From the www.churchforall.org

Jesus Will Give You Rest

MATTHEW 11:28-30 NIV
28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will
give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and
humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Are you struggling? Do you feel like you are barely keeping
your head above water?

If you feel like you are struggling and striving just to make
it -- you need to turn to Jesus. He will give you rest.

If you say that you have turned to Jesus and you think His yoke
is hard and His burden is heavy -- you are deceived.

You need to cast your care on the Lord and learn of Him. So
many people are striving and struggling to get God to love them
when He already loves them and accepts them.

Living a successful Christian life is not done by our own
strength or willpower. It is the result of depending on the
Lord. Only He can do it.

Quit trusting in your plans and abilities and efforts, and
trust in Jesus instead. Turn things over to Him. Let Him be
Lord in your life.

SAY THIS: I will learn of Jesus and trust in Him. Jesus my Lord
gives me rest.

from the www.churchforall.org

You Are Strong In The Lord

EPHESIANS 6:10 NIV
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

No one can successfully argue against the statement, "You are
strong in the Lord." It is a given that if you are in the Lord,
you are strong. Nothing that is "in the Lord" could be weak.

So the only real question is whether you are "in the Lord."

I JOHN 5:20 NASB
20 And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us
understanding, in order that we might know Him who is true, and
we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the
true God and eternal life.

2 CORINTHIANS 5:17 NIV
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the
old has gone, the new has come!

The choice is yours. You choose whether to accept Christ and
thus be identified as "in Him." God does not force this, you
must choose.

EPHESIANS 2:8-10 NASB
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not
of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
9 not as a result of works, that no one should boast.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good
works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in
them.

From Ephesians 2:8-10 we can see that when we are saved through
faith, we are created anew IN Christ Jesus. That is our
position. So, anyone and everyone who has received Jesus Christ
can be said to be legally "in Him" according to the Scripture.

Always remember that your strength is not in your own ability
or resources, but your strength is in the Lord. Depend on Him.
He will never fail you. (He probably will test your patience
and maybe even let the situation look hopeless, but He will not
ever fail you.)

PSALM 27:1 NKJ
1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The
Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?

HEBREWS 13:5-6 NKJ
5 Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with
such things as you have. For He Himself has said, "I will never
leave you nor forsake you."
6 So we may boldly say: "The Lord is my helper; I will not
fear. What can man do to me?"

PSALM 28:8 NIV
8 The LORD is the strength of his people, a fortress of
salvation for his anointed one.

SAY THIS: I AM strong in the Lord. In the Lord, I am strong,
for the Lord is my strength.

From the www.churchforall.org

You Are Forgiven

2 CORINTHIANS 5:19 AMPLIFIED
19 It was God (personally present) in Christ, reconciling and
restoring the world to favor with Himself, not counting up and
holding against [men] their trespasses [but cancelling them];
and committing to us the message of reconciliation -- of the
restoration to favor.

Most people mistakenly think they have to beg God to forgive
them. Instead, God has already forgiven. It was His idea --
done on His own initiative.

(Whether you accept God's forgiveness and benefit from it is
another question.)

1 JOHN 2:12 NKJ
12 I write to you, little children, because your sins are
forgiven you for His name's sake.

No matter what you have done -- God has already forgiven you!

God is not mad at you. Instead He loves you and desires to have
a close relationship with you. Yes, God is against sin, because
sin is harmful to humans. But He has already made provision for
you to be forgiven and set free from sin.

Jesus Christ paid the price for all your sins -- and God is no
longer holding any sin against you! You have been forgiven.
When you accept that, you can begin to receive the benefit of
Jesus' sacrifice.

EPHESIANS 1:7 NKJ
7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness
of sins, according to the riches of His grace

COLOSSIANS 2:13 NKJ
13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the
uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with
Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,

Through Jesus we have redemption from the devil and forgiveness
for our sins.

