Anna’s Dumbo pajama top is incongruent with her life of exploitation. (For “Anna’s” safety, her name has been changed and her face is hidden.)
A girl learns to trust again
She experiences the safety of a family for the first time in years
Dear Family,
As directors of the Heaven’s Family Human Trafficking & Slavery Ministry, we hear heartbreaking stories of children who have endured unthinkable pain. But because of you, these stories are ending in transformation and hope! Here’s a report from our partner in Myanmar.
Last week we were in a busy red-light area when we noticed a teenager wearing pink pajamas featuring the cartoon figure Dumbo. It seemed so wrong that this girl was standing in such a dark place wearing these innocent, childlike jammies. We spoke to her, encouraged her and gave her our phone number. But she ended the conversation with these piercing words: “I have been betrayed so many times before I got here, why should I trust you?”
For the rest of that week we tried to call Anna’s phone, but it was dead. About a week later, we miraculously saw her in a different part of the crowded city, wearing the same pajamas! She was on an errand for her pimp, but she decided to take the risk and come with us to visit our center. She loved what she saw!
After showing Anna around, we gave her food and money to pay off debts to her captors. We then drove her back and hoped that those few minutes she had spent at the center would be enough to inspire her to make a run for it. Just six hours later, Anna called to say that she was coming to us in a taxi, because she had finally run away from those who had treated her with such cruelty!
We got Anna settled into our shelter that evening, and the other girls were so kind to her as they sat together eating snacks and playing fun games. We asked Anna when she last had that same family feeling, and she told us it was back when she was seven years old. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
After Anna began trauma-informed counseling, we learned her family history of abuse. She was violently raped by her uncle at age 12. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but this was no justice for her, as the rest of her family stigmatized and rejected her. Thus began the pattern of abandonment and extreme vulnerability in her life. Shortly afterwards, she was trafficked to China. We met her on the street here in Myanmar one year after she had returned. After two months in our program, during our weekly fellowship, Anna decided to receive Jesus and become baptized!
Thank you for helping rescue precious girls like Anna from the clutches of hell! Please pray for Anna and the many others who are coming to Jesus from a life of slavery.
Together for the “least of these,”
Burt and Patty Forney
Director, Human Trafficking & Slavery Ministry
