We Want More

There are 35 million people in modern day slavery today. 2 million are kids, trapped in sex trafficking. $150 Billion is generated by slavery each year. You’ve probably heard it before. Cold hard numbers. Real people.

It‘s just too much and you and I don’t know what to do with it. We pray, we give here and there. Some of us give lots, we pray lots, a few of us pray every day and that's great. We can be grateful for that and we are. Very grateful.

We love hearing reports about rescues, four girls in the Philippines, three kids in Guatemala City, two men in Kenya, one perpetrator convicted in Kampala, and even 564 men, women and children in Chennai are now free. No more daily multiple rapes for those girls. No more sexual abuse for the kids. No more police brutality for these men and no more 12 hour workdays, 7 days a week in the brick kiln for these families. You can’t give me enough of those stories! And we are grateful.

How wonderful, how exciting, how amazing that this is happening. It happens regularly because the people in the field offices all over the world and their partners are working long, hard hours. They are tenacious, longsuffering, patient and they do not give up. They have guts and grit and courage. They are bold.

I love that, don’t you? They keep going. They don’t go away until it is done.

But how about ending it once and for all. No more cold hard numbers telling us how bad it is and no more stories of abuse and impunity! And no more rescue stories either!

What I'm saying is, can we get rid of it all? No more slavery. Never to return anywhere in the world. Freedom, for everyone. No exceptions.

Would that be possible, at all, ever? Can someone do the math here? 35 Million people, right? How long would that take? IJM believes it is possible. In our lifetime. Wow!

It takes a lot of faith to say that. Especially to say it out loud, in front of lots of people. As if you really believe this will be the God’s honest truth one day--not just dream it or hope it. That’s easy. I’ve done that many times and you probably have too. I’ve prayed it, sort of, not really believing God would.

But now it is time to do things differently. To think bigger, pray bolder, to get everyone involved. It is time to do more-- a whole lot more.

The God of Abraham took His people out of Egypt, out of slavery. For 400 years they suffered, but it came to an end. Do you pray to that God?

The God that says ‘See I am doing a new thing! Do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland’.

The God who says through His prophet Isaiah that we are to proclaim freedom to the captives, to bind up the broken hearted. That God.

The God who created the universe, the One who put eternity in our hearts, the God who longs for intimacy with us. The God that says: ‘I have overcome the world’.

We must be on our knees, asking God to end it all. For good. Never to return.

We are going to pray together in June. Do you want to join us and pause in prayer every day in June at 10:17 am? Thousands of us, one minute each day, can make all the difference.

Pray with us Psalm 10:17

You, Lord, hear the desire of the afflicted: you encourage them, and you listen to their cry.

(vs. 18) Defending the fatherless and the oppressed, so that mere earthly mortals will never again strike terror.

Do you want to be part of making history?

Are you in?

My name is Annette Mancuso and I live with my husband and 2 fantastic teenagers in Calgary, AB. We were introduced to IJM about four years ago and never looked back. I prayed for years to become passionate about ‘something’ and social justice was God’s answer to that prayer. My field visits to Uganda, Rwanda and Guatemala have been inspiring and have fuelled my passion for the poor and vulnerable.