This past Saturday I found myself doing clean up work on an 1893 mansion on the outskirts of Baltimore for an organization called the Samaritan Women. The house, though gutted in many places, still retains the aura of one of those quirky homes that I thought only existed in movies. It's 8,000 square feet with endless rooms, three stories, a basement, multiple staircases, and seemingly a thousand ways to get from one place to the next. One of the great things about mission trips is they always seem to have such fascinating backdrops.

When I arrived with the high schoolers and adults on site I was shuffled towards Jean, the chief board member for the Samaritan Women, to be briefed on the purpose of the house. Honestly, at first I was more interested in getting to work than listening. What she had to say, though, left a pit in my stomach and a burden on my heart.

Jean toured me around the house as we discussed how the mansion is to be used as a transition home for women to get off the streets and into society. It will also serve as a culinary arts school that will provide the women with a trade to take with them as they reenter the job field, helping them not to fall back into some of the common pitfalls of female poverty (drugs, prostitution, etc.). The Samaritan Women already does a substantial amount of ministry fighting female poverty and spreading the Gospel in the worst parts of Baltimore, and this is simply another step and another way of reaching out.

All of this sounded wonderful, of course, but I was blown away when she told me that the women she is seeking to help transition back into society are victims of human trafficking and sex slavery.

Though I have been aware for a few years that human trafficking is a problem, Jean truly opened up my eyes to how big a problem it is, even in America. Worldwide, it's a multi-billion dollar industry. Domestically, the three leading cities in human trafficking are Seattle, WA, Portland, OR, and the Baltimore-DC metropolitan area. Domestic human trafficking includes both the purchasing and the abduction and selling of slaves, with the target age of a sex slave for abduction being 11. 11 years old. As we speak, there are countless numbers of pre-teen and teenaged girls who are being ravaged by older men who purchased their services from someone who owns them. Sex tourism is booming business, where men go from place to place and always have a girl with whom to spend the night. Where do many of these girls come from? The harsh reality is that they never chose this life, though even such a choice is a tragedy. Many of these girls were turned into sex toys against their own will on the day of their abduction.

As Jean and I discussed the harsh realities of a cruel world, I became angry and terribly saddened. Maybe the abortion issue seems to big, and maybe Sundan is too far away, but here, on a Saturday in July, I was talking with a woman who had looked depravity and corruption in the face and was ready to do something about it. Her and I have both seen prostitutes, we've both met victims, but only one of us was engaging them in a way that would help them encounter the God who loves them and wants to change their lives forever. I left that Baltimore mansion knowing I had to return as soon as I could.

As I'm writing this, it reminds me of an evening my wife and I had with our daugther the week after she turned one. Eden woke us up screaming in her crib, and when we went in to check on her, we noticed that she had been vomiting, and was continuing to vomit. As she had probably begun getting sick while she was still sleeping, she had obviously layed in her own vomit, which was now covering her, including her face, and she was not able to see. As Jess walked out of the room the get Eden's back ready to take her to the ER (she had rotovirus, we found out later) I was left staring at my child, screaming and covered from head to toe in her own sickness. At that moment, no one had to explain to me what to do. I grabbed anything I could wipe her off and I cleaned out her eyes so she could see. The sight was so terribly sad that my instincts as a father to protect my daughter kicked in and I moved into action. My daughter could not be left like that.

In much the same way, after hearing of the depts of human trafficking, I cannot compell myself to go back to the way things were before. The scene is disturbing, my heart is broken, and I must take action.