End it.

Slavery, or human trafficking, is the main theme of this blog. 

Slavery was 'abolished' in the US a long time ago, and now the African American people are no longer slaves. However, America, and every other western country, still has slaves. They just can't see them. 

A slave is a person who is perceived as being owned by another person, forced to do work or carry out orders, and who is not sufficiently paid. The truth is, many of the goods western society consumes are made by workers in such conditions. 

My blog focuses on food. Did you know that it is estimated more than 70% of  the coco the in the world is produced in west Africa? Did you know that children are commonly sold or bonded to coco farms in throughout West Africa? Although the general public in these countries often think this is a myth, the evidence, in my point of view, that these children are trafficked in the chocolate industry is overwhelming.

In many places factories where people work long hours for less than legal wages. These people may not be 'owned' (although in some countries they are trafficked into the industry) Workers in China often come from far areas of their country to work in factories and have to live in factory dorm housing, rarely leaving the factory. They are paid very low wages per hours and often work overtime just to make money. Being tired and not having proper safety equipment means there will be accidents in the workplace. 

Also there is a kind of slavery we don't all contribute to. Many young girls, younger than myself, are sold to brothels. 

It is estimated there are 27 million victims of human trafficking in the world. Today, on the 27th of February, there was an awareness movement where people around the world who drew red Xs on their hands and told their friends about slavery. The X shows that they won't stand for slavery and want it to end. I joined them. And that's why I am putting up this blog post today. To shine a light on the invisible slaves of the world. The world has forgotten them, their pain, and their lives, but we know they are there. I won't allow them to be ignored any longer. I just told you.

My trip to India

Recently, I went on a short term missions trip across India with Teen Missions. It was a great experience.

Teen Missions is an organisation dedicated to training young people for futures in missionary work and Christian service. Teenagers are involved with Teen Missions during their summer school holidays. They are trained at a boot camp and then go overseas in teams and help a charity, church, or mission there.

My team was made up of fifteen people; Four leaders and eleven team members from Australia and New Zealand. We trained for ten days at a boot camp in Queensland, Australia. My team's work was based in Vijayawada. We traveled by train from Madras where our plain had landed, to Vijayawada. This was a very exciting 7 hour train ride.

We were comfortably seated on sleeper class trains, which has partitions throughout the cabin. Three bunks hang off each side of each partition. I loved looking out train windows and seeing the landscape in India for the first time. I saw a lot of farmland; cotton and tea fields, and paddocks of buffalo. There was also a lot of cultivation and ponds. Sales people walked up and down the aisles with boxes of delicious smelling food items. None of us had exchanged our personal money into rupees yet, but one friend of mine was given a free piece of food. I couldn't tell what it actually was but it was crunchy, like deep fried egg, and tasted like salt, chilli, and cumin.

 That train ride was also my first experience of beggars. When I first saw a crippled Indian man crawling through the aisle and clinking coins in his hand, I was a little shocked by the sight of his permanently folded legs, but I was not afraid. He was my fellow human being. Not a monster that I should fear. I had always heard about these people; now I was seeing one. Is it true that the injuries are inflicted by kidnappers so they will make more money? A documentary I had watched had indicated that child beggars in India were often forced to beg give their funds to criminals. How then could you help these people? I had thought. What if you gave them food? I had no food, and I had no money. I didn't know which language the man spoke, but I didn't make eye contact and he passed by. A few minutes latter a blind beggar followed him. 

When we got to Vijayawada, we did some work with an orphanage run by Win Our Natives churches. At boot camp, we had learned to lay bricks, now we assisted a professional builder to build a small room, as well as playing with orphans, and children who lived nearby to the building site.

After a week of working there, we had almost finished the wall and it was time to move on. For the next week and a half, we worked at the Teen Missions India base. This is where Indian Teen Missions participants are trained. Unlike us, they do not go overseas, but travel within their own country and reach their own people. At each Teen Missions base, a bible college is run during the year. We got to know the Indian students here. Our tasks were concreting, and cleaning. We built the foundation for a duck pond and made concrete beams. We also cleaned out a storage room, and I spent a day dusting behind their staircase.

While we were at the Teen Missions base, we got to do a puppet show at a school, and also did some sightseeing and street evangelism.

Street evangelism was a new experience for me. We did it nicely, politely asking people if they would like a tract and giving them one in their native language. We didn't speak it so we had to rely on English's popularity as a second language. We also just asked people if we could pray for them, which many people liked. We also left gospel tracts sitting around, and threw them into car windows.

 That Sunday, we ran Sunday schools in rural village churches.

The last place we worked was a Leprosy Missions shelter. Leprosy is a disease that effects the skin and nerves. It is slow to develop and progress, but as it progresses, it can cause the loss of feeling or use in fingers and limbs. This makes it hard for people to work and they are discriminated against. The disease can be treated with antibiotics, but there is such a fear of leprosy in society that lepers are often outcast from society. We met many people and families affected by leprosy. The children were very sweet and we got to play with them, hold them, and pray for them. We also built a dirt road around some of their houses.

We left India via Delhi. We traveled there on a train. We spent 27 hours on a train. On this train, we met a kid called Prince, who spoke very good English.We hung out with him for a long time. As we got into the North the weather got colder. We visited Agra, which has some historical sights like the Taj Mahal. We also saw historical sights in Delhi.

This has been a very long post. I hope you enjoyed hearing about my trip.