Your Backyard

When you think of slavery, you probably think of a lot of things.  Shackles, the Civil War, Abe Lincoln, abuse, discrimination, a bad time in American history.   You may even harvest a lot of emotions about it.  maybe your family tree leads back to slavery.  Maybe your family tree leads back to slave owners.  The days of slavery were hurtful.  The days where a human was owned by another human are over, thank God those days are over…. Right!!?

Wrong.

There are more slaves today than ever before in the history of humans.  MORE.  The industry makes an estimated $32 billion a year. That’s more than Starbucks, Nike and Google combined!

How does this happen?

A lot of different ways.  A woman desperate to escape poverty is promised a new life in America.  She accepts the offer, and next thing she knows she’s in a brothel.  A young man’s parents were killed in a war.  Next thing you know, he’s snorting cocaine and fighting a grown man’s war.  A young lady was proposed to.  She goes to get married, and ends up a slave to her ‘husband’.  A parent, husband or boyfriend, in efforts to make some money sell thier girls into it.  Not just mature grown women.  I’m talking 6-death.  The average age is 12 years old, but can start as young as 6.

A lot of times they will force these women into using drugs, (Which probably isn’t difficult, as it offers some sort of escape) so, when/if someone tries to rescue them, they have withdrawels, and go back to their pimp/drug supplier/the only thing they know.  Women are sold and forced to sleep with men 20 – 60 times a day!  When they’re younger, their hymens are sewed, to remain ‘virgins’ because that brings in more money.

Where in the world does this happen?  All over.  Atlanta is the number 1 city in America.  But sits at #8 for the entire world.  They are kidnapped, and flown to America.  They are kept under the radar in brothels, in your backyard.  This could be happening just five minutes away from your house.  Yet, we sit comfortably by and ignore it.  Knowledge is power, yet we choose ignorance, because it’s bliss.  Now you know.  You can sit on this.  Odds are good, if you live near a major city, or an airport of any kind, this is happening.  What does our country do about this?  Well, typically, instead of going after the big dogs, we arrest the 17/18 year old girl.  Get her bail and fine money, which is chump change to her pimp, and don’t offer her any help, we just send her back out to the street to be raped, beaten, abused, tortured emotionally and physically.

Do you watch porn?  Did you know that over half of the porn on the internet today is actually a guy with a video camera and a hundred bucks to buy this girl?  Did you know that he’s recording these slaves, and then charging you to watch them on the internet.   Did you know, that your hunger for porn is helping fund the demand for sex slavery?  My guess is you had never thought about that.

There are thousands of places you can go to help fight this.  There are places all over the internet.   Please think about this, and spread the word.  The world needs to know about the biggest slave trade in history happening right behind our backs.

Learn More:

http://www.callandresponse.com/
http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/
http://www.innocenceatlanta.org/
http://www.humantrafficking.org/

I was 17 years old.  Money was tight, as it had been for years now.  Since I was 17, my mom decided it was time for me to start paying rent.  I was ok with that.  December 1st, I paid my rent. (I honestly don’t remember how much. I’m sure that’s a lesson in and of itself).  I was happy, because I figured that would give me a paycheck or two to get gifts for my family. And I did.  I bought gifts for everyone.

On Christmas Eve, I had some friends, and my girlfriend over.  My mom asked me for my December rent.  I told her I had already paid it, and a fight ensued.  She was screaming, I was screaming.  She didn’t know there were gifts from me under the tree.  She was telling me I was too tied up with my girlfriend at the time.  She said that all I did was spent money on weed and my girlfriend.   I told her she had a horrible memory, and I already paid.  I told her if she could stay sober, her memory would be better.  *POW*.  Fist across the face.  It’s how I was punished growing up, and I learned at a young age to never hit a woman.  I didn’t budge.  I stared her in the face and said, “Do. Not. Hit. Me. Again.”  *POW*.  Another one, and another one.  At this point it was flurries.  I did not budge.  When she stopped, she was staring at me.  I turned my head, and spit on the wall, and I saw it.  Blood.  Blood was running down the wall.  I felt the warmth on my face.  I grinned.

