Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to the Love Justice Podcast where we hear from different voices who are joining us in the fight against modern day slavery. We're excited to welcome today's guest, Danielle Strickland. Danielle's an author, speaker, entrepreneur and advocate for justice. Here's your host, Jason Dukes.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: Well, hey, welcome to the Love Justice Podcast. My name is Jason Dukes. My co host Hannah is out today, but I am really excited about being joined by our founder and CEO John Moldenot and our special guest, Danielle Strickland. And the title of our episode today is letting injustice break your heart without losing hope.
And so just real excited to talk through not only Daniel, your experiences, where you've been, what you've done, but how it relates to the idea of when something breaks our heart, what do we do about it? And so just want to, first of all, just say welcome. Thanks for joining us today.
[00:01:00] Speaker C: It's a great joy to be here. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Well, let's dive in. So you, for those listening who may not know your journey, can you tell us a little bit more about who you are?
[00:01:13] Speaker C: Sure, yeah. I spent most of my life in ministry with the Salvation army in urban centers in several places around the world.
Really incarnational communities among marginalized communities is, was my specialty. And then I always say, like, the road always leads to justice with Jesus. You know, if you follow long enough, it's just where he goes.
So began to be friends with people who were not just finding themselves marginalized, but began to connect the dots of systemic marginalization and particularly around women suffering from sexual exploitation and some of the systems and, and stuff regarding that. So just kind of dug into that and you know, I've lived, I'm Canadian, lived in Australia for a little while, in America for a little bit, and several places in Canada, major cities, and have explored all kinds of different things from like housing to street survival, rescue operations to brothel chaplaincies to, you know, like, I mean, just like all kinds of things and then most recently a lot more prevent repetitive strategies for girls before they're exploited and things like that. So I love Jesus, you know, I follow Jesus. I love discovering the way that God invites people to disrupt normal, to bring something else, to bring a glimpse at least of another reality that's possible.
That's a little bit about me. I have three boys and a husband at home. I live in Vancouver right now.
And I love food and outdoors.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: I love it. It's a beautiful city there. Vancouver is one of my favorite places to go. And had a friend that was up there. He was a Church starter, actually with Simon Fraser University there, but he's now in South Africa as the director of Living Hope, which you may have heard of before, but all that to say. And then Montreal. Love Canada. Montreal is one of my favorite cities.
[00:03:23] Speaker C: Nice.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: So you. You recently wrote in the Other side of Hope, or you recently released the book the Other side of Hope. And. And you invite us in there to. To flip the script on cynicism and despair, you know, just as you kind of gave your background there. But. But what prompted you to write this book and. And why now?
[00:03:48] Speaker C: Yeah, I always, you know, actually interesting. The opening story of the book that introduces the idea came from South Africa.
When I was visiting South Africa and a friend of mine who's an artist met me there and we did a little bit of like a tour of some of the beautiful parts. And we went to an art gallery. She's an artist, and she had this one specific artist she wanted to see. We went to the art gallery. The curator of the gallery had decided to do a show where he flipped every single painting over and all you could see was the backside of the art. So. And it was remarkable because I don't know if you've seen, if you flip your artwork over, no matter how nice that artwork is, the backside looks exactly the same.
And she was, you know, she was furious because she had gone come a long way. We had drove like several hours out of our itinerary to go to this gallery to see this artist, and all we saw was really like one wood, you know, you know, cardboard, wires, nails, you know, and. But I was really captivated. It captivated me. And it struck me, I actually started writing the Other side of Hope during COVID and it struck me that we are all sort of addicted to this idea of the shiny, arty, fancy side of hope, but actually people who are the most hopeful have a framework, you know, if you were to flip their lives over, even if they're lives or the stories that we tell look like these beautiful, elaborate, artistic paintings, you know, if you flip their lives over, you're going to just see some wood and some paper and some nails. And so there's a framework that holds hope.
And I wanted to talk a little bit about that.
So that's kind of what prompted that book is what is behind, you know, what holds it together. What's the framework that Hope actually can appear on?
Yep.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: That's so good. So powerful that just the idea of seeing both sides like that. I love that.
I love that. John, you. You are obviously, as founder And CEO of Love Justice. You know, we talk a lot about this idea of a brokenhearted anointing and how even what Daniel just said, like the idea of seeing both sides of hope and hopelessness and even being able to. To feel all of those feelings middle of all of the brokenness that we see in our world.
Talk a little bit more though, about that idea. Just broken hearted anointing, what does that mean?
[00:06:20] Speaker D: We really believe that a broken heart is the anointing that God gives us for the fight against injustice.
And I think that we are called to face up to injustice, learn about it, take it in, and not to turn away from it.
And when you do that, it will break your heart.
And one of the things that, that I've often thought is that God loves every person more than the person I love most. So if I want to know his heart for injustice, I should imagine how I would feel if that was happening to someone that I love most. And when I do that, my heart becomes broken for injustice. And I think that's what we're called to because God's heart is broken for injustice. And so you don't want to. As you know, Jason, one of our values that Love justice is let injustice break your heart. And ultimately, I think doing so is what prepares us and anoints us to fight it effectively.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: That's so good. Yeah. Church staff that I served on, at one point, we had changed our metrics, Danielle, to try to get away from the traditional metrics. And one of them was that question of what breaks your heart in the world and what are you going to do about it? Right. And trying to really put more of a measurement to what are we doing. Right. About what breaks our heart in the world.
