The Pink Room

She scratched the paper with her pencil, leaving us sick-hearted staring into her near dead scratched soul. Her self-portrait exposed her bound up, legs sprawled, humanity mutilated by evil incarnate. We listen because her young voice must be heard, but we cannot digest it. How do you swallow horror? I try to wash it down but the heartburn sears. She tells the rescue agency that she doesn't want to leave because her family needs the money. My throat chokes and eyes blur.

Jesus, please come back.

Last night Matt and I attended a screening of The Pink Room, a documentary that follows the journey of young girls in Cambodia who are victims of sex slavery. 100 of us entered the chapel greetin’ and chummin’, our own children safely secured with babysitters who will make more in a night than the average Cambodian makes in two weeks. 100 of us stared deeply into the eyes of precious children who told tales of torture. 100 of us left that chapel never the same, waking up this morning hungover from nightmares. Horror had entered our subconscious and it fights to escape.

I couldn’t watch those caramel skinned babies testify to their brutal suffering without picturing my Henry, my Harper, my Greta.

As my heart shattered, my mind went to those awful places. Do the girls cry? Scream? Who hears their shrieking?

My enraged soul won’t stop screaming.

God, where are you when these itty bitties curl up bandaged, forced abortions, fear trembled, souls destroyed? Where are you, God?

I’m fetal on the floor, tears numb, and I know that right now a pimp accepts $2.25 for the young pretty one down the lampless death hall. A child listed sold on a receipt, along with a cup of coffee and a pack of cigarettes.

I’m crying out to God when the angels arrive.

Pearls among pigs, the angels fight perversion, rescuing and restoring girls and community. The angels purchase a building in the heart of hell to deliver heart to hell, providing rescued darlings with therapy, medicine, education, and the love of Jesus. The building, a former brothel, is discovered first floor packed closet on closet for evil to consume baby girls, second floor the pink room, left aside for the virgins who would endure the unimaginable for the first time.

The angels pound away bricks and I beg them to drive their sledgehammers into the heads of those who exhale vile.

The angels break down walls and they break down tears, overcome by the wicked that has consumed a country, desperation breeding corruption, alcoholic fathers gambling away the pennies from selling starved children who are left to fight dogs for scraps of food.

But those angels don’t give up. These ain’t no sissy angels.

I listen as one God-sent warrior insists that he is blessed to fight this war, rescuing a generation from the miry pit of exploitation. He confronts monsters, shames pimps, shatters brothels, and redeems lost innocence. 

I hear Jen, an on the ground missionary, celebrate as her school in Svay Pak has outgrown the building where they teach math, critical thinking, self-worth, and feed kindergarteners a nutritious meal and bread of life.

I hug my dear friend, Marla. "I'd  give my right arm to be in Cambodia," she tells me, her family waiting on God’s call to send them into this soul-shattering battleground. I am awestruck that she desires to trade in the comforts of false security to angel soar among the wicked.

Thank you, God, for the angels.

My mind can’t erase what it now knows. Those girls have faces, their bodies still beating but the life inside wishing death, they never learn to smile.

The angel warriors bleed courage. I am torn between rage and hope prayers. Lord, please don’t let me forget those faces.

The fight has begun and we must train for war the best way we know how, right where God has us. Everyone can do something. And I beg you to do something. I beg you because there are millions who cannot, their voices muffled by power and money and corruption and the grunts of pedophilia.

I beg you.

Ask God how you can take action, and start by visiting The Pink Room website. Maybe you will have opportunity to watch the documentary. You can pray for the precious children. If you can stomach it, pray for the pimps and pedophiles. The only way to stop this horror is to stop the horrible. You can use the gift of your voice to share what you know. You can give to organizations who are on the ground, lights of hope in plagues of darkness.

No matter what you do, I beg you, don’t forget.

We cannot forget.