Wouldn't it be great if you could tell someone who has messed
up their life that God is not mad at them and not against them?
That He desires to be their friend and help them?

SAY THIS: Thank You Father God for forgiving me and loving me.

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From the www.churchforall.org

You Are Healed

1 PETER 2:24 NKJ
24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that
we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness -- by
whose stripes you were healed.

"Time" is difficult to understand. Scientists tell us that time
is "relative," just something that seems real to us.

The Bible indicates God is "outside of time." God created time
so He is not confined to it. Can we easily comprehend this? No.

When a human makes a statement that is not true at this present
moment in time, we call it a lie -- not the truth.

But when God says something that does not seem to be true at
this moment -- we cannot accuse Him of telling a lie -- because
God is not limited to our time frame. (Also, we do not know
everything.)

Having said all that, the Bible clearly says that you ARE
healed.

ISAIAH 53:4-5 NRSV
4 Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and
afflicted.
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our
iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and
by his bruises we are healed.

So, you have a choice. You can look at it from your perspective
and say, "That is not true. I am not healed."

Or, you can view the situation from God's perspective, and
because of your faith in Him, agree with what He said.

Which choice is best? As you decide your answer, remember to
include eternity in your evaluation. Pleasing God by accepting
His Word can bring benefits to you after this life.

Here is one way of understanding all this. God made provision
for everyone to be healed. That provision must be received by
faith -- by believing and acting on what God has said in His
Word. Humans have a choice: believe God's Word and resist
anything that would try to steal their health, or, let their
feelings and circumstances control them.

If you disagree with all this, let's not argue or fight. That
will not help anyone. But remember, the Bible will still say
what it says.

MATTHEW 8:16-17 NKJ
16 When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were
demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and
healed all who were sick,
17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the
prophet, saying: "He Himself took our infirmities and bore our
sicknesses."

God made provision for your healing, but the devil tries to
steal it away from you.

Here is the bottom line: we do not understand everything. God
does. Since God loves us, it seems best to trust in Him instead
of trusting in our own limited understanding. So, I choose to
believe and say what God says, whether I understand it or not.

SAY THIS: The Bible says I am healed. I choose to agree with
what God has said in the Bible.

----------------------------------------------------------------
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From the www.churchforall.org

Every Good Gift Is From Above

JAMES 1:17 WEYMOUTH
17 Every gift which is good, and every perfect boon, is from
above, and comes down from the Father, who is the source of all
Light. In Him there is no variation nor the slightest
suggestion of change.

Whatever good that you enjoy in life is because of God. Because
of His love for you, He created it.

Do you enjoy eating good food? Who designed that food? Who
planned it all out so you could have it and enjoy it?

Do you enjoy beautiful scenes in nature -- sunsets, flowers,
butterflies, wild animals, mountains? God created them all for
your pleasure.

Do you enjoy a mother's love? God created mothers and put
within them the capacity to love their children.

Do you enjoy the love of a spouse? God created them and put
within them the capacity to love you.

I could go on.

When you think this through, you realize that God actually
loves you and helps you through other people. He put the love
within them - - so He is the ultimate source of the love you
receive from others.

Everything good about life is attributable to God. Everything
that we enjoy -- He created it, or the raw materials and the
ability for humans to produce it.

As you think of all this, I hope you are struck with two
thoughts: I would like to be closer to this kind of God, and I
should be more thankful to God for more things than I have
been.

SAY THIS: Thank you God my Father for all the good you have
created, designed, and provided for me.

On modern slavery - a chapter from a booklet by Pastor Mark Driscoll

at the end.

Sex Slavery

Over the past three decades the world has witnessed four distinct waves of trafficking for sexual exploitation1. The first wave of trafficked women came from Southeast Asia in the 1970s and was composed mostly of Thai and Filipino women. The second wave arrived in the early 1980s and was made up of women from Africa, mainly Ghana and Nigeria. The third wave, from Latin America, followed right behind and was comprised of women mostly from Colombia, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic. The newest wave is from Eastern and Central Europe. Just a decade ago these women did not even register in the sex trafficking radar screen. Today they represent more than 25 percent of the trade.

