City in Focus :: Hong Kong

Oh September, how I love you.  You're the month when the temperature attempts to calm down a bit, college football starts (pro is overrated), school supplies are at the front of stores, fall clothes make their debut and you're the month before October, the hands down most amazing month ever, a.k.a my birthday month.

I have a calendar created by Exodus Cry, a prayer movement to end slavery, that highlights a new city each month... September brings our attention to Hong Kong.  This city/country thing is thriving and growing at an incredible speed and is even called a "global city" due to their level of influence.  The Philippines is not too far away geographically and is incredibly impoverished.  So much so that people spend all of their money to get to Hong Kong in hopes of finding a job and sending money back home.  This is a prime environment for trafficking.

Women take jobs as "cleaning ladies" but end up in brothels instead.  The trafficker pays their way to Hong Kong or gets them a "promising job" once in the city and then convinces them that they a huge debt to pay.  So the victim works and works to pay them back so they can be free.  I was reading the article on the Exodus Cry website about Hong Kong and found something that is far too common among nations struggling to survive.

...the money sent home by these workers amounts to billions of dollars in the Philippines economy. The funds these women earn from prostitution are playing a key role in rescuing the Philippines from financial collapse. To Hong Kong, Filipino women are a willing work force; to human rights organizations, they are victims of the highest order; but to the Philippine government, they are heroes.

 It makes me wonder... all the stories you hear about Mexicans coming into our country, in particular Texas, hoping for the same thing... a better life, money to send back home to families, etc.  I heard of a border city in Mexico where the crime rate is so high that approximately 90% of all young women are kidnapped and sold into sex slavery.  How many do you think are here working to pay off a debt?

Not all slavery is about sex.  In Dallas/Fort Worth alone, I wonder how many ladies are cleaning houses and barely making it to pay back their traffickers, or how many Vietnamese women are painting nails hoping to someday return home to their families but probably never will.

So what can we learn from all of this?

I'm glad you asked.  Bondage is not just a physical reality but a spiritual one as well.  God is not some mean guy who is going to send you to hell if you don't do everything just right.  He's not hovering over you watching your every move just waiting for you to screw up like a trafficker would be.  He is patient, kind and gracious.  He loves you no matter what you do and wants you to run into His safe and inviting arms.  The pressure that so many feel to perform and be perfect was created by Satan not God.  The debt or cost of any sin we have or will ever commit was paid for by Jesus.  He paid our debt once and will never do it again.  It was enough the first time.  Our freedom has been purchased.  Are you choosing to stay in spiritual slavery?

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor (in spirit).  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the (spiritually) blind, to release the oppressed (in spirit)..."
 - Jesus, Luke 4:18-19 (emphasis mine)

Sadly, church people have gotten this one all wrong.  They stand on their soap boxes and condemn believers and non-believers for every sin committed.  So many of those "Christians" who turn up their noses don't even know the true God they claim to believe in.  How can they?  To be a Christian is to be a Christ-follower... Christ was compassionate and gentle.  He spent time with the so-called "bad guys" and spit truth at the "good guys", also known as the "religious people".  The Bible says that when we accept God's gift of salvation that we are made righteous not because of anything that we did or who we are, but because of what Jesus did and who He is.  We are saved by His grace.

"God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.  Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it." 
- Ephesians 2:8-9

If you find that you are like the "good guys", it's okay.  Ask God to show you what lie(s) you believe about yourself and about Him.  Then ask Him what the truth is.  If you're not ready to have your world flipped upside down - don't ask, but if you are ready to be set free of criticism and anger and transformed by love - take the plunge.  I did.


If you want to hear more on grace watch this.