I don't watch the news. I can tell you very little, if anything, about the current events in our city. Because in between every celebrity-split-from-significant-other spot and some correspondent's opinion of the political climate, there's a story about a woman. Or a little girl.
I don't take these very well.
I don't take them well even when they're fictional. I can't tell you how many times I've come unglued at a friend who said, "You've got to see this movie!" So I did, only to find there was a violent scene involving a woman or a little girl and I had to say, "If you want to remain my friend, don't ever recommend a 'good movie' to me again."
But about three weeks ago, I went on a tour of an area of Houston, Texas that changed my life, as well as my disposition on violence against women and children. (Or so I thought). Those of us on the tour learned a new word. Compissionate. It means compassionate and pissed. And it's a really good word. While I heard some pretty gruesome and heartbreaking stories, I stayed remarkably detached and more fighting mad than anything else. Actually, I thought a lot about how great it might feel to kill somebody. Or even a lot of somebodies. Traffickers be ware.
With this new-found fervor and compissionism, I didn't think much about sitting down to watch Nefarious, a look behind the veil of the sex industry. In fact, as it started, I actually said to my husband, "I just need a bullet proof vest and a gun. I want these people."
And then it happened. About halfway through, I was undone. Little girls....in Cambodia....and their traffickers...are their parents. Their fathers lay around outside their huts all day and drink beer while their 7 year old daughters are...
...and there were pictures.
That's it. I'm out, God. I don't know who You thought You were talking to about all this but that fearlessness and boldness is gone and I am OUT. I cannot handle this.
I fell apart. My husband pulled me over to him. But we continued to watch.
And then something else happened. Throughout the movie there had been interviews with women, girls, former Johns, pimps and traffickers. Their words were hardly comprehendible. Their lives were hardly imaginable.
"When we first embarked on our journey," said the director, "we envisioned rescuing girls trapped in cages, but the issue of human trafficking was far more complex than we originally anticipated. We started to see that even among the girls we had rescued, it wasn't enough for us to tell them they had value and help them get jobs and restart their lives. What we began to realize was that the even greater challenge than rescuing the girls was restoring them."
And as is crucial in any pivotal movie moment, the music started. "He is jealous for me...."
At this point it was incredibly moving to hear the women and the young, young girls say they had met Jesus and He had healed them. But I wasn't prepared for the next words. The words of the man. The former trafficker.
"I'm ashamed I used to be a person like that. I don't even call myself a person. But God is bigger than that. I was captive of one thing, and she was captive of another. But God. Wants to set the captives free."
"...if His grace is an ocean we're all sinking..."
Fervor restored. Faith renewed. I'm in, Jesus. I am so in.
If to be feeling alive to the sufferings of my fellow creatures is to be a fanatic, then I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large.
-William Wilberforce
The crisis of modern-day sex slavery does not need interested observers. It needs incurable fanatics.
-Benjamin Nolot
Writer, Producer, Director
Nefarious