There is a wall of complacency, complicity, and corruption that has allowed this trade to explode recently. Sex trafficking runs by the laws of supply and demand. Demand is generated by thousands of men. Economic, social, cultural, and gender factors make women and girls vulnerable to being exploited as an endless supply2.

The international political economy of sex not only includes the supply side—the women of the third world, the poor states, or exotic Asian women—but it cannot maintain itself without the demand from the organizers of the trade—the men from industrialized and developing countries. The patriarchal world system hungers for and sustains the international subculture of docile women from underdeveloped countries. These women are forced or lured into the trade of providing international sexual services. Men accept this world order as well, regardless of their background. The world that is so satisfying to too many men is the same world that is utterly devastating to too many women and girls.

How Are Women Procured?

The Trafficking in Person Report is an annual report that serves as the primary diplomatic tool through which the U.S. Government encourages partnership and increased determination in the fight against forced labor, sexual exploitation, and modern-day slavery. In the 2008 report, these true stories were documented:

Lila, a 19-year-old Romanian girl who had already endured physical and sexual abuse from her alcoholic father, was introduced by an “acquaintance” to a man who offered her a job as a housekeeper/salesperson in the U.K. When she arrived in the U.K., the man sold her to a pimp and Lila was forced into prostitution. She was threatened that she would be sent home in pieces if she did not follow every order. After an attempted escape, her papers were confiscated and the beatings became more frequent and brutal. Months later, after being re-trafficked several times, Lila was freed in a police raid. She was eventually repatriated back to Romania where, after two months, she fled from a shelter where she had been staying. Her whereabouts are unknown.

Nineteen-year-old So-Young stands at less than five feet tall after being chronically malnourished in North Korea. A refugee, she crossed illegally into China with hopes of a better life, but found instead a nightmare of sexual exploitation. An “employer” offered her approximately $1.40 per day in exchange for work—money that So-Young planned on sending back to her family. Deceived by this empty promise, So-Young spent the next several months being passed between handlers. Just days before she was to be purchased by a forty-year-old Chinese man, So-Young managed to escape with the help of a local pastor. Three years later, she was forcibly repatriated to North Korea where she was imprisoned for six months before escaping once more to China. Traffickers kidnapped her once again, repeatedly raping her prior to her sale. Her new “husband” also raped her multiple times before she was able to escape. So-Young remains in hiding today: “There are many people coming out of North Korea, but they don’t have anywhere to go and no other choice but to go that route [into China].”

Samya lived with her mother, step-father and three brothers in a small Cairo apartment. When her step-father raped her, she ran away from home and started living on the streets at the age of 14. She met a group of street kids who, like her, had fled abuse at home. After two months on the streets begging for food and avoiding harassment from police, she met Shouq, an older lady who allowed some of the street girls to stay with her. The first night Samya stayed at Shouq’s apartment, Shouq told her she would have to earn her keep by having sex with male clients for the equivalent of $16. Samya, afraid to live on the streets and fearful of returning home, had sex with several men a day for nearly one year; Shouq kept all of the money.

Kunthy and Chanda were trafficked into prostitution at ages 13 and 14. Held captive in a dilapidated structure in Phnom Penh that locals called the “Anarchy Building,” the girls were raped nightly and routinely beaten, drugged, and threatened by the brothel-keeper and pimps. The girls were released thanks to police intervention and placed in safe aftercare homes. The brothel owner and pimp were prosecuted, tried, and sentenced to 15 and 10 years in prison, respectively, for trafficking and pimping children. Today, Chanda lives in a local aftercare home where she receives excellent care; she wants to become an English translator. Kunthy’s dream is to own an Internet café and design Web sites for businesses. Right now, she works at a local NGO, attends a computer training school, and lives in a transitional housing facility that allows her both freedom and security.

