Going to the Least of These.

“The strategy of Jesus is not centered in taking the right stand on issues but rather in standing in the right place – with the outcasts and those relegated to the margins.”
– Gregory J. Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The power of Boundless Compassion

According to the FBI, 293,000 American youth are at risk of becoming victims of sexual exploitation; in 2015 over 5,500 human trafficking cases were reported to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center.

Human trafficking is widely recognized as modern day slavery and the fastest growing crime in the USA. However, it’s certainly not a new issue. In the Old Testament it reads in Joel 3:3,

“They threw dice for my people and used them for barter. They would trade a boy
for a whore, sell a girl for a bottle of wine when they wanted to drink.”
(Message Translation)

We can all agree that human trafficking is an atrocity in our culture, but how does it affect us in the PMC world? One recent study reported that:

• 67% of sex trafficking survivors had been diagnosed with an STI
• 71% reported having an unplanned pregnancy
• 55% stated they’d had one or more abortions

The issues of abortion, sexually transmitted infections and human trafficking are all intricately woven together. These symptoms all reflect a deep void for intimacy and belonging that preys on the vulnerability of so many in our society.

At LifeChoices we have been convicted to stand in the right place. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “The time is always right to do what’s right.”

We believe it will take a bold, strategic response to reach the most at-risk individuals in the darkest corners of our communities. With our trained medical personnel already serving so many who are caught in the trenches of devastating sexual choices, we are readily positioned to respond with medical excellence.

Many of the “least of these” are unable to access compassionate healthcare in an established brick-and-mortar clinic so we have chosen to go to them – to utilize a customized mobile medical unit for the specific purpose of offering them the same safe sexual health services that we have been providing to so many over the years.

It is a new, exciting, and sometimes unknown journey that God has us on but we fully trust in His power to use us, whether on the streets outside a strip club, in a truck stop or in our established medical clinics.

Karolyn Schrage, RN, BSN, Executive Director Life Choices Health Network