It Is Time to Get Dirty!
by Brent Salsgiver, Student Intern at American Anti-Slavery Group

On March 18, 2002, I was in the middle of one of the most horrific spiritual battles I have ever experienced. I found myself in Gogker, Sudan, standing in front of 615 slaves. I went to Sudan as an intern with the American Anti-Slavery Group. Together with Christian Solidarity International, the American Anti-Slavery Group fights modern-day slavery, not only through political lobbying and grassroots awareness, but also through the purchasing back of slaves. It was our mission to perform three slave redemptions in three different parts of Southern Sudan. By the time I left Sudan, I had personally witnessed the redemption of 2,435 women and children.

It was on this trip into a hostile war-torn nation that I was able to speak with people like Ajak, who was twenty when she was taken into slavery. She witnessed her grandfather being shot before she was tied to a horse and marched north. It was on this trip north that her father died from thirst. After the two-day walk, the women were kept in giant pens made out of thorns. There they were gang raped. Ajak recalls that five young girls, no older than sixteen, tried to resist being raped and were shot in the head. It was during this four-day stay that Ajak says she was raped over and over by up to ten men at a time. I shook the hand of Wal G., a young boy whose leg was so badly beaten that his knee was six inches up his thigh and he was forced to walk on his toes because he could not bend his ankle. I looked into the eyes of Abuk D., a woman who was not allowed to stop and breast-feed her infant on the six-day march north and was forced to throw the baby alongside the road after it had died on the second day. I met with hundreds more, all with the same stories of rape, abuse, and brutality.

Since my return to the American Anti-Slavery Group, I realized that I went to Sudan with nothing to lose; yet on my return, I felt as if I had lost everything. I spent my nights questioning God in a way that I had never done before. I questioned God about what he had put these people through, about why he had sent me to see it, and — most of all — about why I had to go back and tell their stories. Through all my questions, I have come to the conclusion that I will probably never know the whys about my trip to Sudan, and that is okay. Yet it is through this trip that I have realized that we cannot be afraid anymore. We cannot be afraid to roll up our sleeves and get dirty, even if that means not getting the positive feelings we get from other missions. It is time that we did more of the dirty mission work. It is time that we kick in the doors at the crack houses and enter the back allies and trailer parks that we were once afraid to walk near. As the church of today, we have to be in the redemption fields of Sudan, in the ghettos of every city, and within every Senate hearing. It is time tor us to stop asking the "whys" and start getting dirty.

If your church is interested in more information about combating modern-day slavery or bringing a speaker to your congregation, please visit the American Anti-Slavery Group's website at http://www.iabolish.com or call 1-800-884-0719.

Posted 5-31-02