Mary, a young Kenyan woman, met a German tourist in his late sixties at a beach resort and he impressed her with presents and pampering. After departing Kenya, he convinced her to visit him in Germany, but immediately upon her arrival he confiscated her passport and forced her into prostitution. “He raped me, as did the men I was forced to pick at the bar.” Lucy’s health then deteriorated. “I knew it was time to escape—or risk death trying.” Fortunately, Lucy was able to gain access to a telephone and seek help from German police who then rescued her from her trafficker.

Women do not sign up for sexual slavery. Most of girls were recruited or coerced into prostitution. Others were "traditional wives" without job skills who escaped from or were abandoned by abusive fathers or husbands and went into prostitution to support themselves and their children3. There are numerous ways that women are procured for the sex trade. Below are the most prevalent: 4

Bogus recruiters offer prospective job seekers a “complete package” for positions abroad. These offers don’t require prior work experience, and they almost always seek young, preferably single, women. These arrangements often include training, travel documents, and airfare, at no cost to the applicant. In 95 percent of these cases, the promised job does not exist.
Ads are placed in seemingly legitimate employment agencies. Some set up “career day” booths at universities and offer “contracts.” These firms are nothing more than hunting grounds for criminal networks involved in the sex industry.
Relatives, neighbors, or acquaintances can gain trust and approach a young woman or her family with an offer to help her land a job abroad. These culprits include teachers, orphanage workers, police officers and their wives, etc.
Other trafficked women lure in new women. Sometimes this is the only way for the old ones to escape. Sometimes pimps give them the option of going home if they can reel in a certain number of other women.
Sometimes family members (parents, siblings, spouses, etc.) sell women or girls into sex slavery.
New boyfriends also lure women by promising a night out and then force them into waiting vehicles to sell them to pimps or traffickers.
Outright abduction is one of the most terrifying. Women and girls are simply taken while walking home from school or work.
The most horrible is the targeting of orphans. Many girls are at risk when they must leave the orphanage when they graduate at sixteen or seventeen. Most have no resources or funds for living expenses or any education or training to get a job. Traffickers often know when these girls are going to be turned out of the institution and are waiting for them with job offers. Sometimes girls are even purchased from orphanage workers.
Drugs also play a role in procuring and keeping women. Some women are involved in sexual exploitation because they need money for their addiction. But many are forced drugs to make them compliant and to incapacitate them.
It is important to note that not every woman is an innocent dupe. In fact, police and government officials often go to great lengths to stress that some of these women willingly enter the trade. In their eyes, this so-called willingness justifies their apathy and indifference. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even the “willing” women have no idea of what really awaits. It’s true that many women know full well when they accept a job offer that they’ll be working in some aspect of the sex industry—massage parlors, strip clubs, peep shows, and escort agencies. The vast number of women are not aware of the nature or conditions of the work that awaits them. Women are told they will earn $5,000 a month, live in luxury, have three days off, and be able to pick their clients. Also, the “contracts” they sign are for three months, after which time, they are told they are free to leave.

Most women are put into debt bondage, unable to pay off the high interest rate their pimp charges them. They are sold in markets, raped, forced to service ten to thirty men a day, can’t refuse any paying customer, are given no sick days and no days off for their periods, get pregnant, acquire HIV and other STDs or medical and psychological problems, and experience constant abuse and frequent gang rapes.

Customers of these women are sex tourists, U.N. peacekeeper and international humanitarian aid workers, U.S. military men, and local men in the area. The presence of these “mongers” has provided a valuable, readymade market for local brothel keepers trading in trafficked women.

