IJM South Asia partnered with the local government to conduct an operation on a brick kiln today, July 1, 2009. The operation was very complicated: Not only was the facility quite large, but the operation was IJM’s first-ever brick kiln operation in this particular area.
47 adults and children were granted official release certificates by the government, entitling them to financial rehabilitation and providing crucial documentation of their freedom. IJM aftercare staff will provide long-term support to the former slaves – helping them begin stable new lives in freedom.
Praise God! Feel free to leave a note of encouragement in the comments - we’ll be sure our team in this city knows you are rejoicing with them and praising God for His hand in their tireless, faithful work!
Have you read Gary Haugen’s original work from 1999, Good News About Injustice? I have lost count of the number of people who have come up to me to tell me how dramatic of an impact this single book has had on their life, their vocation, their understanding of the Gospel.
IVP is releasing a 10th Anniversary Edition of Good News this Fall. Gary just put the final touches on it. Full of new rescue stories from the field, action models of churches engaging justice work, and more.
If you were writing an endorsement of the original Good News About Injustice, what would you say? How has this book impacted you or others you know?
Interested in what post-rescue aftercare for trafficking victims looks like? For a vivid close-up of our work in Cambodia, take a few minutes to learn from Christa today - she wrote this article for Radiant Magazine (published today) while serving as our Director of Aftercare in Cambodia. After several years in the field, Christa is newly stationed here in Northern Virginia and works about 15 feet down the hall from me, serving as IJM’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Director of Church Mobilization. If you’d ever like to learn from her experiences in person or bring her to your church, just send an email to . She is a phenomenal woman with a wealth of field-born wisdom.
Speaking of Cambodia… Would you consider an action step that will take you only 10 minutes but will have a lasting impact on an unprecedentedly large case we are undertaking in that region? If so - send an email right away (this opportunity is time sensitive) to Susan Conway . Susan is a Fellow of the IJM Institute and serving with us at HQ. She will give you details on the action step - for security reasons we cannot post details via web.
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
For IJM, our work of fighting violent injustice and helping broken public justice systems work for the poor could easily be summed up in just one word:
Story.
Story of deception, story of redemption.
Story of wrong, story of rescue.
Story of paralyzed despair, story of catalyzed hope.
Story of the millions, story of the one.
For us it is critical that abstract statistics and macro systems of injustice be grabbed and translated into a clear, compelling, lazer-focused story of the One. One life that has been transformed. One life held accountable for wrongs. One life redeemed. One life rescued that ripples out to transform millions of lives: your life, my life, and the global neighborhood God has entrusted into our care.
And so, in short, I’m excited to tell you about a ground-breaking event happening in Chicago this October - in partnership with Zondervan, many Chicago-area churches, and phenomenal story-tellers from all over, my long-time friend Ben Arment is launching ”Story. I absolutely cannot wait.
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?
Last night one of our teams in South Asia executed a massive operation -- THIRTY-FOUR exploited girls were removed from multiple facilities and six perpetrators were apprehended.
Please pray for these girls as our staff works with the government to document their testimonies and secure their rehabilitation and safety. Please also pray for the perpetrators as they undergo the process of being restrained from their crimes and come under the authority of the law.
If you have a word of encouragement for the team or for these girls as they enter new lives of safety and freedom, please feel free to post in the comments below.
This week our Seattle-area Justice Advocates met for training and fellowship. Here’s a little snap-shot of their time together - what a fantastic crew!
If you are interested in our Justice Advocate program, JA’s serve in a volunteer capacity as trained representatives of IJM’s work - reaching out to churches, universities, and other community organizations; speaking, answering questions, building connections. We began this program throught the IJM Institute five years ago, testing it out as a pilot in the Pacific Northwest. The Church Mobilization team now runs the program and is receiving applications for JA’s in many regions of the US - if you are interested, shoot an email to .
Coming up next week - I’ll be speaking at the Freedom Summit in the San Francisco Bay Area, alongside David Batstone, Francis Chan, and other good friends who are fighting the global trade in rape for profit. Check out this video from the event’s website:
Times of Zambia (via AllAfrica.com) – Human Rights Commission expresses concern at the continued illegal detention of suspects in police cells and congestion in prisons: “Mr Mulembe in an interview in Lusaka yesterday said most police cells were over-crowded because some suspects had been kept longer than necessary without charges. He called for upholding of the rule of law and respect for the rights of suspects, and reaffirmed that the commission would continue to advocate for suspects’ rights.”
