Day of Prayer for the Victims of Modern Slavery

 SIW September 22, 2025

"When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”’ (John 8:12 NIV)

 

In Australia, we have an estimated 41 000 people living in modern slavery.

Modern slavery in the Australian context happens in 4 main ways: there is forced labour, commonly affecting people in agriculture, construction, cleaning, hospitality, domestic work and meat processing.

These people may be held in bondage by withheld wages, confiscation of passports and other documents, unsafe work conditions or coercion and violence.

Another form is sexual exploitation of adults or children, women are commonly lured to Australia on the promise of marriage or work and then held as prostitutes, movements restricted, documents confiscated and income limited.

Child exploitation is a little different because often the exploitation occurs outside of Australia when Australians travel to places where it is easy to exploit children or when Australians exploit vulnerable families  by asking parents to supply images or video access.

Forced Marriage is the most common form of modern slavery reported in Australia. Young people, mostly young women but also men, are forced or coerced into marriages and the forced marriage is only the start, common experiences within the marriage included physical, verbal, sexual and financial abuse, restrictions on movement, domestic servitude, and being barred from accessing education and employment, typically at the hands of the husband or members of his family. Some young women in Australia have been murdered at the direction of their husbands family.

The fourth type of modern slavery we see in the Autralian context is imported products. Nearly two-thirds of all forced labour cases are linked to global supply chains, with workers exploited across a wide range of sectors and at every stage of the supply chain. Most forced labour occurs in the lowest tiers of supply chains; that is, in the extraction of raw materials and in production stages. If we purchase electronics, garments, textiles or fish, there are likely slaves involved.

 

PRAY

 God of justice, hope and love, Father of the fatherless, defender of the oppressed, our hope for years to come. We believe that it is for freedom that you have set us free, to serve one another through love that we may live in abundance and goodness. Dear God, In this moment, we stand with our sisters and brothers, men and women, boys and girls who are victims of modern slavery and human trafficking. We know you feel their hurt, fear, excruciating pain, humiliation and all they might be going through, of which we may not be aware. Lord, we pray that you rescue them from the hands of their oppressors, release them from the clutches of the wicked and by your grace restore their lives and bring them into light. Help them heal, grant them justice and may their traffickers repent and come to know you more

Fill us with your sacred passion and love that we may continue to fight for justice. Use us as your tool, to help end this human tragedy. And may your love, embrace and presence never depart from these victims. Hear our cry and prayer, O heavenly Father.

We follow a God who hears our prayers and as we celebrate the International Day of Prayer for Victims of Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, we are using the God inspired theme ‘Light to Life’, based on John 8:12, where Jesus calls himself the light of the world. I am sure we all relate to the fears, uncertainties and sense of isolation that the dark can bring. The thing that is terrifying at 3am is so much easier to think about in the light of day.

The power of light, brought by jesus, brings life.In JOhn 8:12, Jesus affirms: ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’ This declaration reveals Jesus’ as the one who combats darkness, bringing clarity, hope and renewal. His light offers direction and purpose, allowing us to experience divine grace and love. The light of Jesus shines in everyone, including victims of human trafficking, exploitation and violence, who are subjected to oppression and humiliation, and are deprived of their freedom. We must also remember that the oppressors are children of God and are experiencing their own form of bondage, maybe because they are in spiritual darkness or because they are, themselves vulnerable to exploitation.

 

PRAY

Dear God of Justice,

We hear the cries of people trapped in incidences of modern slavery

and exploitation.

We are overwhelmed, dismayed and desperate for justice for the defenceless,

the exploited and the forgotten.

God of light, we ask for your immediate justice for all those trapped in modern

slavery and exploitation.

We desire justice. We pray for reconciliation for the wrongs the perpetrators have

done, and may you pierce their hearts with your righteous illumination and help

them to humbly repent and turn from their wicked ways.

We pray that perpetrators will turn themselves to the task of helping to prevent

others from participating in the victimisation of humankind.

 

Amen!

 

For us, who have freedom, we want to see all people free, we want to see justice and want to see everyone enjoy life in all it’s fullness.