When you live and you embody that kind of a value, like what John's describing, one of the tensions that you feel is between staying tender to suffering and not becoming overwhelmed by it.
Right.
I'm sure with Brave Global, with Hager's voice, others things that you have had firsthand experience and even have helped found. Right. Like that you've been a part of starting.
You've seen this firsthand. So in your experience, what helps someone let their heart truly break but not break apart.
[00:08:25] Speaker C: Yeah. You know, I, I think I'm still learning this.
But of course, the, the one thing that will help you, your heartbreak is just proximity.
Just get close to people who are suffering and your heart will break. That's it. There's no other.
It's really hard to get your heart broken. Spectating it's really easy to get your heart broken loving.
And that's sort of the price of love, isn't it? So.
And it's really not a bad thing to measure. You know, that's the only thing God will be measuring in the end is how, how much we loved.
So but I remember I moved into a, what Canada's poorest postal code. It's in Vancouver, one of the beautiful cities in the planet, but with the poorest. What a containment area of drug addicts. And actually what we found out are kids that graduated at the foster care system. There's just a lot of pain and alienation, mental health crisis and.
And we moved into that community and a couple came to join us that were friends of mine. One of them a really big like prayer warrior, an intercessor really in many ways. And I'm a big justice advocate, always was. You know, that's just sort of prone. So we're just like, where's that darkest place? Let's go there. You know, that was sort of our. And really got trained in a lot of these things, you know, just trained in like what this even is and moving out of sort of white saviorism really and colonial exercises that we call church, planting into like the brokenness of the world, but also the brokenness of our own complicity and systems and the invitation to partner with, with Jesus there together. But anyway, I remember we were walking, prayer walking through these streets and I was a block in, you know, through this alleyway where we had moved in. And I realized my friend Ruth wasn't with me. And I turned, I was like, what? Yikes, I've already lost my prayer partner. And I turned around and she had stopped at the first sort of half naked drug addict, collapsed. You know, this is happening all the time. People will be on sidewalks everywhere, all through that neighborhood, sort of in a drug induced state.
And this woman had obviously was in that. And I had just continued to pray, I prayed for her, but I kept going. But my friend Ruth, who's a proper intercessor, was kneeling at her feet, basically covering her half naked body and weeping.
And I remember thinking to myself, like, this isn't a very good strategy.
Like there are thousands of like, you know, I just remember thinking all of my like rational justice, like we got to get some. Like if we want to actually do something, we should build a shelter, you know what I mean? Like, like all my stuff is like all like we gotta do something.
And all her impulse was just to stop and to weep.
And then the Lord really showed Me beautiful passage of scripture in Ezekiel. And I mean, it's crazy. Ezekiel's crazy. It's like the drug trip, prophetic word of scripture really. It's just like full of all these like crazy apocalyptic visions. But one of them is where, where God is sending sort of a judgment. He takes actually Ezekiel by the head of the hair, the scripture says, which I always think is like, pay. This is like God saying, I, I, you need to pay att.
He just keeps showing him the sins of Israel. And Ezekiel actually says to him, stop it, I've seen enough. And God's like, nope, you got to see it all. So that's even itself. It's just that the willingness to see. They say the first way we participate in injustice is to choose not to see it.
So the willingness to see it. And then God says, I'm going to send an angel to mark the foreheads of everyone who will grieve and weep for the sins of Israel.
And then of course, he sends an angel of judgment to kind of kill everybody else, which will. That's not what we want to focus on. But I do want to say this. It struck me so deeply that God was not sending an angel to mark the foreheads of people who would just do. He was sending an angel to mark the foreheads of people who would feel.
Who would feel it.
And I think that's what you're saying. I think that's what your experience is, is that because the doing, if it doesn't come from feeling, can often end up just leading more exploitation or more systemic issues or more marginalization.
But a doing that comes out of feeling actually requires relationship and that actually becomes the, the world changing, you know, the system changing upside down. Realities of the kingdom.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: So good. And, and you see that, don't you, in, in like Matthew 25, you know, when he talks about separating the sheeps and the goat and, and how the, the idea of, of going and doing something for the least of these. Because you've done it for me.
You see what you've described there, right? Like we, we, we need to flip the script. We usually think, oh, I'm gonna go be Jesus to those people.
[00:13:10] Speaker C: Right?
[00:13:10] Speaker B: And Jesus says, no, no, no, you actually might see me in them. Right? Like, yeah, you know, and I think it, I think you're exactly right. It's beautiful when you can focus less on the doing and more on the feeling and the being and the being with. Right. It's so powerful.
[00:13:29] Speaker C: Well, I feel like we have to be saved from a hyper rationalized version of faith.
