God's Faithfulness

In February 2009 I made my first trip to Mumbai, India with a group of volunteers from my church in Cincinnati to bless sex trafficking survivors. Less than one year later, I found myself taking a one-year volunteer fellowship with an anti-trafficking NGO followed by another one-year contract to help start up a new NGO that helps survivors rebuild their lives. I think it is safe to say that God used that 10 day trip in February 2009 to change my heart and set me on a new path.

Two and a half years ago, while serving on my first mission trip to India, my team was assigned to a painting project at an aftercare home just north of Mumbai. This home was a safe place where 22 girls, ages 14-17 received rehabilitation from the trauma they endured after being kidnapped and forced into prostitution. Since our painting project was just that, painting, I did not expect to have much interaction with the girls there. I was just happy to bless them in any way I could, even if it meant painting the best butter cream wall ever. My prayer was that their eyes would fall upon a freshly painted wall and they would somehow see the fresh start that could be theirs with Christ in their hearts.

Of course, God exceeded my expectations. We did have opportunities to build into the girls! I fell in love with a girl named Jaya. Shortly after she grabbed my hand for the first time and taught me how to say, “My name is Jamie” in Hindi, she told me in her elementary English that I was her favorite. Truth be told, she was mine too. As I held that young girl’s hand, a new kind of love coursed through my veins. It was overwhelming.

Jaya painting my nails in 2009

After three days of painting, playing and being giggly-girls, it was time to say goodbye. Jaya pulled me upstairs to the room she shared with four other girls. She grabbed a pen in one hand and held my hand in front of her as she etched her name into my palm in ink. I was filled with the Holy Spirit, remembering the words of Isaiah 49:16 “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.” God loved Jaya, too. The love I felt for her was just a fraction of the way he felt about her. I left Jaya, with tears in my eyes, knowing that God was with her.

I promised Jaya that I would come back.

When I got back to the US, I thought of her constantly. I wrote letters to her in my journal, I prayed for her and I dreamed of what it would be like when I saw her again. I was confident that God would reunite us somehow.

A few months later, after much prayer a series of Spirit-inspired events, I made the decision to leave Cincinnati and follow God back to India to serve an anti-trafficking NGO in Mumbai for one year. The months leading up to my departure were a sweet time. I felt the presence of the Lord strongly and intimately – I couldn’t believe that he loved me, that he chose me, and that he wanted to do work through me.

In February 2010, about two weeks after having arrived in my new city, I had an opportunity to visit the home where I had met Jaya just a year earlier. Some friends from my church in Cincinnati were visiting Mumbai and we made the 2 hour drive to the home together. As we were getting closer to the home, fear started looming up inside of my heart. I had a terrible feeling that Jaya would not be there. That very thought was enough to bring tears to my eyes – I tried to push the thought aside, but something in me kept it there.

When we walked into the home, we were greeted with many hugs, smiles, tears and laughter. I couldn’t believe I was holding those precious girls in my arms once again. Despite being filled with so much joy, my worst fears were confirmed when I learned that Jaya had run away from the home just a few months before. My heart was devastated.

Knowing that God knew exactly where she was gave me an incredible amount of comfort. Friends from Cincinnati would encourage me regularly, sharing with me that they, too, were praying and that they were resting in God’s faithfulness that I would see Jaya again someday.

For the last year and a half, I have prayed three prayers for Jaya regularly. First, that I might see her working somewhere in Mumbai (hopefully not at a brothel) and that I God would use me to encourage her to go back into aftercare. Second, that during each rescue operation conducted by the NGO I worked with, if Jaya had gone back into the flesh trade, that she would be found again. And third, that each time I visited a new aftercare home that Jaya would somehow miraculously be there.

In fact, I prayed that third prayer just a few weeks ago. A group of volunteers from my church in Cincinnati were visiting Mumbai and assisting my new NGO in building relationships with local churches and potential aftercare partners. On Tuesday, July 26th, our group was scheduled to visit some homes I had never been to before. I prayed that Jaya would be there. We experienced incredible examples of God’s redemptive love and spirit of freedom at those homes, but Jaya was not there. I was used to that outcome, but I still had hope.

The very next day, July 27th, we visited another aftercare home about 15 minutes away from my office. I had never been to that home either. Although I was excited to see one of the best aftercare homes for majors and minors in Mumbai, I was also very tired and battling a bad cold. When my alarm went off that morning, I contemplated staying home and resting – but my heart encouraged me to push through it. Oddly enough, I didn’t pray that morning. I was only focused on getting through the day.

This particular home houses 102 people, including women, girls and any children they come in with or have delivered during their rehabilitation (despite the fact that there is capacity for 50). We had to split the group of residents up into two groups of 51 on two separate floors to do the activities we had planned for them.

When we started doing introductions on my floor, I saw this girl...she looked like Jaya but when she introduced herself she said her name was Afra. I figured it was just a Jaya look alike.

Throughout our afternoon of activities I kept finding myself looking at this Afra girl. She really looked like Jaya...a little heavier maybe. During lunch she caught me looking at her and she smiled sheepishly. There seemed to be a hint of recognition between us, but then she looked away.

It got me thinking. Maybe it was her, or maybe she had a sister or something that looked just like her. I went over to one of the social workers who I knew worked with girls in the home where I first met Jaya. I asked her if she had been there when Jaya was. She hadn't been but she knew about her. Then she told me something I had been longing to hear for almost 18 months. Jaya had been found and was at that very home.

HALLELUJIA!

After running away almost two years ago, Jaya did go back to the red light area. When girls are trafficked at such young ages, they are abused horrifically. They are brainwashed into thinking prostitution is the only thing they are meant for – that once they’ve been defiled, they can never go back to doing honorable work ever again. Despite the pain, sickness and sometimes death that comes with life in the brothels, many young girls who are rescued from dark situations like this end up refusing rehabilitation and going back to the red light areas - it is all they know. Thank God, she wasn't there long before she was rescued again.

Even though she had been given another chance at freedom, Jaya ran away a second time.

“See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hand; your walls are ever before me.”

She was rescued a third time. This is crazy because tens of thousands of women and girls are trafficked into the brothels of Mumbai every year. The majority of them stay locked away - hidden from the world. That Jaya was discovered three separate times in a city of 22 million people is nothing short of miraculous.

This time, at 17 years old, Jaya was pregnant. She recently delivered her baby boy at the home where she was currently staying – the home I was at that very minute!

I asked the social worker if she would escort me to the floor where Jaya had gone after lunch so I could see her. I could hardly believe she was there, that in moments we would be reunited.

Jaya (who had been using her mother's name, Afra) smiled wide when the social worker started translating for me. I asked if she remembered me from the other aftercare home...I reminded her that she had written her name on my hand in pen. When she heard that, she looked up at me and exclaimed, "Jamie didi!" Oh, how my heart was filled with JOY to hear that. I told her that I lived in Mumbai now and that I thought about her all the time and that I was so glad to see her. She let me hold her baby boy, Ali.

We talked about all the things we did together two and a half years ago. During the rest of the afternoon we sat side by side. It was right. It was good. It was God.

When it was time to go, she held my hand and asked me to come back and visit her. I told her that my office was very close and that I would be back soon to spend time with her and Ali.

“Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him. Praise the Lord with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre. Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy. For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does.The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.”

Psalm 33:1-5