Is what you wear more than just a garment?

There is more to what you wear than just how you look.  The garments you wear have a story to tell.  The story of the garments you buy includes the story of the life of those who make them.  Many, are trafficking victims.  We are in a fight to end it.  We see many lives changing.  The garments we sell are the handiwork of victims of human trafficking, often a recovering sex trafficking victim.  Your purchase is a piece of their rescue.

Debbie and I are engaged in a cause focused effort seeking to provide hope and restoration to those victims of trafficking.  We engage in education initiatives, job training for victims so that they can overcome their past and move into a hopeful future. A future they could not imagine without help.  The garments made in one of our village development enterprises is made by the hands of a victim who is being assisted in ending a life of abuse that surrounds them.  Your garment gives them hope for better tomorrows.  Your garment is a piece of restoration.

We are now working with village craftsmen making garments, beautiful hand crafted jewelry, and items native to their community.  We then work to develop export opportunities so that the profit they make provides a sustainable, non-weather dependent income.   Your garment is a piece of reintegration.

Parents who once trafficked a child into brothels and KTVs (night clubs with “girls available”) in order to feed a family now have hope and means to feed, educate and care for their children without the atrocity of sex-trafficking.  The wage they earn, the opportunities we offer, fill the void that once seemed impossible without engaging in the tragedy of trafficking.  Your garments are a piece of prevention.

What you wear is really much more than just how it makes you look.  You are changing lives when you purchase fair trade items for yourself and as gifts.  The story spreads with each item purchased.  Your garments are a part of a cause to end this atrocity.

To purchase limited edition fair trade items from our enterprises, visit www.made27.com or on Facebook, @made27.

For more information our visit website, aim.radicallymarried.com or on Facebook: @sendhelpincurablefanatics.  We are Incurable Fanatics in this cause.  We are a donor supported operation.  You can support our work directly by going to the website and selecting ENGAGE to make your tax deductible donation. Donate if and when you can.

Thank you for being a part of changing lives.  We hope to hear what you are wearing.

What is the life situation that results in someone being sold by their own family into slavery?  Are modern day slaves people who have chosen a fringe life and then get stuck there?  Have you thought much about modern day slavery? How does someone get trapped?  What does it take to get out?  How does someone in a sex slave environment climb out and reach a point where they can reach back and help others?  It’s happening and we are engaged in the battle to see that it happens more. Let me introduce you to my friend Sok (not actual name).

As an orphan child, he was cared for by his already impoverished aunt who had children of her own – two girls slightly older than Sok.  Poverty and no education were circumstances his aunty could not overcome by usual means.  She was poor, very poor.  In their village the schools required students to pay each day they entered the classroom.  No money – very harsh treatment from the teacher and no school that day.  There was never money for school.  The waters were low in the rivers and fish ponds and the heat was intense so there were no fish too eat.  The same drought conditions caused rice paddies to go dry and there were no rice planting jobs to earn a meager living. So there would be no harvest – no food. They would go hungry.  The animals were starving and could find no water either.  Conditions were bleak.  But this was what every year’s dry season was like.  Always, six sometimes seven months there was no rain.

In order to survive, Sok went to a pagoda and began training to be a monk.  He was there more than 10 years.  Monks could go door to door and even the most starving household would have to give them food even if only a morsel.  But it was more than what was at home and it reduced the burden on his aunty.

Remember the two girls, Sok’s cousins?  Things finally got very desperate and without food aunty encouraged the girls to go to a local KTV (local karaoke/night club) where they could earn some money if they sold themselves to men who for a few dollars could touch them at will, for a few more dollars could hold them and touch them any way they desired and for a few dollars more…………  Every day. Continue reading →

When I was a little boy, pre-school age, I used to love to be in the kitchen with my grandma.  We called her “Ouie” but that is another story filled with fun, but not now.  Right now I want to focus on the joy I used to have to be with her in the kitchen.  As I think back, I loved being there with her because when she was in the kitchen it usually meant great treats in the works.  I can actually remember during one of her visits to our home making the decision to not go out and play with the neighborhood kids because Ouie was making her way to the kitchen with a bag that looked like it contained chocolate chips.   I was at least going to investigate what she was up to before heading outside.  Sure enough, I caught a glimpse of the ingredients coming out of the grocery bag and I quickly forgot the call of the outdoors.