“You can’t hit me anymore, I’m bigger than that now.”

“GET OUT, and don’t come back!”

I reached into my back pocket at took out my money.  I don’t remember how much it was, but I remember it was everything I had.  I threw it at her, and left.

I went and got into my friends car, and we drove off.

I had nowhere to go.  I was destroyed.  Not because I had nowhere to go, but because my mom threw me out on Christmas eve.  My heart hurt.  My friend, Katie called her mom, they had a conversation, and she hung up.  She looked at me and said, “We have a spare bedroom.  You can crash at my house tonight.”

I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t really have a choice.  I said, “Thank you.”

When we got to her house, I was able to assess the damage.  My eye was swollen, and my lips were all bloodied.  I had dried blood running down my face.  I was a mess.  Her mom showed me my room, and gave me some of her older sons clothes. (That were like, XLs, cause dude was like 6 feet tall.) We hung out for a little while, and I retired to bed, they told me that breakfast is at 10:00 every Christmas.

Christmas morning, I slept in.  I remember hearing the family get up and go downstairs, but I didn’t want to intrude.  I stayed in bed, replaying the events that had taken shape the night before, and cried.  I imagined my family opening up my gifts, without me.  I imagined my mom talking about me, and no one saying anything because they were scared.  I felt empty.

Around 9:55, I got up, got decent, and went downstairs.  Everyone looked at me, wished me a Merry Christmas, and offered me breakfast.  I sat down at the table and we all ate.  About halfway through the meal, Karen, (The mom) got up, walked over to the tree and picked up 4 gifts.  She carried them over to the table, and put them in front of me.  I didn’t know what to say.  ”Merry Christmas, Andy.”  Everyone was smiling huge.  I cried.

The night before, when I went to bed, they went out, found a store that was still open and bought me gifts.  The essentials.  Socks, beard trimmer, Shirts.

I remember that day so vividly.  I remember how happy everyone looked when I was getting a gift.  I remember being blown away by the ‘family-ness’ that was present that day.

The smallest gesture made my entire Christmas a little easier.  For that, I will always be thankful.

On a side note, Karen was able to be present for my baptism some 8 years later.  I often wonder if she knows that she very possibly planted the first seed.

This is a re-post from last year.  I hope it helps you remember what is important in your life, as we approach a season that has been warped into something completely different than what it was meant to be. 

My parents took us out to dinner.  This wasn’t unordinary.  Though it had slowed quite a bit in recent months.  I never really questioned why, I just assumed they were busy.  We were sitting in the restaurant, and had ordered, and my dad asked us, “Have you ever heard the story of the Gift of the Magi?”

Obviously, being pretty young, none of us had, so we all shook our heads.  He told us about the man and his watch, and the girl and her hair, and all the stuff that lead up to the ending.   He asked us what we thought the moral of the story was.  None of us had really good answers, so we just sat there, clueless.

He proceeded to tell us that there is a lot more to Christmas than getting gifts.  He told us that being with people you love, and knowing you’re loved is important.  He told us that sometimes, when life gets tough, the most important thing is knowing you’re surrounded by people who love you.  He told us that, this Christmas wouldn’t be like other Christmases, because he had lost his job.  He told us that we would have a meal, and be loved, and he, with tears in his eyes, told us that he hoped we still loved him.

We ate our meals and went home.  Our tree was up and stockings were hung, and honestly I don’t remember feeling differently at that moment.  I didn’t know what the weeks, months, or years were going to bring, which, I guess is why I carried on doing my own thing.  I don’t remember much about how that Christmas went, I do remember sleeping in.  I remember women from the school bringing us blankets and ‘necessities’ for our gifts, and I remember being really embarrassed about that.  I remember a woman bringing dinner over, and I remember none of us liking it, because it wasn’t mom’s cooking.

