By Stan Friedman
KNOXVILLE, TN (July 19, 2012) – North Park University Professor Boaz Johnson had just finished his human trafficking seminar at CHIC 2012 on Tuesday when a teenage girl walked up to him and said he had saved her life.
The girl had been a victim of human trafficking in an Asian country. She was rescued and adopted by her parents who attend a Covenant church in the United States. The parents had heard Johnson speak about trafficking several years ago and then decided they wanted to adopt a child who had endured slavery.
“When she told me, my jaw just dropped,” said Johnson. “I was stunned.”
Johnson teaches biblical and theological studies at the university and is referred to sometimes as the “slumdog” professor because he grew up in a ghetto of New Delhi, India. Although he was never enslaved, some of his friends were taken in the middle of the night, and he never saw them again.
Today, another girl, one who was adopted from India as a baby, told Johnson that she had been inspired through the Covenant’s focus on trafficking to return to New Delhi and help rescue slaves.
Johnson has spoken frequently at Covenant churches and previous CHICs about slavery. After CHIC in 2009, several youth groups returned to their churches and sponsored anti-trafficking events.
