by Steve Moore
I interviewed Jim Martin, national director of Church Mobilization for International Justice Mission (IJM), on the subject of human trafficking for the June 2009 Global Issues Update, a bimonthly resource provided by the organization I'm privileged to lead, The Mission Exchange. In that interview, Jim shared the following powerful story that personalizes the overwhelming statistics of the global sex trade.
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To learn more about the issue of human trafficking, consider downloading the Global Status of Human Trafficking webinar interview with International Justice Mission from the online store at www.TheMissionExchange.org. Use the one-time discount code chapter8#4-neighbor to download this Global Issues Update webinar for free.
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Elizabeth is from an ethnic minority in a country in South Asia. She had just finished tenth grade in school when she was approached by a neighbor who told Elizabeth she could get her a good job in another city, just across the border from her home country. As the oldest of seven children, she felt a measure of responsibility for the well-being of her family. She was from a Christian home and hoped to attend Bible college in the future. In spite of her fear of traveling and venturing into the unknown, Elizabeth jumped at this opportunity to help her family and save money to further her education.
Inexperienced and vulnerable, Elizabeth was sold through a trafficker to a brothel owner upon arriving in the new city. She was told by the brothel owner that she would have to prostitute herself to repay the expenses he had incurred to purchase her from the trafficker. Elizabeth, horrified and repulsed by this proposition, refused to cooperate. In return she was locked alone in a small room and given only enough food and water to keep her alive. After weeks of emotional and psychological abuse, Elizabeth gave in to the demands of the brothel owner.
Her first John was a westerner who paid $240 to rape her because she was a virgin. Elizabeth found herself sinking deeper into a labyrinth of shame and sexual exploitation. The emotional pain and disgust she felt pushed her to the brink of suicide, but she decided to keep crying out to God for help. Elizabeth even enlisted the other girls in the brothel to join her in prayer, but they mocked her invitation, saying, “Don't you know God can't hear prayers from a place like this?”
Unbeknownst to Elizabeth, while she was praying, an IJM investigator was able to infiltrate this brothel and document specific information for local authorities who conducted a raid that liberated Elizabeth and the others with her. Based on additional information Elizabeth was able to provide, twenty-eight more girls were also rescued. The momentum associated with these raids and convictions virtually flushed traffickers and sex traders from the area.
When IJM rescuers found the room in which Elizabeth had been trapped and serially raped for profit, they found these words from Psalm 27:1-3 written on the wall in her handwriting:
The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. (KJV)
God heard Elizabeth's prayers and used individuals like me and you who support ministries such as IJM to be the hands and feet of Jesus, “to proclaim freedom for the prisoners … to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor” (Luke 4:18-19). Everyone has the same need for freedom; not everyone has the same access to justice.
Chapter 9
GOD'S PASSION FOR THE LOST
Everyone has the same need for forgiveness, but not everyone has the same access to the gospel. Every hour of every day, in every language, “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). Even in its fallen state, while groaning for its own redemption, creation is a faithful witness, proclaiming that God is. But it doesn't explain that His name is Jesus; it doesn't say He came with a mission to preach good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and release the oppressed. The Bible is very clear in stating, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). But all have not heard the good news: “And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” (Romans 10:14). Everyone has the same need for forgiveness; not everyone has the same access to the gospel.
A few weeks before I was arrested in the summer of 1983, I had a life-shaping experience that heartlinked me to lost people, especially those who have not heard. As I mentioned in the last chapter, the short-term mission team on which I served was primarily selling books based on the teachings of Jesus along with Bibles, in a Muslim country in Asia. I had worked hard to memorize phrases in the local language and was growing in confidence as it relates to making my pitch: “Hi, my name is Steve. I'm a student from America, and I'm visiting here for the summer. I have some books for sale that I think might interest you. Would you like to see them?”
I prayed before I went in a store, asking God to give me favor, and I viewed each interaction as an opportunity to show God's love. But like a good salesman, I would typically begin pulling books out of my shoulder bag and displaying them on the counter before the person had opportunity to say no. I tried hard to avoid coming across pushy by exuding positivity. I discovered eye contact and a big smile bought me more than enough time to get several of the books out of the bag.
One hot afternoon I made my way into a small neighborhood grocery store, hoping I could sell some books to the person at the counter. To my delight the cashier was a student, several years younger than me, probably still in high school. I went up to the counter looking to strike up a friendship and ultimately put some thought-provoking materials into the hands of a Muslim family. I shared my phrases, displayed my books, and smiled as genuinely as ever from ear to ear. But the young man behind the counter looked at me as if I were an alien who had just landed from outer space. He shrugged his shoulders and extended both arms, bent at the elbow with palms up, in a universal pantomime that says, “I don't get it.” I repeated my phrases, slowly. He put one hand over his chest and extended the other with the palm facing me, using a waving good-bye motion that culturally communicated a gracious no thank you.
