Here are links to the organizations and individuals in the video.

livejubilee.org/
climbforcaptives.com
baldsolidarity.org/

In Amsterdam this week, I found myself stuck in a different traffic jam, but the results were pretty much the same, I became a bit angry and I think I went a bit crazy as well. This traffic jam is quite predictable; it is in the center of the city and lasts from around 9pm to around 3 in the morning. The streets are packed not with honking cars, but with broken men and women. The sex industry in Amsterdam brings in over a US Billion Dollars a year. Most of the girls in the Red Light District remain there as if locked in a prison cell, bars of steal and cells of concrete substituted for a door of glass and a red room with a bed. Many are from different parts of Europe or North Africa and were recruited for hotel jobs. When they got to Amsterdam, the glittery promises fall through, their captors flaunt their passports in front of their face; scared and intimidated, they submit to whatever they are required to do. It becomes an issue of Human Trafficking.

Dutch girls are herded in other ways, with the use of “Lover Boys” who drive into the country in their BMW’s and Mercedes, getting to know girls from 13-17. Soon they know everything about the girls even knowing where they live and befriending their parents. They are whisked away to Amsterdam with their rich boyfriends who also promise them luxurious lives, but when they get here they are hit with reality that things are not what they seem. If they try to get out now, they are reminded of who knows where their parents live and where they can be found. Even the women who enter the “profession” on a temporary basis to pay off debt or similar situations find themselves trapped in a system which is next to impossible to get out.
Not only is it sad to see the women behind their invisible bars, the city is filled with broken people searching for something that is real. They come to smoke blunts, indulge in sexual fantasies, and get lost in both. They come because of a void that is pulling them, but the behavior that they are involved in makes sure that they will never fulfill no matter how lost they get. You see the brokenness in their eyes as they dart from girl to girl, you hear it in their congratulatory (and often times drunken) congratulations to their buddy who just came out of the room to make room for the next one in line. It makes me sad, but it makes me think. I am not so different from them. For a long time I searched as they did for something to fill the emptiness that I couldn’t escape from. I tried to lose myself to forget that I had a void; sometimes even to forget that I was…

The thing is, without Jesus, we all are searching for that something. We all need Him to be okay. He is the only one that satisfies our deepest longings as humanity. We can implement programs and projects all over the world; we can put an end to prostitution, AIDS, and even hunger, but the longing will always remain and will manifest itself as selfishness and greed. I was reading a book recently and found a small paragraph that changed my life forever.
“There is an old adage that says, ‘You can give a man a fish or better still you can teach him to fish.’ Jesus would add, ‘You can teach a person how to fish but even the most successful fisherman has a hunger that fish cannot satisfy.’” – Ravi Zacharias in Jesus Among Other Gods

While Jesus was here, He completely transformed the Earth, no one else is like Him. Unlike the champions of other religions, Jesus was not just showing the way, He is the Way. He didn’t only teach His message, He is His Message. Not only did He proclaim truth, He is Truth. He didn’t just offer the Water of Life; He is the Water of life. We are all made to crave relationship with our Creator, which is the emptiness. Jesus is the Way to a restored relationship with the Father.
We are all weak, yes. Even after a revelation of who Jesus is, we still fall sometimes because we are human and will always take our eyes off of perfection. But in our weakness, He is strong. He is able to pick us up again and extend His Amazing Grace and show us again a glimpse of who He really is.

Not only is He strong in our lives when we are weak, He is strong in other people’s lives when we are weak. I think that we have greatly underestimated the power of our testimony in our relationship with Jesus and our interaction with the world. Our testimony is an example of how God was strong in our lives when we were absolutely weak. His strength moving in our weakness can also move in someone else’s weakness as well. Humans relate to the world around them in similar ways; there is nothing new under the sun. Someone who hears my story or your story can relate to you at basic terms. Even someone across the globe will relate to the basics of your humanity and your need for God.

I hope that this encourages you to share your story, invite people to your house, get to know your neighbors and the people you sit next to week after week in church or class. Maybe God wants to use you to bring change to this world. Maybe it is actually Jesus sitting next to you.

Pray for the Prostitutes; for the Broken; for the Downtrodden and Outcast and the condition of the world that they represent. God sees them and loves them dearly. Pray for yourself as well, that you may have courage to be in the world, but not be of it. That you may show people there is a Spring of everlasting water that gives life to even the most dead. The Light of Life is here and so is His Kingdom.

in Christ, the Way
John Paul

[The Wall of separation from the Bethlehem side]

[Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, Jerusalem]

[Palestinian Man in the Old City, Jerusalem]

My head is still wrapped around the whole concept of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. I don’t think that I will ever understand it; never be able to choose sides. I don’t think that is my job or my place; it belongs to the One who is sovereign of over the affairs of nations. My hope is that all nations go down in flames, not with the physical tongues of fire but with a fire that consumes the monuments of hatred concealed in the hearts of all men. Laid waste by the love of Christ, refined with unquenchable intensity, and transformed into citizens of the Kingdom whose new passion is found in the grace and love that flows from the heart of the King. The wasteland is replaced with streams of light and a garden of life; lush pastureland and abundant fruit trees.

