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Lauran Bethell, a global consultant for ministries with at-risk women, who is one of our Special Interest Missionaries, and whose work with women trapped in prostitution has received worldwide attention, was presented the Human Rights Award of the Baptist World Alliance at the Baptist World Centenary Congress.
Given every five years at the BWA’s congresses, the award was presented to Bethell by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, himself a former recipient.
Citing the encouragement and support of both staff and the exploited women she has worked with, Bethell acknowledged the "resilience of the human spirit [and] the importance of hope in Jesus Christ" in accepting the award.
She praised "my wonderful mission board—the Board of International Ministries of American Baptist Churches USA and especially [former executive director] John Sundquist, who gave me the freedom to pursue the call from God I felt in my heart, despite the fact that ‘we’ve never done it that way before.’"
"Praise be to God, Who is with us now and Who will continue to guide and lead and give us wild, wonderful, surprising visions for the redemption of ‘the least of these,’" she said.
During her first term as an International Ministries missionary, Bethell helped to found the New Life Center in Thailand, a ministry to Hill Tribe girls tricked or sold into prostitution, or at risk of suffering that fate.
In 2001 Bethell was given the opportunity to expand her work beyond Thailand, serving as a consultant to similar ministries around the world. She relocated to Prague and advises a wide variety of Christ-based ministries to prostitutes and other exploited women and children.
As she launched this new phase of her work, Bethell began a prayer walk through the streets of Prague, literally looking for a way to connect to others walking the streets for a different reason. She talked with some of the young women on Prague’s streets and found that many of them were from Bulgaria, working to support children or elderly parents back home.
Many women sacrifice themselves in prostitution because they have no other way to support themselves or their families, Bethel says. And many of women she works with in Prague have been trafficked to the West from an Eastern European country. Most are married, have children, and come from Christian backgrounds.
"We don’t ask the question, ‘Do you want to leave prostitution?’ That’s God’s work to do," she said. "Seeing with new eyes means trusting that, in fact, God is at work in this world. We don’t have to do it all for God."
"What everyone can do," Bethell said, "is to see those in prostitution—see anyone we’d rather not see—with new eyes, whether they be the homeless, the outcast, the terrorist, those who irritate us, our enemies. And each time we see them, repeat to ourselves that we are seeing a precious child of God, beloved by God, for whom Jesus died out of great compassion and love."
American Baptist News Service
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania |
