DAY 3: Praying for the exploited

By Gia Hughes
LIA Director of Human Trafficking Outreach

Pray for Jerry and Nima.
They are commercial sex workers who have professed faith in Jesus but remain confused and in pain. Pray that God will give them an "undivided heart" to follow Him.

Confusion is defined as the lack of clearness or distinctness. Even when the physical bondage of sexual slavery has been broken, many victims are held captive by their minds. The emotional and physical scars of their past continually haunt them. The mind game within the trafficking trade is extensive.

As I thought about this and how our minds have so much control over our actions, I remembered a story shared by Acton Bowen, our speaker for the Wired Youth Conference this past summer. I have his permission to share it with you.

From his lunch meeting with a Special Ops Member- this team member shared:

Four missionaries had been captured in a country that the U.S. did not have diplomatic ties with. They were being held in a 10 x 10 foot pit and given only enough food to keep them alive. There were no bathrooms; they were forced to live in their own excrement. His team had been assigned to go in and rescue the captured. They had found the exact location and had only five minutes to get in, rescue the missionaries and get back out.
The day came. The Special Ops team members were outfitted with cameras so the missionaries’ families at home could watch. Unknowing to them at this time, during the three years of the missionaries’ captivity, the captors would play mind-games on the men and call into the pit and pretend to be their rescuers. They would release them from the pit and as they ran almost reaching the fence that would be their freedom, the captors would fire at them, recapture them and throw them back in. This went on time after time.

Physically distraught and mentally worn down, the missionaries decided that the next time it happened, they would not go. Instead they would lock their arms and put their heads down.
Exactly as planned, the team was dropped into the location, found the pit and called down to the missionaries, “We are from the U.S. and we are here to rescue you”. The missionaries locked arms, bowed their heads, and didn’t move. The team members were stunned. They called again, same response. “We are out of time", said the officer in charge, “We have to get out.” This team member responded that he couldn’t leave them like that, so he took off his pack and got in the pit with them. He looked them in the face and said, “We are here to rescue you.” This finally broke through to one of the men. He told the others, the enemy would not endure the filth and get in the pit with us. They are who they say they are and they were then rescued.

They had been so battered and broken down over time that their thoughts almost cost them their freedom. Trafficking has this same kind of stronghold on the minds of its victims. The circumstances that many are forced to endure to lead to their total submission wreaks havoc on their thought processes.

John 8:36 says; “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” I am thankful for Jerry and Nima and for all others who choose to place their trust in Christ. If they will allow the Holy Spirit to continue to reveal God’s s truths to them, their minds will be set free as well. They will be able to follow Him with a whole heart.

Jesus has already endured the filthy circumstances of our lives and gotten into the pit for us to say, “I am here to rescue you.” Have you trusted in the One who can set you free?