Yoga and Human Trafficking

Last weekend I went to a human trafficking and yoga retreat. It sounds like a crazy combo, I know, but it ended up being really good. Good in a breaking-me and moving-me and inspiring-me way.

The greek word for compassion is "pasio" (to suffer) and "com" (with). True compassion means to suffer with those who are hurting. So we went to some really hard, dark, dirty, messy places this weekend - in hearing stories of women both who have been freed from bondage and who are still there.

One of the goals of the weekend was to move from ignorance and judgment to compassion and action. I discovered my own ignorance. I care deeply about human trafficking, but thinking it is overseas puts somewhat of a comfortable distance between me and the problem.

I had never seen prostitution in Kansas City, Missouri, as being part of the sex trafficking trade. But it is. Girls are seduced by men who claim to be their boyfriends. The boyfriend, after a couple of months, will tell her they really need some money and ask her if she would go on the street to make some. He then slowly becomes her pimp, controlling and manipulating her. Prostitution isn't just the foolishness the church makes it out to be or the glamorized career the media makes it out to be. It is emotional, physical, sexual, and mental bondage of little girls that turn into women.

So now I am faced with the fact that something I care a lot about and an evil that comes directly from the pit of hell is happening around the corner. I am afraid to take the leap and get involved. But I can't just sit and let it happen.