Friends, just an encouragement to join-in on IJM’s Global Prayer Gathering this weekend from wherever you are. If you are not one of the nearly 1,000 people joining in person here in the DC Area, you can connect through our live-stream and live-blog presence all throughout the weekend. Hope you’ll join!
We have just about hit max-capacity for this year’s IJM Global Prayer Gathering - if you are still thinking about attending and have questions, please quickly send an email to . We will soon be closing registration and moving to a wait-list.
IJM Field Office Directors from 17 cities world-wide are eagerly preparing to fly to DC next month for this time of prayer and worship with you. We are also grateful to be led this year by IJM friends Sara Groves, Lamont Hiebert (of Ten Shekel Shirt and Love146), and Andy Crouch alongside Gary Haugen, Sharon Cohn Wu, and other IJM staff.
Hope to see you April 9-11 for this indescribable experience of meeting with our God.
Planning to be there? Would love to hear from you in the comments below. Been before? What are you most looking forward to about coming again?
Next Friday, February 19 IJM will partner with Pepperdine Law School’s Nootbar Institute in hosting a one-day event entitled “The Role of the Church in Doing Justice.”
Featuring:
• Rich Stearns, President, World Vision U.S.
• Kay Warren, Saddleback Church Joseph D’Souza, International President, Dalit Freedom Network
• Mark Labberton, Director of the Lloyd John Ogilvie Institute for Preaching at Fuller Theological Seminary and Senior Fellow of the IJM Institute
• Joseph D’Souza, International President, Dalit Freedom Network
• Sean Litton, VP Field Operations, International Justice Mission
• Jim Martin, VP Church Mobilization, International Justice Mission
• Larry Martin, SVP Education, International Justice Mission
“The Role of the Church in Doing Justice” will explore how Christians can answer the call to seek justice through churches, NGOs, and individual actions. Event registration is $120.
Panels and presentations will discuss:
• The Biblical Foundations for Justice
• Mobilizing the Church to Seek Justice
• Seeking Justice Domestically
• Seeking Justice Globally
We’d love to know if you plan to attend - just leave a note in the comments, and the IJM team will look forward to meeting you at the event.
If you have not already heard, Jeff Shinabarger (the creative mind behind the Catalyst Conferences, founder of Gift Card Giver, and strategist for many NGO’s and innovative ventures) recently launch a new community called Plywood People. In their own words, they are “searching for social problems with the hope to match them with entrepreneurial creativity to organize, innovate, and manage ideas that produce change.”
In honor of Human Trafficking Awareness Day, IJM is featured on the Plywood People blog today. We hope you will be encouraged in your own fight against trafficking as you read this story of a city and children redeemed.
We’re thrilled to announce that Gregg Helvey’s film, KAVI, just made the short-list for the 2010 Oscars! His film is a 17 minute view into the life of a young boy enslaved in a South Asian brick kiln. It is a film of striking beauty, heartache, and passion… Words truly fail to describe what Gregg has captured.
If you are local to the DC area, I want to make sure you have the opportunity to attend a special screening of this film on Capitol Hill. Gregg Helvey has been invited by Donald Payne and the House Foreign Affairs Committee to show his film Tuesday December 15 at 6pm, and we would be honored if you, as Institute readers and members, would attend as well.
Take a moment to watch the trailer - details for the screening are below:
Where: 2168 Gold Room, Rayburn House Office Building, Capitol Hill, Washington DC. To see a map, please go to http://www.aoc.gov/cc/cc_map.cfm
When: Tuesday, December 15. 6-8pm.
Please RSVP to . (No ticket necessary, however)
Just received this video from the student ministries department at Northland: A Church Distributed in Orlando, FL.
In short, they hosted a fundraiser for IJM… via food fight.
Note: they used expired food that was no longer viable for giving to others.
