Greg Blake, guitarist with Special Consensus and a recognized solo artist in his own right, shared this remembrance of his trip to Nepal on behalf of JOY International, who work to fight human trafficking among impoverished people.
It all started when I was pastoring a church in the beautiful mountain town of Conifer, Colorado. A lady who had just started coming to the church a few weeks earlier, brought her husband, Jeff, with her for the first time. Now, there’s nothing particularly strange about this except for the fact that he was barefoot.
Okay … I don’t suppose that is really that strange either – except for the fact that there was a foot of snow on the ground and the temperature outside that morning was in the teens. As I was accustomed to doing when I was pastoring churches, I invited the couple to have breakfast with me when it was convenient. Jeff responded right away with his next available morning and, once again, he showed up barefoot. We had a great breakfast together and a wonderful time chatting. We were about 30 minutes into our time together when he warily posed the question, “Why haven’t you asked me about my being barefoot?” I responded. “Well, I’m definitely curious, but I didn’t want that to be the first thing we talked about!!” His explanation would then lead to a brand new mission in my life for the next 15 years and counting.
He passionately explained to me about how he had spent the last 30 years of his life traveling the world ministering to the children of poverty stricken areas of the world. He was even invited to Calcutta by Mother Theresa herself. His focus had changed recently when he became aware of the growing worldwide problem of human trafficking – especially when it came to underaged children and teens, and their enslavement in the sex trade industry. He was in Cambodia on one trip and encountered dozens of children scavenging at the trash heaps for food – all of them barefoot. He would then discover that that spot was a prime “hunting ground” for predators who would kidnap the children and force them to do unthinkable acts, multiple times a day for as long as they could keep them as a “viable commodity.” So moved by their plight, Jeff vowed to go barefoot for as long as necessary in solidarity with those children, hoping it would make others aware of their condition and motivate them to action.
Jeff and I started a great friendship that day, and a lasting partnership in his mission to set these captives free. I’ve served on the board of the organization he leads called JOY International for some time now, currently in the position of chairman. This past week, I finally had the opportunity to pay a “field visit” to one of the sites in which JOY is involved. I just returned home from Kathmandu, the capital city of the Himalayan country of Nepal. There are more than a million people residing within its city limits – a fourth of the country’s entire population. Although its nestled in a beautiful valley in the foothills of the Himalayas and hosts thousands of outdoor enthusiasts from around the world, taking the challenge of Everest and the country’s other formidable peaks, the city suffers horribly from poverty, pollution and corruption. JOY is serving this city in the form of a safe home that provides a place of freedom from the slavery of trafficking, and faithfully walks alongside the children and teens helping them to rebuild their lives and reintegrate them into society.
It is one thing to read and hear about the horrors of the trafficking industry when it comes to human beings, especially children – it is another thing to see it up close and personal … and yet another level to meet a 10, 12, or 13-year old child radiate with happiness that they would have never known if not for courageous and determined individuals who dared to reach into the corruption, and snatch them from their slavery and task themselves to stay with the job until they have been soothed, educated, rehabilitated, and reintegrated back into the world with a much healthier hope of living a happy life.
I know that I will never be the same after my trip to the JOY Mukti (“mukti” is Nepali meaning “freedom”) Home.