“Breaking” the Women

In secret training centers, thugs snap the spirit and will of their terrified hostages. Women are quickly raped, often a few times. Their travel documents are taken and their activities are tightly controlled and restricted. They are locked in their rooms where they “work” and are under constant guard. They are warned that if they attempt escape they will be severely punished. And they are told that if they do escape their families are targeted. Often, they are videotaped or photographed in embarrassing sexual encounters, and warned that if they escape, the pictures will be sent to their families and hometowns. One woman forced into sex slavery shares her story:

There were many women in this one apartment. Some were crying. Others looked terrified. We were told not to speak to each other. Not to tell each other our names or where we were from. All the time, very mean and ugly men came in and dragged girls into the rooms. Sometimes they would rape girls in front of us. They yelled at them, ordering them to move certain ways . . . to pretend excitement . . . to moan. . . . It was sickening. Those who resisted were beaten. If they did not cooperate, they were locked in dark cellars with rats with no food or water for three days. One girl refused to submit to anal sex, and that night the owner brought in five men. They held her on the floor and every one of them had anal sex on her in front of us all. She screamed and screamed, and we all cried. That girl killed herself the next day. 5

After women are beaten and threatened, they are sold to brothel and bar owners that service the huge numbers of foreigners who make up sex tourists, international peacekeeping forces, and U.S. military men. The level of physical violence and psychological intimidation used to control these women is deliberate and extreme. It’s meant to instill fear—to crush them, destroy their will, and force them to comply. Some women have been mutilated and murdered as punishment for refusing to engage in the sex trade. Some are killed as examples to other women. In short, women are forced to do whatever it takes with whoever pays, and they are forced to do it with a smile on their face, a sparkle in their eye, and a moan on their lips. But all this is done because they will be killed and discarded if they do not.

1 Victor Malarek, The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2003), pp. 1–7.
2 For a thorough explanation of these factors, see Kathryn Farr, Sex Trafficking: The Global Market in Women and Children (New York: Worth Publishers), pp. 132–162 (Chapter 5—“From Here to There: Sex Trafficking Flows and the Economic Conditions That Drive Them”).
3 Denise Gamache and Evelina Giobbe, Prostitution: Oppression Disguised as Liberation, National Coalition against Domestic Violence, 1990.
4 Victor Malarek, The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2003), pp. 9–29 (Chapter 1—“Smuggler’s Prey”).
5 Victor Malarek, The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2003), p. 33.at the end.

Sex Slavery

Over the past three decades the world has witnessed four distinct waves of trafficking for sexual exploitation1. The first wave of trafficked women came from Southeast Asia in the 1970s and was composed mostly of Thai and Filipino women. The second wave arrived in the early 1980s and was made up of women from Africa, mainly Ghana and Nigeria. The third wave, from Latin America, followed right behind and was comprised of women mostly from Colombia, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic. The newest wave is from Eastern and Central Europe. Just a decade ago these women did not even register in the sex trafficking radar screen. Today they represent more than 25 percent of the trade.

There is a wall of complacency, complicity, and corruption that has allowed this trade to explode recently. Sex trafficking runs by the laws of supply and demand. Demand is generated by thousands of men. Economic, social, cultural, and gender factors make women and girls vulnerable to being exploited as an endless supply2.

The international political economy of sex not only includes the supply side—the women of the third world, the poor states, or exotic Asian women—but it cannot maintain itself without the demand from the organizers of the trade—the men from industrialized and developing countries. The patriarchal world system hungers for and sustains the international subculture of docile women from underdeveloped countries. These women are forced or lured into the trade of providing international sexual services. Men accept this world order as well, regardless of their background. The world that is so satisfying to too many men is the same world that is utterly devastating to too many women and girls.

How Are Women Procured?

The Trafficking in Person Report is an annual report that serves as the primary diplomatic tool through which the U.S. Government encourages partnership and increased determination in the fight against forced labor, sexual exploitation, and modern-day slavery. In the 2008 report, these true stories were documented:

Lila, a 19-year-old Romanian girl who had already endured physical and sexual abuse from her alcoholic father, was introduced by an “acquaintance” to a man who offered her a job as a housekeeper/salesperson in the U.K. When she arrived in the U.K., the man sold her to a pimp and Lila was forced into prostitution. She was threatened that she would be sent home in pieces if she did not follow every order. After an attempted escape, her papers were confiscated and the beatings became more frequent and brutal. Months later, after being re-trafficked several times, Lila was freed in a police raid. She was eventually repatriated back to Romania where, after two months, she fled from a shelter where she had been staying. Her whereabouts are unknown.