After living out what God had in store for me and my family the next 10-15 years, I can say it wasn’t easy.  I can say it’s hard to tell your friends you didn’t get anything.  I can say, it’s nice to have friends who understood.  I can say, even with all of our disfunction, it was nice to have a family.

What I wouldn’t give, to wake up this Christmas, with my wife and my daughter and head over to my mom’s house and listen to her scream frantically about how she’s been slaving all day to prepare a meal, to have Andrea taste my mom’s cooking.  What I wouldn’t give to see Adrienne, my sister, who passed 9 years ago. or Matthew, who, up until he died 8 years ago, we spent EVERY Christmas together since I was 6.

It wasn’t until all of the loss in my life, or even until this very moment, in writing this out that I truely understood what my dad was saying that night at the restaurant.

Gifts are cool to get, and a really good excuse to get together.  But love.  Love is what makes it all worth it.  The value of a gift is not the price tag.  The value of a gift is as deep as the love of the person who gave it.  The gift isn’t the object at all.  The gift is the love.  Christmas defies all logic.  From the birth of a baby born of a virgin, to a disfunctional family establishing a love so deep that it hurts the very core of my being.

Do me a favor this year.  Give love.  I don’t care how you do it, but make sure everyone in your life knows they’re loved.  There will be a Christmas where you will wish you could.

Merry Christmas ladies and gents.

It’s true.  If you know me at all, you probably know I have a tendency to fly off the handle.  I am pretty quick to anger, and slow to calm down.   If you could believe it, I used to be worse.  I was quicker to anger and, once I was angry, it was more of a rage.  While I’m still working on it, I’ve learned that life is too short to be angry.

Being angry does something to your heart.  You can’t deny it.  When you’re angry, it’s hard to say things like, “Sorry..” or, “I Love You..” or, “I was wrong..”.  When you’re angry, it makes it easier to say cruel things.  It makes it easier to destroy trust.  It makes it easier to destroy relationships.  It makes it easier to hurt people you love.  Sometimes that can be undone, but you still leave a bad taste in someone’s mouth.

You can read 100 things on how not to anger, but the truth is, it has to be something inside of you.  There has to be a motivation in your heart and a decision in your brain.  Something that says, “It’s not worth it.”  I’m still working on it, every day, I’m working on it.  But I’ve gotten better and I can say, the moments when I feel like I’ve avoided anger are some of the best moments of my life.  I feel like, not only have I avoided anger, I’ve avoided hurting someone I love, I’ve avoided losing trust, I’ve avoided pain.

An old Chinese proverb says, “If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.”  5 years ago, I wouldn’t even know what that means, but today, it resonates deep in my soul.

In life, generally speaking, there is always an opportunity to learn.  I’ve lived a life of learning the hard way.  I’ve never taken the easy road, but I’ve finally gotten somewhere.  By the grace of God.  I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, on what I’ve learned in life so far, and I thought I’d hash out a bullet list.  From that bullet list, I plan on writing a post about each one.  We’ll see how it goes.

1. Life’s Too Short to be Angry.
2. Marry Your Best Friend.
3. With Age Comes Wisdom.
4. Never Make Assumptions.
5. Your Parents are Right A Lot of the Time.
6. Vision is Only Half the Battle.
7. Never Give Up.
8. If You’re the Smartest Person in the Room, You’re in the Wrong Room.
9. Kindness and Hard Work Will Take you Farther than Intelligence.
10. Laugh.
11. Never Detour From Your Beliefs.
12. Step Out of Your Comfort Zone.
13. Don’t Lie, Don’t Cheat, Don’t Steal.
14. In Every Battle, Arm Yourself With Love.
15. Nothing is More Important Than Family.
16. Everyone is Going Through Something.
17. Forgive. Holding a Grudge is Only Hurting You.

These are the things I try to remember every day.  These are the things that I believe have shaped who I am today.  I plan on going in to detail on each one.  What are somethings I’ve missed?