I just finished reading the book God in a Brothel. An incredibly hard read as it takes you into the fight against human trafficking from an undercover perspective. It was very candid and certainly should make anyone reading it, sit up and take notice. I really appreciated Daniel Walker's style of writing - he went back and forth from his missions to his own personal journey, including pages of pertinent facts about issues surrounding trafficking (for example, corruption, the internet, pedophiles, aftercare, etc). He wrote from his Christian background, which is not as perfect as some may believe before they start reading - I commend him for his honesty, which I'm sure was difficult, reliving about 4 years of his life as he wrote the book. Here are a few quotes from the book:
"I noticed that many of the older girls, twelve and thirteen years old, had lost all life in their eyes. They appeared to be in a trance or under some kind of dark magician's spell. They moved with a slow resignation; no amount of smiling, warmth or kindness on my part could draw them out. The systematic and prolonged sexual abuse of children and young people is perhaps the very worst crime against humanity because, as I saw day after day, it strips them of their heart and soul. It murders the person but leaves their bodies alive." (p. 89)
"With a mission to fearlessly expose evil and rescue those oppressed and enslaved, the church has been called to be the perfect abolitionist." (p. 130)
"Our [the church's] message has little credibility while we remain afraid, indifferent and inactive in the face of human slavery occurring in our own backyard.
Sadly, as I reflected on this, I realized that the fear that I carried into the very first brothel I visited was a fear I learned in the church. It is there we learn to fear our sinful nature. We learn to be suspicious of the world, and we fear those who may threaten or harm us or our families. We tend to either fear evil or trivialize it. And perhaps most daunting for the Western church, we fear failure. In a culture governed by management ideals and pragmatic strategies for success, a willingness to live faithfully before God no matter what the circumstances, costs or outcomes is especially challenging." (p. 131 - 132)
"The worship lyrics of most modern churches are often inserted into a PowerPoint image depicting the beauty of nature or the majesty of the universe. How would our worship change if we used images of imprisoned slaves instead? What would happen if we stopped asking to see God in heaven and instead asked to see him in the eyes of prostituted children? What would happen if in the face of the very worst forms of depravity and evil in the world Christians walked in the knowledge that they are the dangerous ones and the ones to be feared?" (p. 135)
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