March 28th

Hi Everyone! Thanks for your continued partnership and the time you take to pray for people impacted by trafficking around the world each month. I wanted to take a few moments this month and share a little bit about a group project that I am involved with at UT this semester and to encourage you all by things going on in Tennessee. For those of you who do not know, this is my final semester in social work school, and one of my courses is a course in policy change and development. Our main assignment in this class is to chose a policy, advocate for changing it, or for the enforcement of this policy, and then evaluate what happens. Because of Jamie's email in December I had a little bit of knowledge about the William Wilberforce Act, and this ended up being the policy that my group decided to go with for the semester. Our plan has been to raise awareness in the Knoxville area about trafficking and connect with groups already working throughout Tennessee to bring some connection and support to their efforts. To make a long story short, today I got to sit at a table with my group mates and tell students about trafficking and get them to sign a petition asking for our Senators and Representative to start the formation of an anti-trafficking task force in Tennessee. It was really exciting, and one thing I learned was that many students didn't know what I was talking about when I said "human trafficking" and their next question was, "Why should we need something like that here? Isn't that just happening in Asia?" Sadly, the answer is no. I came across a letter on the organization Shared Hope's website written from the Mayor of Atlanta to the owner of a popular website that was being used by traffickers for marketing. The letter stated that half of the prostitutes in Atlanta were teenagers. I've read news articles of people being caught trafficking Latin American girls in Nashville and the risks that runaways have in Chattanooga of being caught up in trafficking within two days of hitting the streets. It's alarming. The good news is that right now Georgia and North Carolina have anti-trafficking task forces to help boost prevention efforts as well as work with police forces to recognize situations and individuals who have been trafficked. Organizations like Second Life in Chattanooga and coalitions like Nashville Rescue and Restore are forming in Tennessee to bring awareness and change. It's exciting stuff! You know what's even more exciting? A lot of these groups are led by Believers responding to injustice by offering hope through the Gospel, and, it's getting the attention of the community. I know we've done this before, but, I think it would be good to pray for these grassroots efforts and people working on this issue in their communities. Here is a list of organizations you can pray for (I apologize for those who live in non-Tennessee states, right now I don't have the info on other states, but, we would love for you all to pass on any information to us about groups and work going on in your area! Non Tennesseans feel free to pray generally for your state or, you can pray for these too, pray however you feel led) : *Second Life of Chattanooga (http://www.secondlifechattanooga.org/blog/) *Nashville Rescue and Restore (http://www.nashvillerescueandrestore.org/) *Chattanooga Matters (http://www.chattanoogamatters.org) *The World Next Door Market (Jency and Nathan are going to Nepal in April, pray for their trip as it is an opportunity to offer the gospel, hope, and a new life to girls who decide not to go into India and avoid being trafficked! I am so excited!) *10/40 Connections (http://www.1040connections.org) *Tennessee Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence (http://www.tcadsv.org) *Catholic Charities (http://www.ccetn.org) *STOP student group at the University of Tennessee *Shared Hope International (http://www.sharedhope.org) *International Justice Mission (http://www.ijm.org) *Pray that these efforts would be successful, organized, and effective. Pray that Christians would display leadership as well as offer the hope and healing of the gospel to their communities. *Pray that anti-trafficking task forces would be started across the country so that more survivors of trafficking are identified and get the support they need, perpetrators are brought to justice, and the communities can have the supports in place to help meet the needs of survivors of trafficking. *Pray that the police forces and area agencies would recognize that this is could be going on in their cities and is a problem. Pray that they would begin looking for ways to train their officers. As it stands right now there are 22,000-24,000 police forces nation wide. Only 2 are trained to identify and handle situations of trafficking. *Pray for the people being trafficked across the United States daily. Pray that this country would become aware of the problem, and that more survivors can be rescued. Pray that these survivors would have the opportunity to hear the gospel and that they would find healing and hope through Jesus. Thanks again! Love, Amanda from the 28th gals