 

 

Father God,  we pray with confidence at this moment knowing you will hear our cries, especially for justice for those wronged by sexual exploitation and forced labour. For the oppressed and destitute experiencing darkness, we ask that you shine as the light of hope and peace. Please break the chains of those who bind others in slavery and poverty, that all of God’s children would experience the blessings of freedom and the opportunity to live a valued and healthy life. Lord, we ask that you give strength to those courageous souls who work with victims and survivors of sexual exploitation and forced labour. Encourage them in their spirit, heart and body, and provide these workers with the resources they need to support those inflicted by the injustices of the world. We thank you, Lord, that you are the God who hears us,  May our hearts join in one accord as we lift our voices praying for freedom and justice for all. Lord, thank you for hearing our cries. Amen!

While we pray, we must also act as we are able. When we can we need to speak up, through our vote, our voice and our spending power

 •We must identify ourselves with Christ, with his light and remember that we are called to reflect his light, in the case of modern slavery we do that by speaking up for those who have had their voice silenced.

Bringing light means restoring dignity, we don’t have a lot of opportunity to restore dignity for the victims of human trafficking and slavery but we can give dignity, healing and freedom to anyone who we cross paths with. Every human being is worthy of dignity, healing and freedom and if we spread dignity where we can, it can ripple out to reach many more.

 We are invited to be reflections of this light in the world. We can support, care for and be a source of hope for the oppressed and wounded. As we celebrate this day of prayer, the message can remind us that even in the darkest situations, the light of life shines through the grace and mercy of christ

 

PRAY

 

I hear the cries of daughters and sons beyond the dark; trafficked and enslaved for the profit of others.

 I stand with you.

I see the next generation of vulnerable children targeted for the benefit of worldly pleasures.

 I will fight for you.

I stand with front-line practitioners, advocating for the freedom of victims of oppression and walking alongside survivors.

 I acknowledge you.

I lament for the ways I have knowingly and unknowingly contributed to modern slavery and human trafficking through my ignorance, my privilege and my spending power.

I refuse to be blind.

May my prayers and those of your people turn into action as we fight against injustice together. We are not free until we all experience light.

**Prayers used were supplied by the International Social Justice Commission of The Salvation Army

No Ordinary Town

 

SIW 14.12.25

Micah 5:2-5

Ezekiel 37:24-27

 

Can anybody name a town which has a famous festival? Tamworth country music, Grafton Jacaranda, Griffith citrus, forbes elvis.
By now you all probably know that I like to explore a new town. The bigger ones which might have a fabulous bakery or festival. The ones with murals or silo art, even the ones I only stop in for a quick wee usually have something to take my interest for a moment.

Lets have a quick look at the photos I’ve taken in very small places.

 

Bethlehem was a very small place, about an hour and a half walk from Jerusalem on a road called The Way of the Patriarchs. An ancient road used by people like Abraham and Jacob and it still is there, in it’s modern form, called highway 60

Bethlehem was so close to Jerusalem that people might not stop there, if they just kept walking they would reach their destination so it was small and sometimes overlooked but it was important: in 200 Bc it became the main aquifer for Jerusalem. The dead sea scrolls came from Bethlehem and was the home of an important stone age art work called the Ain sakhri lovers.

Bethlehem  was, of course the home of David. David was beloved by his people. His early defeat of Goliath made him a hero and showed his qualities of leadership and courage. After his glorious win on the battlefield he went back to being a shepherd and of course, we all love a humble leader so his star grew brighter.

He was a poet and musician and maybe he had some of that rock star quality that we see in a charismatic leader.

WE still see places like Bowral celebrate their famous son, Don Bradman. The tiny settlement of Barellan celebrates Yvonne Goolagong. If our modern small towns can have so much admiration and pride in their home grown sporting heroes, imagine how Bethlehem celebrated David. King of Israel, humble but great, great but humble, rock star charisma, he had a kind of poet laureate status.

And David eventually died but Bethlehem knew that there was a prophecy over their town.

It makes sense that a small place, occupied by an aggressive and brutal regime would grab onto anything to give them hope for a better future. The promise of a coming David-like king must have sometimes been the only available spark of hope, the only glimmer of joy or peace.

And the prophecy reads like this:

  “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
     though you are small among the

  clans of Judah,
 out of you will come for me
     one who will be ruler over Israel,
 whose origins are from of old,
     from ancient times.”

 

 

 

And Micah goes on:

He will stand and shepherd his flock
     in the strength of the LORD,
     in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.
 And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.

And he will be our peace...

