Yesterday, my wife and I attended Civilian First Responder training put on by WAR Int'l. It was a great day in a very heart-breaking sort of way. This training teaches you how to be aware of, and on the alert for, people who are being trafficked. Primarily, this trafficking involves young women and children for the sex industry, but can also include forced labor. 

If you are like most people in America you may not even be aware of this horrendous form of slavery. And if you are, you are likely of the opinion that it is something that happens overseas, and probably in impoverished countries and regions. This is NOT the case. Between 2007 and 2012 the NHTRC received over 70,000 tips related to nearly 10,000 unique cases of human trafficking, IN THE U.S. Now you may be thinking, "but, this is probably only in the big cities." Wrong again. See the map below from the Polaris Project.

In the training, we discussed 15 flashpoints that make an area susceptible. Our conservative home of West Michigan solidly met 12 of these flashpoints. I'm willing to bet that your area is not much different. 

Aside from the obvious desire to protect our own children and be on the alert for suspicious activity, I have been reenergized to continue my work-in-progress book dealing with this rapidly rising issue. This seems like one way I can help draw awareness to the issue. I'm also thinking that the proceeds from this upcoming book will go to WAR Int'l and the great work they are doing to help people caught in this tragedy.

'Till next week.

I still remember when I first read Frank Peretti's This Present Darkness and Piercing The Darkness. These two books present stories with a parallel look at events in both the physical realm and the unseen spiritual realm. The impact of these books on my spiritual life was profound. Though I love every book from Frank that I've read since, and I've read most all of them, I always longed for the style of these two special books. If you've never read these two books, I'd highly suggest reading them.

So, when I sat down to try my hand at writing a novel, what else could I do but give this style a run. In The Image of Man was born. While the book is certainly not intended to be a treatise on the doctrine of spiritual warfare, I quickly discovered the many complexities of writing in this style. Though I've not asked him specifically, I can only imagine that this complexity is at least in part why Frank switched to a different style after these first two books. In fact, while I intend to write a sequel to Image using this dual-view style, I already have a couple others in process that are not dual-view style.

If you have read these two books from Frank, I sincerely hope you will enjoy Image even a fraction as much as these supernatural greats!

'Till next time.