I think this is true on multiple levels. I think we come out of at least dominant white Western cultures come out of this like, very separated. This is my belief system. And my belief system is super separate from the way I live, even sometimes, right to a great desperate thing. But the way I feel or the way that I relate to other people or the way that I spend my money or the way that I. So we've. We were in recovery, I would say, from this like, weird segregated idea that belief is separate from life.
And so I love that because actually though, that belief needs to actually saturate itself and become rooted in the way life works in my own personal life, but also in the way life and systems and structures and people that are caught in those things, the way that we relate to each other. So in many ways I would say I went to my own community, like the downtown east side, as a rescuer and then ended up being rescued from this like, spectator thing, from this idea that I was. I had something to offer that was. That came through just my rational mind instead of actually through a broken heart.
So I think there is a lot of, you know, there's a co.
You know, a shalom ness isn't that there's a right relationship which is at the heart of God's design for a good flourishing world. And so this is part our hearts breaking for the way things are and the way that we've allowed them to be to the way that we participated with them, whether we knew it or not, is actually a part of the right relationship that God has in mind for the flourishing of the world. So it's important.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: So good. It's so good. Yeah. And if you. A good exercise, something clicked when you said that it the rescued and you went as the rescuer, but you're rescued in the idea of that flourishing element of. Of what that looks like to really embody the gospel, to really embody the mission of Jesus and justice and. But to not do it as though I'm the one who is bringing right. But to do it in such a way that I get to see the kingdom with Jesus and invite others into it. I've challenged pastors before like, like read the gospels like that.
Read the gospels looking for the way that Jesus did. What you just described. You described it better than I ever have. But. But read it in such a way that you're looking for how Jesus invited those 12 guys to come out to like you said, to move into recovery.
[00:16:00] Speaker D: Right.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: And to really see the kingdom in a new way. That's so. It's so.
[00:16:04] Speaker C: I'd even go another step further when you're reading the Gospels and this happened to me, actually I was reading a story, I think I was reading about the woman who was accused of adultery. And, you know, the religious leaders wanted to stone her and Jesus, you know, And I remember the Holy Spirit saying to me when I was reading this, saying to me, like, who you're relating to in the passage? And I was like, oh, definitely the woman, you know, and then just gently, you know, the Holy Spirit's like, have you ever found yourself without rights? Have you ever found yourself dragged out publicly? Have you ever had no recourse to defend yourself? You know, And I was just like, no, no, no, no, no.
And then. And I felt like, pick somebody else to relate to, you know, so then I picked Jesus, of course, because that's the other. And that the other safest, you know, thing to relate to. And then. And then the Holy Spirit's like, yeah, I think you should try again. And then, of course, the next time, I'm like, okay, I picked the rocks, you know, because the last person I want to relate to in the Scriptures are the religious folks. That Jesus, I thought, had a dual mission, one to save the world and then also to condemn religious people.
And then I realized that Jesus came to actually save us all.
And if I was truly honest with myself, I had the most in common with the religious folks because that's how I grew up in religious constructs. I believe in those sort of religious things. I.
And so I read the Gospels again. I call it Pharisees Anonymous, a system where you read the Gospel and put yourself in the place of the Pharisees and you will be shocked at how Jesus spends time, goes to their houses, like. Like just longs for them to get it because he sees that they're. They want to, but they're missing it. And one of the chief things they're missing, you know, it's not a devotion to the Scriptures. They've got that. It's not a devotion to the law. They've got that. It's not a religion, like a lack of, you know, it's not religious like slackerism. They've got. They're totally devoted. What they're missing is their hearts aren't breaking. And what they're missing is that they're not feeling what it's like to be poor and oppressed and marginalized and result are further harming people who are. And so I've been in recovery now for many Many years I'm a Pharisees anonymous member.
And the first step is to admit that that's, you know, your natural inclination. So there has to be a softening of the heart. There has to be an invitation through proximity. And you see that not only in the scriptures. And I think that's why Jesus does this so intentionally. Goes out of his way to get in the way of injustice and pain and brings people with him. So that the proximity itself is the thing that actually breaks off the, gives us vision. We see things a lot clearer. It actually, we see things. The clearer we see things, the more confusing it gets.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:18:43] Speaker C: Because it's actually an affront to all the things we thought from a distance. Right. So things are different than we thought.
And, and then there really is this like heart wrenching reality of what pain and suffering and marginalization and injustice feels like.
And that's where we enter into the heart of God and that's where actual power and transformation comes from.
Yeah, but you had asked me a question, Jason, before, which is like, how do we do this without actually breaking our hearts for good? You know, like in, in a way that's healthy and whole.
And the only thing I can say is one, I think we're so terrified of feeling deeply that we think feeling deeply is wrong. So I'd say like first of all, that's, that's. I don't know how many times I've had conversations with women who weep and are ashamed of it to say, stop being ashamed of it. Like, the problem isn't you, you're weak. This is right weeping, you know, this is good. Tears are, are a way of telling the truth, you know, so let's not shy away from that. But I think the only place I found that can help keep me tender and not sort of harden me by injustice is the presence of God.
And this is where I think prayer and actual encounter, like actually where we go with our deepest, truthful, you know, injustices and pain and bring them to God and spend time with God. That God is the only power great enough to hold that without breaking and to tenderize that and to keep me tender.