We were the only people in the store, so I packed up my books deliberately, one by one, as if to say, “I'm going to give you one more chance to change your mind.” He didn't. In a moment of social awkwardness that I hadn't experienced since middle school, magnified by the cultural and language barriers, I made my way back to the door. As I stepped down to the sidewalk, the spring-loaded door slammed behind me, and a simple yet profound thought went through my mind: What if that was the only chance he will ever have to be exposed to the gospel? I remember the feeling of injustice that washed over me and the cocktail of emotions ranging from anger to sadness to grief.
I was so arrested by the experience that I wandered to a nearby park and sat down on a bench. Several children were playing in my field of view. I was struck by the high probability that these little kids would grow up, live their lives, and move on into eternity without ever having a meaningful opportunity to hear the good news. I began thinking back to all the advantages I had growing up with godly parents and the fact that I could not remember a time I did not know Jesus loved me. To paraphrase Bono, “Why should an accident of latitude determine whether a child hears or doesn't hear the good news?” Though I would not have described it in these words, I realized perhaps for the first time that everyone has the same need for forgiveness, but not everyone has the same access to the gospel.
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To learn more about the challenge and opportunity of reaching oral learners, consider downloading the webinar Making Disciples of Oral Learners—Truth That Sticks, with Avery Willis, from the online store at www.TheMissionExchange.org. Use the one-time discount code chapter9#1-neighbor to download this webinar for free.
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THE GOD WHO SEEKS
Jesus publically declared His mission in the syn
agogue in Nazareth, and He based decisions on future ministry, such as the opportunity to remain in Capernaum, on the reason He was sent. He later spoke with even greater clarity about His life purpose, saying, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). The metaphor of “lost” and “found” was used repeatedly by Jesus when speaking of salvation. Nowhere do we see that more clearly and powerfully communicated than the three parables in Luke 15.
Jesus told these stories to a group of Pharisees who were disgusted by the fact that He was a friend of sinners. The three stories have a common element in that something is lost (coin, sheep, son), what is lost is found, and they all end with a time of celebration. But there is a not so obvious yet very important difference between the third story and the other two. Here's how Timothy Keller describes it in his book The Prodigal God:
In the first two someone “goes out” and searches diligently for that which is lost. The searchers let nothing distract them or stand in their way. By the time we get to the third story, and we hear about the plight of the lost son, we are fully prepared to expect that someone will set out to search for him. No one does. It is startling, and Jesus meant it to be so. By placing the three parables so closely together, he is inviting thoughtful listeners to ask: “Well, who should have gone out and searched for the lost son?” Jesus knew the Bible thoroughly, and he knew that at its very beginning it tells another story of an elder brother and younger brother—Cain and Abel. In that story, God tells the resentful and proud older brother: “You are your brother's keeper.”1
Keller goes on to say what a true elder brother would have done: “He would have said, ‘Father, my younger brother has been a fool, and now his life is in ruins. But I will go look for him and bring him home. And if the inheritance is gone—as I expect it is—I'll bring him back in to the family at my expense.”2 By putting a flawed elder brother in the story, Jesus amplifies the yearning in our hearts for a true one. And in Jesus we have a “firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29). We are of the same family, so Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers (see Hebrews 2:11). He is the faithful and true elder brother, one who is committed to “seek and save that which was lost.” Jesus calls us to follow in His steps, not as Saviors but as messengers. Lost people represent the highest priority passion of Jesus, and as Christ followers we are compelled to join Him in a relentless search.
THE “JESUS DIED FOR ME” BLIND SPOT
In 1989 I spent three weeks studying Chinese on a university campus in southeast China, one month after the student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. There were far fewer students on campus that summer, but it wasn't hard to strike up a friendship with the ones who remained. In a laid-back conversation with a group of students one afternoon, I discovered a blind spot in my worldview that greatly impacted how I read the Bible.
Chinese culture gives priority to the group over the individual, and the students had a hard time understanding some of the behaviors they had heard about in America. They asked me, “Is it true some college students in America get an apartment and live in it all by themselves?” When I answered yes, they were dumbfounded, wondering out loud why anyone would choose to live alone. I told them I had lived in an apartment by myself for several years as a college student because I wanted privacy, something they struggled to comprehend. They laughed, admitting my behavior was weird.
