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Though he looked the part, Daniel Walker was not a typical Western visitor to brothels in Asia. Playing the part of a lonely tourist, Walker was actually an undercover agent investigating the sex trade industry in various locations around the globe. Knowing his life would be in danger if he were exposed, Walker was moved by more than a paycheck. In his book God in a Brothel, it becomes clear that Walker’s overriding motivation to rescue girls and women trapped in this brutal form of slavery was God’s great love for each and every one of them. 

Human trafficking is a present-day reality about which many of us would prefer not to think. No modern invention, it was the situation in which God’s people suffered under the rule of the Egyptians, enslaved to construct Egypt’s buildings as forced laborers. In the midst of their suffering—just as in the midst of our own experience of suffering—it would have been tempting to give up hope in the God who had called them His own. And yet, instead of relinquishing trust, the Hebrew people continued to cry out to God for deliverance for four hundred years. The One who loved them heard their cries, saw their misery, and was concerned for their suffering (Ex. 3:7).

In the midst of suffering, it’s tempting to believe that God does not care or that God has abandoned us. The truth is that bodies which are used and abused, broken and beaten, matter deeply to God. God does not turn away from the suffering of a young woman being trafficked for profit. God does not ignore the cries of the needy. Rather, the One who used Moses to deliver his people out of captivity is the One to whom you can turn in the midst of suffering. God sees your suffering and hears your cries.