by Donya Dunlap | Apr 1, 2014 | The Spiritual Life
“You can’t see me!”
Lately I have found myself playing peek-a-boo with life. My schedule gets a little too hectic or work requires a little too much brain-power and I find myself wanting to escape for a while. I figuratively put my hands over my eyes, or more likely, pull the covers over my head, and pretend no one can see me.
We all have moments that we would like to make reality disappear, don’t we? Some turn to various substances to take their mind off their pressures. Me? I turn to stories. A good book. A captivating television program.
While I believe everyone needs to unplug and relax at times, these escapes can become unhealthy idols in our lives. I was reminded of this last night during the Infusion Bible study digging into the life of Gideon. Despite his fears and reluctance, Gideon drags himself out of hiding to confront the Midianites. This is no small accomplishment. Gideon was able to defeat the enemy that had been plaguing his country for decades through the power and leadership abilities that God had given him. Yet somewhere along the line, Gideon started to believe his own press and he got distracted. Instead of clinging closely to God, he disconnected from Him. He started hiding from Him. He began to operate on auto-pilot.
The result?
Well, for a time Israel was granted the reprieve they were looking for. They had forty years of peace under Gideon’s leadership. But Judges 8:33 tells us that just as soon as Gideon died, Israel returned to following Baal. The terminology is such that it makes me think they went straight from the funeral to the closets where their idols had been in storage. They never personalized their relationship with God. They were outwardly successful in riding the spiritual coattails of their leader for a time, but as soon as that link was broken, Israel went to what they knew. They escaped to their idols.
Israel’s go-to escape in trying times was Baal, the god of the sun that promised to provide for their needs. I wonder what your escape idol is? Ice cream? TV? Shopping? What do you turn to when you should be turning to Jesus? You go through the motions of church and even Bible reading, but in truth you are relying more on your escape time than your quiet time to get through the day. If this is you, you may need to revisit your grove and tear down the high places that have crept back into your heart.
I challenge you to consider how you have been spending your down time this past month. Do you see a pattern of simple rest, or have you developed a reliance on something other than the Lord? Set aside time today to commit this new month with fresh eyes focused on the Savior.
Photo credit: Blue Skyz Media / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND
by Donya Dunlap | Feb 3, 2014 | The Spiritual Life
He was a good man. A godly man. He raised his children well. He ran his home and business well. And in a moment, it was all gone.
The Bible records this story for us in the book of Job. Job was a man that God was proud to call His own. God praised Job as one that was blameless, upright, and avoided evil. But Satan wasn’t convinced. To prove that Job’s heart was truly in unity with His own, God allowed Satan to take away from Job everything that he held dear, with the exception of his wife and his life. Job lost his vast wealth, his ten children, and his health. His response?
Worship.
This wasn’t Sunday-morning-in-church worship, or even breathtaking-beauty-at-the-beach worship. This was gut-wrenching, heart-breaking, head-spinning, I-can’t-catch-my-breath worship.
The Bible doesn’t share with us every detail of this moment. It only shares with us that Job tore his robe, shaved his head, fell on the ground and worshipped. But picture with me a man who is reeling and in shock, trembling as his blade passes over his skin, his robe in tatters around his waist, staggering out of his tent only to fall to his knees utterly spent of strength, his chest heaving with sobs. That man—that man that is trying to come to grips with the ten graves he must soon place his children in—that man, at his most desperate moment, speaks with quivering whisper:
Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
A lot of things come to mind when the word “worship” is spoken, but rarely is tear-stained desperation one of them. When we think of worship we think of hope, praise, gratitude and joy. Worship is all of those things, but it is so much more. It is also surrender, sacrifice, and humility. Worship is the continual embodiment of John 3:30. He must increase, but I must decrease.
When we don’t understand, when we can’t imagine why, when we can’t even breathe, we can worship. When we collapse in Jesus’ arms and cling to Him despite what He has allowed into our lives, we worship. When we cannot form the words, but acknowledge in our spirits that we are His, no matter what, we worship. When we extend our children’s lives with open hands, giving them to Him to take to the farthest corners of the world, or work in unsafe circumstances for the sake of the gospel, we worship.
Worship is an attitude of open hands that refuse to close around what we love. Worship is letting go of all that we are and all that we have in response to His supremacy over our lives.
Worship is both a response and a way of life. Without a constant surrender to God, we would be incapable of responding as Job did in humble praise. That response is not intuitive or reactionary. It is learned. It is practiced. It is reflective of an intimate attitude of trust in One that you know well enough to run to instead of away from when His actions make little sense.
