If it worked in The Shawshank Redemption…

Shawshank Poster Entry (Ritzy Cinema) (Photo credit: dgarfen)

I will watch any movie with Morgan Freeman in it.  It’s the voice.  Whether he’s playing God or narrating penguins, he has such gravitas.  I would listen to that man read the phone book aloud.  (Take a moment to imagine that.  “Adams comma Robert. 555-2011.  Adams comma Roberta. 555-8967.”  Makes you feel like you brushed on something profound, doesn’t it?) 

But what I really want to talk about is one particular subplot in The Shawshank Redemption, a film starring Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins.  Prisoner Andy Dufresne works in the prison library, which pretty much amounts to a few rundown shelves and a cart on wheels.  He sends the legislature a letter every week, politely requesting funds.  After six years the legislature responds with a check for $200 and the words, “We consider this matter closed.  Please stop sending letters.”  Andy smiles at the prison guard and says, “From now on, I’ll write two letters a week.”  Soon Andy’s in charge of the best prison library in the state.

According to the World Vision website, we need to be like Andy Dufresne.

The Shawshank Redemption (soundtrack) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now, World Vision doesn’t mention The Shawshank Redemption. What they do suggest is that we call our senators once a week every week to encourage them to support bill S. 1301, until they support it.  This is the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, or TVPA.  The bill combats human trafficking through preventing a kind of environment which allows exploitation, protecting the survivors, and prosecuting the perpetrators. It was first passed in 2000, but it needs to be reauthorized. Why did it lapse?  The law has been renewed every few years to keep current with human trafficking trends.  The TVPA lapsed in September 2011 and has yet to be renewed.

Wherever you stand on politics, it’s one of our great privileges in this country that male, female, this race or that, land-owning or not, we can vote and tell our senators what we think.  (Thank you, Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass.)  So this week I called up my senators and (politely) told them what to do.

I should mention I hate talking on the phone.  I can’t see the other person’s body language. But this was so simple.  It took me maybe 3 minutes online to find out if my senators supported the bill (they didn’t), and 1 minute apiece to leave a phone message for each senator.  Could I spend 5 minutes a week bugging my senator for a good cause?  Sure.  We can even tweet our senators these days.  I’m sure Andy Dufresne would have done that if he could have.  For that matter, Susan would be the queen of social media were she living today.  The point is, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.  Bug your politicians (respectfully).  It’s your American right.  Be, as one newspaper called Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “the rub-a-dub of agitation.”

World Vision even provided the general script for my phone message.  It went something like this:

Hello, my name is ____________ and I’m a constituent from ____________.  I’m calling to ask the senator to support the Human Trafficking Violation Act S. 1301.  Thank you.

That’s all there is to it.  Any of us can follow those instructions.  We don’t have to be eloquent on the phone.  We don’t have to have a voice full of gravitas like Morgan Freeman to show our politicians we’re paying attention.

Though I’m sure if Morgan Freeman called, it wouldn’t hurt.

The Cause: Rescue a Child from Slavery

World vision. Français : Le monde vu par krak (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

On Day 1 of the 1 Dollar a Day Challenge, I said I would take whatever money I saved in these 30 days and donate it to some worthy charitable cause. Well, I’ve finally settled on a cause. I was actually leaning toward it since the beginning, but I wanted to think and pray on it some.

The Cause

Rescuing girls from sexual trafficking and slavery. I know no sin is worse than another in the eyes of God, but wow, I really want to nominate forced child prostitution for undiluted evil.

The Organization

There are many worthy organizations which tackle this issue. I’m picking World Vision because that’s where this whole thing began: with Richard Stearns’ book The Hole in Our Gospel. Richard Stearns is CEO of World Vision. World Vision has trustworthy credentials as a charity. And frankly, I prefer a Christian organization. Don’t get me wrong, many secular abolitionists do a world of good. But I’m looking for something bigger than this world. None of us are completely and truly free without Jesus in the picture.

The Amount

Of course I won’t know that until the end of the 30 days. World Vision lists a number of options and monetary suggestions for battling this issue:
$20 could rescue 1 child from slavery
$35 provides hope for sexually exploited girls
$50 provides a former slave with education, shelter, and food

and on up to provide education, job training, housing, counseling.

The Prayer

These are all estimates, of course. But dear God, let’s help as many as we can. You care a lot for children, Lord. Didn’t you say that if we cause a little child to sin, we’d be better off hanging a millstone around our neck and jumping into the sea? We adults are causing millions of little children to sin through the sex trade, this very day. Some adults do it by being their pimps, other by being their “clients,” and most of us by looking the other way. Let me see all the children of this world as your children, Lord, and therefore my children to help love and protect. Use me as your tool, Lord, and squeeze as much $ out of me as you can this month to help these girls. It’s all your money to begin with, anyway.

The Hard Facts

Poverty is not the same thing as child sexual exploitation, yet the one greatly increases the chances the other will occur. According to World Vision, an estimated 2 million children are enslaved and abused in the global commercial sex trade.  The majority are girls. Many children are sold into prostitution to pay off family debts or forcibly recruited from the street to work in brothels.

See the Video