{"id":767,"date":"2010-11-23T07:21:38","date_gmt":"2010-11-23T07:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2010\/11\/could-you-ignore-a-tragedy.html"},"modified":"2010-11-23T07:21:38","modified_gmt":"2010-11-23T07:21:38","slug":"could-you-ignore-a-tragedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/11\/could-you-ignore-a-tragedy.html","title":{"rendered":"Could you ignore a tragedy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It all started at Together for Adoption, a conference I spoke at earlier this year. My topic was sex trafficking, and I began to tell the stories of girls trapped in forced prostitution and the “rape-for-profit” business. <\/p>\n

At the end of the session, someone spontaneously stood up<\/a> <\/b>and said to the 80 people in the room, “If we each gave $30 right now, we could rescue a girl.”  I prayed, and then one at a time people began putting money on the table. <\/p>\n

Jennifer and Robert McHaney were one of the couples I met that weekend, and I believe that weekend changed their perspective on the tragedy of sex trafficking in our world. <\/p>\n

Sexual slavery is not front page news. The 2 million children who are trapped do not make the covers of our magazines. The local news lead story would almost never focus on trafficked girls in another country.<\/p>\n

In other words, at some level in our national media consciousness, we’ve ignored this tragedy. <\/p>\n

\"McHaneyThumb.JPG\"<\/span>But the McHaney’s decided they could not ignore this.<\/b><\/p>\n

They are part of the Change Their Story <\/b><\/a>team, and have set a goal to raise $5,000 this Christmas to help protect girls in Russia from forced prostitution.<\/p>\n

Although we started a week ago, they’ve already received $2,125 toward their goal. <\/b><\/p>\n

They write on their page:<\/p>\n

This past October we attended the Together for Adoption Conference where
\nwe learned about the orphans around the world and how we can help.  Our
\nhearts were particularly broken for the orphans who are lured into or
\neven violently abducted into the sex trafficking trade because they are
\nalone and easy targets.  This often happens after they “age-out” of the
\norphanages and have no skills or place to turn and are lured into
\nbelieving their captors will give them a legitimate job to help give
\nthem a better life.  Instead of the promised job, they are held in
\nphysical and emotional bondage.  Can you imagine the emotional trauma to
\nthese innocent young girls believing they will have a better life and
\nthen having their worlds turned upside down by abuse, rape and other mistreatment?  We couldn’t just sit there and ignore this tragedy any
\nlonger, we were compelled to try to help these young girls rebuild their
\nlives and the best way we can do that now is to help raise money.  It
\ntakes money to help stop this exploitation and that is how you can
\npartner with us to make a difference.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you would like to find out more about how the McHaney’s are working to protect girls from sex trafficking, visit their <\/a>personal page today<\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n

You too can join Change Their Story. We’ve never done anything quite like this before, but so far we are experiencing great success. This is one of the easiest and most effective tools you can use to advocate for orphans. Just go to this page<\/a> to sign up. All you have to do is select the area you want to raise money for, choose the amount you want to raise, and use your personal fundraising page to e-mail your friends and family. Join us!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It all started at Together for Adoption, a conference I spoke at earlier this year. My topic was sex trafficking, and I began to tell the stories of girls trapped in forced prostitution and the “rape-for-profit” business. At the end of the session, someone spontaneously stood up and said to the 80 people in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sex-trafficking"],"yoast_head":"\nCould you ignore a tragedy? - Red Letters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/11\/could-you-ignore-a-tragedy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Could you ignore a tragedy? - Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It all started at Together for Adoption, a conference I spoke at earlier this year. My topic was sex trafficking, and I began to tell the stories of girls trapped in forced prostitution and the “rape-for-profit” business. At the end of the session, someone spontaneously stood up and said to the 80 people in the…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/11\/could-you-ignore-a-tragedy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-11-23T07:21:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/import\/McHaneyThumb.JPG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Davis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Could you ignore a tragedy? - Red Letters","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/11\/could-you-ignore-a-tragedy.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Could you ignore a tragedy? - Red Letters","og_description":"It all started at Together for Adoption, a conference I spoke at earlier this year. My topic was sex trafficking, and I began to tell the stories of girls trapped in forced prostitution and the “rape-for-profit” business. At the end of the session, someone spontaneously stood up and said to the 80 people in the…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/11\/could-you-ignore-a-tragedy.html","og_site_name":"Red Letters","article_published_time":"2010-11-23T07:21:38+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/import\/McHaneyThumb.JPG"}],"author":"Tom Davis","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/11\/could-you-ignore-a-tragedy.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/11\/could-you-ignore-a-tragedy.html","name":"Could you ignore a tragedy? - Red Letters","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/11\/could-you-ignore-a-tragedy.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/11\/could-you-ignore-a-tragedy.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/import\/McHaneyThumb.JPG","datePublished":"2010-11-23T07:21:38+00:00","dateModified":"2010-11-23T07:21:38+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/11\/could-you-ignore-a-tragedy.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/11\/could-you-ignore-a-tragedy.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/11\/could-you-ignore-a-tragedy.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/import\/McHaneyThumb.JPG","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/files\/import\/McHaneyThumb.JPG"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2010\/11\/could-you-ignore-a-tragedy.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Could you ignore a tragedy?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/","name":"Red Letters","description":"Christian, Christian Inspiration, Christian News, Christian Activism News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92","name":"Tom Davis","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","caption":"Tom Davis"},"description":"Tom Davis currently serves as CEO of Children's HopeChest (www.hopechest.org), a global orphan care ministry headquartered in Colorado Springs. A tireless advocate for fatherless children, Davis has spent most of his adult life calling U.S. believers to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to the 143 million orphans living around the world. Through those connections, thousands of orphans now have the bright and hopeful future--one that is filled with opportunities and the love of the one true Father. Davis speaks hundreds of times each year at churches and conferences, mobilizing the church to action on behalf of the poor. He is the author of four books. His most recent novel, SCARED is a fictionalized account of his first-hand experiencing living and working with orphans in Swaziland, Africa. Davis' blog is the premier resource for the latest developments in Christian orphan ministry. Davis also currently teaches courses as adjunct professor at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. When not traveling the globe, Davis resides in the mountains of Colorado in the small community of Palmer Lake. He and his wife Emily have seven children, including two adopted daughters from Russia.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/author\/tdavis"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}