100% God, 100% us

And in his name, all oppression shall cease

Photo credit: Kristian Buus

I think many of us fashion ourselves as the kind of people who would have been abolitionists.

We, too, would have hid runaway enslaved people in our closets! We, too, would have knitted scarves for union soldiers! We, too, would have fought for an end to slavery. Of course we would have.

So what if I told you that right now, there are more slaves than at any other time in human history?

This year I was talking through a Very Large Problem with someone I trust.

I was explaining to him that for a long time, I’ve been a designated Cry Friend: I am who people call to cry. This is a joke told by my husband but it’s also just the truth; if someone has a miscarriage or finds out their husband has a porn addiction or is just having a spectacularly shitty day, I take too much pride in being a really good “mmmhmmm”-er and head nodder. I’m not great at advice, but I think I’m good at being present, which is really what grieving people need.

Anyway, a friend had just sobbed to me over the phone about their problem, which felt like a Very Large Problem to her, and I was explaining that it was actually hard for me to listen to their problem because mine was worse. And wasn’t I such a jerk for thinking that? Wasn’t I so selfish? Weren’t her problems just as big as mine? And—

“No,” he said. “Her problem is not as big as yours. And while it’s good you met her with compassion and sympathy, and her problem is a problem, her problem is actually not difficult to solve, and she’ll probably realize that, like, tomorrow.”

I was shocked. How insensitive! After all, your hard is your hard and all that.

But then, as I’m working on doing, I sat with it for a minute instead of making an immediate judgement call. I mulled, if you will. And realized he was right. It didn’t mean her problem didn’t matter to her, because it did. But my problem was a whole lot worse than hers. There was nothing wrong with realizing that very obvious fact to be true.

And here’s where I say this: my Very Large Problem, which is in all measurable ways really and truly a Very Large Problem, is not as big of a problem as human trafficking.

I don’t say this in a shit-could-be-worse way. I say it like this: it’s wild to me that my problem made me question God’s goodness, while children being literally bought and sold didn’t. I’m a self-centered sinner, is what I’m saying, but I suppose most of us are.

And maybe one way I can feel a little better about my Very Large Problem is to help other people’s Very Large Problems, in the small ways that I can.

I’m going to hit you with some facts, and I want you to really read them, okay? Don’t just gloss over them. Sit with them for a minute.

There are more enslaved people right now than there have been at any other time in human history.

79% of human trafficking involves sexual exploitation.

Human trafficking is the second largest illegal trade after drugs.

I have known a sense of what-am-I-doing-here in my life. When I’m sweeping up the Apple Jacks and packing the lunches, my comfortable suburbia bubble can be burst with the fleeting memory of a time when I thought maybe I’d run off to a developing nation to be a missionary after college. I have a comfortable job typing on a laptop, and my kids have matching Hanna Andersson Christmas pajamas.

And yet I still have the sense that right now, today, I’m where God wants me to be, no matter how lame and uncomfortable it feels. Mother Teresa said that the best way to change the world was to go home and love our families, and that’s what I’m trying to do.

So sometimes, what helps us with our problems—small, large, immeasurable—is helping someone else with theirs. God could swoop down and end human trafficking, and I wish I had some pretty paragraph to explain why he doesn’t. I have all of the answers right there in my pocket about free will, and about God’s permissive will being a mystery we may never understand in this lifetime. But the truth is, I’ve become less like the knocking widow and more like the grumbling Peter, saying I don’t know that guy when things get a little rough around the edges. But maybe the way God is trying to end human trafficking is actually by asking you and I to participate. I want to be running off to work at a residential home for street children of the Philippines myself, but I can’t. Handing out food to exploited children seems a lot more interesting than sitting in the waiting room at my daughter’s ballet class.

I can, however, hand over a few bucks. At least as much as that ballet class costs.

Because that’s how God works, this same person said. It’s 100% him, and also 100% us. It’s 100% his grace, and 100% our wallets. A sort of holy tandem, a request made by the lover to the loved, and out of love, some type of sacrifice.

It would be easy to drown in despair over the children of Luzon, but it would also be easy to fully ignore them. To think that we don’t have time to care about their problems—our own Very Large Problems are heavy enough.

I’ll care about that when I’m done with medical school.

I’ll care about that when I finally conceive.

I’ll care about that when my kid gets over their 19th round of RSV this year because what on EARTH, the germs at these schools.

“Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.” – Mother Teresa

Christians don’t have the luxury of doing either of those things: despair-drowning or head-in-the-sanding. We’ve been given a directive to hope, and although it feels difficult + weary + naive at times, we still have to cling to it. And we’ve also been given a directive to act, even when it feels small + insignificant.

Human trafficking isn’t something to be solved in an hour. That’s why it’s important to find organizations you trust that are doing on-the-ground work. The Laura Vicuna Foundation is a residential home run by the Salesian Sisters that offers therapeutic services and healing to children in the Philippines who have been sexually exploited.

According to UNICEF, “Systemic inequalities and disparities make certain groups much more vulnerable to exploitation. Mass displacement, conflict, extreme poverty, lack of access to education and job opportunities, violence, and harmful social norms like child marriage are all factors that push individuals into situations of trafficking. Families living in extreme poverty or families in situations of desperation are more likely to accept risky job offers. When girls aren’t allowed to learn, parents are more likely to sell their daughters to men for marriage.” That’s why the LVF also has the Child Protection Clinic. This colorful truck enables volunteer doctors to assess impoverished children and distribute free medications. The clinic also draws children to awareness programs such as Buddies Reject Abuse, Violence, and Exploitation—a growing network of boys who respect women and value marriage, teaching boys at a young age how to properly honor the dignity of women. By seeking to support families at their base, the foundation hopes to lower the chances of a family falling into poverty and being entrapped by human trafficking.

Thank you for participating in our Advent fundraiser for the Laura Vicuna Foundation.

I am being compensated by Cross Catholic Outreach to promote this fundraiser. That doesn’t mean for one second that every word is from the heart. The only sponsored newsletters I do each year are for our holiday fundraisers. Thank you for participating, and check out Cross Catholic Outreach to learn more about their amazing social programs.

On My Nightstand 

• Christmas Bells by Jennifer Chiaverini: My mom gifted me this sweet story of a music teacher learning about how Henry Wadsworth Longfellow originally wrote “Christmas Bells”. The book flashes back and forth between modern day and the Civil War. It’s a touch cheesy, but aren’t all of the best Christmas stories?

• Gratitude as a Virtue: Loved this piece from one of my favorite Christian writers on cultivating gratitude when you don’t really feel like doing so. It was written a couple of years ago, but it’s new to me! “When we emphasize our hard work as the determiner of our success in life, we set up an idol that will let us down. A plague may come and wipe out our job opportunities. Or, the economy may crash, leaving us confused as to how to negotiate a system that seems out of our control . . . During these times, we should turn to the wisdom found in those prophets before us who survived difficulties as well as those poets of the present who see both backwards and forwards.”

• The Pandemic Exposed the Inequality of American Motherhood: My friend Steph, who writes for The Atlantic, always knocks it out of the park. I loved her breakdown on how the pandemic was different for rich and poor women around the world, and what it says about the inequalities rampant in our lives.

---

In case you missed these Letters:

• Your Body is Not a McDonald’s - for subscribers

• Radtrads, staying Catholic, women deacons, and more - for subscribers

• You don’t have to do all this stuff for Advent - for everyone