It's almost 2014, and there are 27 million slaves in the world.

 Alarming, isn't it? An estimated number of 27 million slaves in the world today. That's more today than there ever has been in the history of this universe. 27 million sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews. Stuck. In bondage. In trafficking. In slavery. In their own personal Hell. Shocking, isn't it? That we continue in our lives every day. Just going about our business, when we're unaware that people are suffering, right under our noses. Unable to become free. Fighting to hold on, for just one more day. They're real people. Not just a number. Not just another face being forced to do the unimaginable. Did you know that it's estimated that 1.2 million children are trafficked for work? Including the sex trade. Yes. Children. Forced into sex slavery. Now, I'm going to highlight each form of slavery in separate blogposts down the road, and give you all organizations to be a part of. But for this blog post, I want you to be open-minded. To let the facts sink in. That there are 27 million slaves in the world today. And that you can help these people, these humans, these forgotten faces, these invisible individuals, hidden from the attention of our society.
    It all started with a music video for me. I was a freshman in high school, and it was time for homeroom on a Thursday. A logo for Invisible Children popped up on our TV screen, and then Fall Out Boy's music video for "I'm Like A Lawyer With The Way I'm Always Trying To Get You Off (Me & You)" appeared. The video changed my life. I was in love with the love story within the video. But. It shocked me when the young boy was being kidnapped in the middle of the night after his village had been attacked. Then the rest of the video made sense to me. These were child laborers. Then. Out of nowhere, they were being kidnapped to become child soldiers. Being trained to fight and kill each other, then being forced to kill even more people. I was mortified, but I knew that this was happening in the world, which scared me even more. You can check the music video out here:

After I watched that video and already had all of that in mind, I went home and found out more. I googled the war in Uganda and found out about the LRA or the Lord's Resistance Army. That's where I found out about the monster that is Joseph Kony, the leader of the LRA who thinks that he's Jesus Christ and a medium to the spirit realm. Some of you may know about Joseph Kony due to the viral video last year called Kony 2012, made by Invisible Children. Now, yes a lot of controversies have been conducted since the video. Some people think that Kony's dead, or that he's been killed. Then you have the other people who are like me and believe that he's still alive, he's still at large, and that he's still running the LRA. Because someone is. They're still out there, in remote parts of Africa. Kidnapping children. Boys and girls. Training them to kill. Training them to fight. Forcing little girls to become wives or sex slaves. Mutilating human beings. Cutting off the ears, mouths, and noses of whomever they come across. Disgusted yet?
    But it's not just happening in Africa. There are children all over the world being forcefully trained to kill one another. To kill in general. It bothers me the most when people say that we shouldn't care about the things happening in other countries. That we should take care of the kids in our own country first. Are you joking me? Who put boundaries on our lives and isolated us to one country? What gives you the reason and purpose to say that we can't help out our neighbors in other countries. It's just land and water separating us. We're all connected somehow. I came across a video in 2009 that has also stuck with me for the past few years. It made me realize that this is still a growing issue and that we are all connected. It's tragically haunting, disturbing, but so eye-opening. You can watch it here:

So. Are you going to tell me that these issues don't matter because we don't live on the same land? That's like saying people in other countries don't deserve to hear the Gospel because they live somewhere overseas. That's so wrong in so many ways. It sickens me to think that people think that small and that selfishly about humanity. We're all humans. We all deserve our rights and our freedom. Who are you to say that a little girl in India shouldn't be saved from her captivity because we have to save our children first? If you believe that, why aren't you out there doing something about it? 
    In 2012, I had the opportunity to go to Passion 2012. A worship conference for young adults in Atlanta, Georgia. That year, there were 45,000 of us. Joined together to amplify the name of Jesus. But what I encountered there, truly changed my life. It was at Passion 2012 that I learned about the 27 million slaves in the world. They brought it to our attention, alerting us that this was happening and that it wasn't okay. We learned more about sex slavery, about forced labor, and about how these people are living in fear, living in the shadows, and are being forgotten. The following year, at Passion 2013, 60,000 of us launched the End It Movement; to shine a light on slavery. To shine a light on this awful thing happening around the world. To shine a light on the people hidden in the darkness. We were a part of this movement that showed people around the world, that slavery still exists. That there are more slaves today than there has ever been in history, and that it's not okay. That we can't stand by and allow our brothers and sisters to be captives, be enslaved, be forced to do inhumane things and tasks, and work for little to no pay at all. This is what we did, and I am so blessed to have been a part of it:

 This is just a tiny bit of the information that I'm going to be posting in the next blogs that I write. This is just a small snippet of injustice around the world. This is just a small scale of the massive crimes happening every single second, of every single day. This is just a smidge of a glance into the lives of the 27 million slaves in the world today. My name is Taylor. I believe in saving, I believe in justice, I believe in humanity, and I believe in freedom. I stand for freedom. What do you stand for? What are your thoughts and opinions on all of this? What are you going to do for freedom?

Keep Fighting,
Taylor