Interesting to me is to think back on what drew me to my grandmother’s side.  At that early age, I was not thinking, “wow, this lady loves me.  She has my best interests in mind all the time.”  No, that would have been a level of critical thinking that I just did not have yet.  But, I did think, “Wow, this lady loves me.  She makes great stuff that I like.”  At this stage of my life it was all about me.  I did not understand the depth of commitment that compelled Ouie to go to such lengths to demonstrate her love for me.  I just knew she gave me good stuff in a measure that exceeded what my Mom or Dad might let me have when she wasn’t around to spoil us.

One day, I remember it oh so well, she was melting some chocolate chips on the stove.  I was at my place sitting on the counter closer to the stove than she had told me to sit and when she lifted the pan from the burnt orange burner on the stove she said, “Now don’t touch that, it is HOT!”

Guess what I did next?  I can look at my hand all these years later and still remember well the lightening quick pain that shot through my entire body as my hand came away from that burner with the crescent shape of the rings clearly marked on my little hand.  I have never come close to making that choice again.  I learned “first hand” that stove burners are HOT.

As I ponder this event from my early life I wonder what kept me from being obedient to Ouie who I knew loved me?  Why had I so quickly disobeyed her direct guidance?  Sure, easy to chalk it up to childishness but is that all there is to it?  I think there is more.

You see, I did not understand love at that time.  Not understanding it did not keep me from experiencing it but it did keep me from understanding how it works.  Where it comes from and how it directs my path.  At that stage of life, I thought love was about getting something.  If someone, in this case Ouie, loved me she gave me stuff.  End of love story.  But not really.

Real love is so much deeper than that.  Love is about a commitment that, if I had been a deep thinking 5 year old, I would have thought, “Now why does this woman who loves me want to keep me from touching something so inviting?  What could be her reason for keeping me from something that looks like fun?”  Not me, not at 5 years old.  Ouie told me that because she knew the outcome before the event.  She warned me of the eventuality of touching that hot burner and she cared enough to say “NO.”  Seems like a biblical example of love to me now.

God is the same way.  Before I understood love, God was loving me.  Before I knew the pain of disobedience God was loving me.  Before I knew to ask for forgiveness, I was forgiven.  Scripture tells us in Romans 5:8, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (ESV).

That brings me back to Ouie.  She is the first example of love that I remember in my life.  God placed her in my life for me to learn about love.  When I touched that hot burner, I learned about love.  The very person who advised me not to touch it was quickly holding me tightly in her arms and working to comfort and care for me.  She did not cast me aside for disobedience.  She did not quickly pull out a ruler to spank me (though that did happen on a number of other occasions).  She knew my pain and that a lesson was being learned but right then, at that moment, what I needed most was love.  And I got it from my Lord through Ouie.

This is a blog about life and work in the field of ending sex-trafficking.  Specifically, this is a blog about our work where we are presently engaged in Cambodia.  So how does that life event fit this cause?

This is a country with very few “Ouies”.  An entire generation of children has been raised up with parents, relatives, neighbors and other adults who not only fail to protect, they often have been the inflictors of pain.  They have not had the learning experience of love to even conceptually understand it much less believe there is a God who loves.

Let me be careful to avoid misleading.  It is not knowing that activates love but it is knowing that activates understanding.  The fact is God loves me and you even if I don’t know it.  But understanding that has changed my life decisions.  I had many “Ouies” in my life.

Here, in the world of sex-trafficking, young people don’t see any “Ouies”.

That is why we are here.  That is why missionaries are sent.  Sometimes we spend a lot of time even on the mission field focusing on the rules of faith when we need to focus on the purpose of faith.  We need to help people here and wherever we are – wherever you are – understand that, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16 ESV).

We are in Cambodia; we are in this cause to show the love of Christ to a generation that has few examples.  We are here to help them to be transformed by knowledge to activate understanding so that it becomes action.  So that a new generation will grow up with “Ouies”.

If you support our work here, we are so very grateful.  If you don’t yet support our work, please consider a monthly gift to keep us engaged in this work.  We have been called to this I am certain.  Are you perhaps among those called to send us?