So that's the practice of prayer, tensional prayer room.
Like we started a 24, 7 prayer room. We prayed for three and a half, three and a half years straight, nonstop in the downtown east side of Vancouver, in the midst in a slum rooming house, and the juxtaposition between this being one of the hardest, most unjust, you know, sort of obvious broken places on, that I knew on the planet with the presence of God was transformative for everybody. And we didn't realize that. We were able to stay hopeful, we were able to stay energized, we were able to see God moving because we had actually partnered this pain and prayer together.
[00:20:53] Speaker B: So good that he can tenderize and help us stay tender at the same time. I love that.
I love that. Thank you for sharing that. If, if our. Those who are listening and watching, if, if that just. That even last segment is worth the whole episode. So thank you for that. It's so powerful.
A lot to think about there.
Let's. Let's pivot for just a second. And I feel confident that after we go through this next exercise, we're going to come back to what we just were talking about. It kind of will keep building on that. But John, how have you continued to face up to injustice without being broken, burnout, or even become angry at God? Because those who don't know your story, like you've, you, after college, you ended up living in Kathmandu for 20 years, basically. And you know, there were certainly some visits out, but you lived in the midst of the very brokenness and pain that we're talking about and saw injustices left and right. And whether they were disasters like the earthquake that you endured or whether they were just the normal.
Very normal is not the right word, but the very injustices that moved you to go there in the first place. Right.
And you know, how have you done that? How have you walked through that without being broken, burnout, or becoming angry at God?
[00:22:18] Speaker D: Yeah.
Well, first of all, I really appreciate everything you shared, Daniel. And there is something about the Pharisees, you know, that so much of the New Testament talks about them and is dedicated to them that it occurred to me a long time ago, like, that's not in there for them. You know, they're not.
And it's in there for me. And never mind more so than when you're doing something important to fight injustice or when you're close to God because it was precisely proximity to, you know, they were the closest to Jesus and their beliefs.
They were incredibly disciplined in their pursuit of righteousness, and yet they had missed it. And so for me, like this, you know, the message I take from the Pharisees and the importance of that is really, is actually a central part of, I think, how you did it. But so I had a talking about going in with a savior syndrome, as you did. You know, like, I had a situation very early on where there was a deaf street kid that I was working with and I was trying to help get him off the street. And I had this thought and that was, that was, if I don't help this kid, no one will.
And as soon as I did, I felt like God just rebuking me and just saying, no, I have this situation under control without you and I don't need you. And the scripture says, no Sparrow falls without his care. He loves more, he cares more, and his arm is not too short to save. And so it was a strong kind of emotional rebuke just from thinking about the scriptures, that realizing that my choice is not to be anyone's savior. The choice I have is whether I want to of be part a part of what this God who loves every person more than I can imagine is already doing and is determined to do with or without me.
So that was just a reframing of it. And at the end of the day, the best I can hope for is to be told, well done, my good and faithful servant, you've done your duty.
That's it. I mean, there is no hero, there is no savior but Jesus in the story. And so I think that's been a key part of it for me.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: So. Good.
Well, before we go into this next part, just for our listeners and those watching, I want to offer a content warning.
The story that John's about to share includes some disturbing descriptions of human trafficking and sexual violence. So if you're sensitive to these topics or even been directly or indirectly affected by them, you know, obviously we want you to be, to take care of yourself, to be conscious of it and deciding whether you want to listen on or you want to skip ahead. And so, John, would you walk us through what, what we call as an organization, Love justice, calls the greatest injustice. Would you kind of walk us through that and, and why. We use the story to help our monitors and teams to understand the depth of injustice that we're fighting.
[00:25:33] Speaker D: So this, this is a tool that we use to help impart that brokenhearted anointing that our, our monitors actually go through training. They learn about human trafficking and how to do transit monitoring. And then the last stage, they go through this exercise where they close their eyes and they listen to an account of a trafficking situation and they imagine it happening to someone that they love. And after that, they are given these very unique black shoes that only our monitors are allowed to wear. Has our logo there and it has, I don't know if you can see that it has a, it has a scripture on the inside that says, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news from Romans 10:15. And then they're encouraged to write a name or a symbol on that shoe to remind them of the person that they thought about and just to remember how much that God loves each victim in that way.
So I'm going to read this, and as I do, keep in mind that God loves every person more than the people that we love most. So if we want to get a closer view, or closer to his view of human trafficking, we should imagine how we would feel if it happened to someone we love. And so we can actually think of a real person who is precious to you. And as you hear about one of the worst forms of human trafficking, sex trafficking.
So although many of the elements described here are common in sex driving cases, of course each case is unique, and sex trafficking is just one form of human trafficking. So if you're listening, I just ask that you will close your eyes and picture a child who is precious to you.
See her face, her innocence and gentleness, the quiet hope for her life and wonder at the world. Her little smile, her laugh, the ease and grace in her playful movements.
Now imagine that this precious little girl was born into poverty and is uncertain about her future.
Picture her at home, her friends, her little bed, walking the paths that she loves and wondering what her life will be like.