We must develop this same condition in our hearts so that God can say of us that we are blameless, upright, holy, God-fearing, with hearts full of worship.
Photo credit: AmyZZZ1 / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA
by Donya Dunlap | Jan 13, 2014 | Making a Difference, Modern Day Slavery
When confronted with the horrific facts of human trafficking, a common question rises to the surface of many minds. Why does this happen? The answer is simple.
Human trafficking is a business of supply and demand.
People want cheap products. Farmers and factory owners use slave labor to keep prices low. People want to indulge in pornography. Producers film it, often using coercion to force their “stars” to perform. People want to purchase sex. Pimps are happy to sell their women, men, and children many times a night. Even video game players can purchase a prostitute on Grand Theft Auto for $50, $70, or $100.
Before a significant difference in the numbers of victims can be made, a change must occur in our culture and mindsets. We have to understand that we aren’t talking about just numbers, discounts, and avatars. These are real people, in real-life situations. These are sons, daughters, sisters, mothers, and brothers.
Like drugs and arms trafficking, human trafficking is a market-driven criminal industry that is based on the principles of supply and demand. … human trafficking is fueled by a demand for cheap labor or services, or for commercial sex acts. Human traffickers are those who victimize others in their desire to profit from the existing demand. To ultimately solve the problem of human trafficking, it is essential to address these demand-driven factors, as well as to alter the overall market incentives of high-profit and low-risk that traffickers currently exploit. – Polaris Project
Johns and pimps aren’t the only ones to blame for this situation either. To some extent, all of us are—myself included. I don’t know of anyone that doesn’t like a good bargain, and many of us feel forced into buying the cheapest thing on the shelf because of financial difficulties. However, our pennies saved may come at a very steep price—the life of a forced labor worker.
Until drastic changes are made in the supply chains of products around the world, it will be nearly impossible to avoid purchasing products that are entirely free of slave labor. But that doesn’t let us off the hook. There are things that we can do to make a difference in the fight against human trafficking. Below are a few suggestions to help you get started.
Play 20 Questions.
Take the quiz at slaveryfootprint.org and find out how many slaves work for you based on your purchases. Then follow-up after your score by sending messages to the companies that provide many of your goods to encourage them to eradicate slave labor in their supply lines. According to the quiz, I have approximately 37 slaves working for me. I would like to see that number go down this year. How about you?
Get Informed.
There are dozens of websites with informational packets to help you learn about human trafficking and modern day slavery. I always recommend Polaris Project and their National Human Trafficking Resource Center as a starting point as they have excellent statistics on the US and ways that you can take part to reduce slavery in your community. Spend an afternoon reading the information provided so you’ll know what trafficking looks like. Put the NHTRC hotline number in your phone so you can report the situation as you see it. (1-888-373-7888)
Tell Your Friends.
Social media is a powerful influencer. Instead of forwarding the funny cat video your friend posted yesterday, why not use your platform to change a life? Take the Slavery Footprint quiz and post your score. Encourage your friends to do the same. Host a Sole Hope shoe cutting party. Invite a local anti-trafficking organization leader to speak at your homeschool group or Bible study. Start a book club with a focus on human rights. There are unlimited ways that you can get involved. You can speak for someone that has no voice.
You Can Make A Difference.
Photo credit: AlicePopkorn / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND
References:
by Donya Dunlap | Jan 8, 2014 | Modern Day Slavery
In the introductory post for this series, “Human Trafficking: An Old Business with a New Name,” the history of human trafficking was discussed in its root form, slavery. Today the umbrella term is referred to as “Modern Day Slavery” to differentiate between the forms of slavery that exist today and those that occurred during the time of the trans-atlantic slave trade.
The modern definitions of slavery and the slave trade as defined by the League of Nations in 1926 are:
(1) Slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.
(2) The slave trade includes all acts involved in the capture, acquisition or disposal of a person with intent to reduce him to slavery; all acts involved in the acquisition of a slave with a view to selling or exchanging him; all acts of disposal by sale or exchange of a slave acquired with a view to being sold or exchanged, and, in general, every act of trade or transport in slaves.
Modern Day Slavery
Modern Day Slavery has three main components: bonded labor, forced labor, and human trafficking. Bonded labor occurs when a person is enslaved as means of payment for a loan. Forced labor occurs when a person is threatened into working against their will. Lengthy explanations of both of these forms of slavery and other slavery categories can be found at antislavery.org under the modern slavery section. Human trafficking may contain elements of both bonded and forced labor, but due to its transitory nature, it has its own category.