Nineteen-year-old So-Young stands at less than five feet tall after being chronically malnourished in North Korea. A refugee, she crossed illegally into China with hopes of a better life, but found instead a nightmare of sexual exploitation. An “employer” offered her approximately $1.40 per day in exchange for work—money that So-Young planned on sending back to her family. Deceived by this empty promise, So-Young spent the next several months being passed between handlers. Just days before she was to be purchased by a forty-year-old Chinese man, So-Young managed to escape with the help of a local pastor. Three years later, she was forcibly repatriated to North Korea where she was imprisoned for six months before escaping once more to China. Traffickers kidnapped her once again, repeatedly raping her prior to her sale. Her new “husband” also raped her multiple times before she was able to escape. So-Young remains in hiding today: “There are many people coming out of North Korea, but they don’t have anywhere to go and no other choice but to go that route [into China].”

Samya lived with her mother, step-father and three brothers in a small Cairo apartment. When her step-father raped her, she ran away from home and started living on the streets at the age of 14. She met a group of street kids who, like her, had fled abuse at home. After two months on the streets begging for food and avoiding harassment from police, she met Shouq, an older lady who allowed some of the street girls to stay with her. The first night Samya stayed at Shouq’s apartment, Shouq told her she would have to earn her keep by having sex with male clients for the equivalent of $16. Samya, afraid to live on the streets and fearful of returning home, had sex with several men a day for nearly one year; Shouq kept all of the money.

Kunthy and Chanda were trafficked into prostitution at ages 13 and 14. Held captive in a dilapidated structure in Phnom Penh that locals called the “Anarchy Building,” the girls were raped nightly and routinely beaten, drugged, and threatened by the brothel-keeper and pimps. The girls were released thanks to police intervention and placed in safe aftercare homes. The brothel owner and pimp were prosecuted, tried, and sentenced to 15 and 10 years in prison, respectively, for trafficking and pimping children. Today, Chanda lives in a local aftercare home where she receives excellent care; she wants to become an English translator. Kunthy’s dream is to own an Internet café and design Web sites for businesses. Right now, she works at a local NGO, attends a computer training school, and lives in a transitional housing facility that allows her both freedom and security.

Mary, a young Kenyan woman, met a German tourist in his late sixties at a beach resort and he impressed her with presents and pampering. After departing Kenya, he convinced her to visit him in Germany, but immediately upon her arrival he confiscated her passport and forced her into prostitution. “He raped me, as did the men I was forced to pick at the bar.” Lucy’s health then deteriorated. “I knew it was time to escape—or risk death trying.” Fortunately, Lucy was able to gain access to a telephone and seek help from German police who then rescued her from her trafficker.

Women do not sign up for sexual slavery. Most of girls were recruited or coerced into prostitution. Others were "traditional wives" without job skills who escaped from or were abandoned by abusive fathers or husbands and went into prostitution to support themselves and their children3. There are numerous ways that women are procured for the sex trade. Below are the most prevalent: 4

