Why is our world like this? I guess the good news irony is that the Bible says things are going to get worse before Jesus returns. I get the feeling with all that’s going on He’s just around the corner. If He’s not just yet, hold on to your pants cause it’s gonna be one hell of a ride from here on out.
Why does evil persist? In general? Satan is a procrastinator just like us and now that the eternal final exam is just around the corner, it’s cram time and he’s pulling an all-nighter!
In Africa and it’s surrounding areas specifically? My conviction is that this part of the world is held closet to God’s heart. This is the region where humanity began, the children of Israel were chosen as His people and God’s son became flesh to save humanity. For these reasons and I’m sure many others, Satan stands openly and blatantly in defiance of The Creator while he targets the children specifically to pierce God’s own heart. I hate him.

I do think this happens because people do not take a stand. We have forgotten to take a stand for the Innocent ones, when so much freedom can stop proper and moral justice where will we end! I do believe we are starting the down word spiral to the end times, for Christians have taken themselves out of the schools, local government, federal government and have stopped trying to take a stand or fail to even to take a stand at all. We tend to forget being a Christian will not be an easy life, we also tend to forget the battle is won in and through Jesus, perseverance is staying for the fight! People want to stay in their shell have their nice little lives, go to church do a few mission trips and think this stain of moral corruption will not affect them!

Why evil?
Ecclesiastes 8:11
Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
Mark 7:21
For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders..
John 3:19
And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
2 Timothy 3:13
But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
Is there any wonder a Holy God has to look at His Son in order to see us? People need Christ, His work on the cross is our only salvation.

I agree with all of you.
While so many Christians in America and throughout the world are living their lives with an ignorance or deliberate ignoring of the horrific things being done to people throughout the world, God is moving in hearts and breaking them for what breaks His.
My prayer, as I’m sure all of yours, is “God, what can I do?” His answer, I think is:
1) Pray! Pray! Pray!
2) Tell other people and keep telling other people and keep telling them. Don’t you think the abolitionists sounded like broken records to those whose hearts were not broken about slavery. We’re going to sound the same way but honestly, obedience to God is so much more important than what other people think of us
3) Take action when God gives us an opportunity
It just makes me long for the return of Christ all the more!!!

Amen to what Chrissy said! We need a Savior!
Tom thank you for being a voice for this voiceless and taking the time to invest all of your heart for God into this horrific reality all around us!
We stand with you and are praying to be used by God to help!
Blessings,
Jill

Great feedback. This is a huge issue to me right now, especially as we deal with girls who are trafficked for sex. The spiritual warfare component is either overlooked or made to look like only “crazy charismatics” participate in such things. The reality is that we do have an enemy that comes to “kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:10) and Jesus came to “destroy the works of the devil.” We participate in that reality with Christ.
Thanks Jill! Need your prayers. Thanks for being a friend and advocate!

And why is the Church too afraid of offending someone (those who “do not feel called” to this mission) and keep quiet?
Jesus wasn’t interested in keeping the peace within his followers. It seems he was more interested in exposing where their hearts were and in doing so, many turned away.
I hope our churches can move away from passivity to please the masses and bring back some conviction to serve the ones for whom Christ died – all of the world, not just the comfortable people.

Under the headline ‘The Facts Remain’ you state:
“nearly 40,000 prostitutes have poured into the cities hosting the games.”
I would be very interested in any research or data supporting this.
Thanks,
Crusty (Crusty Logic blog)

Crusty here you go:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup-2010/7374301/World-Cup-2010-40000-prostitutes-to-enter-South-Africa.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/03/06/2010-03-06_officials_warn_that_40000_prostitutes_could_enter_south_africa_for_2010_world_cu.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31751_162-20004432-10391697.html
http://www.pinewswire.net/2010/03/world-cup-2010-40000-prostitutes-to-enter-south-africa/

You stated that “nearly 40,000 have poured into…” E.G., that it happened.
All of the references you provided are estimates of what someone believed might happen in the future. Just as when this same 40,000 number was spread prior to Germany in 2006 (when officials actually found 5 people who had been trafficked), this 40,000 is widely believed to be a gross exaggeration and likely over 1,000 times higher than reality.
How did you get from articles of predictions to something having actually happened?
Thanks,
Crusty (Crusty Logic blog)

The flip Christian answer would be the world’s evil because the Prince of this World is evil.
I think a lot of this is what Sandra said about people not wanting to take a stand. Many Christians consider this subject untouchable. They don’t want to discuss it because that means having to actually think about the 13 year old girl being raped 10 or more times a day in some dirty, dank brothel. If you don’t think about it, it’s easier to ignore it.
Then you also have to put up with the people who want to do nothing but condemn and criticize those taking a stand. They’ll write blog posts or letters to the editor mocking statistics. They’ll reject our sources of information because it doesn’t line up with their criticism. They’ll claim a motivation of wanting to help these women but in reality they just want to mock, divide and condemn. It’s easier not to get involved with the fight (which is hard enough) than put up with these people who seem to live to condemn.
In the end, you just have to stand for what you know is right. You have to make people aware and not care if someone says you’re a poor Christian because you will actually talk about a young girl laying in the middle of a wooden floor surrounded by rat feces, moldy food and body fluids. The reality is reality. We’ve been sugar coating it far too long.

