God's People

So this week Hannah Newlin came to us from Dallas Texas. She really has a heart for human traffiking, the orphaned, the widow, and for uniting the church. The first day we talked about human traffiking a lot and watched a movie called Trade to help us better understand how it actually works. Now most people might think that I don't have a lot to say about this subject because I didn't say a lot dring the classes. But truth is, I"m just not always super comfortable saying my own opinion in larger groups. The sex trade has actaully been on my mind a lot during my life and I've always wanted to know more about it. It really confuses me. I've always wondered how there can be such perverted people in the world who would allow themselves to take these girls and to do whatever they want with them. I just don't understand that world and how they could have ever come to such a place. I know that in Canada there are not nearly as many girls being traffiked than in other places in the world, but it is still going on around here. It actaully scares me. I've always wondered, what if I was one of them? What if it was me? Would my family still want me back after something like that? Would I want out if it was the only thing that I had ever known? It struck me soo hard to know that about I think it was 80% of the girls who get rescued just go right back into it because they know nothing else and have been soo psycologically and emotionally damaged. This week though also caused me to stop and to think about the pimps who are involved. Not just to hurt for the girls but also to feel for the men who are caught up in this and might have their own reasons for being in something like this and not knowing where else to turn. It also caused me to think that God sees all sin as equal. Raping someone and stealing are equal in God's books. I don't even know how to comprehend that thought but it just really caused me to stop and to change my adjust my attitude towards saved pimps. They deserve forgiveness from us and we can't judge them forever for a past sin that they have committed and repented of. It was really encouraging for me though to hear of all the things that are going on to help get girls out of the sex traffiking. And also to see what they are doing for the grils after they get out and helping them get back on their feet and to develope skills and things like that. It was just really cool for me to hear about a topic that I am passionate about, and what I can do and we as the curch an do to be a light to the world in this situation
On Thursday we then were talking more about reaching out to homeless people and the prisoner, etc. We headed into the city where we went to Portage Place and were able to talk with homeless people there. Me, Nick, and Denita talked to a guy in the mall. We ended up finding out that he was a Christian and well which was extremely cool a well! He told us some things about him life. He wasn't homeless but he was jobless and it was just realy neat to see his faith in how things would work out for him. He wasn't really concerned about finding a job. He was just saying that if it was God's will he would get the job. We had an opportunity to pray for him and I was also able to give him a scarf which would go to either his gilfriend or his girlfriends daughter. They are not Christians so it's just super exciting to know somehow I am showing God's love to people that I don't really know and to people that I will never meet. One passage that we went over a fair number of times is Matthew 25:31-46. It says that "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something t drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in..." How when we did one of those things for someone we were doing it to God. It's just a really sweet metal image for me. To see that everything we do for one of his people is how we're treating Christ in that moment.
I really enjoyed this week and all the new things that I learned about God's world. The one thing that I think we all need to remember is that even though the problems of this world seem soo overwhelming we need to respond to them as the church. We don't have to go in it alone but think of it as, what can WE do? Something that Hannah said today really hit me and that was something like, we might feel really insignificant as we try to change the world with out little group of people, but frankly, that's the only thing that ever has. I just pray that we wouldn't forget that God is in ultimate control and that he knows what's going on in the world and knows these people's hearts. He's the only one who can truly change them. God just uses us to help complete his plan.