A sports referee ensures justice in a soccer game. If the referee makes a bad call, the sound of the roaring crowd signals that the player has suffered a great injustice. It’s easy to want justice in situations when it doesn’t cost us anything. The soccer game will end -- fans will get some pizza and get over it. But what happens when the injustices in the world are far greater than a bad call in a game, when the effect is more than lost points, and when the cost to make it right is more than crying out from our seats?
Hope, Freedom, Rescue, Advocacy, Restoration and Value. These are words close to our heart, because as Believers, we hold the key to truly setting people in modern-day slavery free. With an estimated 27 million slaves in our world today, we need to be prepared and equipped to share the truth of Jesus. In Micah 6:8 it says that we are required to actively do justice, with a heart of mercy and a spirit of godly humility.
It’s not an optional extra. Are you ready to stand up for those who can’t stand up for themselves? Are you ready to go deeper in God, and to allow Him to break your heart for what breaks His?
Katherine Wilson, one of our Justice and Mercy DTS students shared her experience of her being apart of creating awareness of a social injustice during a Human Trafficking awareness campaign and having God's heart for His people.
“As I stood in this line I came to the realization that I was silenced, silenced from my rights, silenced from any emotions that I wanted to feel. With the tape over my mouth I was put into the shoes of someone that is being human trafficked. I will never know what it feels like to be trafficked, but I know what it feels like to have someone stare at you with eyes of judgment and not feel any emotions. Every step I took through the city I felt a whole new rush of emotions, I felt lost, broken and just wanted to hide. This is something that I never wanted to experience in my life, but with every step I got to feel the heart break of the mother that will never see her daughter again.To never get to say I love you, to never see her grow up. With one more step I got to in the shoes of a princess that will never know how beloved she is. Every step I took became harder and harder but I knew with each step a difference was being made, and that difference was me choosing to stand up and do something.” - Katherine Wilson
Human trafficking, poverty, natural devastations and the aftermath, these are only a few of the injustices that millions of people face everyday. Focusing on one of those injustices, Mexico is a huge country for men, women, and children forced into human trafficking, specifically forced prostitution and forced labor. 1.2 million children are trafficked each year, approximately 135,000 children in Mexico were kidnapped, mainly for exploitation in prostitution, pornography, or illegal adoption trafficking. As we here all these statistics and as we listen to the cries of this generation we hear an emerging hunger for Justice and Mercy.
In this school we will explore some of the issues that are at the core of social injustice today. We will also dig deep in order to understand God’s heart for justice, and allow Him to bring into focus ways that we can actively take part in making a difference, both within our individual spheres of influence, and around the world.