An Unexpected Redemption

An Unexpected Redemption
by Jason Cruise

How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of great things. - Romans 10:15

Something odd happens inside the soul of a man when he answers the call to defend those who are defenseless. I have both seen and experienced the Spirit himself forever alter a man's earth journey once he steps into the obscure realm of obedience to rescue those who have no hope of hope itself.

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Many years ago God crossed my path with Jeremy Harrill, a North Carolina Game Warden, who has since walked as close to me as a brother born of a different mother. Through filming and production efforts, our journey of brotherhood has taken us all over North America as we share the story of Jesus the Christ with hunters.

Working through Justice and Mercy International, our most recent expedition would literally take us on the other side of the globe in hopes of sharing the love of God with those who are being hunted by human traffickers, for you see, Moldova is ground zero for human trafficking in Eastern Europe. In the last 20 years, research indicates that 47,000 Moldovan teenage girls have been sold into sex slavery.

Jeremy and his band of brothers at his church decided they wanted to sponsor a Moldovan girl, and immediately I knew the girl he needed to meet. The one in need of rescue was a young Moldovan princess named Alina. Being both stunningly beautiful and severely poor, she is a prime target for traffickers. Born into extreme poverty in this former Soviet country, at the age of 7 she was sent to ... of all places ... an orphanage, located in the poorest country in Europe, to seek out a path for her life.

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I watched Jeremy explain to her that he and his brothers in Christ were going to walk through life with her; to love, support, and protect her both physically and spiritually. In my many trips to Moldova I often get to see a child's reaction when they hear for the first time that they are going to be sponsored.

While it's always a sweet moment, I have never before seen anyone react like Alina. In the moment when Jeremy spoke these words about sponsorship she literally closed her eyes, dropped her shoulders, exhaled, and said, "I've been waiting for this." Though perhaps the dosage may have been small, it was as if she was face to face with her first glance at the idea of hope.

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Soaked from the rain, her feet were cold and her socks were wet. On a rainy Saturday in October, I watched as my brother literally put new shoes and dry socks into this girls hands while she took off what was most likely the only pair of shoes she owned. Alina knows a little English. Her exact words were, "Wow."

We were in Moldova to preach redemption.

The Scriptures say that the feet of those who bring this good news are "beautiful feet." It is true that we are His messengers as we preach to the ones needing to be redeemed. However, I'm quite certain that in those times where we share the message of justice and mercy to the afflicted, it's also the messenger himself that experiences a reconnection with redemption yet again, for in that moment, I heard the words of Jesus say to Jeremy, "... inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me."

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