The future worth living for...

A child will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and the future worth living for. - Anonymous

Hope for the Darkness Pt. 4

by Christie Weehunt, 23
-India Office Liaison for Sower of Seeds International Ministries

Hope for the Darkness

He will help the oppressed, who have none to defend them…

• “73.7% of all girls trapped inside the brothel system must be rescued if they are to ever reach the outside world again.” –Kamala Sarup, Nepal correspondent with Lys Anzia, Women News Network

If the story were to end when we walked out of the district, I would be hopeless. I don’t want to see a need just to be better informed. I don’t want God to break my heart just for the sake of breaking it. I believe that there is a bigger purpose–that God allows us to see things not only for awareness, but because He invites us to be the solution.

God is moving in the red light district. He is rescuing, saving, healing and transforming. He will redeem the helpless. One way or another, His justice will cover them. He is already raising an army:

Former prostitutes.

Former madams.

Former pimps.

And you.

Vast darkness may seem overwhelming, but He is a very Big God. When His beloved is a shield for the powerless, even nations will quake with His glory.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. –Romans 8:38-39 (NASB)

To learn more about Red Light Rescue visit www.sowerofseeds.org/rescue.

Born Into Darkness Pt. 3

This one stirs my heart so...those sweet babies. Lord protect them, this just feels like too much.


Born Into Darkness
by Christie Weehunt, 23
India Office Liaison for Sower of Seeds International

Sexual slavery: a legacy none want to leave…

• Ninety-five percent of children of prostituted women will become prostitutes themselves. –Sheela Remedios, Project Child (via Robert I. Freedman, “India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption are Leading to an AIDS Catastrophe,” The Nation, 8 April 1996)

On our way to the next brothel, there was a prostitute lying on a cot under a tent with her pimp at a table next to her. She had white medicine covering the open wounds all over her face. We couldn’t get details, but apparently something happened the night before. She lay in the fetal position while her child crawled around next to her.

In another brothel, a woman sat next to me on the floor, wearing a beautiful blue-flowered sari. This woman had sent her daughter to a home for children because she didn’t want her to grow up as a prostitute. When we prayed for her, one of our team (a mother too) hugged her and began wailing as the woman cried. They grieved together for her deep loss, one mother to another.

Children are everywhere in the district. I learned from our guides that the mothers often hide them under the bed or drug them to keep them quiet and safe during “work”. If not given to a home, most of the children will end up sexually abused themselves or trafficked into another brothel. The mothers are forced to raise their children in depravity, or give them to a home. For most of the women, their children are the only ones who have ever truly loved them. It is a painful dilemma.

Join with others to take the pledge to end this horrific form of slavery.

Trapped in the Darkness Pt. 2

I began to share a journey with you yesterday of a girl who traveled to a place most of us never even think about. Continue reading and praying with me. Pray that the kingdom of heaven would shine brightly on these sweet daughters.

by Christie Weehunt, 23
India Office Liaison for Sower of Seeds International

In the summer of 2009, a group from SOS dressed in Indian attire and entered Asia’s largest red light district to pray for the prostitutes working inside. Guiding us were several Indian women who minister daily to these forgotten daughters. What we saw on the streets and in the brothels was dark and horrible, but deeper still were the seeds of Christ, shining like lamps of hope. His eyes are on His precious ones, and He is hungry for their redemption.

The Victims
Trapped in the darkness…

• In Asia’s largest red light district, three square kilometers are home to an estimated 40,000 women working its 24 lanes, earning at least $200 million a year in revenue for their traffickers. They service up to 25 clients a day and make around $1.50.

Although young, the women carried ancient heaviness. As we prayed, each face expressed something different. The girl to my left was dressed in the classic skirt and tank top that many of the young prostitutes wear. She was from east India, maybe Nagaland or Shilong and looked to be around twenty-two. She cried the entire time we were there, but when we prayed for her, she sobbed. Looking into her eyes I could see both desperation and hope.

I thought about some of the stories I heard before we came—a girl with a large scar on her forearm where a client had paid to cut the skin off with a razor. Another whose pimp sent man after man to rape her until she gave in to his demand of walking the street for him. Girls kept in secret cages, beaten, starved, abandoned. The poverty in India is horrendous. Most of these women were from the poorest, most desolate slums where their families could not imagine a worse fate for them than the one they were born into. And yet, here they were…

One woman really caught my attention. She was about nineteen and had a black scarf with brightly colored stripes pinned tightly along her hairline, covering her hair. As she gazed, her eyes, lined with thick black cagel (coal eyeliner), revealed years of abuse and neglect. There was openness about her, but also the oppression of a seductive spirit. I could feel the spiritual battle going on for her soul.