Bogus recruiters offer prospective job seekers a “complete package” for positions abroad. These offers don’t require prior work experience, and they almost always seek young, preferably single, women. These arrangements often include training, travel documents, and airfare, at no cost to the applicant. In 95 percent of these cases, the promised job does not exist.
Ads are placed in seemingly legitimate employment agencies. Some set up “career day” booths at universities and offer “contracts.” These firms are nothing more than hunting grounds for criminal networks involved in the sex industry.
Relatives, neighbors, or acquaintances can gain trust and approach a young woman or her family with an offer to help her land a job abroad. These culprits include teachers, orphanage workers, police officers and their wives, etc.
Other trafficked women lure in new women. Sometimes this is the only way for the old ones to escape. Sometimes pimps give them the option of going home if they can reel in a certain number of other women.
Sometimes family members (parents, siblings, spouses, etc.) sell women or girls into sex slavery.
New boyfriends also lure women by promising a night out and then force them into waiting vehicles to sell them to pimps or traffickers.
Outright abduction is one of the most terrifying. Women and girls are simply taken while walking home from school or work.
The most horrible is the targeting of orphans. Many girls are at risk when they must leave the orphanage when they graduate at sixteen or seventeen. Most have no resources or funds for living expenses or any education or training to get a job. Traffickers often know when these girls are going to be turned out of the institution and are waiting for them with job offers. Sometimes girls are even purchased from orphanage workers.
Drugs also play a role in procuring and keeping women. Some women are involved in sexual exploitation because they need money for their addiction. But many are forced drugs to make them compliant and to incapacitate them.
It is important to note that not every woman is an innocent dupe. In fact, police and government officials often go to great lengths to stress that some of these women willingly enter the trade. In their eyes, this so-called willingness justifies their apathy and indifference. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even the “willing” women have no idea of what really awaits. It’s true that many women know full well when they accept a job offer that they’ll be working in some aspect of the sex industry—massage parlors, strip clubs, peep shows, and escort agencies. The vast number of women are not aware of the nature or conditions of the work that awaits them. Women are told they will earn $5,000 a month, live in luxury, have three days off, and be able to pick their clients. Also, the “contracts” they sign are for three months, after which time, they are told they are free to leave.

Most women are put into debt bondage, unable to pay off the high interest rate their pimp charges them. They are sold in markets, raped, forced to service ten to thirty men a day, can’t refuse any paying customer, are given no sick days and no days off for their periods, get pregnant, acquire HIV and other STDs or medical and psychological problems, and experience constant abuse and frequent gang rapes.

Customers of these women are sex tourists, U.N. peacekeeper and international humanitarian aid workers, U.S. military men, and local men in the area. The presence of these “mongers” has provided a valuable, readymade market for local brothel keepers trading in trafficked women.

“Breaking” the Women

In secret training centers, thugs snap the spirit and will of their terrified hostages. Women are quickly raped, often a few times. Their travel documents are taken and their activities are tightly controlled and restricted. They are locked in their rooms where they “work” and are under constant guard. They are warned that if they attempt escape they will be severely punished. And they are told that if they do escape their families are targeted. Often, they are videotaped or photographed in embarrassing sexual encounters, and warned that if they escape, the pictures will be sent to their families and hometowns. One woman forced into sex slavery shares her story:

There were many women in this one apartment. Some were crying. Others looked terrified. We were told not to speak to each other. Not to tell each other our names or where we were from. All the time, very mean and ugly men came in and dragged girls into the rooms. Sometimes they would rape girls in front of us. They yelled at them, ordering them to move certain ways . . . to pretend excitement . . . to moan. . . . It was sickening. Those who resisted were beaten. If they did not cooperate, they were locked in dark cellars with rats with no food or water for three days. One girl refused to submit to anal sex, and that night the owner brought in five men. They held her on the floor and every one of them had anal sex on her in front of us all. She screamed and screamed, and we all cried. That girl killed herself the next day. 5

After women are beaten and threatened, they are sold to brothel and bar owners that service the huge numbers of foreigners who make up sex tourists, international peacekeeping forces, and U.S. military men. The level of physical violence and psychological intimidation used to control these women is deliberate and extreme. It’s meant to instill fear—to crush them, destroy their will, and force them to comply. Some women have been mutilated and murdered as punishment for refusing to engage in the sex trade. Some are killed as examples to other women. In short, women are forced to do whatever it takes with whoever pays, and they are forced to do it with a smile on their face, a sparkle in their eye, and a moan on their lips. But all this is done because they will be killed and discarded if they do not.

