Guest speaker, David Batstone, is the president of the "Not for Sale" campaign, an abolitionist movement committed to ending the bondage of slavery in our lifetime. David is a Professor of Ethics at the University of San Francisco and writes regularly in USA Weekend edition as "America's Ethics Guru." He has traveled around the world investigating the slave trade and authored the book "Not for Sale."

Honored and privileged I am to be here with you today. When your pastor can get up and say, "Mission is who we are," I see the praise and spirit that in this church. I have a friend who is an Australian preacher. He's somewhat like a prophet, like John the Baptist; he's really edgy – someone you don't want to have dinner with that often. He went to a church recently and it was a rote event for the folks who were there - even the dirges they called hymns that they were singing. He got up to preach and said, "Shhhhhh. Do you hear that scratching? That scratching is the Holy Spirit. It's so dead in here that even the Holy Spirit wants out." There is no problem with that here. The Holy Spirit is here and alive. Amen! And the Spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach good news to the poor, and to proclaim the release of the captives and let the oppressed go free that no one is for sale. Not for Sale started, for me, as not something for which I was looking. God brings things into your life that you're not looking for. I wish I had been clever enough, aware enough or somehow in touch with the fact that slavery was going on in my own generation. But I, like most of you, went to school thinking that we ended slavery 200 years ago. So, it was with a great deal of surprise that I found slavery in my own backyard.

My wife and I would regularly go to our favorite restaurant. It's an Indian restaurant in the San Francisco Bay area, and when we went there, there would be young, probably 15 or 16 years old, girls that would wait on our tables and wash the dishes. They would change faces - different girls every time we went. But, we just thought it was an extended family. We didn't have a grid; we didn't have a way of thinking anything unusual was happening. We thought they must have been family members of the owners. So, when I picked up my morning newspaper one day, on the front page, it informed me that my favorite restaurant, which I've been going to for years, was the center of a slave ring that had brought over 500 young Indian girls into the United States. First to the restaurant, then they'd go off to another hotel or restaurant, or they might work the fruit fields of California, or they'd end up in the commercial sex trade. Over 500 young girls out of one ring – out of one restaurant.

I was shocked! I had been working internationally for almost three decades on the concerns of justice; but I didn't know that people were actually in slavery. I wanted to investigate to find out more and I was introduced by a friend to a young woman. He said, "You've got to talk to her, because her story is the story and the face of the 27 million people around the world in slavery today." So I went to the East Coast and met a young Tibetan girl named Kim Meston. Kim came to this country at the invitation of an evangelical pastor. Kim was living in the northern part of India. Many Tibetans, as you know, have had to flee Tibet because China has visited violence on that country.  They've come to northern India, living in refugee camps, and Kim and her family were living there when the pastor showed up. After a couple of days of mission work, he invited Kim to come and live with him in the United States. "I'll give you an education. I'll make sure you get a job. You can live with my family." It seemed like such an innocuous and hopeful invitation. So Kim's parents let her go to America at the age of 14 with this pastor. When she arrived in a small town just outside of Wooster, Massachusetts, the pastor took away her documents, showed her a contract that she had signed with her parents, that said 'this pastor will be your guardian' and said, "You now are my property. If you try to run away, I'm going to call the Indian authorities and say that you broke a contract, and your parents will be thrown in jail in India because you have no rights. You're not a citizen of India, and you've broken the law."

For the next five years, Kim was a slave in the house of the pastor. The really unusual part of the story for me is that he was married, had a teenage daughter – they were sworn to silence. For five years, she had to do housework, domestic labor. She would clean the church and work on the grounds of the church during the week. Then in the evening - this is such a tragic part of the story of so many victims I met – when I own you, I can take you and do whatever I want with you. The pastor would use young Kim for his own pleasure.

When she turned 19, one night Kim couldn't take it anymore. She had to get out, she had to get away, and she just took off. She wanted to track down her parents, to find them and warn them that maybe trouble would come to them. She finally reached her mother after about ten days. When she called her and talked on the phone, and told what had happened over the last five years, the mother was just heartbroken. Then she gasped, and said, "The pastor just came back here two days ago, and he took your two 14-year-old cousins. He said that you had gone off to a university and he needed someone to help replace you, and do the work you'd been doing in the church, and in the home."
That's when Kim had the courage to go to the local authorities. She was afraid she'd be thrown in jail. She had no passport, she had no citizenship, she was afraid that she would be somehow punished, but she had the courage because she did not want her two cousins to go through what she went through. The happy ending to this story is that the police immediately went to this pastor's house and threw him in jail. The community, for five years, just didn't have the grid – it was like me going to my local restaurant – just didn't have a way of thinking of this. How could people own other people in the 21st century!? How could they do such things to each other!? In fact, they even lauded the pastor for taking this poor Tibetan girl in.  