I thought of the woman with the Alabaster jar–how overcome she must have felt when Jesus looked at her with love. In the midst of this brothel, with its curtained “rooms” and hollow inhabitants, I have never before felt a more real, tangible presence of Jesus. Even in the dark-stained eyes of this forgotten daughter, He was with her, like a warm, bright light. It was like He was physically standing next to her saying “This is my daughter. The world has forgotten about her, but I haven’t forgotten. I’m right here with her, right here as everyday she is mistreated. I see it all and I don’t leave for one second.”

Sign the pledge to stop Human Trafficking.

We ask for your commitment to pray for the rescue of girls trapped in slavery, being informed about issues related to trafficking and spreading the word that we are not powerless in the fight against slavery. — SOS Int'l

Rescue (Into the Heart of Darkness Pt. 1)

I grew up my whole life wanting to be rescued. I wanted a father who I knew would come for me just to fight for me, while abandoning all fear that he would leave. I wanted a knight in shining armor to make me feel I was valuable and full of worth. Even as an adult I wonder when things will ever feel perfect...with my family, my marriage, or in the mere act of balancing life. But when I read something so heart wrenching as this, it allows me the privilege to redefine my definition of perfect.

Read Christie's words along with me over the next week. I pray to gain a little perspective as I try to open wide my eyes and heart to something so imperfect that it hurts you to your soul. There is a whole world waiting there that kills me to even think about, but then I remember that little girl...just wanting to be rescued and I can't help but want to share their story.

Written by Christie Weehunt, 23
India Office Liaison for Sower of Seeds International

In the summer of 2009, a group from SOS dressed in Indian attire and entered Asia’s largest red light district to pray for the prostitutes working inside. Guiding us were several Indian women who minister daily to these forgotten daughters. What we saw on the streets and in the brothels was dark and horrible, but deeper still were the seeds of Christ, shining like lamps of hope.

His eyes are on His precious ones, and He is hungry for their redemption.

The Darkness

A few facts…

• Human trafficking: The act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring, or receipt of persons by use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or vulnerability, or giving of payments to a person in control of the victim. Victims are purposed for sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery, or removal of organs.

• In India, there are over 3 million sex trafficking victims, 1.2 million of them are children. Girls between 10 and 12 fetch the highest price. They are thrown in cages for up to 3 years while they are repeatedly raped, beaten, and tortured until they lose all of their will. Then they are sent out on the streets as prostitutes, making money for their captors.

I was told we were dressing up in Indian outfits to minister in the darkest, dirtiest corner of Asia: the largest red light district. I had no idea what it would be like, but I knew I would never forget the day.

As we walked down the crowded, narrow lanes, we had to step carefully over the heaping piles of trash and sewage at our feet. Rats scurried everywhere. It was late morning and the district was slowly waking up after a night’s work. Women were playing with their children and doing each other’s hair. Street vendors were making breakfast and selling tea. Tables full of pimps were out playing cards and relaxing.

Walking into that first brothel was like walking into a slum house. There were probably twelve women my age crowded around our team as we entered. We squeezed into the front room–as many women as could fit. A curtain blocked the entrance to their “rooms.” Small children mingled all around. An occasional customer came by, but the madam turned them away at the door. Her girls had special visitors.

I was mesmerized by the place, the faces. I looked at each of the women present, captured by what I saw in their eyes. Some blankly stared outside, others cried. I wanted to know each woman’s story, where she was from, how she ended up here.

But for a little geography, it could have been me.

Visit here to see an amazing ministry working hard to fight this awful darkness.

School girl

My baby is a school girl now. Excuse me, when did this happen?

The night before we lay out her clothes, pack her lunch and fill up her bag with all the essentials to get her through the next day. Two days a week we do this. In the morning we wake her up early and just like that she goes to preschool from 9-1. Sounds pretty small to most, but to us this was a riveting milestone. This is the first time she has ever been with anyone but family. For me, it is one of those slow releases people tell you about. It is a like teeter totter between doing what's best for her growth and wanting to keep her a baby forever.

Of course, the first week she didn't even make it until one and I was a nervous wreck. The second week, she cried less. But by the third week she is having a blast!! I can already see how much she is learning and growing. She talks non stop now! She dances and sings more than ever. She is making new friends and bonding with her teachers. I could not be more happy!

She still cries everyday when I drop her at the door, but it subsides much more quickly with each new day and I know she has fun. It is just so weird to think of her having a whole day of new experiences without any of us there. She is her own person now.

Pretty soon, we will be packing her up for college.

(Note: I took some really cute pictures of her on the first day of school and then in a moment of oblivion I deleted them from my camera. I thought I had already loaded them on the computer. I will have to take some more pics of school mornings soon.)

A Sack of Potatoes

When you're little life is simple. You don't think for a minute about the latest over priced item you may "need" because everyone else has it. You don't even feel inadequate because you do not have it all. Your barely used heart is just as happy as can be with a plain old sack of potatoes dragging along beside you. Oh the possibilities that little sack could hold. You are content with the everyday; not a worry in the world. Are you taking notes yet? As her mama, I know I am.