I Love Wearing a Pump

I love wearing a chemo pump. Well, only in comparison to lying in a hospital bed for 48 hours in order to receive continuous chemo infusions. So I’m counting my blessings.

Surely we don’t need a blow-by-blow description of the chemo infusion. Nor a dissertation on the upcoming CAT scan at 8:00 this morning. So I’ll pass along some encouraging words about the fight against modern-day slavery. In the late 1700s, the Quakers in Britain mobilized about 300,000 people to boycott sugar from the West Indies, which was at the time Britain’s largest import and a crucial factor in the global exploitation of human labor. Soon, desperate retailers began to offer sugar that was certified produced by the labor of free persons. Sales of “free” sugar soared, and an important plank in the profitability of slavery was thereby eliminated.

Just a few years ago in India, Najaraj and his family and 80 other slaves were held in a brick-making factory, forced to work 16-hour days, with no hope of escape. About the same time, 16-year-old Elisabeth was lured by false promises to a brothel in Thailand, where sheer violent terror kept her serving in the sex trade. Both Najaraj’s family and Elisabeth were ultimately freed through the efforts of the International Justice Mission (ijm.org). IJM continued enforcement actions in the city where Elisabeth had been held, with the result that child sexual victimization there has been reduced by more than 90%.

Guess what! International Justice Mission is the first of the five finalists in the contest for $100,000 to be announced on the Rezoom site today. Rezoom will reveal one each Monday over the next 5 weeks. Each of the five automatically gets $5,000. On September 14, we’ll learn who got the $100,000. It’s a bright spot in my day to realize how much is being accomplished by brave and good people. Thanks to everyone who voted.

Blessings,
Carol