“When our grandchildren ask us where we were when the weak and the voiceless and the vulnerable of our era needed a leader of compassion and purpose and hope – I hope we can say that we showed up, and that we showed up on time. And that the very God of history might say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’” -Gary Haugen

I've had some free time since finals were over, and I've been reading the book Terrify No More by Gary Haugen. He is the founder of International Justice Mission, an agency that rescues victims of violence, oppression, sexual exploitation, and slavery. Terrify No More is the heart-wrenching, sickening, hope-filled, intense story of IJM’s operation to rescue the brutalized children of Svay Pak, Cambodia. Svay Pak was a village built around the sex trade of children, some as young as five. It had become an acceptable industry, protected by even the highest authorities in Cambodia. When IJM workers heard of it, they immediately began an operation to rescue the children and bring justice to their abusers. Their first raid ended in the arrest of all the rescued children because they were illegal Vietnamese immigrants. Two of the head undercover investigators had their covers blown, and the third had his life threatened more than once.

Haugen visited Svay Pak for himself before the rescue operation was put into full swing to get a feel for the village and the level of suspicion in the brothel owners. After being taken back into a brothel with 5-10 year old girls, he writes, “The sight of elementary-school-age girls, like those who gather in giggling groups at my own kids’ school, being assembled not to play a game or hear a lesson or watch a movie, but to be forced into sex acts, was one of the most disorienting moments of my life…it was as if someone had reached inside to grab my deepest internal compass of reality and orientation and had sent the arrow spinning in violent circles with a massive flick of the finger.”

The IJM workers didn’t take on this operation to make themselves heroes. They were simply doing for these girls what they would have done for their own children in the same situation. They finally received participation from the government and were able to conduct a planned raid with help from Cambodian policemen. Dateline NBC covered the story, which can be read at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4038249/. They tell the story much better than I can. There is also footage showing teenage boys trying to sell the services of 8-year-old girls, and the little girls telling the undercover investigator how much they cost. It's sickening on many levels. But it's real, and now that I've seen it I must ask myself, and ask God, how to respond.

Gary Haugen writes in one chapter about how evil triumps because those that can act to end it have a poverty of compassion, purpose, and hope. He writes, “We are paralyzed in a poverty of hope because, first, we underestimate the value of what God has given us to transform lives. Second, we underestimate the value of a single life. And third, we underestimate God’s determination to rescue us from a trivial existence if we will just free up our hands and our hearts from unworthy distractions and apply them to matters that make a difference in someone else’s life.” In order to overcome that poverty, I have to be determined to look to Jesus and resist the temptation to lose hope. I long to end my obsession with myself and to turn to the only one who can give me lasting joy, and then to have the compassion for others that He feels.