[Looking West from Arbel]

[Area of Tubqa, Sea of Galilee: See John 21]

[Group of Apples in the hallway market outside of our hostel in Jerusalem]

My heart burns for the Holy Land to have this kind of transformation, but I don’t want it to stop there. I want that for Egypt, East Africa, Nepal, Colombia, the United States; any location containing those God made in His own image.

[Laurus (Seagulls) in the Rain, Galilee]

We arrived back in Cairo about a week ago and have been engaged in learning since we landed. I love this city and this country. I have a feeling there may be some more time spent here in the future. We have been learning some more about “Painting with Light” which is the actual definition of photography but also a type of photography which I will give examples of. This week, Luke Moon is back from Kona teaching us about Worldview; he actually leads the Humanities school at the U of N in Kona. He provides some practical and contemporary insight that enables me to think clearly about the world around me and how others think about it as well.

[Pictures that were taken as assignments during the week: Seeing Light, Studio Lighting, Night Photography, and Light Painting]

[Said, one of the doormen/watchmen of our building]

[Minibus driver in Tahrir Square (via sideview mirror)]

[Tahrir Square Mosque]

[A Small Section of City of the Dead with Citadel in the background]

[Tombstone]

[Overgrown Tomb]

[unlocked doors]

[Shaping stones to rebuild an old mosque in City of the Dead]

[Young People are still Young People doing Young People things]

Driving through the deserts of Egypt and Sinai, I was overwhelmed by the beauty. I have always had this fascination with the desert, almost as if there is something in me that longs for it. Rugged and beauty, unreservedly rich with earth and sky is basic to understanding makes sense to my mind. My soul wishes for my flesh to be the same; empty of my life so that God can breathe true everlasting life into the wasteland I was born as. I wand to be void, a vast open plain God can send the water of life through and plant lush green pastures. With the emptiness of me comes openness for Him, the Creator and Sustainer.

We crossed under the Red Sea and made our way to the eastern portion of the peninsula to Dahab – diving capital of the Gulf of Aqaba. We used it as a base from which to travel to Mt. Sinai (or at least where they think Mt. Sinai is) and the Bedouin camping trip.

As a school, we have been searching for injustices, hardly noticing that they are everywhere around us. The Bedouin’s have been taken advantage of for centuries by everyone. The Egyptian Government barely recognizes their existence, withholding education for their children and further social betterment for their futures. Their grazing land once extended from the Southern tip of the Sinai all the way up past the Dead Sea. Now, the remnant of Bedouin’s left are restricted to pockets of deserts and instead of being a great presence are now limited to the tourism industry. Most of the Bedouin’s that I have spoken with have been working in the industry since before they were 10, never attending school but learning broken English from all of the tourists. Musa, the guide for our hike up Sinai, has hiked up the mountain every day for 20 years, sometimes even twice a day to ensure provision for himself and his family. A 23 year-old Bedouin, Jamaa (in English means Friday), our guide for the overnight in the desert had been working in tourism since he was 7. He has no voice for his people in the government because there are no ears to hear him. There isn’t anyone to understand that he wants a better future for his family, his children, and himself as well.

It may seem a bit silly to us as a Western Culture, but Camel racing is huge in the Near East, especially in Saudi Arabia, the epicenter of Arab Culture. The Bedouins in the Sinai and up through the mid-east are traditionally nomads and have been using camels for traveling and lively-hood for generations. They still stick to this tradition, oftentimes boys will raise a camel with them throughout their childhood into the adult years. They are small and light, perfect for the races in the Saudi Peninsula. Because of this, they are oftentimes sold or stolen for a short-lived career in the racing business. On these long distance races, most of the children (from 4-10 years old) are trampled under the camel’s feet unable to meet the exhaustive demands of the race. This is something not confined to the Sinai Bedouins, but in Jordan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan; even as far as countries like Bangladesh. The as of July 2007, The UN doesn’t have a comprehensive report of the injustices done to these children and other trafficked children across these regions. Read a report from the Pakistan Times on this issue and all of the UN articles broken HERE.

Does this break the heart of anyone? Would anyone be willing to dedicate their lives to see this type of treatment of the innocent end? Maybe you are the one God wants to use.