Human Trafficking
Antislavery.org will also provide us with the definition of human trafficking:
Trafficking involves transporting people away from the communities in which they live and forcing them to work against their will using violence, deception or coercion. When children are trafficked, no violence, deception or coercion needs to be involved: simply transporting them into exploitative conditions constitutes trafficking. People are trafficked both between countries and within the borders of a state.
…
Most coverage of the trafficking issue has focused on trafficking for sexual exploitation, but around a third of all trafficked people are used exclusively for labour exploitation (for example, domestic work, agricultural work, catering or packing and processing).
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, human trafficking is
the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
Human trafficking happens to people of all ethnicities, ages, education levels, and socio-economic backgrounds. Due to the mobile and secretive nature of trafficking, it is difficult for law enforcement officials to determine numbers of victims, but it is estimated that 20.9 million individuals, including children, are trafficked for sex or labor globally. (Polaris Project: International Trafficking) Cases have occurred in cities, suburbs, and rural areas of all 50 states in the U.S. and in Washington D.C. (Polaris Project: The Victims) An approximate 100,000 children are estimated to be forced to work as sex slaves within the borders of the U.S. every year. (Polaris Project: Human Trafficking Overview)
These statistics are overwhelming and extremely disheartening, but there is hope! Understanding the problem is the first step towards eliminating it. By taking steps to learn about human trafficking, you are well on your way to becoming a modern day abolitionist!
Are you a freedom fighter?
I’d like to hear from you in the comments section below.
Photo credit:
AlicePopkorn / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND
References:
“Slavery Convention.” United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights. 2012. Web. 7 January 2014. <http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/SlaveryConvention.aspx>
“Slavery Today.” Anti-Slavery International. Web. 7 January 2014. <http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/default.aspx>
“Human Trafficking.” United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. 2014. Web. 7 January 2014. <http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html?ref=menuside>
(Individual links to pages included above. ) Polaris Project. 2013. Web. 7 January 2014.
by Donya Dunlap | Jan 6, 2014 | Modern Day Slavery
January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month
The term “human trafficking” is a bit of a buzz word right now. It is getting a great deal of attention in the media, but it is anything but new. In fact, it has been recorded in the earliest of records such as the Code of Hammurabi (ca 1760 BC) and the Bible. You might know it better as the term “slavery.”
The official title pronounced by President Barack Obama in his press release on December 30, 2011 declares January to be the “National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.” This document references the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 and the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in the United States on February 1, 1865 under President Abraham Lincoln. Many think these dates signified the end of slavery in our country. Sadly, there are more slaves today than ever before in the history of the world.
An article from BBC News states that using ship records, the number of slaves at the height of the trans-atlantic slave trade can be estimated at 12.5 million people. Today’s estimation, recorded in the same article, is 27 million people—more than double the number of slaves before the legislation banning slavery began with William Wilberforce’s work in Britain in 1807.
The worldwide slave trade brings in an estimated $32 billion dollars a year (2009 International Labour Conference Report). That’s big business, tied to the international arms trade and second to the drug trade. It is also believed to be among the fastest growing illegal enterprises (Polaris Project).
Since becoming aware of human trafficking myself and trying to raise awareness over the last few years, I have often been asked questions like: What is human trafficking? How can it be prevented? What are the signs? How can I help? It is my hope to answer these and other questions over several posts during this month of January. The information shared will only be a small light into a very dark hole, but I hope it will help others better understand the problem and better equip themselves to fight it in their communities.
Join the conversation:
Post your comments and questions on human trafficking in the comments section below.
Photo credit: AlicePopkorn / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND
References:
“History of Slavery.” Wikipedia. 4 January 2014 at 10:05. Web. 5 January 2014
Obama, President Barack. The White House: Office of the Press Secretary. “Presidential Proclamation — National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, 2012.” 31 December 2011. Web. 5 January 2014
Hogenboom, Melissa. BBC News. “A tipping point in the fight against slavery?” 18 October 2012 Last updated at 19:11 ET. Web. 5 January 2014
“William Wilberforce”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 5 January 2014
“The Cost of Coercion: Global Report under the follow-up to the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.” International Labour Conference 98th Session 2009 Report I(B). International Labour Office: Geneva, Switzerland. <http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—ed_norm/—relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_106230.pdf>.
“Human Trafficking.” Polaris Project. 2013. Web. 5 January 2014
