Picture Justice: Embracing Our Global Neighborhood

by Bethany Hoang

Posing as a sex tourist looking for young girls, one of our investigators showed up at the brothel where Kunthy and Chanda were being held. Equipped with a hidden undercover camera, our investigator inquired as to the age and pricing for this brothel’s girls. The girls were brought out like wares for purchase – the owners offered that they could be taken for the whole night.

Our investigator left the brothel and took his evidence to the local police. Because of our sustained presence in the country, relationship building, and conducting robust training with a police force that had once taken bribes in exchange for tipping-off brothel raids, the Cambodian National Police responded to the evidence we brought them and agreed to raid the brothel with International Justice Mission.

Kunthy and Chanda were not only rescued – they were also brought into a safe, loving new life and home. The girls’ abusers were tried, convicted, and sentenced to prison. The girls themselves bravely testified in the tiny Cambodian courtroom, standing just feet away from the very people who had enslaved them, abused them, and offered their bodies for sale. The courage these little girls mustered to stand in a small room so near to the very people who held them in slavery to rape is astounding. Their testimony was so powerful that the judge declined the need to see the corroborating undercover video evidence.

And the courage in these girls’ hearts continues to this day. They are a beautiful picture of the work God desires to do through His church on this earth. Their lives point to the only true Life. But getting to these girls meant choosing to live in the neighborhood of Golgotha – not only for the Christian investigators, but for all those who daily choose to support and join the work that brings the kind of freedom these girls now have.

FOLLOW ME

All throughout our lives Jesus offers sign-posts of the life-giving death that he wants to give to us. His grace and promise of abundant life comes to us, more often than we would anticipate, through experiences that look like and echo the sounds of death. For me, that day with the girls in Cambodia was a sign-post of the Kingdom. The mark they left on my life was an offering of grace to me, a beckoning of Jesus to count all as loss compared to His offer of living a dying life.

God gives us the gift of drawing us toward realities where death seems to reign, so that He can show us the power of the life He alone has to offer.

This is witness. This is mission. Not merely to tell people that they can be raised from death to life, but to go to the places where death rules the day and let God use us to bring life, to show that Jesus has conquered all death.

Jesus offers life to us, saying,
“Follow me…” in loving the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
“Follow me…” in loving others as you love yourself.
“Follow me…” to Golgotha.

Do we want to see the nations come into the saving knowledge of Jesus? We must go to them from every angle, heeding every command of scripture related to every part of human existence.

The girls that I met in Cambodia –Kunthy and Chanda – sent me away from their home with pictures they had drawn. These drawings, just by virtue of their existence, spoke of childhood, of life, of freedom. But they were drawn with hands that have known, all too intimately, the very darkest shadows of death, of slavery, of utter violence. Their bodies will always bear the memory of beatings, of narcotics forced into their veins, of money exchanging hands as they were thrust into the arms of a stranger who would take them further into the dark shadows of death… stripping them of the very things that make them human and children, violating them to the core.

But they have new life.

They are free.

They are a living testimony to the work of redemption, of restoration that God desires to bring to all of creation. Just as one day all things will be made new, Kunthy and Chanda’s lives point to this truth.

If we are to groan with all of creation for the healing of the nations, we must groan for the freedom of our neighbors near and far, one by one. And God will surely be glorified.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

This essay refers to a “global neighborhood.” Given a recent increase of globalization, who is your neighbor and what is your responsibility to your neighbor?

Have you ever wrestled with the idea of service combined with evangelism? Do you think this is an essential within service, a threat to authentic service, or do you have another perspective on this issue?

In what way have you participated in God’s passion for justice recently?

In what way do you or your church fall into the Gnostic teaching of separating our souls and our bodies? What are some natural consequences of that line of thinking?

Hoang confronts some commonly held beliefs regarding the mission of the church. Do you agree or disagree with her assertion that matters of justice are matters of salvation? Why or why not?

Where are the “neighborhoods of Golgotha” around you? In what ways can you choose to live in those neighborhoods to bring justice?

Lastly, consider these ways to get involved in justice:

Tell a friend that slavery exists today.
Go to the places where injustice reigns in your global neighborhood.
Whether near or far from you, ask God to open your eyes to the reality of oppression.
Pay for the rescue the poor cannot afford - Write a check to an organization pursuing justice.
Pray for freedom of the oppressed.
Start a small group to study God’s passion for justice throughout Scripture.

END NOTES

1 Gary Barnes interviewing John Stott in Christianity Today: “Why Don’t They Listen?” September 1, 2003

2 For a foundational study of this piece of American church history (and the primary source of my own understanding of the topic, see Marsden, George M. 1980. Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of the 20th Century Evangelicalism 1870-1925. Oxford University Press, New York. Chapters 8, 9, and 10 are particularly relevant for the issues explored in this article.

3 See Psalm 11:7; Isaiah 61:8, Psalm 33:5; Proverbs 14:31; Isaiah 1:17; Isaiah 58:6-12; Micah 6:8; Matthew 23:23; Luke 4:18-21.

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Comments

Todd Colwell

I just read this as I sit here in a little suburban coffee shop off of Main Street in Norcross, GA. Not far to the north is my city, Johns Creek. Here in Norcross, I know where injustice is at work, but it's away from the aroma of coffee. Where I live, it's next to impossible to find anything that our city's culture deems "wrong". I mention my context because it shapes me more than I know. It easily cheapens grace's impact on me and this is why my "cross" has been the exercise of practices of the faith. Why, I find these practices help me in the transitional times. Those times are when I travel the web or roads and come across injustice and the need for me to respond. If my conscience is not shaped by the Spirit of the Kingdom of Jesus, I'm not very good at action on behalf or even with God. But when I am, I'm able to move beyond my culture into the heart of the Father. I agree with much of what Hoang writes here and see once again that justice is not just a good idea but a genuine expression that those of us in God's Kingdom need to act on whenever we face it.

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