I recently had the privilege to spend a few days with our sister organization, in Atlanta, Georgia. The fellowship and collaboration with Beloved, as always, was so refreshing.
In Atlanta, sex trafficking and abuse abounds. Children are bought for sex and then are forced to live on the streets for survival, selling their bodies to support themselves. As I meet women in Costa Rica, and the BeLoved team works with women in Atlanta, I’m reminded that this fight extends from minute villages to multi-million dollar cities. It spans continents.
One day, a few of us went to visit a little fishing village upon the request of a friend. It seems this beautiful, quiet village tucked away off the beaten path had an extreme problem. Sexual abuse, rape, and prostitution were rampant through the village, as well as drug trafficking. A school psychologist, desperate for change, began to share her stories with us of heartbreaking situations she encounters with the children of the local school.
After she tells the final story, she becomes silent. We all do for a moment. It’s over 90 degrees outside. The one little fan in her office is making great attempts to cool us off, but to no avail. I break the silence to look at the director and say, “You have a difficult job, and I am going to be praying for you each day.” I can tell she feels hopeless. I squeeze her hand to let her know she is not alone. Sweat drips down both our brows as she says, “Es una lucha dura.” Her words echo my thoughts of the last month: “it is a hard fight”. However, a hard fight I refuse to quit fighting. We left the school with a plan to embark on a joint project with this school and LightForce.
Meanwhile, in Atlanta, women flood a waiting list to get into BeLoved Atlanta’s residential and restoration program, seeking help to get out of the life they wouldn’t have chosen as 12-year-old little girls. Little girls dream of being princesses, not rape victims. Each story is similar–sexual abuse as a child–but equally heartbreaking each time. These women are precious in God’s eyes, and through Jesus’ vision we see their value, but they don’t know it themselves. What hope is there in a life of prostitution?
Our drive home from the village that day was met with silence, as each one of us was lost in thought upon what we had just heard.
That evening I sat on the beach to spend some time with the Lord. I needed to look at something as powerful and magnificent as the ocean to be reminded of God’s ability to create and control. As I was praying, the Lord brought to mind the verses He had been laying on my heart every day prior:
“Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever….” Hebrews 6:17-20
I have been memorizing this passage and saying it to myself everyday since that moment on the beach.
I do have this hope and it is an anchor for my soul.
“And we have this hope…”
A brothel shut down in the Caribbean after one brave girl took the opportunity to present the Gospel to the owner and pimp.
“And we have this hope…”
We offered coffee and cookies to a woman on a routine stop but she said no and instead requested prayer.
“And we have this hope…”
A resident from our BeLoved Atlanta program pulled two staff members aside with tears in her eyes, and said, “I never knew people could be genuinely kind.”
“And we have this hope…”
We collaborated with another organization to see one amazing young girl receive love and freedom.
“And we have this hope…”
The first little girl that we ever had the privilege to meet and rescue is still to this day free.
The blood of Jesus rewrote history and now we have this hope.