As I began to investigate more across the United States, I was really surprised and crestfallen to find out that in our country today, as many as 200,000 people live in bondage. I am not talking about a sweatshop. I'm not talking about being really underpaid. I'm talking about people who are in bondage and are doing labor for someone else. They're in slavery. About a third of those are like Kim; they are house servants. They're called domestic labor - nannies. People who are coming over thinking they are going to get a job, and then they are trapped in a house. They are locked down. Half of them end up in the commercial sex industry in this country. How could this happen? I thought if I had somehow been totally unaware, I needed to go out and find out more. So I went to five continents. I wanted to track from my backyard to the world and how that brokenness was connected in my own life to those people's, whose names I didn't know. I went to five continents: Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and Australia, and I saw the connections. It was a global trade in people. I'm not going to spend time talking about that journey. I wrote a book that maybe you can get from the library here. It's really hard to buy – it's titled "Not for Sale." I've got to stick with being a theologian – I'm not a very good marketer. Don't write a book called Not for Sale - particularly if you want to sell it. But, I wanted to find out who the traffickers are. So that no matter where I went, if it was kids in a rug loom in Nepal, or young girls working a rice mill in India, or in China where they were forced to work in a factory, or in Latin America, Peru, in the commercial sex slave industry, or in Africa, Uganda and Sudan, they were forced to be child soldiers - everywhere I went, Psalm 10 came into my mind. Psalm 10, "Why, Lord, do you stand off? These people don't hide themselves in times of trouble. Because, in arrogance, those who are wicked persecute the poor. Let them be caught in the schemes they have devised. They sit in ambush in the villages and in hiding places they murder the innocent. Their eyes stealthily watch for the helpless. They lurk in secret like a lion in its covert. They lurk that they might seize the poor. They seize the poor and drag them off in their nets." Those who have no fear of justice do not practice justice and do not believe in justice, taking advantage of those who are defenseless and vulnerable. That's the world's story today. But, thank God we're free. With beautiful music today, "Amazing Grace" teaches that we are not owned by anyone; we are God's. Every child is a child of God, and is destined to be free. The wicked may lie in wait and take advantage, but we are the defender of the widow and orphan. We are those who are called to bring good news to those who are oppressed, because that's the story of redemption. We are free, and everyone should join us in that freedom.

I set out to write a book to let people be aware, but along the way, I started to meet to people whose names I didn't know. I didn't know they had a vocation called an 'abolitionist.' William Wilberforce and John Newton, each in their own way had become abolitionists. But, that was in a history book. I met people who are alive today. One of the first abolitionists I met inspired and changed my life. Her name is Kru Nam. An abolitionist is anyone who uses their gift, what they've been given by God that is a skill or a passion, to free other people.

Kru Nam is a painter. The last person in the world you would expect to be an abolitionist and free people from slavery is a painter. But, Kru Nam began to one day notice that there were young kids living on the street in her town in Thailand – in Chiang Mai. They seemed to be homeless; aged 10 or 11, with some as young as eight. They were sleeping on street corners or in parks. She wanted to find out their story. How could she reach out to them? She took empty canvases and paintbrushes to the parks and asked them to paint their stories. They started to paint on the empty canvases and she couldn't believe what appeared. It wasn't puppy dogs and rainbows. It was these horrific images, these nightmares. She said, "Where do these stories come from?" These young kids said, "That's our story. We're not Thai. Most of us are from Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Vietnam or as far away as China. We were kidnapped or sold or otherwise deceived and brought here, and thrown into karaoke clubs, into brothels where men from all over the world – tourists and predators – come to feast on young children." Kru Nam couldn't believe it. This was in her own backyard. She said, "How does this happen!" They said, "We're brought here, thrown in and forced, we're locked up at night. There are kids there right now. We're the lucky ones – we escaped. That's why we're living on the streets."  

So that night,  Kru Nam was so enraged with a holy righteousness that she ran into a karaoke bar, saw two young boys, grabbed them and ran out. Not the most sophisticated intervention strategy, but she knew she had to do something right then. The next night, she ran into another bar and saw two girls and a boy. When I met her she had 37 kids, and no plan. I said, "What are you going to do next?" She said, "I'm not sure. But, I've got to figure out a way to take care of these kids." The kids were all different ages. It just breaks your heart how tiny some of these kids are. I asked, "Is there any way I can help?" She said, "I've got a private piece of property that someone gave me on the border, by Laos. I'm going to move there, because the night club owners and karaoke owners have threatened that if this mad woman runs into their bar again, 'We're going to take care of her.'"  

