Saturday, October 19, 2013

Grooming


Grooming!

When trying to wrap your mind around the world of sex trafficking, sometimes you don’t understand how so many girls are willingly having sex with strangers.  It’s hard to comprehend the depths of darkness these pimps will go to, too control these girls. Conditioning them that they are property, so when a john lays down cash they must do whatever the john commands them to do. Regardless of how degrading that could be. They are truly slaves to these men.  We don’t understand this world but just because we don’t understand doesn’t make it any less real.

The pimps change their precious names, and their new name will soon define how they feel about themselves. The degradation and shame they will be put through shapes the new them.  It soon will become easier to accept this street identity because their birth identity no longer feels right to have. They now believe they don’t deserve a better name because they accept what these men say they are. Never will they be that same person before the streets, that had big dreams of being something other than they have turned out to be. Soon their old life becomes just a faded memory, almost unreal.

Who would ever accept a girl like her into their home and love her the way she always dreamed.  So then, this new street family is all they have, ones who take their money, beat them if they don’t comply, tell them when they can eat and when they can sleep.  They accept and resign that this is their new life and this is all their worth. No one else cares and they will quickly learn that.

The following is an expert from Polaris Project in how pimps groom girls. I think it something we should all understand and maybe it will soften our hearts enough to want make a difference.

“Seasoning” Women and Girls to be Ready for Commercial Sex with Strangers

The process of “breaking-down” a girl from healthy adolescent sexual boundaries to commercial sex with strangers is often referred to as “grooming” or “seasoning.” It is a systematic process that has been documented and replicated by pimps nationwide. In essence, this process aims to achieve complete control over someone’s identity or individuality using a combination of physical, mental, and emotional means. In the trafficking paradigm, this process involves force, fraud, and coercion, as elaborated below. Seasoning often involves:

·       Beating/Slapping/Whipping – With hands, fists, and kicking, as well as with objects such as bats, tools, chains, belts, hangers, canes, and cords
·       Burning – Of personal items and items of meaning to foster hopelessness and demoralization or directly burning women and girls using cigarette/cigar butts
·       Sexual assault – Rape or gang rape
·       Confinement – Using torture practices such as confinement to lock women and girls in closets, trunks of cars, or rooms for indeterminate amounts of time.
·       Other torture techniques – Such as deprivation of food or water or various forms of bondage such as chaining individuals to items or tying them up.
·       Emotional abuse – Direct verbal insults, name-calling, threats, mind control, brainwashing, cognitive re-programming
·       Re-naming – Offering “nicknames” both for endearment and to erase former identity
·       Creating dependencies – By instructing how to walk, how to talk, what to wear, when to eat, when to sleep, and where to sleep.
·       Removal from familiarity and support structures – By transporting a woman or minor to a new location where she knows no one
·       Document confiscation – Of identification documents (ID, birth certificate, SS number)
·       Forced sexual education – Inducement of viewing pornography to learn to have sex


I believe some of you have hearts, which are burning to see this change. Run 2 Rescue is in prayer right now about starting a project called “Anchors of Hope.” This will be a national campaign where we ask the churches to stand and make a difference in their hometown/churches. We will provide step by step ways in which you and your church can be involved. We are asking for point people in each church around the nation, who will volunteer with us to help this project get off the ground. We will soon announce the details. But if you are interested please contact our program director donna@run2rescue.com. Right now we are collecting the names of those who have a heart for this.

God said He would raise up an army and I believe the Lord is raising up you. If we all play a small part then it won’t be as overwhelming. Our hearts is to give these girls a new identity, one that God has given them. Where he turns Ashes to Beauty and he brings treasures out of the dark places. These girls are precious in His eyes and they should be precious in our eyes too.  So lets agree to pray what God would have our part to be. This will be one the greatest adventures you ever embark on. 


Shannon Forsythe
Executive Director

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Friday, September 20, 2013

The Dance!

The Dance
by
Shannon Forsythe


Often times it may seem that all we talk about is the dark times and tragic things going on in each of these girls lives. It is true that frequently, the stories can be dim, bleak and, overwhelming.

Yet today, we get to write about one of the victories and why we do what we do! When we watch these girls overcome and do the hard things, facing their giants, and leaping over insurmountable hurdles,  then we stand back and remind ourselves that all of this is worth it!

Next Saturday one of our girls is being honored as Survivor of the Year!

Her journey was not easy and the road seemed forever long. So many tears were shed as the hidden hurts of her past crashed over her like a tidal wave. Every tear shed so precious and so treasured, that the God of heaven, chose to keep every one of them in a bottle.

Imagine the God of the universe going to His closet of tears, pulling her bottle from His shelf, and sitting down reflecting how far she has come. He always remembers her , His thoughts are always on her and He always bends down to listen when He hears her cry. Yet The tears in her bottle do not belong to her alone but they are mixed with another set of tears. Ones belonging to the God of Heaven, Her rescuer and Savior. The One who has wept for her and with her.

BUT

Now He rejoices over her!

I found these verses and I want to dedicate them to Kristi and for all those survivors doing the hard thing:

2 Samuel 22 (the message Bible)

"A hostile world! I called to God, to my God I cried out. From His palace he heard me call; my cry brought me right into his presence- a private audience!... He caught me.. - reached all the way from sky to sea; He pulled me out of that ocean of hate, that enemy of chaos, the void in which I was drowning. He stood me up on a wide-opened field; I stood there saved - surprised to be loved!

God made my life complete when I placed all the pieces before Him. He gave me a fresh start. Indeed, I've kept alert for God's ways; I haven't taken God for granted. Every day I review the way He works,...I feel put back together. God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to His eyes."

