Stories of Rescue (Installment 2)

What is it about rescue that rocks our world? Those times when we felt that there was absolutely no help for us…when someone stepped in, took our hand and helped us find hope and a true friend. Who is this “half-crazy” God who leaves the 99 sheep at risk of predators in the mountains to rescue the one? He is the same God who throws a massive, joyful party when the rescue of that little one is accomplished.

In continuation of our installments of micro-narratives, I am sharing some stories from our interviews earlier this month. May they pierce our deep places with truth and be God’s sword of love in our souls and spirits. These stories came from an interview with our country director, who has worked with us since 1998. After we listened to stories directly from the children, he also reminisced about the time in 2006 when he and more than 30 of our key leaders were imprisoned in a military prison compound for distributing bibles and preaching the good news.

The circumstances were dismal, but he labored all day—every day—without complaint and scrounged for weeds to eat in the evening, sharing what he had. Bit by bit, he cleaned out the dirty hovel that was their shelter and continued encouraging his team members to serve willingly and trust God. He gradually gained the trust of the guards and was allowed to hold small gatherings to worship and pray. His joy was infectious and it piqued the interest of the young boy soldiers that lived at the army base. Every night, they would drift in to visit after his toil in the fields. He said the one thing they asked him about over and over was, “How do we escape?” It was their constant dream. He was released after a month and a half of the negotiations our team leveraged through a local government leader. He recalled that when he began his hike out to the pickup point, the young soldiers threw their guns aside, chasing after him, weeping and calling him father, begging him to not forget them. Their cries and questions of escape still echo in his ears.

During their captivity, our director and team shared their quarters with a lady who had been imprisoned for buying young children in Bur-ma and shipping them into a human trafficking ring in Chi-na. As this woman grew to trust him and the leaders imprisoned there, our country director experienced the wonder of leading her to the feet of Jesus. She explained a lot about how human trafficking rings work in the region. Her own role was to find about 10-15 young kids a year to sell to the middleman she worked for. Because she had a long-term sentence, this lady’s hands and feet were shackled. Our country director spoke again of his release and how she also ran after him weeping with the child soldiers. She stumbled every few meters as she ran and fell facedown in the mud because of her shackles, but she got up again and again to run after him, crying out for mercy and for him not to forget her.

I am sure you can imagine a portion the depth of what stories like these do to the person who lives through them. Perhaps through these narratives you can begin to understand why it is necessary that we live a little bit too much on the edge and why I bawled my eyes out (again) while retelling this story of the former trafficker and child soldiers. These stories paint a small part of the picture of why we partner with Project: AK-47 to sell dog tags at www.ak47tags.com so that people like you can tell the stories of these unrescued children who have no way to tell their own stories. Maybe stories of this sort make it clearer as to why I’m willing to travel all over the globe instead of being home every night with my awesome family. Stories like these are the reason why we find it necessary to continue the conversation with you, our friends and fellow advocates in the rescue and prevention of children being trafficked and caught in armed conflict.

I don’t have all the answers to injustice, but I do believe we need to let these stories touch our hearts. If they don’t, something is wrong. If they do, something is still wrong, but we have the opportunity—even if we don’t have a clue yet as to how—to be part of the answer.

Thank you for engaging with these stories, and please be on the watch for the next round of stories on their way to you very soon.


Marcus Young

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