the brother who shows up

Sudir* was only a year old when his parents died. 

From then on, he and his siblings lived with his grandparents in their rural village in northern India. When a recruiter visited from Mumbai promising a job in the city, Sudir's oldest sister Nandi* accepted. She wanted to help provide for her family. 

Once she arrived in the city, Nandi discovered she'd been tricked. Her identity documents were confiscated and she was sold into sex slavery. 

She was twelve years old. 

When Sudir became a teenager, he learned what had happened to Nandi—the sister he had absolutely no memories of, because he'd been so young when she left. At 16 years old, he moved to Mumbai, determined to find her.

He searched brothel after brothel after brothel. 

Until eventually he found her. 

Her "owner" told him that her debt bondage was 16,000 Rupees (approximately $240) and he would not release her until the debt was paid in full. Sudir got a job at a gambling club, and saved every cent until he had enough. 

He returned to the brothel, paid the 16,000 Rupees his sister "owed," and bought her freedom.

Thrilled and grateful that she had a brother to find and free her, Nandi also felt heartbroken for the girls she left behind. They had been her family—her sisters—for years. All they'd had was each other, and now she had to leave them in slavery while she went free? 

"Where is their brother?" she asked him through her sobs. "Who will rescue them?"

Sudir knew he could never earn enough money to purchase each one's freedom, but he also knew he had to do something.

So he started doing investigative work. He went undercover to gather evidence and document illegal practices. After presenting the evidence to law enforcement, they raided the brothel, rescued the women, and prosecuted the traffickers. 

And so it began.

With a very deep sense of justice and an immensely personal connection to the issue of human trafficking, Sudir is now the India Country Director for The Exodus Road. To date, he and his team have worked with police to free over 330 girls and boys from sex slavery. The youngest was 7 years old.

Sudir's very first rescue was his sister. 

But he couldn't stop there.

Because he knows that each one is someone's sister. Someone's nephew. Someone's daughter. 

And he wants to be the brother who shows up to rescue them. 

Oh, and Nandi?

She's married now.

Together with her husband, she works alongside Sudir at The Exodus Road. She leads a team of social workers and manages the aftercare program, providing physical, medical, and emotional support for those who are rescued.

And that, friends, is what redemption looks like. 

:: :: ::

$35/month funds one full day of investigative work by Sudir and his team in India (called BRAVO Team). BRAVO needs 50 more monthly donors in order to hire additional covert operatives, investigators, and social workers to maximize their impact throughout India. 

Together, you and I can join Sudir and the rest of BRAVO Team as the brothers and sisters who show up to find and free the ones in desperate need of rescue and restoration. 

:: :: ::

Please take 5 minutes to watch this video.
It tells the collective story of our trip to Southeast Asia,
and will open your eyes to the complicated layers of human trafficking. 

---

*Names changed.

until

I still need to unpack from my Thailand trip.

Physically and metaphorically.

The unzipped, still-half-full suitcase on my closet floor reminds me that I still need to at least attempt to make sense of all that I saw and heard and learned and experienced. Though "make sense" isn't even accurate—not really. Because some things just cannot be made sense of.

But I need to try to take these thoughts, feelings, memories, questions... and clothe them in syllables—dress these intangibles with threads of letters so that I can hold them in my hands and trace them with my fingers in the way a blind woman perceives what she cannot see through the darkness.

I need to let myself fully feel.

To sit in the dark.

To grapple toward the light.

Until the words come...

the girl in the brothel {VIDEO}

Last week, I told you about meeting Ang in a brothel.

That post was actually spurred on by a video interview I did.

The Exodus Road captured footage and stories during my time with them in Thailand — such a unique, captivating, and engaging way to help bring you to the front lines of experiencing their work in action. 

Though you're familiar with the story already, I wanted to pass along the video in which I share about my time with Ang. It was a definitely a conversation that will stick with me forever...

:: :: ::

$35/month funds one full day of investigative work in India (called BRAVO Team). BRAVO needs 50 more monthly donors in order to hire additional covert operatives, investigators, and social workers to maximize their impact.

Together, you and I can join the BRAVO Team as the brothers and sisters who show up to find and free the ones in desperate need of rescue and restoration. 

sitting with her

I was in a brothel. 

In front of me, girls danced on the stage. They swayed back and forth on their high heels, and watched themselves in the mirror as they gripped the poles.

Their faces said it all. 

