By: Brittany Peters, Faith and Justice Fellow for World Vision ACT:S

Have you ever heard a story and not been able to get the images out of your head? Have you ever seen something, and realized you can no longer just stand by idly and not respond? As I walked through the crowded halls of a village hospital in Malawi, Africa, I was overwhelmed by all that I was seeing. People lined the hallways, medicine was scarce, medical professionals were few and the need was great. In Malawi, a country of 13 million people, there are only about 260 medical doctors. The nurse I was walking with could see the shock on my face, and responded, “If you think this is bad, just wait until malaria season comes.” She then proceeded to tell me a story, and the image of this story has stuck with me for a long time.

“I will always remember one week at this hospital years ago. There were so many children that week that died of malaria. There are lots of children that die of malaria at this hospital every year, but this week was especially bad. A child came in and looked very sick, I knew she had malaria and did not have long to live. We were very limited in medication but I took her in my arms and ran to the doctor to help her. He was not moving very quickly so I told him to hurry. By the time he came back with the medication, the girl was dead. I went completely crazy, I felt like I lost my mind. I ran around the hospital screaming with this dead child in my arms. The hospital staff had to restrain me and take the child away. I finally reached my breaking point. Malaria causes too many unnecessary deaths. That child should not have died; no child should die of a disease that is treatable and preventable.”

By Sarah Plumadore, Messiah College

I sat in chapel with the word “sold” plastered on my shirt and yet I sang, “my chains are gone I’ve been set free, my God my savior has ransomed me.”

I realized that while God has ransomed me from the curse of my sins (and I, in no way, wish to belittle the incredible and simply awesome nature of that redemptive act), I have never been chained -- literally chained, the way Maya had.

Maya, the girl whose story my shirt represents, was sold by her own mother, taken across the boarder from Myanmar to Thailand, and forced to sell flowers every day. She was 8 years old.

I was struck by this incongruity; that I could joyfully sing “my chains are gone, I’ve been set free” and yet children like Maya are sold every day and forced into lives of slavery – chained. As I looked around, I saw other participants of the campaign singing with hands lifted, totally immersed in this act of worship, proclaiming their own freedom in Christ. Yet their shirts screamed: Forced, Threatened, Indebted, Seduced, Deceived. Each shirt represents yet another child trafficked into slavery.