They asked a follow-up question: “Is it true some American teenagers get a job and then keep the money for themselves, instead of giving it to the family?” Again, my answer was affirmative, and they were equally surprised. All of a sudden I started to understand why ordering a meal with my Chinese friends in a restaurant was always a group decision and served family style. There weren't even individual meal options on the menu. (Chinese culture is still communal, but the impact of a connected world on young people, especially in urban settings, has begun to produce an increasingly uniform global youth culture.) For the first time in my life, I began to understand that our value for the individual is not universal.
Once that blind spot was exposed, I began to realize how it had colored my reading of the Bible. For years I had read passages such as the Lord's Prayer—”give us each day our daily bread … forgive us our sins … lead us not into temptation”—but all along I was thinking “give me (or me and my family) our daily bread … forgive me for my sins … lead me not into temptation” (see Luke 11:2-4). The biggest paradigm shift came when I realized Jesus didn't die for me: “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). Jesus didn't die for you. He died for everyone.
You might be tempted to categorize this distinction as theological hairsplitting, but hang with me for a moment. This culturally programmed blind spot predisposes us to focus on people instead of peoples. And there is an important difference. God made a covenant promise to Abraham, saying, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3). The word people is already plural, but God spoke of peoples or nations, not individuals. There is no doubt this promise given first to Abraham, later reaffirmed to Isaac (see Genesis 26:4) and Jacob (see Genesis 28:13-15), is fulfilled in the ministry of Jesus. Paul spoke of this promise to Abraham, saying, “The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles [nations] by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you’” (Galatians 3:8).
God is passionate about the lost, but not only from the perspective of individuals; He wants to bring as many individuals as possible from all the nations to Himself. Jesus repeated this emphasis, challenging His first followers to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). When John described the countless sea of humanity gathered before the throne of the Lamb, he described them as coming “from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Revelation 7:9). To reflect the heart of God in expressing the issue-based passion for the lost, we must join Him in a relentless search for all nations.
THE LAST-MILE PROBLEM
In the world of telecommunications, the last-mile problem refers to the challenge of delivering the final leg of connectivity from a communications provider to a customer. All the technology required to make the connection is in place, but “the last mile” of implementation is often disproportionately costly and challenging. More recently it has been used as a metaphor to describe the problem of bringing proven solutions to social problems to the final frontier of people who could benefit from them. For example, we know mosquito nets treated with pesticides will greatly reduce the infection and mortality rate, and at only $10 each, the cost is not a limiting factor. But the last-mile problem is cited as one of the reasons for the persistence of stupid death that keeps so many people dying from a disease that is so easily prevented.
Perhaps the body of Christ is suffering from the last-mile problem when it comes to making disciples of all nations. We know God has transferred the responsibility and authority of Jesus, the “true elder brother,” to the church and commissioned us to embark on a relentless search for the lost from all nations (see Matthew 28:18-20). We have the resources needed to bring the good news to every corner of the earth, and yet there are still more than 2.5 billion people in over 6,500 people groups with little or no access to the gospel. Maybe we are facing a last ten miles problem. I have often wondered, Has God stopped seeking, or have we stopped listening? Since we know God is faithful and unchanging, the latter must be true.
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We do an annual State of the Gospel update with Jason Mandryk, editor of Operation World. Use the one-time discount code chapter9#2-neighbor to download any of these annual webinar updates for free.
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MEASURING ACCESS
It is clear that not everyone has the same access to the gospel, but there are honest questions about how to quantify access. While there are many variables that could be considered, I simplify the conversation about access to the gospel by focusing on three important benchma
rks: the strength of the church, the strength of the harvest force, and the scope of available resources, starting with the Bible. When considering these three variables, it is important to remember that we are focused on “nations” or people groups and not merely countries. Language is important, but even within the same language group there can be important social factors that create barriers as problematic as language (such as the differences and dislikes between Jews and Samaritans). India is one country but has as many as 415 languages and as many as 2,500 people groups! (For more information on people groups, visit www.joshuaproject.net.)
According to Finishing the Task (www.finishingthetask.com), as many as 639 people groups from seventy-seven different countries representing over half a billion people have almost no access to the gospel. Most of these people groups have no church and no believers. When it comes to the scope of available resources for evangelism and discipleship, nothing is more central than God's Word. According to the Last Languages Campaign, there are 2,200 languages, touching nearly two hundred million people, who still need the Scriptures (www.lastlanguagescampaign.org).
It has been said that if you want to reach people no one else is reaching, you have to do things no one else is doing. I am a champion of innovation in missions and fully resonate with this statement. But I think we need to add, if you want to reach people no one else is reaching, you have to go where no one else is going. Paul the apostle said, “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation” (Romans 15:20).