So we rejoice! We rejoice that God reached into the depths of darkness and pulled out a treasure that was hidden there. Today we are not sad, we do not mourn but we watch the dance. The dance that the heavenly Father is having with His precious Daughter - Kristi Merrill.  and it is beautiful!




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Saturday, August 24, 2013

One Meal, One life, One's Freedom

by
Shannon Forsythe

Imagine if your home was taken from you, your family was taken from you, your belief in God was taken from you, and your innocence was taken from you? What if all the things you ever dreamed of was completely stripped away? There are some of you out there who may think I am being dramatic, there are some of who may think this is just the current trend of the day, There are some of you who just don't want to hear it. 

BUT, If your freedom was taken away, would you want someone to listen? If your daughter was trapped in this, would you want someone to rescue her?  Does this have to get so close to home before you do something?

The only way for me to make this real is to give you photos of what we have seen on the streets. Maybe you will still close your eyes, or maybe just maybe you will stand up and make a difference!
 Here is a John who brought a girl to the parking lot of Toy R Us, where he will be conducting his business.  A place where you go and buy your children, or their friends, or nieces and nephews, and grandkids gifts. We caught him pulling up his pants. He didn't care that we were sitting there (He didn't even notice)  he wanted to finish his business. We pulled up to the window to get the girl and he drove off so fast, realizing he was caught. This man was an average guy you see around work, your family barbecues, churches, sport events and he purchased someones daughter.
The photo above is from a hotel we have been watching. We know there are girls in there but have not been able to get them out. What you see on the door knob in the top photo is a baseball cap. This is what the pimps use to communicate to Johns. (Johns are men who purchase girls for sex) The cap indicates a job is being performed. Once the job is done, we have watched the John take it off the door and give it to the girl, until the next one shows up. This girls does not leave the room!
Finally, we got a glimpse of one of the girls as she was allowed to come out to smoke. Her pimp was inside the room. There was no way for us to approach her or let her know there is a way out. In some cases nobody is looking for these girls, they have been forgotten. So they are resigned that this is the rest of their life.  Less than one percent of the 27 million trafficked victims world wide are ever identified. I just showed you one and she is still trapped!

Is this ok with you? Imagine if we all stood up and said enough! God's heart is aching for these girls! Why are our hearts not aching? Have we become so calloused and so comfortable that we don't see what is right before us? or are we so scared because it is so dark and the enemy abides here?  But isn't our God greater? We quote Isaiah 58 "This is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless, give clothes to those who need your help. .... , and help those in trouble."

When was the last time you really lived this verse? Not the one time giving change to the homeless on the streets. Or the donating your clothes you have grown out of to make more room in your closets. all though this is helpful, what about making this your lifestyle, something you choose to live daily? If you do God says "Then when you call, the Lord will answer. ...Then your light will shine out of the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as the noonday."

Darkness flees when the righteous steps into darkness but we have to step into it. 

Have you been stirred but don't know the next step. Then be a voice for those who can't speak out. 

You can start by giving up one meal and praying how God wants you to be involved, how you can make a difference. I promise He will answer you. Let your friends, family and church know about the problem. Share this blog with them.  Then donate the money you would have spent on food to Run 2 Rescue, so we can keep following God's heart beat. 


Friday, July 26, 2013

What is normal anyway?


Who defines normal in our lives? What is normal to you? Do you know that when we rescue girls we want them to have normal lives, we want them to have full and abundant lives but think about it… to them the life they are living is normal.  Normal is conforming to a standard or a common type. These girls have conformed to a standard. The standards on the streets. This has become natural to them. They look at our lives and its not only abnormal to them, its not even a reality that they ever think they will attain. So then if a girl is rescued what do we tell them? We need to understand our way of life is foreign to them. We need to understand that no matter how abusive the streets, a pimp or a john are this is their perceived family.

This is hard for us to understand. So my sister was with me at a conference and she explained it to someone this way. When we get up in the morning our routine is this: we make our coffee, we take a shower, we brush our teeth, we get ready, we take our kids to school, we go to work, we eat lunch,  we come home, we make dinner we wind down for the night we go to bed. What if I would ask you to give that all up? Leave your family and friends behind and start over?

A trafficked girls routine is this: they go out to meet clients around 6:30-7:00 am  who want to meet up with someone before they go to work, they get drugs that help them wind down during the day, they get photos of themselves up on the internet for that evening, they may have to pan handle to get some food, the whole time their every move is being monitored by a pimp, they go out to meet guys who are on their lunch break, after they may get to rest a few hours, around 3-4 pm they start to get ready for the night, they get their drugs that will keep them up all night, they head out (or men are brought to them) to meet guys getting off work,  then they keep working all night…

Then we come in and ask them to leave their street family behind, the friends who they believe have stuck by them ( no matter how dysfunctional they might have been) and give up all that is familiar and start over to have a “normal life. “

Let me place this challenge to you if you have a heart to work with these girls then practice the art of surrender. Surrender to let God change their lives the way He intends it not the way we intend it. Practice the art of listening and the things that matter to them.  Watch their body language, notice the things that make them laugh, make them afraid, or make them insecure . Be the one that becomes their normal. Be the one they are comfortable being around. Be someone they can trust. Be the one they can feel safe to dream with. Be the one that when they take a scary step you are standing with them cheering them on. Be the one that shows them that God's plan is unique for them and unique to who they are. 

You will notice that instead of you telling them what normal is, their lives begin to change with your loving and gentle guidance and they will look back on their lives and realize they have a new normal. 

"God can do anything, far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, His Spirit deeply and gently within us." Ehesians 3:20-21 message