A guest post from Laura Parker
We stop at the red light, my blonde children and I in an air-conditioned van, and she appears at my window. She holds up the flowers she’s peddling and looks through the glass with brown eyes that have seen too much for her eight-or-so years. My kids are dancing to Hannah Montana in the backseat eating out of a Lay’s potato chip bag, and this little one is baking under the sun of a tropical afternoon, weaving through the traffic of cars and motorbikes and tour vans. I look down and see barefeet, and I wonder if they make her that way, because the barefoot, the sick, the maimed always sell more. And it’s five long seconds that she waits at my window, offering a flower necklace that I’m only torn to buy because I know where the money goes. It lines the pockets of the ones who make her tread barefoot on hot pavement, the ones watching behind the next intersection, the ones who own her. And the inner torment mounts, and I pray, and I watch her small dark head finally drop, glance at the white kids and their potato chips through the glass, and then walk away in the rear view. I want to unbuckle-fast and tell her about a Rescuer, but all I can say in my conflicted head is,
Sweetheart, I don’t know how to help you.
I see her, the beautiful eyes locked on this man whose ring I’ve worn for the past 12 years. We pass her on the street, and I know she wants him, this Western husband of mine. And it doesn’t matter that his hand is wrapped around our three-year-old daughter’s, doesn’t matter that he keeps his eyes forward, doesn’t matter that a wife trails behind him on the sidewalk with two more children, because he represents, for her, a better life – food on the table and work that doesn’t include a different man every night or labor in a rice field. And I watch her, my heart heavy with sadness not jealousy, but all I can manage as we pass is a thought,
Sweetheart, I don’t know how to help you.
And he and a roommate move into the empty house behind us, the tree-branches of our two rental homes intermingling over the tile roofs below. And the elderly neighbor whispers the secret to me when they first moved in– her riding a bike, me walking after my kids riding theirs. And when he came out on the porch that day, this teenage Asian boy with the big diamond earring, and when I saw his roommate step out after him, a 40-something Western man, I knew with a sinking feeling that the whispers were probably true. It’s a story that’s played out again and again all over Asia. And if I weren’t stuck in my surface-scratching of the language, I would would want to whisper to him, across our backyards,
Sweetheart, I care, but I just have no idea how to help you.
But, oh, I wish I did. I wish I could–
Help them. Love them well. Give them a taste of Rescue, Redemption.
I want to fight for them that sell flowers or stand on street corners or wait behind closed doors.
But, I’ve been here for an entire year now, and I still don’t really know how.
Because it’s bigger and darker and leagues more complicated than I could have imagined.
But, maybe–hopefully, prayerfully– not knowing now, doesn’t always mean, not knowing,
ever.
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For more information on the issues of human trafficking and sexual slavery, you could check out our personal friends at The Zoe Foundation in Chiang Mai, Thailand. They are working practically towards the rescue of endangered or abused children all over Northern Thailand.
You could also read the autobiography of a trafficked woman from Cambodia entitled, “The Road to Lost Innocence” by Somaly Mam, or you could watch this recent bust of a trafficking ring in Chiang Mai, documented by CNN.
Laura, her husband and three children left their home in the mountains for the jungles of Thailand, where they currently serve as directors of a children’s home for at-risk girls.
Laura blogs at Life Overseas and you can also find her on Twitter.
{ 34 comments… read them below or add one }
Powerful!
Laura,
This morning I will pray for wisdom for you and your husband (James 1:5). Really, I will. There has to something.
Should have said “there has to ‘be’ something…”
Seth, thanks so much. Thanks for REALLY praying . . . I have never been so aware of the desperate we need for God to reveal the supernatural in the midst of the gritty natural.
Oh, I’ve that same feeling all over the world. Especially in parts of Asia. I want to help, but I don’t know how. I’m so grateful that some are figuring out how. But there are so many. Jesus, help.
Jeedoo, thanks for having a heart for the many. I’m with you in the not knowing. I guess the normal temptation is to let the not knowing translate into a not caring . . .
Thanks for NOT going that direction.
sigh.
praying for you, friend. this post broke me in the best way.
Thanks, Elora . . . for being soft enough to be “broken”.
I’m reminded of something I heard about love once, when I loved someone and could not do anything about it, when I could care only from a distance. I felt so powerless. But love, I was told, sees. Love KNOWS. Love hopes all things, believes all things, and bears all things up to Love who hung on the Cross, doing the only thing He could do in the face of our desperate need over all time past and all time to come.
You are DOING the thing you can do, letting your heart be broken, letting God have His way with you, teaching you how to love. When the time comes to act on what you know, you will KNOW, and you will act, and you will be unafraid.
Kelly, this was a beautiful response, for sure. I love that idea that love SEES, isn’t afraid to hear their stories, to be moved by the realities of it. I guess it’s kinda like how I HATE watching holocaust films, Schindler’s List and all, but I feel like it’s somehow “right” to watch it, to taste the realities of what being a Jew was like under Hitler. Obviously, I can’t DO anything about what happened, but somehow I feel like to not even give them the respect, the love, of listening to their stories is wrong somehow. It’s so much easier to play the head-in-the-sand ostrich, isn’t it? I know I have, do, tons.
Thanks for this encouragement. Truly.
this made me cry.
i’ve felt that before, that helplessness, while the world goes on hurting. sometimes the only way we can love is to offer that cold cup of water as though we offered it to Jesus Himself.
because we do.
thank you for what you’re doing.
Oh Laura…my heart hurts. This is the exact struggle I have when I’m in Uganda, looking in the eyes of kids; or in the inner city. How can we help something so HUGE. Praying with you, against that evil darkness, and for the Redeemer to return. I wish I had encouraging words, I just have “i know” and love. and as someone above said, Love sees.