She's filled with hope and dreams to be known and loved, to find someone who will cherish her as God wants her to be cherished.
Now imagine that someone arrives and offers her a great opportunity. Maybe it's a job or a marriage, or a chance for education.
These are the promises that traffickers use to deceive their victims.
Lured by the hope for a better life, she leaves behind everything she has known. The dirty walls of her house that she's seen from a thousand angles. The face of her family and friends.
She is excited and scared, but she is brave. So she sets out with the hopeful expectation of a better life.
She is innocent, and so she is trusting.
She follows the instructions of her host because she hoped for and so believes in what he has promised her. Together they travel by train or bus, stopping along the way to eat, trying to keep out of sight.
She looks out at the changing countryside, wondering what her new life will be like.
She's filled with wonder at the landscape she has scarcely dreamed of. They cross the border on foot, and she does not ask why they must be so secret and accepts easily whatever explanation her benefactor happens to give.
Now they arrive at the destination, and she is told to wait for her benefactor to return. She grows impatient and tries to look for him, but the way is barred.
She is told that she has been sold, that she is no longer free because she now owes the brothel owner a great deal of money.
The other girls will help her understand the disgusting way. She will be forced to pay back the debt her trafficker claims over her. She must have sex with old men now. That is her job now. This is her home now.
She does not understand. She never agreed to this. She does not want to do it. She wants to go home.
She is indignant, angry, still feeling that her benefactor will return and determined that she will not do this kind of work.
She is still a little girl. She has not yet been broken. She soon will be.
When she refuses, she is subject to the most horrible forms of rape and torture. Trafficked girls are sometimes locked in a dark room, forced to take drugs. We're told that if they refuse, their mothers or sisters will be trafficked, trafficked in their place day after day. If she continues to refuse, the tortures will grow worse. The other girls will tell her what is inevitable. She cannot hold out. She has no choice in the matter. She must accept her fate.
She will break her dream of meeting someone who will love her and cherish her, will die. She will give it up to stop the pain, to see the sun, to save her sister, to save her life. From this point forward, her days are made up of being violated through every unspeakable form of sex. She is beaten if she tries to refuse. She may try to escape, but she doesn't know how to get home. She has no money, she does not speak the language, and the criminal systems of her new home have been corrupted, so they may be more likely to accommodate human traffickers than its victims.
It is likely that one day, one of the men she is forced to have sex with will pass to her the disease that will kill her first. She will not realize it, passing it on to others for several months. Eventually she'll be tested, her heart pounding as she waits for the results and then dropping when she hears the words HIV positive. She is forced to leave the brothel and return to her home. She left a virgin. She's returning with hiv. She wanders back to her village, heart sick and alone. She does not love the paths anymore. Her friends are all gone and her family will reject her. She is unclean now, not a suitable person for good people to be around, no longer welcome in a house whose dirty walls she used to know so well. She cannot find a job, a husband or a friend.
If it comes to this, she will do the only thing she knows. She will wander the nearby villages until she sees a young girl, just the right age with a pretty face. A trusting, innocent girl, as she herself was. She'll promise this girl a job. She will lie and the little girl will believe her. And the two together will take a bus to a border town, crossing the border on foot.
Now open your eyes and imagine that you could go back to a moment in time for this precious child where you could change the ending to that story and cut off all the evil that began when she was deceived by a trafficker. Imagine you could go back to that innocent child, so full of hope and dreams, and just keep her on that path.
Is there anything in the world you wouldn't give or any treasure on earth that would be more valuable than that chance?
[00:32:20] Speaker B: Just let that sit there for a moment and just each of us respond. If you have a way or a thought that you'd like to respond to before we move on. And where my heart and mind goes first, I'll just say, like what you said earlier, Danielle, that you've shifted some of your recent, most recently to look for ways to prevent this. Right. And that is what John is describing. And that idea of preventing that trauma, that's unspeakable, so powerful.
John, how have you seen our transit monitors even respond to this? What's, what's. How do you describe that?
[00:33:14] Speaker D: They've been moved by it and, and honestly, they, they see the faces and just the real stories and yeah, the passion that we have that we see in our monitors and their faithfulness.
Yeah, they are the real heroes of our work. And you know, we.
The black shoes are just kind of a symbol of that. We talked about whether non monitored, love justice staff can wear them and we decide no.
We kind of want to build a culture where we see that they are the heroes of our work that stand sentinel on the front lines against one of the world's greatest injustices, fighting to protect some of the most vulnerable people against the most vicious criminal networks in the world.
And we're just honored to be able to serve them and sort of to be able to be middlemen that help them do the amazing work that they do and also to help our donors do the generous engage in a generosity that they engage in that makes it possible.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: So.
[00:34:27] Speaker D: I'm in awe of our monitors often.
[00:34:40] Speaker B: Any thoughts, Danielle too, from you before we move on? I know we've got a few more questions before we wrap up, but.
[00:34:46] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I have a lot of thoughts.
One is, I'm thankful, John, that in your training, you bring it down to, you know, like, you distill. This is like a.