Good word Jason.
Crusty, just because the police only found 5 trafficked women doesn’t mean there weren’t tens of thousands who were never found. These sources are credible, CBS, NY Daily News, etc. The reality is that I’ve seen how women are trafficked first hand. I’ve seen the evil, the corruption, the destruction involved in the lives of many innocent women. I’ve interviewed girls and heard there stories, and I’ve wept with them.
I don’t care if it’s 40,000 or 4,000. It’s too many, it happens too often, and I’m calling people to do something about it. We have underage girls being rescued in India right now. There’s an 8 story brothel filled with thousands of minors and sex slaves our team visited ten days ago.. That’s my reality and it’s not okay with me.
How do you get from articles of prediction? Come with me on a trip.

Tom, I’ve seen the same things you have. It is heart-wrenching to talk to men, women, and children who have been enslaved. Yes, whether 4,000 or 40,000 it’s too many. Even 4 is too many.
But do the ends justify your means? Does God really want us to lie to accomplish his goals?
It would have been bad enough for you to have simply parroted the articles you used for reference, but you went a step further and lied about it. Let’s compare what they said to what you said. They all quoted David Bayever, that “40,000 sexworkers could enter the country”. They didn’t lie, they simply reported what Bayever had said. Even Bayever didn’t lie, he simply made a prediction. What Bayever and these media outlets are guilty of is omission, of not doing any due diligence on the veracity of the numbers in his prediction.
You stated that it is a fact that “nearly 40,000 prostitutes have poured into the cities…” That’s a big leap. NOBODY else, that I can find, has made any similar claim nor provided any evidence for anything even remotely such. Do you have anything to back up such as wild claim?
To excuse your lie by saying that just because the police only found 5 in Germany is as disingenuous as the NAACP claiming that The Tea Party is racist with nothing to back up their claim. Yes, there were very likely more than these 5.
What can be factually stated regarding Germany is that there appear to have been 5 confirmed cases and that there were likely 10 to 100 times as many that were not reported. That’s a far cry from stating that 40,000 is a known fact. What can be factually stated regarding South Africa is that there are as yet no known confirmed cases of human trafficking for sexual exploitation but that it is reasonable to assume that human trafficking did increase during the games and perhaps by as much as 400 people.
The problem for me is twofold; I now don’t know when to believe you and when not to, and we all must continue to defend Christianity against critics citing comments like yours that are clearly misleading.
What damage is done to God’s kingdom when Christians lie? As Christians we need to act with greater morality than non-Christians. We should not stoop to their level and we certainly should not stoop lower.
More next week. Have a good weekend.
Crusty (Crusty Logic blog)

“What damage is done to God’s kingdom when Christians lie?”
Probably no more than people using anonymous comments or nicknames to criticize other Christians instead of identifying themselves so we can see if the critic is credible.
Tom took information provided by those news outlets as fact. The headline of the Daily News piece, for example, doesn’t state that it’s an estimate but that officials are warning of that number of people coming into the country. The article presents it as fact. “World Cup organizers say up to 40,000 prostitutes were recruited for this year’s event” isn’t ambiguous at all. “”The figure of 40,000 women was raised by our colleagues in KwaZulu-Natal, where the coastal ports are seen as a particularly high-risk area for illegal arrivals” was stated in the Telegraph’s story which lends more credibility to the figure because it was given by people on the ground working to combat the situation.
You may want to say Tom used a poor word choice in saying “nearly” versus “up to” in his posting but the fact is Tom didn’t lie in his posting. What he posted here is accurate based on things reported by government officials in that country and in credible news outlets.
Your posts here really look like you’re stretching in an attempt to smear Tom. I looked through some of your blog posts and noticed several places where you posted incorrect information such as in your Gayle Haggard posting where you claimed “Ted having sex with someone other than his wife was not adultery.” There are multiple instances in the Old Testament…which is the law Jesus referenced in his speaking…that adultery is laid on men who engaged in sexual behavior with someone other than a wife. (The Hebrew verb used in the 10 Commandments can be applied to men or women, for example.) Does this mean we should say you lied? Should we say we don’t know when we can believe you? Does that mean you chose to stoop to a level lower than non-Christians?
You stated in your posting “Christians we should be the purveyors of truth not the creators of lies.” I agree. You seem to not be living up to your own words. Your own blog posting leaves out the word “nearly” making the impression Tom claimed 40,000 is a firm number…thus your own posting is misleading. If you think posting almost 40,000 in a blog post is misleading…what would you call leaving off a word so that a passage is mischaracterized?
You say you’re a Christian and since we don’t know who you are there’s no way to refute that. So assuming that you truly are a follower of Christ, I’d have to ask how your posting in the manner you’ve chosen doesn’t add to the reason “why Christians are held in such low esteem.” You went after a man who has risked his life to save those of trafficked women around the world and branded him an “ignorant Christian” because you didn’t like the fact he quoted a statistic from multiple credible news sources. You don’t think people who dislike Christians don’t get giddy when they see that kind of petty in-fighting?
It’s likely you’ll consider this an attack on you for attacking Tom and it’s certainly very critical of your post and the postings on your own website. I grant you that. I’m just wanting to show that you could be accused of the same things that you’re trying to project upon Tom and in the end that accomplishes nothing for the Kingdom of God. If anything, it just feeds the critics who think Christians are just a bunch of hypocrites.

