Tag: trafficking

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Wandering Swallow Parent/Teacher Supplement

Wandering Swallow Parent/Teacher Supplement   Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
Lord Almighty, my King and my God. Psalm 84:3.   

Dear Parents and Teachers,   

I’m hoping you find Wandering Swallow, A Young Girl’s Quest for Freedom an enjoyable learning experience for your children/students. Along with helping students achieve automaticity in reading through engagement with the story, I also wanted to give them a peek into the culture and history of Korea and China. 

Hana’s journey is more than a quest for food. It’s a soul journey. Satan often attacks our souls through our bodies. Hana has to pretend to be a boy so she will avoid the fate so many young North Korean females have faced in their search for freedom.

Over the years of the one-child rule (1979-2015), girls (as well as handicapped boys) often suffered abortion or abandonment. In Eastern culture, if parents are only allowed one offspring, they want sons. 

Because of the rule, China experienced a shortage of women for men to marry. Girls like Hana are often sold into forced marriages or prostitution. I avoided making explicit references to this danger because I want to allow parents to decide how, when, and to what degree they need to explain sexual trafficking to their children.

Over the course of the story, we meet three characters with Down syndrome. Jinsique’s role mirrors the life of Baby Doe who was born with Down syndrome and esophageal atresia, a condition in which his esophagus did not connect to his stomach. A simple surgery would have resolved the issue, but his parents did not give permission. 

It took Baby Doe seven days to die of starvation. 

Because of the one-child rule, baby Jinsique’s life would have been in peril (before or after birth) regardless of a Down syndrome diagnosis. The care Jinsique receives in the book is what I would hope every child would know. 

The history included throughout the book comes from some of the sources listed below and several conversations over years with one of the massacre survivors, Shengde Lian. Lian was one of the student-organizers of the protest and provided much of the insight Lừ ké gives to Hana at the Square. I had the blessing of interviewing him for a couple of articles I wrote as a reporter and independently.

Much of the plot of my book alludes to Elijah’s experience with wind, earthquake, and fire before he hears the still small voice (I Kings 19). May all our readers hear that voice in their own journeys following Christ. 

Wandering Swallow is a tribute to young and old who dared to protest the CCP, those who defied the tyrants of North Korea, and a reminder to America, as John Philpot Curran stated, “The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.” 

Thank you for your interest in Wandering Swallow.   

Milico Mathers

Further Reading and Viewing for Teachers and Parents: (Parental discretion advised for some works)   

Shared Hope International and Report | regenerate are Christian anti-trafficking organizations. 

The Beautiful Blessing of Down Syndrome – Christian Parenting 

From Ignorance to Bliss: God’s Heart Revealed through Down Syndrome by Annie Yorty | Goodreads 

Local Support | National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS) 

China’s one-child policy hangover: Scarred women dismiss Beijing’s pro-birth agenda | CNN 

History, North Korea ‑ South Korea, Nuclear Weapons, President | HISTORY 

United States Institute of Peace, The Politics of Famine in North Korea | United States Institute of Peace (usip.org) 

In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl’s Journey for Freedom, Yeonmi Park, 2016. 

A Thousand Miles to Freedom: My Escape from North Korea, Eunsun Kim, with Sabastien Falletti, 2016. 

“Hong Kong’s Next Yellow Bird,” Taipei Times, Chu Ming-hon, June 27, 2020. 

A Chinese Odyssey: The Life and Times of a Chinese Dissident, Anne F. Thurston, 1991. 

Why Did Stalin Support the Start of the Korean War? | HISTORY 

Operation Yellow Bird, Amazon Prime Video, Watch Operation Yellow Bird | Prime Video (amazon.com). 

Dragon Seed by Pearl S. Buck | Goodreads 

The Good Earth (House of Earth, #1) by Pearl S. Buck | Goodreads 

One Child Nation movie review (2019) | Roger Ebert Respecting Chinese Culture: 

The Example of Hudson Taylor, Part One — Global China Center 

All scriptures quoted within the text come from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Our new website milicomathersreads.com is accepting reviews for middle reader books–especially those written by middle school students. Message me at readgoodbooks@milicomathersreads.com or in the comments below.

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. Restoring the Shattered is published through Morgan James Publishing with whom I do share a material connection. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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AIDS: A Modern Plague on Youth

Every three minutes, a teenage girl acquires AIDS.

That’s 20 every hour, 480 every day, 14,400 every month, and 172,800 every year.

That’s a great deal of innocence lost.

