Two things you need to know about Smitty right now:
#1. He has worn the same shirt for a month and a half – and will continue to do so until November 10th (for the record…he always wears an undershirt).
#2. He was duct-taped to a light pole yesterday for two hours – hands behind his back and around the pole – mouth taped shut.
Why?
Consider these numbers. 27 million slaves exist in our world today…in the year 2007. Slave trade generates $32 billion annually (it will soon overtake drugs and arms trafficking). MORE slaves are in bondage today than were bartered in 4 centuries on the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Each year 800,000 to 900,000 HUMAN BEINGS are bought or sold. Nearly 200,000 people live in slavery at this moment in the US…an additional 17,500 new victims are trafficked through out borders each year. Over 30,000 additional slaves are transported through the US on their way to other international destinations. 80% of trafficked persons are female; 50% are children. 1,000,000 children are FORCED to sell their bodies every day in their global sex trade.
On November 10th, Dr. David Batstone will be the featured speaker at the Not For Sale Campaign event at NorthEast Chistian Church. Dr. Batstone is a professor of ethics at the University of San Francisco, and he is a co-founder of Business 2.0 Magazine. After realizing that two of the employees at his favorite resturant in SF were illegally trafficked into the states, Dr. Batstone embarked upon a couple of years worth of traveling and research to find just how prominent the issue of human-trafficking was around the globe. His results, as you can tell from the numbers above, were astounding. After this realization, he felted compelled to write a book (Not For Sale) – but not only that, he wanted to attempt to make a God-sized dent in this issue of social injustice.
We are on the starting line of this movement right now. Dr. Batstone, along with recording artist Justin Dillion, is touring the nation doing faith-based events to raise awareness and support for this issue. After mobilizing the faith-based community (which Batstone is convinced must be the starting point), Justin Dillion will tour the same areas, screening a rough cut of the “rockumentary”, The Concert to End Slavery. Bands involved in this effort: The Fray, Moby, Nickel Creek, T-Bone Burnett, and many more. The third and final stage of this movement will invole a “club tour” where Dillion and the bands involved with the documentary will perform in the clubs of these cities.
The first event of this three-part tour will be held, free of charge, on November 10th at 7:00 pm. It will be a 1 1/2 – 2 hour program where Batstone will present a spiritual and social “call to arms.” Dillion will also perform and they will show parts of The Concert to End Slavery. You need to put this on the calendar…now.
Go check out the campaign website… www.notforsalecampaign.org
This is why my shirt stinks and I was taped to a light pole.
Join the movement.
Cloud Chasing 
I just now realized you’d changed your link.
I’m going to include you in a mass email invitation I’m sending out in a couple days inviting everyone to read a very challenging book and dialoguing on it in an online format. It’s along a similar line as your post’s theme here.
I look forward to it. I need to be sharpened. Don’t forget to include me. Thanks.
By the way, this coming Sunday is National Day of Prayer for human traffiking here in Moldova. All churches will be praying about the problem. Moldova is one of the most heavily transited countries for people trafikking. I’m interested to hear what the local populace of Christians thinks and wants to do about it.
I know your a busy man…but you might try to skim through Batstone’s book, Not For Sale.
Here at NorthEast, we feel strongly that the church’s role must extend way beyond merely posing as the venue for a “stop-trafficking” rally…or at least I do (sometimes you can’t speak for the whole church).
So that is why we are working with the Lexington Human Trafficking Task Force to be a safe haven for women in our area who have been removed from this social tragedy. We will soon have two or three families in the church (who will go through a rigorous screening process) that act as temporary, short-term shelters for trafficking victims.
I trying to redraw the line from the church to the social gospel. In much of America, it has been erased.