Toronto Star – Cambodia’s poor must fight for their homes, despite legal protections on the books: “In a rundown enclave of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, hundreds of poor people can’t sleep at night. They’re afraid to go to work in the morning for fear their homes will be gone when they return. Today the clock has run out for the community of 150 families, slated to become the latest victims of clearance projects that have rolled across Cambodia since its land became a prize for developers.”
Friends, I write with uncontainable joy. After many long, hard attempts, victim rescue and the lockdown of the slave facility we have been praying about has become a reality. Those of you who have been praying with us for many weeks and months for this specific case, both in person and through this blog, know how long the road has been.
Praise God that:
- key perpetrators in this particularly violent case were arrested this week
- several more girls are now rescued, safe, free, and at rest
- the police executed the plan with us, to perfection
- God alone could have brought all of these events to bear
And yet the battle is not over - these next few days are critical and we need you to pray that no ground will be lost and that key areas of corruption will be rooted out. Pray that God’s presence would be tangibly close with the girls who are rescued. We need you to continue to raise your voice and ask our God to move in His perfect ways of justice.
The director of this South Asia office asks you to “please pray that the floodwaters of relief and rescue would continue to gather, and that the whole dam would soon burst.”
I am sure you sense our cryptic language – because the case is ongoing, there is much we cannot share – but the Holy Spirit will intercede through you in ways beyond any of our words. We thank God for you!
Our God is relentless in His pursuit of justice, our God is relentless to rescue and redeem, our God does not slumber nor sleep, our God hears the cries of the oppressed, hears our cries for their justice, rises to rescue, moves in us through His Holy Spirit, enabling us to be His hands and feet. Praise God!
A few news pieces of note today, including global urgencies as well as press coverage of participants from IJM’s GPG and Advocacy day (thanks Ted Haddock (copyright) for the great action shot of Sara and Troy Groves, Susie Larson, and IJM staffers on Capitol Hill):
CM Spin - Sara Groves: “’I’m appreciative that IJM is not only at the forefront of confronting this issue, but that they give us the tools and empowerment to take our advocacy to the next level,’ says Groves. ‘Speaking directly to our leaders from Minnesota about the importance of ending the trafficking of minors gave me renewed hope in our ability to influence real change.’”
Fredricksburg Freelance Star - Six IJM supporters from the University of Mary Washington attended the Global Prayer Gathering and advocated for the Child Protection Act in Washington, D.C. earlier this month.
All Africa.com - The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) yesterday requested the court to give a life sentence to former Cabinet Director in the Rwandan Interior Ministry, Callixte Kalimanzira
CNN - At least 24 people have died and three others have been seriously injured in clashes between local residents and members of an outlawed Kenyan sect, authorities said Tuesday.
Wednesday I’m heading out to SoCal for the Catalyst West Coast conference. Have loved being a part of the Catalyst events in Atlanta, and I’m excited to have the opportunity to be a part of their first West Coast version of the event, along with 3,000 others. Ben Arment is the director of Catalyst West - if you don’t follow his blog yet, check it out and you’ll see what I mean when I say it’s a daily must-read for church leaders and those interested in innovation/creative development in general.
I’ll be interviewed main-stage during the Friday morning session alongside Naomi Zacharias and Jeannie Mai - if you’re there, be sure to say hello!
Just received this request from our director in Bolivia - we ask for your prayers and any words of encouragement that may come to mind. This is a significant week for our work in Bolivia as a whole, as so much depends upon the movement of pastors and the local church.
From Jaime and Liz Farrant:
*****
“Next week, we will host our second annual retreat for pastors and Christian leaders. This year, 150 pastors and Christian leaders representing 60 churches from the cities of La Paz and El Alto have signed up to attend this retreat. From April 21-23, the group will study about sexual abuse, justice and the role of the Church in this. We covet your prayers for this important event, specifically for:
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.