It's like a pro. It's a type that actually is real life over and over and over again in a thousand different colors. You know, there's no end to the way people are exploited. And I think one of the things that feeds despair in my work, at least in against trafficking, is that we. Is the bigness of it. You know, people throw around massive numbers. People throw around massive, like, you know, these. It's this and it's that. And one of the things I love about some of the work that you're doing is it's also small work.
Like, sometimes the undoing of injustice isn't as complicated as we make it. And I have this little theory that we overcomplicate things we don't want to do, right? Where it's like, oh, it's too complex. We couldn't possibly. And this was the saint, you know, I had a very similar situation in a bunch of different things where you're invited by God to do the one thing in front of you, and then the one thing in front of you is actually seems so simple, you know, like, I used to take cupcakes into brothels in Australia and ended up, you know, creating a brothel visitation program, choppancy program that ended up kind of being the ears and the eyes of systemic and, you know, traffickers and stuff through international means into Australia. Anyway, it was ridiculous. That's not what we set out to do, but all we did was set out to do the thing that God invited us to do, which was like to take cupcakes of brothels in Australia. I mean, that, you know, with grandmas and stuff, like it was. And you're just. And you. It's foolish, you know, you literally. It's a Paul saying, you know, this. This foolishness of God will or this wisdom of God will look like foolishness to the world, and it really will. So, like, there's a sense in which you're sort of going like, okay, there's this, like, massive ocean of injustice, and we're going to have these people stand on borders, you know, like, it's like in one way, it's like ridiculous. And yet it leads to, you know, everybody doing the thing that they can do is actually the way that we undo the injustice in the systems. And. And I think for me, like, I just think we sometimes we overestimate evil and underestimate good in terms of, like, how it. Because evil also happens this way is people do what's best for them, you know, over and over and over again. And it's undone the same way as people living differently and people doing what's best for the person instead of for them, and people making hard choices and people doing the work. But I do think that there is this invitation to the simplicity, you know, sort of back to that first lesson with my friend who just stopped for the One.
And Jesus does this a lot like the One, the one, the one, the one, the One. And we tend to go like the trafficked, you know, the victim, you know, the perpetrators, you know, the traffickers.
But actually all of these things, if you, when you boil them all down, are people. One person, one decision, one choice, one action, one movement, you know, one progression. And if you can interrupt those progressions at any point, you know, all the points ideally, but at any point you're making, you're undoing and preventing the doing the doing of injustice. And it matters, you know, everything matters. I just so, I love that, I love that the paralysis of the big complex reality of trafficking needs to keep being undone, right? And there needs to be movement, even if it's like little movement and it feels like foolish movement in some regards. It's actually really good and powerful.
[00:38:35] Speaker B: I agree. So good. And I think, like, what you hit on there, and, and this kind of leads into just coming back even to ask another question about your book and about hope.
But what you hit on there, like, there's, there's the hopelessness for those that are being exploited in that injustice.
And there's also the hopelessness sometimes for those that are actually maybe do in, like you said, proximity come close enough to have their heart broken. And, and the hopelessness of like, this is how big the issue is. And the hopelessness of, like, what could I do? But, but like you said, there's the one, right? And, but, but so how do you so, so moving it and flipping that script to where it's not just, no, it's hopeless. No, it actually isn't. Right? Like, like act on that one, right? And, and, and pay attention to that one. You, and you describe hope like that in your book. Like it's something that we can rediscover, that we can hold. Like, like we can let these other things fall away that have become the hardness of our heart or whatever has happened along the way that's created that. And we can rediscover this hope. Right? And what is, what does that process look like, especially in the Context of injustice.
[00:39:52] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think a couple things that might be helpful quickly. I mean, it's a. It's a lot. But one, hope is honest before it's happy.
And I think we're also addicted to this idea of positive, optimistic, happy thinking as hope, which is not. That's not what that is. Biblical hope is honest, which is why, like a third of the Bible is just lament. It's just people crying out to God saying, why are you. Like, how is this happen? Why is this happening? Like. And, like, yelling at God, even Jesus, you know, all the words that describe his prayer in the garden of Gethsemane were not quiet and reverent.
You know, we're talking drops of blood. We're talking. He probably screamed and prostrated himself and, like, pounded the ground, which is part of the miracle of the disciples falling asleep while he was praying. Right. Which gives us an inkling, if you're reading that scripture, that that's not just a physical issue. There's a spiritual sleepiness that will prevent people from entering into deep suffering because we don't want to and the enemy doesn't want us to. And that might have actually led the disciples that. That decision that they could have made to enter into his suffering might have led them actually to stay at the foot of the cross and then be first at the resurrection instead of.
Instead of what they did do. So I think. I think there's one. It's honest. So hope is honest. And again, we're afraid of the truth. We're afraid to connect those things. We're afraid to feel. But actually we need to feel. An honesty will bring us into a more hopeful thing. And then hope is.
It's present tense. I always say. And we're always looking for hope later, or we're always trying to find hope before. But actually, hope is eternal. It's present tense. It's the eternal now of God. So you only find hope in the present. So you're looking for it right here, right now. And that's why it's really powerful. Like, John, that story that you told where you're, like, talking, you're. You're saying, like, I'm the only hope of this boy. And God's like, actually, no, like, I'm hope, and I'm hopefully present here with this. But this boy is created by me for me.