Friends, thank you for your continued prayers for the remarkably difficult case one of our South Asia teams has been fighting. There are two key pieces of information to give you by way of an update:
The Weekend to End Slavery has arrived! Tomorrow more than 39,000 people will gather in homes across the world to watch IJM’s new documentary, At the End of Slavery. On Sunday, churches across the nation will preach sermons mobilizing their congregations with the biblical mandate to bring slavery to an end.
Even if you did not order a film+kit in advance, you can still join the live webcast with Gary Haugen. Tune-in to http://www.attheendofslavery.com/weekend-to-end/ at 8pm ET for this opportunity.
We would love to hear your thoughts as you join in the movement this weekend!
I’m eager to introduce you to our National Director of Church Mobilization, Jim Martin. I’m sure some of you are already quite familiar with Jim, and I look forward to all of you getting a chance to know him better as he begins to guest blog here at the Institute on a regular basis. Here is an update from Jim on IJM’s brand new documentary, At the End of Slavery and details on how you can be involved in the movement!
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Dear friends,
As of today more than 85 churches have decided to host a screening of IJM’s new documentary film, At the End of Slavery. The response to the film has overwhelming! We are thankful and excited for the gathering momentum of this movement. Many churches see screening this 30 minute documentary as a rare opportunity for their church to be on the forefront of an issue that really matters to the people of their neighborhoods and community. And by following the simple suggestions contained in the screening kit (what we’re calling a “house party-in-a-box"), churches are not only providing their communities with much-needed education regarding the modern horror of slavery, they are offering something even more essential and rare: concrete action steps that every-day citizens can take to join the battle against violent oppression.
If you would like to encourage your church to screen this film, we can resource you with everything you need. The invitation is a simple one: Host a screening in your church facility and invite everyone to come. The screening kit provides dozens of helpful tips for everything from how to introduce the film to how to move people to action after the screening. The film itself does a wonderful job of presenting to reality of modern-day slavery while offering substantive hope based on real change taking place in our world right now. The kit also provides 2 copies of the film - one for your use, and one for you to give away to someone else who commits to hosting a house party.
Consider connecting your church with these resources:
View the trailer at: http://www.attheendofslavery.com/
Contact IJM directly to host a screening by sending an email to: .
IJM staff around the world have been moved to tears and worship because of your outpouring of prayers and thanksgiving following the rescues in South Asia and Cambodia. Our words are inadequate to express just how deeply your partnership in prayer impacts the daily work of rescue, but I want you to see what our teams in the field are saying about the impact you have on them and their ability to persevere:
FROM SOUTH ASIA:
“Our team is vastly encouraged to see so many people praying for us. We often go through these prayers in lieu of the normal morning devotion on the day of the operation, and after the fact. These prayers make our staff understand that they are not alone, that there are so many people who care about the risks the staff are taking. It reminds us that God is big, he’s powerful, and he is with us as we take on the challenges of the day. It helps people overcome their fears and remember that this is God’s work and we are joining him in it. It’s like a huge crowd of people cheering for our team to win the fight. It gives us heart to be determined and strong and unafraid.
FROM CAMBODIA:
“We have never worked for an organization like this where each day hundreds and thousands of people in the U.S. and around the world are praying for our work… We all are humbled and encouraged by the awesome response to our needs and these victories, and we recognize that the all of the stories of rescue and hope point not to us, but to our Heavenly Father, who is the God of rescue and hope.”
“News of the prayers and praise on the blog helped to remind us that we were not alone. While we know that God is always right there with us providing strength and guidance…in the heat of the moment, it can be easy to give into difficulties and challenges and to succumb to feeling as though things are hopeless. We received word of all the support on the IJM Institute page during one of these moments and so we were so thankful of God’s timing to remind us that the work of His justice is something we are all in together!
FIRST SCREENING of IJM’s new documentary, At the End of Slavery
Don’t miss this opportunity! To access this event from wherever you are (tomorrow @ 1pm EST) please go to http://event.pingg.com/ateos and RSVP.
The screening will be held from 1-2pm EST (film itself is 31 mins). Details and URL for viewing the film will be sent to you today after you submit your RSVP.
