Coming
to India has already challenged me in so many ways. Even during
training camp we were being thrown into random situations. The first
night we were told to sleep outside and make a tent out of 2 tarps. But
my team got it down, of course 😉 Its been cool to know that my team and
I are in this trip together especially because none of us knew that
this was the training we were getting ourselves into. It is pretty
awesome knowing we have the same desires to serve women and we are more
than willing to overcome obstacles together. During camp, we met a woman
named Laura who worked in India through Adventures in Missions and
desires to rescue women from sex trafficking. She has an amazing heart
and really got me pumped for what we were going to do.
Being
in India literally feels like a completely different world. Everything
just seems so different here. Working with the ministry has been a huge
blessing. In Goa, the ministry’s main focus for human trafficking is
prevention. They are working in other cities to have different focuses.
Currently they are working to in Mumbai to start a program to actually
take women out of brothels, but that is still in progress and obviously
very dangerous. The Mumbai ministry was something I felt I was more
called to do, but I feel like I didn’t really understand the severity of
sex trafficking. The Mumbai ministry is served by older women and women
who are native to India and speak the language. I just want to impact
as many women as possible, but am really beginning to understand how
serious and complicated this crime actually is.
The
Lord has really been teaching me a lot about prevention. Asia is HUGE
for sex trafficking. Coming in with expectations of what
this trip would look like and what I wanted it to look like brought me
down a lot. I felt like it wasn’t allowing me to serve 100% (on top of
being jet lagged and now having a cold!) But like I said, the Lord has
been teaching me a lot. How can trafficking be lessened in India if
there isn’t some type of educational prevention system working in the
country? This is what I am constantly being reminded of. I should be
thankful that none of these women have been trafficked for their bodies,
but going into the slums day after day, I can see how it would be easy
for these women to be tempted to sell themselves. Poverty takes over
this country. There are people begging on the streets and garbage
everywhere. When living in the slums it may seem as though there
literally is no hope for a better future. I feel like this is the reason
why God sent me here, to show the women in the slums that there is
hope; that they can have a better future and provide for themselves in a
way that will empower them. It was selfish of me to come into this
bummed that my expectations were not being met. I wanted to share this
with all of you because God is really working in the lives of these
women and keeping them from resorting to selling themselves to survive. I
will share you some stories of the women soon!
