Seeded

Our friends the Waits (who Middle Child and I followed to Honduras mere weeks ago) have a line of scripture at the end of their e-mails. The words are those given to King Lemuel by his mother and detailed in Proverbs Chapter 31 verses 8-9 saying, "Open your mouth for the mute, For the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth and judge righteously, And defend the rights of the afflicted and the needy." These words wait at the end of each message. With each reading, they become ever more firmly planted seeds.
Still, many seeds fall on inhospitable soil never to sprout. Last night, these may have begun to germinate. Four student artists at a small college near Pleasant Suburb are speaking out for the afflicted and needy. They are crying out for the mute. Three women climbed into a car for a road trip into the world these young people have visited. The students' journey into shade is detailed in a documentary on human trafficking that led them to India last year, and will draw them back this year with a larger group. Their road does not end far east of the Eden from which the women hailed, though.
The documentary moved swiftly from the red light district of Pune, India to a suburban strip mall in Houston, Texas. A quarter of calls reporting human trafficking in the U.S. come from Houston according to the film. Having brought their report to our doorstep, the artists asked those present to be part of their as-yet-incomplete film. Prior to the screening, each entrant passed through a dramatic recreation of massage parlor footage to be seen later in the film as he or she walked into the ballroom where the movie would be shown. At the end of this hall of sorrows, a 1'X1' square of styrofoam with a colored sticker was given to each person on which to write a message to the young women being rescued from the sex trade in India. The night's events saw each of those squares used to fill in the outline of a universal woman symbol that was surrounded by the attendees for part of the film's ending.
The three of us who headed back to Pleasant Suburb after the screening were somewhat quieter. Each one given over to her own thoughts that occasionally broke out into speech. The feeling as we hurtled over the highway pavement was not quite subdued, but perhaps the sense of something unfurling. Or germinating? But what?
I fell asleep last night praying for an answer to that, "What?" Praying in renewed consciousness of those women who would know no rest during the same hours in which I would immerse myself in troubled dreams.
If nothing else at this moment, then through this forum I can share the message of Rescue the Girl! immediately. The web site loads after one patiently watches the numbers fly past. Numbers that represent women. Girls. Slaves. Four students made their journey, and they brought back seeds to scatter in hopes that some yield a harvest to benefit those mutely crying out to God for rescue. In the days to come, perhaps the seeds planted will begin to reveal just what has been planted.