Last night was powerful. It was a night filled with worship, praise, education, emotion, and a lot of information was thrown at us in a very short period of time. What this blog post is designed to do is to help unpack a little bit of what we learned and saw last night at the Human Trafficking Event over at Central Pres. Please know that I'm here for you all to answer questions, voice concerns, and dialogue with you all no matter what. Here's what we can learn from last night.
1) Be careful wherever you are, and whoever you are.
Now, I will say this Chambersburg, PA is a fairly safe town. But, that's not to say there aren't risks here or wherever you go. The truth of the matter is that our world is broken and sinful and in desperate need of being saved by the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. With that being said there are some very evil people in our world today, and we need to be as Jesus reminded us in Matthew 10:16, "Be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves." Our hope last night was not to scare anyone or make anyone become paranoid, but rather the goal was to raise awareness about how we as the body of Christ can both be extremely careful and protect ourselves and loved ones. The other goal was to dialogue and communicate how we as Christians can stand up against evil and speak truth and grace into every situation. So, we encourage you to dialogue with your young people, pay close attention to their friends, social media contacts, changes in behavior, etc. make sure you pray regularly for your young people, and finally make sure you're always prepared to show tough love when a certain situation or person doesn't seem right.
2) Become the voice to the voiceless.
The one question which swirling around in my mind a lot last night was, where is the church? If 27 million are enslaved the church needs to stand up and be a voice for the voiceless. I will say this, some of us may never come in contact with someone we know or see someone getting sold. Let's hope and pray that never happens to us or a loved one. But, there are lots of people in our community who don't have enough to eat. There are many people in Chambersburg who are homeless, uneducated, unemployed, and many people who aren't capable of speaking up for their basic needs or rights. You can be that voice. You can be the light in someone's darkness, one of the main ways/reasons why people willingly enter human trafficking situations is because they don't have enough money to provide for themselves or their family. You can help decrease the amount of people trafficked each year by being faithful in giving to your food bank, church, mission organizations, volunteering your time, and above all spending time in prayer.
3) Sex was created for marriage.
One of the big mistakes people can make is by using/engaging in sex outside of its intended purpose. This is something that is forgivable, but it can lead down a very slippery slope. If you take nothing else away take this incredible truth/lesson away that sex is an incredible gift if used in the right way and a potentially dangerous weapon to yourself if used in the wrong way. Many of our young people will have questions and other young people saying things to them that can both support and contradict the Bible, but one of the best lessons I've learned is that it's better to wait and as Erin (the youth director from Central reminded us last night) MODEST is HOTTEST!
It may be uncomfortable, but please don't shy away from discussing these things with your young people. They're looking for answers, and my hope is that they can find them through either their parents or their church. If you have any questions at all about last night or what was presented please don't hesitate to ask.
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