You may not be able to participate in hands-on action against human trafficking but thanks to an excellent booklet called ‘Pray Freedom’ you can play a vital role on your knees.
I spoke to Esmarie Taljaard of Freedom Climb, a project of OM, which produced the 12-week prayer guide which journeys through the hotspots of human trafficking, helping you to pray strategically into relevant issues in each region.
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The modern-day slavery of human trafficking which entraps a staggering 27 million people around the world “is first and foremost a spiritual problem and so we wanted to find a way to combat it in a spiritual way — and prayer is the answer,” said Taljaard.
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Produced by OM Africa members, writer Anneretha Combrink, communication coordinator Herman Lamprecht, and Freedom Climb leader, Suria Scholtz, the booklet was inspired by the Freedom Climbers, a group of women who summitted Mount Kilimanjaro in 2012 and climbed to the base camp of Mount Everest in 2013 to raise awareness of human trafficking and to raise funds for anti-trafficking projects.
As it sheds light on the evils of sexual slavery, labour slavery and child-soldier slavery in different corners of the world through real-life case studies, newspaper reports and research by the authors, ‘Pray Freedom’ guides readers through prayer for governments, prayer for victims, prayer for people who enslave others, and even prayer for consumers who don’t realise that their bargain buys are tainted by sweatshop slavery.
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“We just hope that God will hear our voices and the Holy Spirit will move us to show love in an unprecedented manner. And we believe it is possible to end slavery in our lives and that everybody has a role to play,” said Taljaard who participated in both the Kilimanjaro and Everest climbs.
Commenting on the booklet’s effectiveness as a tool for raising awareness about trafficking, raising funds to combat trafficking and inspiring action against trafficking, Taljaard says: “I received a random email from somebody in Pretoria saying she received this booklet at a missions conference and prayed through it and God just laid it on her heart to donate money towards what we are doing. So people get it — we don’t even know where — and God touches their hearts as they pray through it and they want to get more involved.”
The first print run of 10 000 booklets has been distributed and ‘Pray Freedom’ is into its second printing and has been translated into Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, German, Mandarin and Afrikaans.. The booklets, at a cost of R20 each (including postage) can be ordered by emailing forfreedom@om.org, or downloaded for free in epub or mobi (kindle) formats at http://thefreedomclimb.blogspot.com/.
