Seeing Them as Daughters

The Daughters of Bulgaria is an MTW ministry to women caught in human trafficking.

“Simon, ‘Do you see this woman?’” (Luke 7:44) Of course Simon saw her—a sinner, a woman of ill repute, someone to avoid. Jesus pushed Simon to see that his pride and external-focused religion were strangling his heart and blinding him from “seeing” the woman as He saw her. Jesus saw her heart. She was broken.

Totally unexpectedly, our team started hearing Jesus’ question: “Do you see these women?” Honestly, I didn’t want to see them, but the Lord was doing something we couldn’t ignore—I, as a man, couldn’t ignore. He opened my eyes not to see hookers and prostitutes, but to see with His eyes: to see daughters. Not just any daughter, but my own daughter.

Human trafficking and prostitution became real to us after a long-time “rescuer” from Germany shared how the Spirit’s nudge to network in Bulgaria became unrelenting. So many of the women she met on the streets there were from Bulgaria. We learned from her about our country, and its role as a “feeder” country for human trafficking. She shared but it really didn’t impact my heart—it was too big, too impersonal. What could we possibly do? We were a church planting team. But then she said, “These women on the streets are our mothers, sisters and daughters ... ”

I am a father—but not just a father, I’m Daddy, and my 16-year-old daughter was sitting next to me as these words jolted my core. Suddenly all those nameless, faceless girls we drove by on the streets—I trying not to notice as a Christian man—had faces, and not just any faces but those of my own two daughters.

I realize now, the Lord had to work first in my heart for our team to really “see” these women and prayerfully seek how the Father wanted us to respond. I was looking at the women like Simon—making an idol out of religious/moral purity and seeing these prostitutes only as sexual objects to be avoided and not as daughters needing to be loved.

As I drive our team members to our weekly ministry visits with prostitutes, I know I am but a man, weak and in need of God’s grace. I see much that could weaken my resolve towards purity, but it helps to remember my two precious daughters. If one of them were to be enslaved as these Daughters of Bulgaria are, would not my prayer be, “Lord, please send someone to rescue my dear, dear daughter?”

Jesus asked, “Do you see this woman?” For every broken, enslaved, provocatively dressed prostitute, my answer is, “Yes Lord I see her, and she’s just like my little girl.”

This was originally published in The Journey devotional. Dal Stanton serves with MTW in Bulgaria.