The Brotherhood on human trafficking

Dear Brothers,

On March 30^th Mark
Demler and I attended a symposium at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Kansas
City, Missouri on the scourge of human trafficking in America. It was
informative and at the same time disheartening that such evil exists in modern
society. I want to bring you this brief report because it is an evil that
Christians cannot abide without some manner of fighting against it. The first
line of battle is to be informed. It is one of the 7 focuses of our national
brotherhood. At our Q2 assembly on Saturday, June 1 at Saint Michael and all
Angels, Mark will present a program on human trafficking to give us some
insight into the extent of it and the means to fight it.

The Reverend Dr. Benjamin Thomas
began our day with a presentation titled Slavery,
the Bible, and Gritty Evangelism. He explained that although slavery is
seen all over the Bible, it has been used wrongly to defend what is an economic
and social convenience for some and dehumanization for many. A biblical
theology of humanity stands against any such practice of slavery, including
human trafficking, and fighting human trafficking should be viewed as an act of
‘’gritty evangelism.”

Greg Holtmeyer spoke on his
experiences with the topic titled Hiding
in Plain Sight. He has a personal understanding of the alarming statistic
that one in six males are sexually abused by the time they are eighteen because
he was abused by a family member starting at the age of six. That means 25
million males have been abused in this country alone. There is no religion,
education level, or socioeconomic level that is immune from sexual predators.

Christine C. McDonald is an impassioned speaker, author, and consultant on human trafficking who was the victim of sexual abuse, prostitution, and human trafficking for over 20 years from the age of eight. Her personal story of what being a victim is about is an indictment on all who fail to condemn this evil, even pornography.  She is an inspiration to all of us showing that there is a way out of this terrible victimhood. Christine has written two books – Cry Purple: Christine’s Narrative and The Same Kind of Human. To reach out to and help others she has a web site at http://www.ChristinesVision.org.

Helen Taylor spoke of her work as the Director of Outreach and Intervention for Exodus Cry an international non-profit committed to abolishing sex trafficking and the commercial sex industry. She leads a team locally and internationally, who regularly assist sexually exploited women in the sex industry: on the streets, strip clubs, in massage parlors, jails, pornography conventions, and over the internet to lovingly offer them a way out.

Mark Demler assisted by a host of SMAA parishioners are working hard to increase the visibility of this terrible scourge through Project Moses, a ministry founded at Saint Michael focused on education, advocacy and outreach to help connect the world to the problem and save those afflicted by it. See more about Project Moses here.

On a personal note I recently visited the Holy Land in Israel and upon returning stopped off in London for a brief stay. While visiting Westminster Abbey, the Church of the Queen, I found the statue and memorial of William Wilberforce. He was the British MP who worked for over 40 years to convince others to join him in creating legislation banning slavery in the British Empire. Finally succeeding in 1833 he died shortly after physically broken by the ordeal.

Blessings in Christ,

John Norton, President, Brotherhood of St Andrew Dallas Assembly