Vulnerable

Rethinking Human Trafficking

Raleigh Sadler

• Editorial: B&H Books
• Año: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781535917988
• Categoría: Théologie et religion
• Categoría: Religion

There are more than 40 million enslaved people in the world today. This is overwhelming. A number so large leaves us asking, What could I even do to help? In his book Vulnerable: Rethinking Human Trafficking, Raleigh Sadler, president and founder of Let My People Go, makes the case that anyone can fight human trafficking by focusing on those who are most often targeted. This book invites the reader to understand their role in the problem of human trafficking, but more importantly, their role in the solution. Human trafficking can be defined as the exploitation of vulnerability for commercial gain.Using the power of story and candid interviews, Sadler seeks to discover how ordinary people can fight human trafficking by recognizing vulnerability and entering in. As vulnerable people, we can empower other vulnerable people, because Christ was made vulnerable for us.

While human trafficking spans all demographics, there are some circumstances or vulnerabilities that lead to a higher susceptibility to victimization and human trafficking.

—National Human Trafficking Hotline1

Chapter 1

A Wake-Up Call

On January 3, 2012, I heard a speech that would ultimately change the trajectory of my life.

“Together we can end human trafficking.”

This six-word challenge was given to a crowd of more than 46,000 college students gathered at the Passion conference in downtown Atlanta. As I heard this charge, I found myself not only sitting in the nosebleed section of the Philips Arena, but also sitting in disbelief. On one hand, I felt a strong desire to “fight human trafficking,” but on the other hand, I was completely at a loss as to how to even begin to engage this issue.

It might help if I gave you a little background about myself. I was a college pastor and that’s all I ever saw myself being. I had no desire to be a senior pastor or hold any position of leadership within my denomination. I just wanted to work with college students.

This sense of calling began when I was a student at the University of Central Florida. God made it clear that he was calling me into this type of work. Working with students was basically the “end game” for me. Since God changed my life in college, I wanted to give back. I guess you could say that I was doing what I had always dreamed of doing.

That’s why I was so confused. As I prayed and wrestled with those six words, I looked down the aisle at the students that I had brought with me. I was shaken. All of a sudden, everything seemed to be in flux. It was as if my eyes had been opened to something that I had been blind to my entire life. God was breaking my heart over the exploitation of people that I had never met, people whose names I may never know. In that moment, I knew deep down that God was calling me to action, but I didn’t know how to respond. Or, maybe I did know how I should respond, but I feared the consequences.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you find yourself literally arguing with yourself? There was no one around, but there was still an argument. I knew in that moment that I was supposed to immediately jump on board. But I had questions, even doubts. I remember thinking, How am I going to fight sex trafficking? I wear cardigans; I’m not going to kick down the door of a brothel.

Because of this inner conflict, I was frustrated for the rest of my time in Atlanta. As the conference came to a close, I felt defeated. Am I supposed to change my career? Do I need to go back to school and start over? Let’s call a spade a spade—as knowledgeable as my seminary professors were, they could not prepare me for this moment. I knew how to preach a sermon and do baptisms, but it’s not like they offered any training on responding to modern-day slavery. I had no idea of what to do.

As I continued to ponder these questions over and over, I decided that even though I was scared, I still needed to do something. I needed to make a decision and move forward. So I did. I decided to will myself to stop thinking about it. I chose to suppress this calling and the questions that came with it and went about my normal life. Chances are, I thought, this has nothing to do with God and it’s just something I ate. Maybe this is all in my head. I guess I figured that if God was really calling me to fight human trafficking, he would make it painfully clear.

And that he did. Painfully clear.

Shortly after returning to West Virginia, where I was living at the time, my life began to unravel. Now, you are probably thinking, Well, that’s a little dramatic, isn’t it? I understand. I would have been right there with you had I not been experiencing it myself. Within the span of six months, I would come face-to-face with not one, but two, life-changing wake-up calls.

A Reality Check Times Two

The first wake-up call happened on a Saturday. I looked down at my phone to see that I had missed a phone call from my boss. Since we didn’t exactly talk on a daily basis, I figured that it had to be important. I told my friends, “I think that I may be losing my job.” Why else would he be calling me on a Saturday?

So, I quickly excused myself and stepped outside to call him back. The phone rang for what felt like an eternity. As he answered the call, he got to his point quickly. My “dream job” was being defunded. Due to a strategic focus shift, my employer would no longer be able to fund those working in collegiate ministry. This was the job for which I had been preparing for the majority of my adult life, and it was coming to an end. As a kid, I remember what my mother would say when we faced what felt like impossible situations: “Welp. Thems the breaks.” For me, I did not like these “breaks.” I was absolutely powerless to do or say anything to change my situation. Needless to say, I was facing a minor identity crisis. What would I do now? Who was I without this job?

