By Mike Masten
Co-Founder
There is a good saying that “necessity is the mother of invention”. Usually this quote is used in reference to relatively non-important items. For example, perhaps a man once needed to tie his shoe but couldn’t. All of a sudden, before the world knew what hit it, BAM, there was Velcro. Necessity --> invention.
The story of Project Exodus is much like the man and his shoe. However, though both ideas were birthed out of necessity, the consequences of a failure to invent were dramatically different. In the one case, had the man with the shoe problem failed to invent Velcro, well, I guess the world would just still be trying to tie its shoes. In our case (both us personally and all of humanity), should we fail to find an invention to our problem, the consequences would be the continued ####, oppression, and enslavement of tens of millions of humans on this planet, all of whom were made in the image of God and are dearly loved by Him. Understanding the severity and magnitude of modern day slavery, we clearly understood the “need”. Project Exodus came about when we asked ourselves one simple question: where is the invention?
Today, though faced with one of the largest evils ever seen in the history of the world, the modern abolitionist movement is relatively ineffective. On the one hand there are thousands, if not millions of people who learn about human trafficking every day, have their hearts break and want to do something about it. These people rally together, host fund raisers, and conduct awareness events, all in the hopes that their voices will be loud enough to make up for the deadening silence of the world in the face of oppression. Though there have been many names for these people throughout time, today they are simply and accurately called activists.
On the other hand, there are a handful of small but effective organizations, agencies, and governments that professionally go after the modern slave trade. Each group has its own specific “brand” of abolitionism but in the end they all work towards a common vision: the liberation of the 27 million faceless victims of oppression everywhere in the world. We call these professional abolitionist groups.
The problem in the abolitionist movement comes from the fact that there is currently a divide between the activist abolitionist movement and the professional abolitionist movement. Though there are plenty of people who are livid with human trafficking and desperately want to make a difference, when they try to go beyond a mere activist position to actually making a tangible difference, they are told by the professional abolitionist that they should leave the dirty work to them. The result is not only that thousands get frustrated and discouraged, but that the army of justice seekers in which God has blessed us with is not being used to capacity!
Recognizing this, and also recognizing that there IS tangible work that the average activist can do, we came up with the idea for Project Exodus. At its heart, Project Exodus is Christian organization that seeks to directly fight human trafficking by recruiting passionate activists to pray over and directly observe potential trafficking spots in Los Angeles, California. We believe strongly that every individual can be an invaluable part of the fight against human trafficking. Furthermore, we believe strongly that our God is a god of Justice and that should any person decided to follow the call and loose the chains of injustice, the glory of the Lord will be their rear guard (Isaiah 58). In essence, we believe full heartedly that through Christ all things are possible, including an end to slavery!
Human trafficking is interesting because it is a hidden activity that happens right in front of your eyes. What we and the traffickers have both realized (them much earlier than us) is that the reason we do not see human trafficking is that we are not looking for human trafficking. Once the scales of this world are removed and we begin to seek justice, then we are able to find the darkness where it is happening.
Knowing what to look for and where to look, Project Exodus sends teams to do direct observation of potential trafficking locations in hopes of building up cases and proving that trafficking is in fact happening. Furthermore, knowing how stretched for resources most organizations and law enforcement agencies are, our goal is to build up a strong enough case that upon handing it over to law enforcement, all that needs to take place is the actual freeing of the girls and the arrest of the perpetrators. By providing this service, not only do we free up law enforcement and allow them to focus on the most pressing cases, but we also take advantage of the mass amount of people who want to make a difference and end trafficking, thus filling the middle ground and linking the divide between the activist and the professional abolitionist.
We have been given a promise from the God of Justice that whoever should decide to loose the chains of injustice, to free the oppressed and be a voice for the voiceless, that the glory of the Lord will be their rearguard and that their night shall shine like noonday. Through the power of Christ, every individual has the power to be a champion of justice. Understanding this, Project Exodus seeks to be an organization that taps into the limitless power of God’s children, using them in the way that they were intended, to love passionately and to seek justice! How is that for invention?
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