And you're invited into this. And when you get invited into this, this is hope. Hope happens when you're present with God in the here and the now. So I think it's present tense. So a lot of times we're like, we'll do this to change the future, to change. But actually hope is present. And then I would say hope is a person.
You know, it's one of the characteristics of Jesus himself. So hope is where God is. And inviting God to show up in these places is where we find hope. Because hope is a person and not just a principle. So lots of people want to live, hopefully. But I'm always like, you don't live hopefully, you find God. And hope is a manifestation of God's presence. Right? That's what that. That's just what God brings. Jesus brings hope to the situation, not even by the results of his presence, but just by his presence itself. Like, hope is right here in the midst of. In the midst of all of these things.
So those are a couple of principles that have helped me a little bit, and they've protected me from a few things. So hope also protects us from one not being honest. So biblical hope. Anyway, the writer tells us the scriptures say that even if we were to make our bed in sheol, like total. Like hell their God would be.
So what?
I don't want to mess with too much theology and mess everybody up. But like, what it means, God is present where we think he's not, which is, what if this is this great experience that John and all of the transit workers will probably attest to, at least the people that I know that are still hopeful in the fight against injustice is they know God is with them. And that, like, no matter where they find themselves, they know God is here. And that changes things because hope is eternal and present and with us and a person. So hope is found in Jesus, but the other thing it does is it keeps me from spectating.
And I think spectating is one of the chief causes of cynicism, is to look from a distance. And then usually what you're doing when you're looking from a distance is you're judging, you're critiquing.
So I actually really find my. I ask myself, am I, you know, am I critiquing from a distance? Because as soon as I start critiquing from a distance, cynicism begins to grow.
And hope is found when I move towards.
I'm in proximity and I'm encountering God in the space that I find myself in, no matter how desperate it is, I can find God in this place. And that, like, breeds hope.
So it's really interesting. Like, I can wax eloquent about the injustices of the way systems work and like even like a specific system, I pick like a non profit and just be like those, the waste of money, you know, I could do all these things and then as soon as I move towards, you know, a person in that program that, that, that, that NGO runs who needs something specific and I get to partner with God in helping to bring that I'm filled with hope.
So I can be like totally cynical and despairing about the refugee crisis and just be like that, you know, NGO that helps those refugees is so be a blah, blah, blah, blah. Or I can go to the refugee house that that NGO runs down the street and help a refugee couple resettle into my community. And if I'm doing that, I am filled with hope. So there's something about this spectating friend cynicism from a distance and this proximity which is a powerful encounter of a present tense personal God who is with us. And that's a source of hope. That's, that's hope springs eternal when we partner with God.
[00:45:11] Speaker B: That's so good. That's so good. A friend of mine from Zambia has said that you don't know hope until you've truly experienced hopelessness and, or you don't know even resurrection. He goes on to say, until you've really lost or experienced the death of something. And that's what you're getting at, right? Like we interpret whether we like it or not, and not to mess with people's theology either, like what you said, but whether we like it or not, we interpret truth through emotion.
And it's the hardships of life in our world that move us emotionally to say, God you're not with me, or God you're not good.
But to be able to lean into that and to still be reminded and remember that he is and that he is and, and that hope, like you said, becomes something that's enduring, not something that is shallow or hollow.
What about you, John? I mean, how do you process the weight of that? Like how do you process it without becoming desensitized, paralyzed and you know, how do you keep going in it in that sense, to hold to hope and to let hope be something that keeps you honest but at the same time keeps you coming near.
[00:46:26] Speaker D: First of all, I'm not sure I would claim that I have never allowed myself to be desensitized or that I've achieved that perfectly, but I do still regularly. I haven't managed to be paralyzed all at too much and I do still regularly let my heart feel and you know, be broken over injustice.
But I think, I mean, one of the things that's helped in that, honestly, is family, community, loved ones. We have an amazing community that was with us in Nepal and several which are with us now here in South Africa.
And it. It's just been.
It's been really such a special, precious thing. Just the relationships that we have and the fun we have together, the laughter that we have together, and the joy and the sacred mission we've been called to together, that's been awesome. And my family, my wife and two beautiful boys certainly fills me with hope.
But I think what's helped me more than anything, more than any of this is, is what I believe about God, and that is that he cares, he loves people, and he is heartbroken more than I would be if it was my son suffering under it. And that's a lot. And I can feel how much that is.
But also that he's sovereign over injustice.
And on the one hand, I don't know how that could possibly be true given the scope of injustice.
But also, if that's not true, then the God that I believe in does not exist. And I believe with all my heart that he does.
And so I think that is.
Yeah, that more than anything else, it's believing in who God is and his love that keeps me from being paralyzed.
[00:48:28] Speaker B: Well, Danielle, I'd love for you to have the final word as we wrap up here. And again, thank you so much for your time today. You've been very generous with it, but I'd love for you to have the final word. I mean, obviously we've been talking about, you know, facing injustice and. And letting it break your heart, but. But you not lose hope.