1 Victor Malarek, The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2003), pp. 1–7.
2 For a thorough explanation of these factors, see Kathryn Farr, Sex Trafficking: The Global Market in Women and Children (New York: Worth Publishers), pp. 132–162 (Chapter 5—“From Here to There: Sex Trafficking Flows and the Economic Conditions That Drive Them”).
3 Denise Gamache and Evelina Giobbe, Prostitution: Oppression Disguised as Liberation, National Coalition against Domestic Violence, 1990.
4 Victor Malarek, The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2003), pp. 9–29 (Chapter 1—“Smuggler’s Prey”).
5 Victor Malarek, The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2003), p. 33.

Jesus is alive - from the churchforall

Jesus Rose From Death

MATTHEW 28:5-6 NKJ
5 But the angel answered and said to the women, "Do not be
afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.
6 "He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the
place where the Lord lay.

Jesus Christ's resurrection is either the supreme fact in
history or a gigantic hoax. If Christ's resurrection is true --
we ignore its implications at our own peril. If not, then
Christianity is the biggest fraud in the history of the world.

Christ's resurrection forces the question of Christianity's
validity from being merely a philosophical issue to being a
historical one.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a fact verifiable from
history. No one can challenge Christ's resurrection -- if they
take an honest look at the evidence.

Only those who never study the evidence -- or who refuse to
listen to its testimony -- could deny the resurrection of Jesus
Christ.

Many learned men have tried to disprove Christ's resurrection --
only to become believers instead!

Some people refuse to examine the evidence, because they do not
want to believe in Jesus Christ and submit to Him as Lord.

The facts remain. Confucius' tomb, Buddha's tomb, Mohammed's
tomb, and Lenin's tomb are all occupied.

But Jesus Christ's tomb is EMPTY!

REVELATION 1:18 NKJ
18 "I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive
forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death."

SAY THIS: I believe that Jesus Christ rose from death.

From the Churchforall

Dear ChurchForAll Family,

Rejoice!

Jesus rose from death as your Substitute, after paying the
total price for your freedom!

Complete salvation is a free gift we receive by receiving Jesus
Christ.

When we understand what Jesus has already done for us, we have
a right to be excited about the Good News!

Keep the fact that your Lord and Savior has triumphed over all
that is against you in your thinking. But don't keep it a
secret!

Rejoice!

God bless you,

Dean Wall
http://ChurchForAll.org

A Smith Wigglesworth devotional

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. —Romans 10:17

Don't stumble at the Word. Believe that God is greater than you are, greater than your heart, greater than your thoughts.

Only He can establish you in righteousness even when your thoughts and your knowledge are absolutely against it.

The Word of God is true. If you will understand the truth, you can always be on line to gain strength, overcome the world, and make everything subject to you.

Lord Jesus, renew my mind according to Thy Word.
Give me a desire for the kind of faith that
will overcome my world. Amen.

Read more: http://www.charismamag.com/index.php/newsletters/daily-devotionals/smith-wigglesworth-devotional-/25831-god-is-greater#ixzz0jwlKmAQD

From a Smith Wigglesworth devotional

And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. —1 John 5:4

Christ is the root and source of our faith. When He is in what we believe for, it will come to pass. No wavering. This is the principle: He who believes is definite. A definite faith brings a definite experience and a definite utterance. As our prayers rest upon the simple principle of faith, nothing shall be impossible to us.

The root principle of all this divine overcoming faith in the human heart is Christ. When you are grafted deeply into Him, you may win millions of lives to the faith. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the secret to every hard problem in your heart.

Lord Jesus, grant me overcoming faith
to claim the impossible. Amen.



Read more: http://www.charismamag.com/index.php/newsletters/daily-devotionals/smith-wigglesworth-devotional-/25830-overcoming-faith#ixzz0jrTDbGJR