Erin, as always, love your heart, your honest acknowledgement of the hard. Keep seeing, my friend.
Totally get the overwhelming sadness. I love your heart that breaks . ..
I think the hard reality is that so many of us are moving so fast and are so far removed that we don’t stop to really FEEL the reality of our global brothers and sisters. If an injustice is not right in front of us, we tend to ignore it. Case in point- if I blog a funny story about parenting or food, I might get a gazillion “likes” and comments, but when I write about trafficking, the comment and facebook-like section are pretty pitiful. And I DO get that– parenting is easier to relate to for a broader audience, but it is sad that so often we don’t allow ourselves to “feel the helplessness” as you so perfectly said.
And, yes, a cup of cold water is at least, something.
My heart breaks, not only for those you write about, but for you yourself! You are making a difference, no matter how small it might seem. You are loving, praying, caring, and sharing! Others are more aware because amazing people like you and your family are willing to live among these people and relate their plight to the rest of us.
Thank you for your sacrifice! May God strengthen you and give you wisdom and peace.
Thanks, Julie, for your kind words.
That is just heartbreaking. I pray that God can show you a way and I’m glad to see someone that cares. I have known too many people who spent time in various parts of Asia and for whatever reason (they didn’t really SEE, to dull the pain of it, I don’t know), they just came to accept these terrible things as the way things were.
Amy, it is so true that I’ve met so many people that are HARD and CYNICAL, after years of hacking it out in really sad places. And I totally understand that natural tendency– like a doctor having to tell a family that their loved one is going to die soon. I guess there has to be a bit of hardening just to survive, but I so agree that I don’t want to become the “long termer” that doesn’t cry anymore.
And that totally applies to all of us, everywhere, with the needs around us, doesn’t it? How often do we in America not cry over the foster kids or the homeless man or the forgotten elderly person in a home by himself somewhere?
Powerful and beautiful. Thank you for this.
Heartbreaking.
“But, maybe–hopefully, prayerfully– not knowing now, doesn’t always mean, not knowing, ever.”
Laura, I have tears in my eyes as I echo this prayer. May He guide us in knowing how to help.
Thank you for at least being there and sharing. Before Jesus healed, he always had compassion first. If, perhaps, those of us reading are even a small part of the answer at least we have started the process with compassion because of your words. Praying.
I love that, Amy, the essential factor of COMPASSION. YES. Absolutely. And maybe just all of us having compassion, which will eventually lead to action, is the gift of love we can give those suffering, even if we never see them . . .
that’s so sad
This is a pain so close to my heart as several of my dear friends founded love146.org – the stories are endless . . . but I am so grateful for you and others who are present in that place. It means more then it looks like on the outside, I am sure of that.
Love You,
Erika
Erika, Wow. I love LOVE 146. Such a great organization and such powerful stories . . . others might want to check it out:
http://www.love146.org
Thank you for being someone who stays broken and tender and caring while looking directly into the eyes of people many of us mostly read about. Thank you for being willing to serve us by keeping us focused on something so painful we frequently prefer to look away. And thank you for giving me permission to say out loud that the problem is so huge and complicated that I really don’t know how to help, while at the same time continuing to hope and ask God to show me how I can. You and your family are in my prayers!
You are more than welcome, Chrystal. My own struggle with writing about stuff like this is that I fear that it feels “dramatic”, like “look at me, we are here in Asia, blah, blah, blah”. And that is really NOT my heart. It really is to just tell their stories, b/c I know they don’t have the potential audience maybe I, in America, do.
i haven’t read something that touched a nerve like this did in quite a while … it put a lump in my throat. thanks for your ministry there … even though I know it is here too …
Thanks so much, Amanda. Thanks for being open enough to have your “nerve touched”. I think we underestimate the power of that stirring of compassion too often, and it is so important and Jesus-like.
Thank you for this Laura. I have been living in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for the past two years, working in aftercare for survivors of sex trafficking. Since my feet hit the ground I have been wrestling and wrestling with these issues. Scripture tells us to feed the hungry – give to the poor. But I choose not to because, like you, I know where the money goes. I know how my response has the potential to exacerbate the problem. What are we supposed to do? I still don’t know, but I deeply appreciate your words and closely identified with them. Thank you – and may God bless you in your ministry!
WOW, Summer . . . everything I’ve heard about P.P. is that it is a tough place to live– so awesome that you have been hacking it out for several years there now. YOU are the one we need to be hearing from! Thanks for serving, for loving, for being “real” about the magnitude of it all . . . feels a little like Frodo at the gates of Mordor, ya know?
Do you have a blog? Clicking on your name to find out now!
Keep your head up, friend . . .keep loving well.
Hugs from not-too-far-away, Laura
Thanks for your reply, Laura. I do have a blog, but I’m awful at keeping up with it. And can’t really write much about my work at the shelter bc of issues of confidentiality for the girls. You can totally check out my organization’s website though… http://www.transitionsglobal.org. Or my poorly updated blog… http://www.Jehovah-Rapha.com.
If you ever make it to PP look me up
This will haunt me, Laura. You’ve taken something I know mentally and made it very personal.
I wish I had answers. I am angry I don’t. (Can I be honest here? Good? Good.) I’m frustrated that we can’t at least find one thing that for sure stems the tide of suffering.
When I get like this, the only thing I can do is pray. And give thanks. Somewhere in there, my soul is righted again and outfitted for the battle.
Praying for you and your heart, friend. So much darkness. Your light is not extinguished, or alone.