A United Nations (UN) representative calls it a “crisis of health.” It’s that and so much more.

“In most countries, women and girls lack access to information, to services, or even just the power to say no to unsafe sex,” according to the UN spokesperson.

Young women, ages 15 to 19, acquire AIDS at twice the rate male teens do. But acquiring AIDS is no less tragic for young men. They may also lack the power to say no.

The distribution of condoms reduces the rate of AIDS, however, only “under the right conditions.” And those conditions would include not only education but also enough regard for a sex partner to take the step of protection. Still, a condom is never a guarantee.

“Safe sex” is a misnomer. There is no safe sex outside of lifelong monogamy. The price these young people pay? They pay with their lives–for someone else’s moment of pleasure.

“Last year, 130,000 youngsters aged 19 and under died from AIDS, while 430,000 — almost 50 every hour — were newly infected, the [UN] agency said.”

The UN proposes to “reach young people and curb the epidemic among them.” But how is that possible when they lack the power to say no?

The solution is not in distributing more condoms and convincing people to use them. It’s in convincing people not to use other people.

And the source of that understanding comes only from the Gospel.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

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Womb for Rent, Child for Sale

“One egg, one embryo, one adult-normality. . . . From eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo, and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making ninety-six human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress.”  Aldous Huxley, Brave New World.

We’ve all heard the wonderful stories. Married couples who were unable to conceive become parents. A generous woman endures the discomforts of pregnancy to give them the ultimate gift. And then we imagine–a happily ever after ending.

And for some, it is a dream come true. Life as they had imagined it would be. It just began a different way.
But that’s not what surrogacy means for many children. Nothing like happily ever after.

Focus on the Family reports: “It is an unregulated industry that takes advantage of the bodies, health and altruistic nature of women for money. The reality is that without regulation, stories about surrogacy and artificial reproduction may become even more bizarre and exploitative.
And such was the tragic beginning for infant twin girls born to an Australian couple. The father had urged his wife to abort a pregnancy early in their marriage. He was not interested in having children. He became interested after he began to assault his young nieces.
His own babies were 27 days old when he began to violate them.  Their abuse lasted seven months. His collection of 13,000 images of child pornography included 300  photos of his own daughters.
There are other horror stories too.

Much of the world is waking up to this abuse. Even though the surrogacy industry is lucrative–$520 million a year in India alone–nations are moving to eradicate it or at least prohibit it to foreigners. With many countries limiting surrogacy, people are looking for surrogate mothers within the United States–where restrictions are few and protections fewer yet.
Surrogacy exploits poor women who are sometimes coerced into participating in the process and may be left with heartache or medical problems. It exploits children, especially since anyone can become a surrogate parent. Even pedophiles.

And while children “can be abused in any setting . . . they are not equally likely to be abused in every setting. By an order of magnitude they are least likely to be abused when living with their two married, biological parents.”
Even when it’s legal, surrogacy is legally messy.
A surrogate mother in California recently sued the “parents” of the triplets she was carrying. The parents wanted her to selectively abort one of the babies. She wanted to adopt the third child herself. But she signed a contract that allows the parents to decide.

Another woman moved to Michigan to give birth to a baby girl whose “parents” wanted to abort her because of her disabilities.
Legalization and regulation would seem to hold only more of such situations.
Medical progress is amazing. But progress isn’t always a step forward. In Huxley’s Brave New World, children were mass produced commodities who filled slots in society. No one loved them. They did not love. They existed only to be used by society and each other.
We haven’t gone as far as Huxley’s world yet. Neither have we drawn a line on when medical progress is human regression.

Perhaps it’s not too late to draw a line. If India and Thailand can stop injustice, so can the rest of us.

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way, do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, and you credit the author.

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the entities I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Continue reading “Womb for Rent, Child for Sale”

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Flying on Splinted Wings

Yet those who wait for the Lord Will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary. Isaiah 40:31. 
Flying was the “forgotten dream” of a bird with a broken wing.
As he was walking one day, my grandson saw a bird that couldn’t fly. He wrote the incident in verse. The wounded creature could see other birds aloft but could not join them in the “fields of blue and white.”
People are supposed to fly. I don’t mean in the theoretical sense of the old saying that if God had intended our flight, He would have given us wings.
He did give us wings–wings of heart and soul. Sometimes, life crushes those wings. Crushed spirits can only watch others fly. Pornography is a monster that crushes the spirits of men, women, and children.
But America is double minded about pornography. Here is an example: Continue reading “Flying on Splinted Wings”