This isn’t about a global movement, but an internal one that stretches across the face of the earth; the internal movement towards the perfect love of Christ. A move spawned from a revelation of the heart of the Father – His love for them – and His love for the world. A love that sacrificed His Godhood coming to earth to be nailed to a cross for us to say, ‘I love You’. Once that love is laid hold of, the amount of love would flood the cities of Denver, Santa Barbara, NYC, London, Addis, Cairo, Dubai, Beijing, Tokyo, and Sydney. Love would lay siege and take captives; captives bound to Christ – lives changed forever by the realization of Grace. He came for you, He came for me, and that is enough for me and all of us to give everything, every breath, to that love; a
love that I cannot fathom the depths of. Love took my life and it died to take yours as well.

[Looking North from Jebel Musa (traditionally Mt. Sinai)]

[Musa, A Bedouin Guide on the Mountain that bears his name]

[We had to get off of the camels to get down the slope... Oasis we slept at seen in the distance]

[On the way to Close Canyon]

[Near the Entrance to Close Canyon]

[Making Tea before Dinner]

[Near the campsite]

[White Canyon]

Next we headed by ferry to Aqaba, Jordan then further by bus to Wadi Musa, the city at the mouth of an ancient wonder of the world, Petra. Driving from Aqaba to Petra was reminiscent of the drive between my hometown of Denver and Santa Barbara during my Westmont days. The moon illuminated the coarse crags of the desert landscape; stars blinking at me, distracting from the monotony of the road in front of me. Clusters of stars on the horizon turn into streetlights from small towns or fruit vendors open late in the summer air.

I see Moses leading 3 million people through this type of terrain. At the night the temperature drops below zero, but during the day, the sun beats down relentlessly through cloudless skies. I might have slept where they did next to a freshwater oasis. The Bedouin’s graze their heard of goats and the occasional camel there now; sometimes entertaining the intermittent tourist looking for the “realistic Bedouin experience”. What a harsh environment to wander in for 40 years. I could spend more time there, I think (but maybe not 40 years… who knows). I enjoyed every moment of it. It is amazing for me to experience.

Walking through the canyons and caves of Petra was amazing, so rich in color and history. We also went to Mt. Nebo where Moses gazed out over the Promised Land, and where the Lord called him home as recorded in Deuteronomy. From the summit of the small mountain we could see the northern tip of the Dead Sea, into Palestine, and if the haze would have cleared, into Israel as well.

[Sunset on the Ferry from Dahab, Egypt to Aqaba, Jordan]

[We had quite the cloud show]

[Part of the Aqueduct through the canyons of Petra]

[Treasury, Petra]

[Treasury, Petra]

[Mt. Nebo, looking over the Jordan Valley]

[Monument of the Snake on Mt. Nebo]

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[One of the Police walking through the canyons of Petra]

[Monastary, Petra]

[Monastary, Petra]

We arrived in Jerusalem late Saturday night. When we awoke Sunday morning, we discovered that the Damascus Gate to the Old City is 100 meters to the left of our doorstep. I can’t say much about the current situation here because I don’t know much about it. I have my ideas and analogies, but I don’t want to say a whole lot while I am still out of the “know” zone. Walking through the old city, I could feel the tension in my chest; two people groups, one divided in their own land – families spread over a tall concrete and iron wall, and another fighting to protect the boundaries declared 4000 years prior. The youth are caught in the middle, some following the example of violence set before them some craving coexistence and peace for an enmity older than both of their presences in this small strip of land.

More pictures of this land to follow.

Thank you for reading and I hope that your days are blessed.

In Christ,
John Paul

[Standing in front of my Bulgarian home]

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I have written on Human Trafficking in the past, but now, I will make it possible for you to do something about it. A good friend of mine helped with a benefit recently called LOVE 146. Please visit the Website. I guarantee that you will feel something after reading the girl’s story. Trafficking is not far off. Even here around the neighborhoods that I am living in, people are being sold and stolen and taken to other countries to be used as Sex Objects. Read about the projects that LOVE 146 is undertaking, including the one to encourage CRAIGS LIST to take off the ‘Erotic’ tab from the ‘Services’ section of its website. Oftentimes, people offering these kind of services use trafficked people to make them money. I encourage you. Take part in this, it is so close to God’s heart for the broken and oppressed.

Snow, sub-zero, temperatures, and an extension of our family met Tim, Aaron, and I in Bulgaria where we would spend Christmas. Krassimere, Basim (Victor), and Mamma Mitchka have been so great to us here. We are never hungry, always full, and always warm.
We have traveled around to some different villages around Pazardhik, Bulgaria and have spent time here as well, visiting families, friends, and churches. I don’t think that I could have asked for a better Christmas. We leave here in a couple of days, and it will definitely be a sad departure.