Micah 5:2-5a (NIV)

 

Bethlehem knew there was this prophecy, they knew God had promised a king would arise from there again but after David, Bethlehem was a sleepy place, not appearing to be important, not having any famous sons, not even a major stopping point for people travelling the way of the patriarchs.

Throughout my life I can remember the talk about towns bypassed by highways, I especially remember talk of “the Goulburn bypass” and how we worry when these things happen. We think that without the travellers, without the merchants passing by, without the busyness, our towns will become redundant and die.

When we worry about these things we are right, many many towns from antiquity to now have shrunk and died for various reasons. Families have had to uproot to find work, social structures break down and what was good becomes rubble.

I don’t think that’s exactly what happened to Bethlehem because it has survived a long long time but we know that Bethlehem was a backwater, it was under occupation, the people were oppressed and things were hard.

In those post David years, centuries in fact, the people of Bethlehem must have wondered what was going on with that prophecy.

Where was their promised King like David? When would the occupation end? Was the prophesy real?

We know, don’t we that hard times feel never ending? We know that when covid happened we felt like life would never again be the same. In our personal lives we feel that an illness, a depression, a period of unemployment or loneliness or relationship breakdown will never end. We can feel that we wont recover. We can feel that God has forgotten us and doesn’t hear our cries for help.

As we come up to the celebration of Christmas, we know that the promised saviour came.

Jesus was born in the promised place at the appointed time.

 

The king they had been waiting for was born in Bethlehem, just like God had promised.  

 

Let's hold on to this idea of ‘in just the right time’. I am sure it didn't feel like just the right time for the people of Bethlehem, I’m sure they had been thinking the messiah was well overdue, just like we do when things aren’t the way we hope

 

I think this is a good word for us today. Because at times we can feel so knocked about by life and circumstances. Maybe you feel like that today. We can feel like we have no choice over which path to take. We can feel resentful and powerless. And yet we see the hand of God through history in the story of Bethlehem.

 

I want to encourage you with the thought that The creator and governor of all things has their hand on you. The hurts and the frustration and the sense of being forgotten or overlooked were part of Bethlehems story and but Bethlehem was not just any town , it was the town where the new King was born. Bethlehem claimed her place in God’s story. We can claim our place in God’s story, God’s promises to us will be fulfilled and we can have the gifts of advent, every day. Today we lit the candle of joy and I would like to encourage you with the thought that joy is coming. If you don’t feel it already, God’s promises of peace, hope and love are coming too.

 

We pray for Bethlehem today, for the healing of pain in that region of the world and if you are in a period of pain or waiting, lets think of Bethlehem, God’s promises are true and good and they arrive at the right time.

 

Bethlehem was a small town, mostly insignificant, and Bethlehem became a place of the greatest ever significance. You have a place in God’s story, you are significant.

 

Lets take hope from bethlehems story and rest in the certainty of the love, hope,  peace and joy represented and delivered by that little boy born in Bethlehem.

 

Job 23

 SIW 

13.10.24

I don’t know if it’s true but I remember reading somewhere that the Spanish language carries no blame. There is no “Paul dropped the cup” only “The cup fell”

I think that for us, this would be an impossible way of thinking. I don’t think we could go through a day without placing blame, no matter how carefully or kindly we did it, I think there would be times when our language just doesn’t allow any alternative.

I wonder what would happen if we had a language that didn’t allow us to place blame? I wonder if people would lose their unnecessary guilt? I wonder if people would become better or worse at being accountable for their actions?

If I told you that somebody had lung cancer, what would be your first response?

Pretty much all of us would ask if that person smoked and the way we ask that question causes so many problems that the medical community is investing in trying to change that approach because that stigma, that attempt to explain the disease by blaming the victim makes it more likely that people will delay treatment, refuse treatment and respond poorly to treatment. The suffering and death caused by lung cancer is increased by our tendency to lay blame.

We are having a look at Job 23 today and before that I’d like to just give you a recap on where Job was at:

Job was described in the early part of the book as a good man, a righteous man. He was faithful to God and was almost blameless.

Then this being called The Accuser says to God that Job is only righteous and faithful because he is blessed with a good life.

God says no, Job is a good guy and he is consistently faithful.

