Giving Hope to the Hopeless
Families Set Free
It had been a long weekend out of town, when the 10 PM notice popped up on my phone. I thought a long time about just ignoring it.
“Families Set Free: New businesses launch” was the title I had given the calendar maker.
Only one of our three boys was home at the time, so I said, “Hey Jameson, want to watch something with me?” Although he probably thought it was going to be a Rom/Com, he agreed.
Both of us watched via zoom as over twenty newly freed brick makers and their families received their rickshaws or their inventory for their new businesses (selling plastic goods or shoes). And every single one of the family members would wave to us and thank us.
Mike, the CEO of Families Set Free would always have his “man on the ground” ask how long they had been enslaved by the brick factories. What they said was hard for both me and my son to fathom: Five all the way to fifty years of slavery!
Fifty years of never making enough bricks in the hot sun of Pakistan to pay for a medical procedure or to pay for a girl’s dowry. Years of enslavement and now set free!
As we watched, Jameson, our 20-year-old, said, “You know Mom, I can set a family free for $250. That’s just a couple of ‘Benjamins’.”
And a couple of “benjamins” later, another family is set free.
Anne Rauth
Dramatic Truth
This past weekend, Dramatic Truth had the honor of hosting a benefit for Families Set Free, an amazing organization working to free slaves in the middle east. About 120 people attended this life-changing performance and presentation. Dramatic Truth Ballet Theatre performed a repertoire piece entitled The Body and their original story ballet The Lamplighter. We learned as an audience that we are one body in Christ and when one part of the body suffers we all suffer. Though our brothers and sisters in slavery may be on the other side of the world, they are part of His body and we all suffer together. We saw how we as His body can be there for one another: helping, supporting and bearing burdens. We learned from Families Set Free how we can practically do this by praying, donating and getting involved.
In The Lamplighter, the audience saw the power of faithfulness in small things. The main character of The Lamplighter is a humble maiden who lights the lamps. She feels insignificant in a kingdom of powerful fairies and wonders whether her life has value and her role in the kingdom makes a difference. It is her simple act of lighting the lamps each day that ends up saving the country. Because she had always been faithful, lighting the lamps, when a dark empress threatened the land, the Queen was alerted and thwarted the evil empress. The humble lamplighter learned that her small acts of faithfulness mattered.
The audience was reminded that we have the same significance and power as the lamplighter. Every life matters. Our lives matter and the slaves over in the middle east, they all matter to God. Just one act of faithfulness can save a life or an entire nation. We prayed for God to, "show us the act of faithfulness that we can do" and we asked Him to show us "the lamp that we could light."
Randee Krumwiede, the Chief Development Officer at Families Set Free, shared with us the dire circumstances of one million Christians who serve as indentured servants to a debt they can never repay in one of 20,000 brick making factories in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. In this culture, the debt of a father is passed down to his children leading to generational slavery in these families. A video depicting a day in the life of a modern-day slave was shown and the story was told of a young wife and mother of four who was kidnapped from the brick making factory while her husband was away working. FSF hired an attorney to represent the woman and her family. We are awaiting an update on the pending court case against her kidnapper. In the meantime, the woman has been returned to her husband and children, and her family has been set free from a lifetime of slavery. Randee shared that just $250 dollars can set a slave free and set them up for a life of freedom. She asked us to not share the information on social media to protect their staff on the ground in the Middle East, but we can get involved and help free our brothers and sisters in Christ. Please visit www.familiessetfree.org for more information.
Dramatic Truth Ballet Theatre will be choreographing a piece this fall sharing the stories of these slaves. If you would like to bring this story to your church, group or school and raise awareness about Families Set Free please contact us at booking@dramatictruth.org.