[Victor]

[Krassie and Family (Krassie is between Aaron and I)]

[The boys with Mamma Mitchka]

[Speaking in a Roma Church]

[Praying for the sick (Victor's Cousin)]

[The three of us singing Silent Night on Christmas]

Tim and I went to a mountain village called Borovets today and actually got to do some snowboarding. We are both into snowboarding back in the States, so it has been something that we have missed. Last year we didn’t have a chance to go because we were doing a DTS and heading to Africa for Christmas. It was such a fun day and so beautiful as well. Most of the day was spent above tree-line in full view of Musala, the tallest peak in Bulgaria (about 10,000 ft). The pictures included are from a camera phone (which I am so grateful for, since I didn’t have to bring my big one)

[The high lifts at Borovets]

[That's the flag of Bulgaria]

Before we went to Bulgaria, we, and Carla as well, spent a few days in Istanbul, Turkey to take in the sights. The Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque were incredible, we spent the entire afternoon in the Hagia taking pictures. I would recommend anyone to visit if you can. The museum (no longer a church or mosque) has some beautiful mosaic work from Byzantine times as well as Arabic Style art.

[Interior of Hagia Sophia... much better than the outside]

[Chandelier]

[Blue Mosque]

[Istanbul. i love this picture]

[Istanbul again]

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had some time to reflect on this last year. At this time in 2006 I was just arriving in Ethiopia. My life had recently changed and I had finally accepted God’s plan for my life. Ethiopia was just the beginning. Most of you knew me before my life was changed, and what God has done with me so far. Its hard to believe all of the people He
has put in my path, the countries He has called me too, and the projects He has enabled me to take part in. I am truly grateful to Him… It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. Praise Him for His Amazing Grace.

I added another sidebar element called “Needs”. Please check it out and pray about what you can do; even if what you can do is committing to pray! Thank you so much for reading the blog. I am honored to be able to have the opportunity to share this with you. I pray that you are blessed by it.

In a few days, we go to Athens to fly to Cairo, pray for traveling mercies as well as protection, favor, and divine appointments when we are there!

Let me tell you a little love story I heard recently. It starts out with a statistic that blows my mind. There are over 27 million slaves in the world today; Human Trafficking is the largest slave trade in history. The sheer magnitude is staggering; beyond anything that I can conceptualize. Many of these slaves are children, stolen from (or sold) by their parents into the sex-trade of South-East Asia in order to be able to survive. They are sold to brothels, club’s, and bars for the patrons (mostly from America and the Western world) to do any number of immensely grotesque practices to. There was this lady, an artist who would go and paint portraits of the children, getting to know them a little bit. She found out that some of them were slaves of some bars and clubs in the area. She was overwhelmed with grief that humans could do these kinds of things to each other, especially innocent children. She decided to do something about it, so she would make her way into some of the places and steal the children out of them and hide them. She got away with it for a time, but then was found out and received death threats from the industry because they were losing money… She ended up fleeing for her life to a different part of the country where she now lives, with 125 of the children that she stole…

This is a picture of the love that I want to be in… Not for one person, but for the people who’s God heart breaks for constantly… For those of you who have kids, what if someone stole them and sold them into that kind of slavery. I bet that you would do everything that you could to get them back. I bet that you would willingly give your entire life in a search and rescue attempt. Not only would you do everything that you could, you would ask anyone and everyone to help you… This is your kid we are talking about.

I want to love like that woman who laid down her life for just one of those children. It reminds me of what someone once did for me. It was God… He gave up that status, the Creator of all things with a perfect glorified body, to come down here to a world ravaged by sin and rescue me from this slavery that I was in; to steal me away and take me to a better place; to SET ME FREE…

If God loved me that much, that is how he loves all people. Those he has changed are now his children, but also his followers; that is our confession of faith, a “Follower of Jesus.” How can I consider myself his follower if I don’t do what he did? How can I say that I have love if I don’t give everything to go after those who he loves? Am I alone in this? What are we after in life?

I have been studying the Bible for a month now… I could be studying it for the rest of my life having knowledge of everything in it, but if I don’t have love, it is all worth nothing. Why? Because love is the fire that forces me out of my chair to movement. I could even weep over the atrocities that go on, but if I didn’t have love, I would be only grieving to make myself feel better.

What are we living for? Who are we following? Why do we want what we want from God? Is it all for me, so that I can be comfortable and safe? Is what I do in this life for me or my well-being? Do I have any love? How far are we willing to go to love the people of the world? Yes, it will be hard, and it will cost you… maybe everything, maybe your life. Jesus did it for me, will I follow him if it costs me that much? They are out there, 27 million of them, waiting for us to come and rescue them. Are you up for it? What would you be willing to give for them? What would you be willing to give for your own child? If we really have love, let’s do it.

So many questions… So little time. We can’t be looking around at everyone else, hoping that they will move first so we won’t have to. Love is all that can save them; the perfect, unselfish love of Jesus Christ. There has to be something inside you that pulls you to them. Act on the compassion that is within you and let love be your motivation to be the change you envision for this world. God wants to use you, be open, be willing, be ready. There are too many out there to wait any longer.

In Love

John Paul

Visit HumanTrafficking.Org