The Value of a Daughter

"The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it." Psalm 24:1

I am convinced that nothing causes more grief to the heart of Jesus than when a young child is brutally stripped of their purity, left broken and trembling, reduced to nothing more than object. It happens every day, in every country (including ours). I think it is the ultimate expression of evil, and the ultimate satisfaction for Satan when innocence is corrupted at the hands of greed and sick, twisted desire.

Absolutely nothing in world news breaks my heart more than the knowledge that, daily, hundreds of thousands of children are kidnapped or tricked into slavery, forced to endure beatings and worse as they are locked into dirty brothels to suit the fancies of wealthy, disgusting patrons. These precious children are often drugged to induce compliance, which eventually results in dependence on the brothel owners. As a result, even when they are allowed the "freedom" to venture outside the walls of their prisons, they no longer run because they cannot escape the prison of addiction to the chemicals they have been force fed.

In the book "Half the Sky," journalists and authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn make the case that prevention is far more effective than rescue from trafficking and slavery. Wess Stafford makes the same argument in his book "Too Small to Ignore." In fact, I think we all are familiar with Benjamin Franklin's fire-fighting advice, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

That's where we come in! It seems so overwhelming when you hear the statistics, which range from estimates of 3 to 27 million children (young children and teenagers) enslaved in brothels, depending on the source of the data. But, consider this...the Pew Research Center found that, in 2010, United States citizens identifying themselves as Christians numbered greater than 246 million. That is nine times as many Christians as the high-end estimate of trafficked children. Imagine, then, if a 10th of all people identifying themselves as Christians in the United States sponsored a child... Could we make the enslavement of children for such sick, disgusting, evil purposes a distant memory?

Because, like it or not, a lot of what the problem can be reduced to is desperation... Families in poverty are desperate, and girls are often expendable. In some cases parents knowingly sell their girls to brothel owners, while in other cases they send their girls off to what they believe will be respectable jobs, where "friends" and relatives end up selling the girls. Sometimes the parents know but lack the resources to track their daughters. Sometimes the girls just disappear and the parents never know. Either way, if their daughters were MORE VALUABLE AT HOME THAN IN A BROTHEL, much of these types of transactions could be avoided. IF the daughters HAVE A VOICE and some PROTECTION, they may be saved.

How to raise the value of a daughter? Educate her. Provide her with knowledge of her own self-worth, her value in the eyes of Christ. Develop a skill that she can leverage for her benefit--that will make her a source of pride for her family, as well as a source of income. Women worldwide prove that they are capable, resourceful, and hard workers when given education and half a chance for success. When fathers and mothers can see the value and the necessity of their female children for the survival of their families, they are more likely to step up and protect them. If female children are worth enough at home as to be prohibitively expensive for brothel owners, there will be fewer bought and sold.

Hope. We have hope. These children have hope. We can give hope to at-risk children by sponsoring them so that they can build value in the eyes of their families and communities. We can teach young women that they have value beyond their bodies in the heart of Christ. We can teach young men that women of all castes deserve respect and dignity and love. Jesus did not believe in disposable humans. Neither do I.

My mom shared the following Hawaiin parable with me, which I recently read again in "Half the Sky"... I thought I'd share it with you, here...

A man goes out on the beach and sees that it is covered with starfish that have washed up in the tide. A little boy is walking along, picking them up and throwing them back into the water. "What are you doing, son?" the man asks. "You see how many starfish there are? You'll never make a difference." The boy paused thoughtfully, and picked up another starfish and threw it into the ocean. "It sure made a difference to that one," he said.

Please...consider sponsoring an at-risk child today. GET ANGRY. The things happening to these precious children of God are despicable and inexcusable. You can make a difference to one, and one can make a difference to many.

Why Should I?

Why should someone sponsor a child in a third world country?

I recently signed up to become an advocate for Compassion International. As an advocate, I will be encouraging other people to sponsor children, and sharing with others the mission of Compassion International. So, I've had to put a lot of thought into the question above: Exactly WHY should someone send money to support someone else's child in an unfamiliar country? Why is it important? What makes this any more important or valid than any other "cause" cluttering up our mailboxes and inboxes on a regular basis?

I think Wess Stafford, the CEO of Compassion International, offers an amazing argument for the importance of ministering to children at a global scale in his book "Too Small to Ignore." Wess grew up in a family of missionaries, and spent most of his childhood in a small impoverished village in Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast). His idyllic memories of his time with his West African friends and family are interspersed with time spent in a boarding school where he suffered abuse at the hands of the very adults assigned to nurture and protect him.

In his book, Wess makes a very clear case for the importance of children to Jesus Christ, and thus to followers of Jesus. Not only were children used as examples for the disciples to follow (And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3), but Jesus issues a strict warning to his followers "If anyone causes one of these little ones--those who believe in me--to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." Matthew 18:6.

In a world where more people are victims of slavery than at any other time in history (including the pre-civil war "slave" era), children are at the highest risk of exploitation. Unfortunately, a great number of people exploiting these children are Americans. Even more unfortunately, some of these profess to be followers of Christ. How dare someone take advantage of the most precious gifts given to us by God and then claim to be a follower of that God!

Children everywhere deserve our protection, our encouragement, our love. Many organizations help children here in the United States and abroad. I support Compassion International because I appreciate their stewardship of resources, I appreciate the way they approach poverty (by treating the whole person, not just doling out money), and I appreciate the way they support developing relationships between sponsors and children.

That said, I would never want anyone to sponsor a child out of a feeling of guilt. I believe that "Someone who does not know and then does something wrong, will be punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required" (Luke 12:48), but I also believe that Jesus wants us to give out of a desire to bless others, and out of our love and commitment to His word, not because we feel guilty that we were born in an affluent nation with a world of possibilities. We have a lot of money, but we are poor, ourselves, in many ways. My prayer is simply if you feel a tugging in your heart when you see the children featured on www.compassion.com, or if you read "Too Small to Ignore," or if you feel that you spend a lot of time and money on things that don't really matter, that you would simply meditate on it for a while. And if you hear Jesus speaking to your heart, please answer that call and develop a relationship with one of these dear, sweet blessings to the kingdom. There truly is no higher calling than to love the little children.