Hi Jason. The word ‘nearly’ has nothing to do with the issue. The issue is that Tom stated that ’40,000′ or ‘nearly 40,000′ HAVE poured in. He stated it as fact. That it had happened. Every one of the articles that Tom referenced and every article I’ve seen regarding this issue is making a prediction and is clear that it is a prediction (and I believe every one is also stating that they are only reporting what Bayever had said.)
There’s a vast difference in the Hyperbole of saying ‘David Bayever says that 40,000 COULD come in’ and Tom making a false and unsubstantiated statement that ‘nearly 40,000 HAVE come in’.
Regarding what is or is not adultery. I think I posted something on this some time ago that I’ll try to find. Adultery is though a married woman having sex with someone other than her husband. A married man having sex with a never before married woman who is not his wife would not have been considered adultery during the time any of the Biblical texts were written nor any time until about the 19th century. If you look at Strongs definitions of this you can see part of this as their original definitions were along the lines of ‘a married woman having sexual relations with someone other than her husband’ while more current definitions are more similar to ‘to commit adultery; figuratively to apostatize: – adulterer (-ess), commit (-ing) adultery, woman that breaketh wedlock.’ We may not like it, but it is what it is.
More later,
Crusty (Crusty Logic blog)

If, by using these statistics, you come to a conclusion that the world is evil, do you not think that you are missing the “real” fact that we are all recipients of so many wonderful gifts from our creator each and every day? Yes, there is clearly great sin and evil in the world, but there is also so much good in the world as well. As Desmond Tutu says in his latest book, “Made for Goodness”, it is a question of “seeing with God’s eyes”, “hearing with God’s ears”. That is what will mobilize “us” to help create the kind of world that fights against the things that enslave and burden the world, and allows us to be the creatures we were born to be.

I’ll post a response to this on Monday. My sis-in-law, who has lived with us since she was 15, is getting married this weekend. I’m walking down the aisle, doing the ceremony, and we’re hosting a ton of events! Have a great weekend.

Tom,
I’d like to talk to you about the possibility of doing an internship with Children’s Hopechest. I don’t want to discuss anything here; but I’m getting my MSW and am interested in international orphan care. Could you simply give me a better way to contact you?
Rhoda

With respect to the debate about the veracity of the 40,000 number, I don’t want to lose sight of the larger point that this blog, and specifically the blog post, is trying to make.
I have posted an excerpt from an excellent TIME Magazine article that gets to the heart of the matter here. The sex slave business in South Africa exists and the World Cup increased demand. We can debate the accuracy of any statistic, and the journalistic ethics of any writer and blogger. My intent is not to mislead, it is to show the readers of this blog that events like the World Cup contribute to trafficking of children into the sex trade. And on that point, I believe we all generally agree.
The remainder of this comment is a direct quote that can be found here:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1952335,00.html#ixzz0u8tbGcZD
While South Africa invests billions to prepare its infrastructure for the half-million visitors expected to attend, tens of thousands of children have become ensnared in sexual slavery, and those who profit from their abuse are also preparing for the tournament. During a three-week investigation into human-trafficking syndicates operating near two stadiums, I found a lucrative trade in child sex. The children, sold for as little as $45, can earn more than $600 per night for their captors. “I’m really looking forward to doing more business during the World Cup,” said a trafficker. We were speaking at his base overlooking Port Elizabeth’s new Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium. Already, he had done brisk business among the stadium’s construction workers.
Although its 1996 constitution expressly forbids slavery, South Africa has no stand-alone law against human trafficking in all its forms. Aid groups estimate that some 38,000 children are trapped in the sex trade there. More than 500 mostly small-scale trafficking syndicates — Nigerian, Chinese, Indian and Russian, among others — collude with South African partners, including recruiters and corrupt police officials, to enslave local victims. The country’s estimated 1.4 million AIDS orphans are especially vulnerable. South Africa has more HIV cases than any other nation, and a child sold into its sex industry will often face an early grave.