The accuser says he wants to test Job and find out if he can be faithful even in suffering and so God says to The Accuser “ok, you can test him but don’t kill him”

And that’s what happens: In one day all of Jobs children die and all of his flocks and his servants are killed in a fire. After that he becomes sick with a painful skin disease which almost certainly makes him ritually unclean and socially isolated and his wife, who has also lost her children and wealth and security is unable to provide any comfort or hope and says to Job “you might as well curse your God and die”

Just before we take up the reading in chapter 23, Job is sitting in the rubbish in his pain and misery and his friend Eliphaz is talking to him. Eliphaz and others have come to support Job but over a period of time they have started to try to understand Jobs suffering and Eliphaz can’t explain Job’s suffering except to say that Job must have somehow brought it on himself by some sin. And because his suffering is so great it must be some great sin. Eliphaz says to Job “look, there’s no other answer but to seek God and repent.

Now we know that Job is innocent. We know that there is nothing Job has done or not done to lead to this suffering, his whole situation is made by The Accuser. It’s a supernatural event.

Eliphaz says to Job that he needs to seek God and Job responds:

Today I complain bitterly,
because God has been cruel
    and made me suffer.
³ If I knew where to find God,
I would go there
⁴     and argue my case.

Job is saying “God did this, it wasn’t me and if I could find Him, I would!” Job can’t find God, as much as he wants to and he is so certain of his innocence that he would be prepared to go and argue his case. He is referring to a court type of situation, not just a conversation but a formal situation where evidence is presented and weighed. This is how certain he is of his innocence. He wants to go and confront God and seek logical, properly explored answers.

Then I would discover
    what he wanted to say.
⁶ Would he overwhelm me
    with his greatness?
No! He would listen
⁷     because I am innocent,

Job is saying I’m so confident that I haven’t done anything to deserve this that I’m is willing to go to the creator of the universe, the inventor of justice and argue my case. And God will listen. God could crush me in an instant but he will agree that I am blameless in this situation.

I feel like I hear a lot of people in the church talk about their fallibility, their guilt, there’s a sense of shame that we carry. We have this shame enshrined in our doctrine “We believe all men have become sinners, totally depraved, and as such are justly exposed to the wrath of God.

And there is truth to it but l think that sometimes it is good for us to remember that we can be innocent, that our pain is not always our fault, that we don’t have to accept the burden of guilt for every hardship, we actually can affirm our own innocence or we can refuse to blame others for their suffering.

and he would say,
    “I now set you free!”

We see that Job is assured of his own innocence and he is completely confident of God’s justice.

Who of us will voluntarily go to court and face judgement? Even when we are innocent, the sound of a police siren sets our nerves on fire, right? We aren’t assured of our innocence or of the justice we might receive.

I cannot find God anywhere—
in front or back of me,
⁹     to my left or my right.
God is always at work,
    though I never see him.

 “I’ve looked in front of me, I’ve looked behind me, I looked to the left and I went over here to the right “ We sense Jobs frustration, his despair, his overwhelming wish to connect with God, despite the fact that he doesn’t really need to seek mercy or justice.

“God is always at work, though I never see him”

Job’s faith wins over everything, he affirms Gods involvement in his life.

* ¹⁵ Merely the thought
of God All-Powerful
¹⁶     makes me tremble with fear.
¹⁷ God has covered me
    with darkness,
    but I refuse to be silent

After Job has spent time protesting his innocence we see him bemoaning Gods invisibility. We see that he is confident of Gods mercy and justice but still in fear and awe of his power. He is aware that God is working but he can’t see evidence of it.

Ellicotts Commentary says this:

  Job is The victim of an ever present paradox and dilemma; afraid of God, yet longing to see Him; conscious of His presence, yet unable to find Him; assured of His absolute justice, and yet convinced of his own suffering innocence. His history, in fact, to the Old World was what the Gospel is to the New: the exhibition of a perfectly righteous man, yet made perfect through suffering. It was therefore an effort, at the solution of the problem of the reconciliation of the inequality of life with the justice of God.

Job 23 is mostly viewed as a picture of a man who is separated from God, searching for God and feeling forsaken. And if you relate to feeling forsaken by God, please know that you are not the only one. Feeling forsaken by God is so much part of our human experience that we have a whole book devoted to it.

I also find hope in Job 23, the darkness is deep, Job says he is covered in darkness but he also says

God will not overwhelm him

God will listen to him

God is always working

And God will set Him free

 

We are going to sing now “yet not I but through Christ in me” and lets appreciate the words

The night is dark but I am not forsaken
For by my side, the Saviour He will stay
I labour on in weakness and rejoicing
For in my need, His power is displayed