And, and you yourself, you know, you, like you said, you've been in a recovery process and learned you were the rescue, not just the rescuer, and you've had a healing journey in that, I'm sure, like, maybe just give a final word of encouragement to those listening and watching that would be helpful to them just to remember how to go close, how to be in proximity and let something break your heart, but at the same time, how to hold on to hope and let it move you. Right. Let it move you to truly engage with Jesus in his mission. Because that's what we've been invited into to. Right. Like, he. He so graciously says, yeah, come with me, follow me, like. And we get to go where he goes in that sense. So how do you just one final word of encouragement, of whether it's your own healing journey or what you would Say to someone walking through that process who's. Their heart's being broken and they want to hold on to hope.
[00:49:55] Speaker C: You know, I've had two encounters where I felt like that.
You know, hope is a wild thing because hope is Christ, right?
So, like, I don't know if you've ever seen a whale. Have you ever seen a whale come to the surface and breach and then. Or if you've ever been around people who. Who see it, and everyone's like, it's a whale, and everybody freaks out. We know about whales. We read them in encyclopedias and we, like, you know, we know, but, like, their sightings are rare. And then also there's something.
What is it. What is it about the sighting of a whale? You know, that's just like.
It's like. And I feel like hope's like that and everybody. Like, it's rare in some ways in that, like, we. We. We glimpse it when we glimpse it. So, like, you know, John, one of your workers is at the border, and they see the signs and they get to the. The girl, they intervene and they get this girl, and they, you know, she's overwhelmed with thanksgiving, and they pray with her, and they come out of that, like, levitating, right? Like, they come out of that going, like, I am at the top of the world. And then, like, five hours later, they're at the border again. After five hours of seeing nothing and being treated like crap, and they're just like, this is the worst day ever. And then the next. But. And then what would keep them going, what keeps them going is that they've glimpsed. They've glimpsed, like, this eternal quality of God, right? They've glimpsed God with us. They've had this sighting, and they know that it might be rare to see it in their lifetime, but they will. Like, you know, this is, like, this is our faith. Like, this is the revelation. Like, God is working in the world and God is righting wrongs, and God is showing up and God is being present with. And it's rare to see it because the world is full of darkness and sin and like, the. Like, the waters cover that. But when we see the presence of God, when we see the presence of God, the least of these, right? It's like that whales, we're just like, I just. And it is. It is infusing you with faith, which is why hope, faith and love, they move together, right? Our hearts are broken. We glimpse this, like, presence of God with us, which is hope, and then it gives us faith. It builds Our faith that God is indeed who God says God is, you know, that. That we are indeed invited into this eternal reality that is so different from what we see with our, with our natural eyes. And so I would say that like, I would say we need to approach hope. Like that is not some expectation that is ours and we get to have but as this, like, presence with glimpse of God in the wild.
It's just in the wild. And I would say the same thing, like, about a deer, say, you know, like something rare. And I'm not saying that hope is rare because God is hope and hope is everywhere. But I do feel like our encounter with it can sometimes feel rare. But when it's. When we have it, we know it and it infuses us with the desire to see it again. To see it again, to see it again. You know, you got these people, tourists in Vancouver who are spending hundreds of dollars to go out on a boat in the hope that they might see a whale breach, you know, and I think, like, wow, we can see like God's presence as this rare sighting can become much more common when we look through the eyes of our own. Of our own faith, right? Of our own journey.
So I would like. I'd like to be a hope watcher. Like, that's what I. Partly I'm looking for hope, I really am. I. I'd like to have my binoculars ready to go in every situation I'm in to see the breach of the heaven in the now of the like, you know, the rare sighting that I get to see every day because I've got the right lens and the right instruction to see it.
So I think I would say that let it fill you with gratitude. So, like, lose the like. I'm not very hopeful because I should be more hope and look for the wild sighting of a God at work. Look for it and when you see it, you'll be awed, you'll be filled, you'll be renewed, and you'll want to see it again, and then you'll want to see it again and you want to see it again. And it will get easier to spot because you'll know what to look for and where to be and how to see.
But you can, as Romans, of course. 15. May the God of hope fill you right? The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace through the experience of your faith, that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you will abound in hope and overflow with confidence in what he's promised.
Blessing from the scripture for sure.
[00:54:20] Speaker B: So good it's so good. Yeah. His presences are good, right? As the scripture says.
So good.
Well, thank you, Danielle. Thanks for being with us. John, thanks for just your, the way you lead us as an organization. And I know you got to be with the church family. I think that Daniel's a part of up in Vancouver at one point, which I know is a sweet, sweet time, a sweet chance to connect. And Danielle, we're appreciative of you and, and so just really thank you for your generosity of time today and we'll, we'll make sure and highlight your book, the link to your book and a lot a link to the different elements of who you are and what you do in the show notes here.
The other side of hope, though, right, is that is your latest book. And so we want to highlight that to those listening and watching. But, but thank you for leading us and giving such incredible insights today about what it means, right, to let injustice break your heart and yet to hold on to hope.
[00:55:20] Speaker A: We are grateful for the generous support of the Love justice community. Please consider joining our family of donors. Learn more at lovejustice NGO.
