27 Million

"In 2007 the UK celebrated the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and in doing so led the world to recognize: ‘that slavery was trafficking in human blood and tears, in misery and suffering and that it had to stop for the sake of justice and humanity.'

Yet, here we are in 2012, with slavery rife amongst us. Whether we like it or not as a society, as individuals, we are in contact with slavery more often than we realize. They say we are all joined by six degrees of separation from any other human being on the planet. In all of these scenarios we are in much closer contact with slaves either here in the UK or overseas. None of us have clean hands.

We often hear much about human rights. But for there to be rights we have to acknowledge there are wrongs.

Even as I write, just moments ago I read of a 15 year old boy found trying to enter the UK. He was travelling with a pimp who planned to sell him to the ever increasing number of customers drawn to the UK for the London 2012 Olympics. I have discovered through my work with A21, that if there was no demand, then there would be no slaves. If you're a slave master in 2012, then you can always get another commodity. Tragically, the price of human slaves is the lowest they've ever been. It's time to set the slaves free!

Another precious life. Another ONE. ON my doorstep. Taken. Stolen. Hidden from us but not invisible to God, closer to our everyday lives then we could possibly imagine.

SO what could I, as a stay at home Mum of five, with a husband who travels frequently do to make a difference or bring about change to such an overwhelming injustice? I thought back to something I'd heard Bobbie Houston say at the Color Women's conference years ago, "WE DO WHAT WE CAN WITH WHAT WE HAVE IN OUR HANDS!"

For us a couple that was music; so together with LZ7 we wrote a song called 27 Million, we hoped to not only raise awareness for this issue, but also raise funds to find and prosecute the slave masters and to rescue and restore the victims. Initially we wanted to tour schools with the song, but soon we felt a strong favor, so with the support of EMI music and Passion we were able to release the song as a single. We watched in astonishment as the song gained 100,000 hits in the first month on YouTube. We also saw the song hit no.3 on iTunes in the UK, no.1 In Bulgaria and top 10 around other places in Europe as well as top 20 in other parts of the world. Truly a God moment.

After the excitement of the song we knew there was more to be done so as we continue work with A21 in the UK, our latest project is creating an accredited schools curriculum, aimed at educating and raising awareness for students between the ages of 11-18. We have already seen thousands of students in the UK and on anti slavery day on Oct 18th this year we are aiming, in partnership with other schools workers and NGO's to reach up to 100,000 in the UK plus we have the support and interest of the State Dept here in Georgia which means the potential of reaching 1.7 million more students.

Matt & I have 5 children aged 2-12. We don't have a nanny and between us we sort of make it work, because what we do have is a conviction that this is a God mission and no matter what your stage of life, never write yourself off, or become overwhelmed by a number, or by the scale of an injustice. What I have learnt from my experience in the last 2 years is in your weakness, GOD is strong. When you are stretched, there is grace and wherever there is one suffering, we are called to go, with what we have in our hands and watch as God multiplies and blesses the work of our hands. Because this is His heartbeat. These are His sons and daughters. He is the God of the stolen, the Savior of the taken. He will make a way, where this is no way. I am so thankful to Him for A21 and the rescuing that is going on, on the ground daily through their ministry.

I'll leave with a quote from the very inspiring and incredible, Christine Caine. "Often, we think, 'we can't do it all,' we end up being paralyzed. So we do nothing.' But if we understand we can't do everything but we all must do something, and we all find the one thing that we can do, then we'll find that together we will all make such a huge difference and we'll be able to put a stop to this."

We can be the change!