Opening a home this spring requires details, details, details. We’re hoping, praying and expecting God to move. Could anything be more mundane than applying for official tax status within India so we can pay our taxes? That is where we are right now at Courage Homes in India —working on the mundane—figuring out how to do vacation and sick leave for our staff moms, getting the HR manual finalized and translated, establishing our website (www.couragehomes.org), doing reference checks on applicants, applying for grants, and looking for funding. People ask us for an update and I long to tell them of lives being healed and transformed, but it is in this mundane, behind-the-scenes work that we plant roots for a solid, transforming home for girls rescued out of sex slavery. We are still generally on track for opening a home in March/April, but there are many details that need to work themselves out between now and then.
Meanwhile, the sex trafficking scene in India is bleak, according to trusted friends who have done undercover research in the brothels over the past few months. There have been so few raids and rescues in the Delhi brothels that the traffickers, pimps, and madams have become lazy. With no fear of the law, the number of young girls trafficked is staggering—it reminds our friends of other major Indian cities before such organizations as Freedom Firm and International Justice Mission began to work. The research has broken their hearts, as well as ours, and we are praying for the girls in these brothels. We pray that the children caught in sex slavery will hold onto hope, that their spirits will remain alive, and that they will be ready for healing when they move to Courage Homes.
In fact we are hoping, praying, and desiring several things. We desperately need a rescue agency to come to Delhi. The USA has FBI special task forces. Delhi, a city of at least 15 million, has one police officer trained and rescuing girls. She’s a hero, but she is alone—working with a few non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) to do a rescue from a tip here or there. We pray for her—for protection, continued courage and rescues. The rescue agencies say it is hard to come to Delhi because of the shortage of good aftercare homes. They don’t want to rescue girls, only to have them fall back into the hands of traffickers and end up in the brothels again. So we move forward in the details of setting up while rescue agencies in other cities watch and pray for Courage Homes to be established. We pray for the staff we are looking to hire. We pray for the last bit of funding we need to open. Please pray with us!
– Kim Dickson