So, she moved north to the border and as poor families came to the border to sell their children, she'd try to convince them to keep their kids. "Don't sell your kids." Or when she'd see someone who seemed to be forcing a kid that didn't look like it was theirs, she'd try to intervene. She'd get the law or authorities somehow involved. Kevin Applegate and Craig Maxwell from this church community went to Thailand and visited Kru Nam. When they were there, Kru Nam shared with Craig and Kevin the fact that just that week, she'd bought six kids for $3 each. A child – what's the price tag? The price of a latte.

I then asked, "What can I do, Kru Nam?" She replied, "Help us build a village, a home." So, we began to go to places like this, communities where people could reach out, and we started to build a village. The piece of property they had didn't have houses. I just came back two weeks ago, and this village is starting to be transformed. One house is completely finished and we have four more that are in construction right now. There is a place where they can grow crops. They grew their own rice. It was the first time they'd ever grown rice together. They are trying to grow their own crops and do their own work. It's really exciting. This rice field yielded 250 kilograms of rice their first yield. It was gone in one week – 130 kids eat a lot of rice. Also, there is fresh water that they've put in. They've been able to begin to bring the kids into owning the place. They cook together. When I was there, they were landscaping all the houses. It was really exciting. It was just fantastic to see 'amazing grace, how sweet the sound' that freed me, that gave me a glorious life. They are free; these kids now have a home.

Those of you who will go on mission to Thailand this summer are going to get to meet Kru Nam. You'll be able to spend some time with these kids and see what a remarkable story it is. How could you not be inspired by a story like that? I couldn't sleep at night anymore. I felt, "God, this is what you've been preparing me for three decades to be doing." I always felt very tri-polar - it's not bi-polar, but tri-polar. I felt like my life is torn in different directions. I had this job, but studied this other thing, and then I've got my family life. It was very strange when God brought this into my life; it was like I had been prepared to be an abolitionist.

I came back from my journeys, back to the United States and said, "If it's global, and it's around us in our backyard, what can we do to raise the Good News?" I began to brainstorm. There has to be an American society, a group of people, whose vocation, what they do with their lives is to do original research, study and write reports, and maybe even get graded on them. I thought, "Hey! I'm a professor. How about if students took the lead at exposing the darkness that lives in our cities and towns and all over this country?" How about if students, first in the United States, then in the University of Bangkok, then the University of Budapest, then the University of Kampala? How about if students took the lead and map, to show the world where this is? And so, every semester I get a new group of students, and had a building group of guinea pigs, uh ahem, students, that can work with me. Little did they know when they took Ethics 101, that fall of 2006, that ethics is really a euphemism for mapping trafficking in the San Francisco Bay area. We began a process, and NBC News reported a bit of what that process was.

Students ferret out possible human trafficking businesses and then conduct 24-hour surveillance at suspect locations. Student surveillance video shows men go in and out and an older woman leaves. The rest of the women remain inside. The women inside the massage parlor didn't know they were in Union Square, and had never seen the Golden Gate Bridge. It's hard to go to San Francisco and not see the Golden Gate Bridge. But, my 15 nineteen-year-old students began to map where they found this. They started to go to police officers, domestic abuse shelters, where migrant labor usually aggregates. They began talking to all kinds of people who had any glimpse of knowledge of this. They put together a map of where slavery was, not only what had already existed, but they started to find other places, and they began to investigate that with me. Then, we turned that over to the law enforcement. We had all this information and evidence - where were we going to take it? Before we took it to the DA's office, we wanted to make sure there was some place for these victims after they were taken. So, I went to the local social service shelter, called SAGE, that deals with trafficking victims, and said, "We're going to have a bunch of folks that will be freed, but where are they going to go? Can you take them?" They said, "We're strapped! I don't know what we're going to do with them. We love the fact that you're finding this, but where are we going to take them?"  

We had to brainstorm again. There has to be a group in American society that thinks of itself as a sanctuary. Where the poor are taken care of and where there are peacemakers. What if the church became that place that it historically always was, where redemption is to be found?  I started visiting churches in the San Francisco area, inviting them and pleading with them. They started signing up, saying, "We will be a sanctuary. We will be a place of redemption." So a movement was born, of churches working together with law enforcement, with students, with each of them being who they are, and playing out their identities of who they were meant to be. It's taking place in Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angeles, Chicago. The movement is building. This community at Ginghamsburg has already started that journey, saying, "We are a place of redemption. We want to be an abolitionist community."