Flat affect. Emotionless. Vacant. Eyes far off. 

Occasionally one would make eye contact with me. I'd say hello with a slight wai bow and a smile, and usually she would smile back before quickly looking away.

This one girl, though—marked on her armband as #37—kept my gaze. We smiled at each other until our smiles erupted into laughter. She looked away, but kept looking back over, a smile plastered on her face.

We asked the waiter to have her join us for a drink. 

This is how it works, I learned. The patrons of these brothels request a girl by number, offering to buy her a drink. In exchange, she spends time with them... and, depending on the amount of money exchanged, provides certain "services". 

Around the room, men were fondling girls' breasts. They were gripping their faces, keeping them from turning away as they forcefully kissed them. Men were thrusting their... parts... in women's faces, touching them in all manner of inappropriate ways, and often interacting with more than one girl at a time. 

The men's faces also said it all. 

Blank stares. Lifeless. Empty. Hollow. 

These had to be some of the saddest people on the planet. Right? I mean, they're engaging in absolutely appalling and nauseating acts. What situations, what circumstances, could possibly have driven them to this point? What do their lives look like that this is where they turn for attention and affection and intimacy (a mere mirage which they are grasping for, but never quite lay hold of)? 

So much heartache in that room, on both sides: victims and perpetrators alike. 

That's a hard pill for me to swallow.

It's not easy to view these men with the same eyes of compassion that wants to wrap my arms around these girls and steal them away. It makes me uncomfortable to acknowledge that brokenness sometimes looks like a stripper, and other times it looks like a john. 

But despite the tension, the discomfort, and the fact that I may not even like to admit it, I know this to be true:

If I say I love Christ, I have to love the johns as well as the girls.

My girl—#37—came and sat with me. Though she didn't know much English, we Forrest Gumped our way through a conversation, asking questions back and forth, sharing little bits of our lives with each other. 

Her name is Ang. 
She came to Pattaya 3 years ago. 
She misses her family.
She does not like dancing in this club.

Sprinkled throughout our 30-minute conversation, she said the words "thank you" over a dozen times. It struck me as so remarkable that I kept count. 

"Thank you for letting me sit with you." 

I squeezed her hand (which had been holding mine). I smiled, and I told her I was so glad she was sitting with me. 

At the end of the night, my mind wandered back to Ang—the very first girl I'd met hours prior. I knew I'd walked away from that brothel without making a life-altering impact on her. I didn't save her from the (possibly) abusive and awful position she finds herself in. Nothing about her circumstances changed because I had been there. 

But I'd sat with her in the darkness. 

I sat with her in her darkness. 

And simply by doing that, she had a half-hour of being treated like a human rather than a commodity. For 30 minutes, she wasn't groped or fondled or sexualized. Instead, she was treated with the respect, dignity, kindness, and love she deserves. 

Maybe that is Gospel work after all.

I went to sleep with Ang on my heart, with whispered prayers of grace for her...

...and for the johns.

---

Please take some time to read about The Exodus Road, and continue to follow along as I learn more about their radical work of empowering rescue for trafficking victims.

:: :: ::

$35/month funds one full day of investigative work in India (called BRAVO Team). BRAVO needs 50 more monthly donors in order to hire additional covert operatives, investigators, and social workers to maximize their impact.

Together, you and I can join the BRAVO Team as the brothers and sisters who show up to find and free the ones in desperate need of rescue and restoration. 

let's celebrate

I decided earlier this year that life is too hard and too short not to celebrate the wins when they come. 

And so I’ve toasted friends' completed work projects and successful accomplishments; I’ve cheersed for good news and strong finishes and job promotions and friendiversaries; I’ve danced it out for simply making it through a difficult week. “Let’s celebrate!” has come out of my mouth more in the past three months than probably the entire three years prior.

So my recent foray into real estate called for a celebration.

A new house sits waiting for a family to call it their own, and the most adorable silver bullet camper is (finally) sitting pretty in her new backyard home.

And while I have no plans to live in either, this enormous (and—GULP—frightening) step couldn’t go by unacknowledged.

So some of my closest friends gathered to celebrate with me this weekend. These friends have encouraged me, championed me, and stood firmly in my corner as I’ve navigated all this, and I am so unbelievably grateful to have them in my life. 

We filled the furniture-less house and power-less camper with pizza and wine and music and laughter and love.

We danced it out.

And we celebrated.