So without a clear sense of direction, I began traveling, praying, and looking for something new. I went to churches and universities all over the country to find a place where I could land and start afresh. The process tended to go this way: emails would lead to phone calls. Phone calls to vision trips. Vision trips to interviews. I feel like I literally spoke to every employer in the continental United States. But no matter how many calls I made or trips I took, nothing seemed to materialize. I was not passionate about any of the opportunities in front of me. It was like I was worse off than when I started.

I vividly remember coming home from one of these trips. As I rode back from a meeting with my friend Jim Drake, then a church planting catalyst in West Virginia, I checked my email. I knew immediately that something was wrong. It was in that moment that I came face-to-face with another life-altering event. As I read the following words from my friend Davin’s wife, Lauren, I was paralyzed:

We received the results of Davin’s CT scan yesterday, and the cancer has spread throughout his abdomen. Any future treatments (chemo, radiation, etc.) are more likely to cause discomfort than to help, so now our treatment focus is on pain management. We are meeting with some staff from Hosparus (http://www.hosparus.org) tonight, to help Davin decide if he wants to try to remain at home for this time of waiting or if the hospital would be better. The doc said he isn’t in the business of guessing, so we don’t really have a guess as to how soon God will take Davin to be with Him. For now, we wait. It is bittersweet, but we can rejoice that Davin will be free from suffering soon. Praise God for the perfect healing to come! “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” —Philippians 1:211

I was undone. The pain you feel when you lose a loved one is unbearable. The only way I can describe it is that you feel this confluence of every type of pain imaginable. You are simultaneously processing your pain mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. But it’s not just your pain that you’re processing. You are actually feeling pain at the thought that your friend or loved one is experiencing pain. This mingled with the fact that you and all of those close to you are about to face a sudden loss, whether you like it or not. Life as you know it is about to change forever.

In that moment, I realized that Davin, one of my best friends in the world, was dying, and I didn’t know what to do. When confronted with his vulnerability, mine became evident to me.

Davin was one of the first people I met when I arrived at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in 2003. It didn’t take long for us to become friends and then roommates. Davin and I consistently challenged each other to grow closer to Christ. He was just that kind of guy. He never gave off the “holier than thou” impression; as a matter of fact, he knew he didn’t have it all together. He wore that fact like a badge. He was authentic, and I respected that.

But there was more to him. Davin was a Renaissance man of sorts. The guy could do anything he put his mind to. He was the kind of guy that could fix what was wrong with his car after watching a YouTube video. One particular instance stands out in my mind. During my thirtieth birthday party, as we began to grill hamburgers, I realized “we” had forgotten the spatula. By “we,” I really mean “I.” Regardless, here we are at the park—raw hamburger meat, a grill, and people, but no spatula. I paced around for about ten minutes and then returned to find Davin holding a spatula. But this was no ordinary kitchen utensil. No, Davin had built it out of a few twigs and a Red Bull can! That was Davin.

I remember one evening, as he and I were talking through a struggle that I was going through, “Blessed Be Your Name” by Matt Redman came on the radio. As the song played, he focused intently on the lyrics. “Blessed be Your name on the road marked with suffering. Though there’s pain in the offering, blessed be Your name.” Davin stopped and looked at me and said, “This is what it’s about.” Even in that moment, he understood that our vulnerability and suffering pushes us to depend more on the gospel and less on ourselves. That was my friend, “MacGyver the theologian.”

Following our graduation from seminary, he and I took different directions, but that didn’t keep us from staying in touch. We still celebrated the big events in each other’s lives. I came in for his wedding, and he came to West Virginia for my ordination. I’ll never forget that night, when Davin left the T.G.I. Friday’s in Cross Lanes, West Virginia, to make his way back home. We stopped for a second. As we talked, it felt like we were never going to see each other again. I guess we both realized that we were growing up—that we were beginning to find our way. He told me that he was finally going to Idaho to serve a church. He was pursuing his dream and his calling. I remember as his car pulled out of the parking lot that things were going to be different, but that we would remain friends no matter what.

A week later, Davin called me. I could tell by the tone of his voice that this wasn’t going to be one of our usual hilarious catch-up sessions. He told me that during his trip to Idaho, he had felt a mass in his abdomen. He was going to the doctor to have it checked out. I remember practically commanding him to let me know what the doctor said as soon as he knew. The news wasn’t good. The doctor confirmed that it was beta cell lymphoma.

As one does when faced with cancer, he and his wife opted to begin the chemothera...