have sex with young boys - the sex tourism industry flourishes as the demand grows daily. The sex trade provides revenues of $42 billion annually some reports say. It's so much a part of life that girls who are freed return because of the lack of opportunity or acceptance of what they see as their fate.

It's disgusting. When I'm not wanting to throw up, all I want to do is cry. But my tears won't change anything here My concern does little for the 2-4 million people trafficked annually worldwide. My interest in the issue is of little concern to the trafficker who laughs all the way to the bank. I can pray all day and I can give all the money I have and both of those things are great. But I keep thinking that my action has to matter. My action has to matter. My action matters.

ACTION: the fact or process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim; a thing done, an act.