The road to a comprehensive HT bill – Part III

This afternoon the Human Trafficking Legislative Planning Group will convene once again. This team, tasked with developing comprehensive human trafficking legislation proposals for the 2011 Oregon state legislative session, is a diverse body of key government and non-profit personnel. They will be working through the summer to come up with proposals by September when more legally minded hands will begin molding the material into billable form. Stephanie Mathis, Executive Director for the Oregon Center for Christian Values, is coordinating this team.

More is required than just preparing legislation. At the state level, bills do not move through the Legislature unless citizens speak up. This is where advocacy kicks in and OCCV is ready. OCCV's Human Trafficking Advisory Committee will launch next month (June) its HT Point Leader Plan of Action with a Point Leader training workshop. We are calling it "10 x '10" – ten leaders for 10 groups of 10 persons each to be recruited and trained in advocacy by the end of 2010.

The HT Advisory Committee is currently recruiting 10 Oregonians as these point leaders. We are looking for 10 people from 10 different congregations, particularly from Washington, Multnomah and Marion/Polk Counties, though other parts of the state are also welcome to participate. These point leaders will attend our training workshop in June. They will then work between June and October to find 10 other people each (from their congregation and otherwise) who will be willing to train and work with their point leaders to advocate on behalf of the HT legislation endorsed by OCCV.

In October and November, these point leaders will each sponsor a training session with their team members in preparation for the 2011 legislative session. The goal is that by the time the legislative session opens in January 2011, we will have over 100 citizen advocates to help push through the HT legislation and have it signed into law by June 2011.

Bryan Colbourne, Stacy Bellavia and I will be serving as coaches for these 10 point leaders and their teams. And we are making the following commitments to each of these point leaders:

1. We will pray for them in their work.
   
2. We will keep them abreast of all developments in the HT legislation and process.
   
3. We will maintain regular contact with them, encouraging them and helping them in their process of developing their point teams.
   
4. We will work to connect them with the key legislative players and also with their own legislators during the months leading up to the 2011 legislative session.
   
5. We will help point leaders arrange experts from the legislative planning group as guest speakers for their training sessions.
   
6. We will coordinate a rapid communication system with these point leaders to mobilize their point persons as advocates as needed.
   
7. We (coaches and point leaders) will meet regularly as a group during the fall season and during the months the legislature is in session for prayer, reporting and encouragement.
   

In addition, I am personally looking for 100 other people who will commit to pray for these point leaders and personnel and for this legislative process.

As Psalm 68:5 says, God is "father to the fatherless." There are thousands of such fatherless children, our brothers and sisters, who are in desperate need of God's protection and deliverance from the bondage and exploitation of human trafficking. The verse that follows says that "God sets the lonely in families." I can't think of anything more lonely in our day and time than being trapped in slavery and trafficking. I like to think that each of these point teams will become families, who through their advocacy will be sheltering these lonely and fatherless modern-day slaves, who have no one else to advocate for them.

We want to do more than rescue those who are currently trapped. We want to shut off the demand and trafficking channels themselves. This legislative process will move us a giant step forward toward that goal and we are looking for 10 good citizens of Oregon to join us by signing up as 10x'10 Point Leaders.

If you want to be a point leader or you know someone who could serve in this role, I'd like to hear from you. If you want to be one of the 100 to commit to praying for this team over the next 12 months, I'd like to hear from you, too. You can go to my website, http://hnkconnect.com, to send me your name and contact information. Please let me hear from you today.