Human Trafficking is arguably the 3rd largest illegal activity worldwide (behind drugs and illegal arms) and chances are it’s taking place right in your community. Shockingly, in the States, Toledo had ranked as one of the worst places for human trafficking. Because of these startling facts, InterVarsity along with many other organizations have partnered to do something about it.

They’ve targeted a time (this April) and a place (OSU /Columbus) in order to raise awareness and fight back the darkness surrounding this victimizing activity.

I sat down with York Moore {Author (of Growing your Faith by Giving it Away) and National Evangelist with InterVarsity}  in order to learn more. Hopefully, your heart will respond as you  discover the details surrounding this event.

• What’s the Big Idea behind POL Invitational?

The Ohio State Price of Life Invitational scheduled for April 18-22, 2010 is a unique city-wide campaign addressing human trafficking and child sex slavery sponsored by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship USA (www.intervarsity.org).  The Price of Life Invitational seeks to bring national and international non-governmental organizations together with campus and student leaders, business leaders, churches, scholars, and local non-profits to educate and mobilize the Columbus community to fight modern day slavery. 

I birthed the vision behind the Price of Life Invitational to bring diverse groups together to address the complexity of modern day slavery.  The Kingdom of God is about doing so much more than merely running soup kitchens or notching our belts with numbers of souls won from hell.  The big idea behind the Price of Life Invitational is that there is a better world Christ calls us to and that world isn’t just in Heaven.  Christ calls us to a world where slaves are set free, where women and children have the ability to flourish, where human dignity and potential are celebrated and empowered. 

This greater vision of a new world is possible through the person of Jesus Christ and becomes material when He is allowed to reign not only in our individual lives but when His power transforms the great institutions of society-law, commerce, government, medicine, the family, sports and entertainment, and academia.  The vision of the Price of Life Invitational is to bring leaders from each of these institutions of society to mobilize resources and ideas to battle the 3rd largest illegal enterprise in the world-human trafficking, while empowering those NGO’s who are on the front lines locally and globally to bring an end to modern day slavery. 

• What motivated you to care about this cause?

I became a Christian on December 25th, 1989 and for many years believed that God wanted above all else to save people from hell.  Well, I still believe that but a second conversion took place when I realized that hell wasn’t merely some future eschatological reality but there was a hell right here on earth that people needed saving from and that Jesus was the answer to this problem as well. 

I was sitting high in the rafters of the Urbana 1996 Global Missions Convention when I first heard Gary Haugen, founder and president of the International Justice Mission (www.ijm.org) speak.  I was one of 20,000 people seated in the auditorium that night when he made the claim that there would be more children trafficked into slavery that week alone then there were people seated in the auditorium.  As he continued to state the problem of modern day slavery, I began to realize that my Jesus was too small, that I needed to think about Christ’s power to save from the hell on earth as well as the hell to come. 

I left that convention and immediately changed my giving habits, my preaching focus and the trajectory of my career.  Now, 13 years later, I spoke to over 20,000 students from around the world at the 2009 Urbana Missions Conference on modern day slavery in December (www.urbana09.org).   I’ve been speaking out against modern day slavery for 13 years and have found that bringing diverse groups together to address modern day slavery has been empowering and has led to strategic partnerships that may not have existed without events like the Price of Life.

• What can we do to help?

Get involved in this historic event.  The entire week of the Ohio State Price of Life will give people from the Columbus community the opportunity to learn and become active as modern day abolitionists in a variety of ways.  The week will begin with an historic march of thousands along the route of the underground railroad on Sunday, April 18th. 

Monday, April 19th we will gather a town hall meeting with lawmakers to address human trafficking from a political perspective.  Throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, we will have various events utilizing the visual and performing arts, events for ethnic minorities, events in the law school, school of social work, events for faculty and business leaders-the week will be incredibly robust.  On Thursday, April 22nd, the week will end with a fund raiser called the “Price of Life” where we will educate the Ohio State University on the horrors of modern day slavery through an interactive game show. 

There will be multiple places to get involved.  If one wanted to get involved in a volunteer fashion or give financially to the Price of Life events, please contact our local director, Connie Anderson POLInvitational ”at”  aol.com (replace “at” wtih @ symbol – fighting spam) Our website is www.osupriceoflife.org

• Why does this cause partner conservative groups of Christians with groups they normally wouldn’t partner with (like gay, liberal, democrats, etc.). 

Partnership is the bedrock of the “Invitational” model for three primary reasons.  First, as Christians, we recognize the dignity and worth of all peoples.  We are all made in the image of God and carry with that great gift the ability to do the amazing!  Often, collaboration around complex issues like modern day slavery is stunted because we are trying to address the near impossible with limited resources. 

The issue of modern day slavery is too large, too complex for any one group, regardless of sexual orientation or religious heritage (or the lack thereof) to address on their own.  We need a “reverse prism” approach, where diverse thinking, diverse communities, diverse resources, enter into the thought and action process through collaboration and come out the other side as a focused beam of light.  This is difficult for many conservative Christians but we must realize that if we are to make an impact on our world, we have to get into relationships with people-especially people who are not like us.  Second, we believe that true dialogue and debate around the issues that divide us has also been stunted because of the self-selected ideological ghettoization of groups. 

A Christian cannot learn from a Muslim if she is not in relationship with him.  A Lesbian can never speak her mind to a Southern Baptist except through misquoted sound bites unless there is a relationship there.  The Price of Life Invitational intentionally brings communities together in order to foster true and sometimes spirited dialogue and to build opportunities for enduring relationships.  The third reason is symbolic.  The great evil of modern day slavery is a diverse evil, spanning the globe, sweeping up every race and socioeconomic strata with it. 

Consumers and victims alike come from the Christian world, the Hindu world, the Muslim and Jewish world.  They are old and young, rich and poor, from developed countries and third world garbage communities.  Human trafficking spoils the soul of the rich and poor and every race and nationality-it is a cancer that threatens to consume the very nature of humanity-how can we not include every color of the world’s rainbow in addressing such a diverse evil.

I will post some opportunities for specific ways you can volunteer, but for now check out the Price of Life website.