Perhaps your church would find a co-mission by partnering with us with monthly support or even your business might want to be aligned with the work of the Gospel to end sex-trafficking of young people.  Click a link and find out how you can be a part of sending us.

Thank you to all my “Ouies”.  Your lights shine bright in my life.

What a contrast of cultures.  Last week Debbie and I returned from 3 great weeks with family and friends in the US.  We found ourselves totally engaged with our parents, children, grandchildren and long-time friends.  There were so many wonderful things going on that I cannot describe them all here but suffice it to say, we enjoyed the gift of rest and renewal.  We are now back in Cambodia and fully engaged in the tasks the Lord has set our hearts to here.  The contrasts are enormous but there is one thing that is obviously the same.  Here, as in America, people struggle with believing God has a design and a plan and it is for the eternal good of His creation – us, all of us.

This is a blog about our mission work here to rescue, restore, reintegrate victims of sex trafficking and prevention of new cases.  This entire atrocity stems from people not understanding God’s design for mankind including children.  Reject God’s design and anything can be made to look acceptable.  As we closed our final time in America the Supreme Court presented their ruling on the issue of legal marriage.  Reject God’s design and anything can be made to look acceptable.

It is not a Cambodian perspective that results in child trafficking or an American perspective that results in legalizing same sex marriage.  This is a rejection of God’s design problem and it is the reason the church exists to tell the world of God’s design.  It is the reason Debbie and I are in Cambodia.

Set aside the issues of child sex trafficking and same sex marriage, some will say I am judgmental when I express that certain behaviors are wrong. These things are issues only because the underlying issue of God’s design is not widely accepted.  Some might say that I am seeking to force my values on others.  No, that is not the case.  I am not establishing  a behavior as right or wrong I am merely speaking of God’s design.  Actually, the most loving thing I can do (or that someone can do for me) is to show me the error of my behavior that I would know to repent and seek God’s forgiveness.  It is like pointing to the life raft when a ship is sinking.  To know where the life raft is and point someone to another way is not very loving.

An honest look at the Bible reveals that the Old Testament is filled with predictions of the future.  Those predictions, particularly those about the birth, life, death and resurrection of the Messiah (over 350 specific predictions) all came true.  Note, ALL.  That is a pretty clear statement of the reliability of the rest of what the Bible says including the design of God for the life of man.  Any belief system takes a measure of faith.  The Christian belief system offers proof.  Verified truth.

Last week we had a fire in Svay Pak, our focal community for our work in Cambodia.  The national and in some cases international media took up the story.  Thirteen homes completely destroyed.  Families homeless and possession-less.  What did not get widespread coverage was that this was not an accidental fire.  A sex trafficker, mad at a former victim, dowsed a young woman in fuel and set her on fire.  That fire caused the rest.  The trafficker was after the 4 year old daughter of the victim for purposes I can only care not to imagine.

Was this wrong? By what standard would it be or not be?  Is it wrong today but maybe OK in a few years?  Was this man wrong in 2015 but perhaps he could be right in 2040?  Does right and wrong really change or do we just become more comfortable with wrong as it becomes widespread?

Since it is a generally accepted thought that no one is perfect, how can we accept the wisdom of man over the wisdom of God that is constant?  I think we dare not make that trade, yet we do every day when we choose differently than God designs.  The trafficker sees nothing wrong with trafficking women and children.  Really, he thinks everyone else is judgmental.

The problems in the world are not governments, courts, leaders or even perpetrators.  The problems of the world exist because mankind does not want to accept the authority and design of God for all creation.

Cultures and contexts change.  Behaviors change.  The minds of man change.  The wisdom of God does not.  There is no cultural contrast for God’s wisdom.  It is the same throughout creation.  Only man’s points of contention with God vary by culture.

You will be glad to know that we are engaged with helping to rebuild all 13 homes not for the people but with the people who lost all their worldly possessions in Svay Pak.  Re-establishing themselves and seeing the Gospel lived out in community is how people come to know God is at work and God does have a design. That is why our primary work in Cambodia, our primary work in America, our primary work anywhere is to make the Truth of the Bible known to sex traffickers, gays and lesbians, families, marriages, church goers, judges, rulers and leaders as well as victims of fires, floods and tornados.  When individuals understand the Truth and do not reject it, then we will see the end of man inflicted atrocities.

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