Let us know what you think! Leave your comments here after the film.
At the End of Slavery will be released in September 2009. If you are interested in hosting a house-party, please email
At The End Of Slavery - Extended Trailer from International Justice Mission on Vimeo.
Friends - we beseech you to join us in praying for an operation that is underway in South Asia.
Today our staff, in cooperation with the local police, were able to bring many laborers out of a slavery facility. One of the laborers was a woman who had been forced to work up to the moment of delivering her baby (without a doctor - the owner refused), and then forced to continue work immediately following. She was unable even to pause to bathe her newborn or to get food for herself.
Today, the day of this rescue, the baby is 1 day old.
Please pray that justice will be won as our staff works to secure official release documentation for each of these laborers, protecting them for permanent freedom.
Pray that justice will be swift and that the laborers will feel and be safe and secure in their freedom.
Pray for this little baby, this new life - pray for God’s protection and perfect provision.
And praise God for His deliverance!
We are completely dependent upon your partnership in prayer and so grateful for you.
Feel free to leave a note in the comments, or a prayer, encouraging the staff, the freed laborers, and the family of this little newborn baby.
Calling on you once again to join us in prayer.
We have uncovered a location (specifics must be withheld for now) where several dozen women and children are being held and offered for sale. It is a large, professionally-run facility but we have been able to infiltrate and gather most of the evidence needed to compell the authorities to move forward with an operation.
There are several significant barriers looming and we need your prayers beseeching our God of justice to break them down.
Every day counts. Here is how you can be praying:
- Pray that the local police are successful in obtaining the final piece of evidence necessary to move to the next phase of this operation
- Pray for the authority figures who has are responsible for moving the operation forward from start to finish - pray that they will act decisively and with courage
- Pray that no critical information is leaked, and that those running the facility do not grow suspicious of the impending operation
- Pray for the women and children who are being abused hour by hour, day by day - that God’s presence would be known to them, that they would enter a new life of healing and restoration
- Pray that this case would be a landmark, a precedent-setting victory in this nation
- Pray for the perpetrators - that the Holy Spirit would bring conviction to their hearts, a ceasing of their abuses, and vision for a new way to live
- Pray for wisdom, clarity, and strength for our staff in this country
If you have even a remote appreciation for coffee, or simply know others who love the brew, there are 3 and a half days left to turn coffee-love into sustainable rescue and rehabilitation for victims of violent injustice.
Storyville Coffee is giving every dollar that comes in during May - including shipping costs - to IJM.
Up to ONE MILLION DOLLARS.
Take a moment to check-out their coffee and products and consider sending someone a gift or just stocking up for your own home’s supply.
For a small window of time, coffee can literally translate into rescue. Every dollar counts, and they’re giving it all to IJM’s work around the world. Simply phenomenal!
A HUGE thanks is due to the folks over at the Catalyst Conference. You know how much I love being a part of the Catalyst community - going to their Atlanta conference each October with 12,000+ other leaders, speaking at the Catalyst West Coast event last month, writing for their Catalyst Monthly and Groupzine publications, and on and on.
I’m excited to let you know that if you simply SIGN-UP to join the community yourself (no cost whatsoever - just your contact information) - they will give you a chance to select 1 of 10 organizations to whom THEY will give $1 as a result of your signing-up and selecting that org. This is an amazing way for IJM and other wonderful orgs to easily receive several thousand dollars. It costs you nothing, but helps us a ton!
Would you take a moment to click on this link, give your contact info, select an organization, and then ask other Christian leaders in your network to do the same?
THANKS! And THANKS CATALYST!
International Justice Mission is a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression. IJM lawyers, investigators and aftercare professionals work with local governments to ensure victim rescue, to prosecute perpetrators and to strengthen the community and civic factors that promote functioning public justice systems.
Have a question or comment? Let us know.
© 2009 International Justice Mission. All rights reserved.