When I spoke in Atlanta, little did I know that a writer named Rick Warren was in the audience. When I went offstage, someone said, "Rick wants to talk to you." I said, "Rick who?" Rick said, "David, I want the world to know from this day forward that Saddleback is an abolitionist church." I said, "Praise the Lord." When I met the good folks here at Ginghamsburg, they said, "What can we do to free people?" It's a movement; it's sweeping across the country and the church is at the center of it. It's so exciting to see that this could be the beginning of our identity as the world sees us. What did you see in Jamaica, in Ghana, in New Orleans? It's the church being itself – being who it's been called to be. Someday, I want to be on a bus reading my Bible, and have someone say, "Are you a Christian?" I will say, "Yeah." And he will say, "Oh, I hate you Christians." "Really? Why?" "You're always trying to resolve conflicts; you're peacemakers; and you're always helping the poor; you're so humble." That's the day that people see us and know us by our works, by who we are; that's our identity. "'For the Spirit of the Lord is upon me,' says Jesus, 'to bring Good News.'"

I want to invite you to claim that vocation of being an agent of redemption. We are all abolitionists in one way or another, because we are all called to bring freedom to those who are in bondage. You may have friends today who feel trapped and in bondage. Whatever your gift is … I cannot name in this community what it means to be an agent of redemption, but you know your passion and your gifts; you know where you can bring freedom. I know in my work that I need business people who see that their skills can be used to help transform people's lives. I need doctors; I need nurses; I need athletes who play so that others can play. Tell me your gifts and your skills, and I'll tell you how you can use it to bring freedom. I want to show you a short film clip of a young woman who has inspired me. Those of you who will go to Thailand in April will meet Annie Dieselberg. Her gift was that she was an entrepreneur and a missionary. She knew how to build businesses, but what can God do with that? She said, "I guess I'll preach over there, and then my entrepreneurial life will be over there." Annie found that God has a way for her.

(video)

"We came together and decided we would form an organization called Nightlight Designs which would work to reach women in prostitution and those in trafficking or in risk of trafficking in the Nana Sukama area. There was one young woman who was very noticeable. I called her over to talk to her. She was 22, had her first child when she was 13, and she had two children. She had only a second grade education, and she'd been working for four days. She didn't want to work there; she didn't want to continue. So, there I was with a situation. When you hear something like that, I don't know how you can walk away and not do something. So I paid the bar fee, I paid the 500 bot, and took her out of the bar. That was the fee for one night. We really had nothing, but I had been practicing making jewelry and thought it would be the perfect job for women coming out of prostitution.

We met at McDonalds and ordered a Coke. I showed her the jewelry supplies and the tools. I showed her how to twist to make the earrings and how to thread to make a necklace. We practiced a few times and I sent her home with some materials and set a time to meet her in a few days to see how she was doing. Within a couple of weeks, we had a second girl come. The second girl was one that I had known for six years already. I had wanted her so much to come out of prostitution. It had been a long struggle with seeing her become an alcoholic, and become a self-cutter and become depressed. She called me and said, "I've had it; I'm quitting this and coming to work with you."  So we had two women and we started meeting in my home and making the jewelry in my home. That's how we started, and it took off from there.

A few months later, we were hosted for six months by an international church in the area. A year ago in November, we moved into our present site with eight women. Today, we have almost 40 women. So we established Nightlight Designs as a registered Thai business. Women come in Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and make jewelry. The process of making jewelry is a job that gives them dignity. There is also something therapeutic about the colors, the touch of the stones and putting patterns together, as well as a feeling of community. Outside from that, we offer English classes, spiritual formation classes and other life skill training such as cooking, parenting, budgeting and health issues. We work with the women to help them to be able to move forward in their lives with dignity. It does make a difference. One young woman, the one that I had known for six years, was so proud of the jewelry she was making that she wanted her picture taken with everything she made. She told me that she used to always walk with her head down because she was so ashamed of who she was. "Now I catch myself walking with my head high because I'm really proud of what I'm doing."

(end video)

We hold our head high because we are children of God. We are proud of who we are and what we're doing. Those of you, who are going to Thailand with this church in April, will be going with Annie to visit some of these young girls who are still in captivity, to invite them to leave, to invite them to escape and come to a new life. Because we have something to offer; we have hope, we have a Savior, we have a Redeemer, and we are his instruments. We are free to change, we are free to move, and we are free to act to serve others. Amen.