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Pastor Glenn McDonald: Standing Together

George Fritsma


 

In the 1880s, northern Wisconsin was still essentially an unsettled and untamed wilderness. 

 

Teams of lumberjacks worked for years bringing in harvests of virgin timber to supply the needs of America.

 

Logging camps were not for the faint of heart. Like the Wild West, these male-dominated communities tended to be governed by machismo and local standards of justice. They also concealed a hidden world of forced prostitution.

 

Thousands of women and young girls were transported against their will to the camps and mines of the upper Midwest. They populated brothels and “dance halls” where they were subjected on a daily basis to multiple rapes.

 

Where were the authorities?

 

They chiefly sided with the logging companies. Owners and patrons of the brothels purchased protection from the police. Local doctors earned money by regularly examining the women. Businessmen appreciated the economic boost.

 

Women who tried to run away quickly discovered they were literally in the middle of nowhere. 

 

Escapees who were caught were sometimes publicly executed in gruesome ways – a strong disincentive to anyone else who cherished the dream of freedom.

 

These victims of sex trafficking – out of sight and out of mind during America’s so-called Gilded Age – had few advocates and little hope.

 

But they did have Kate Bushnell. 

 

Katharine Bushnell was a medical doctor, writer, missionary to Asia, Bible scholar, and social activist – all during a time when women were expected to do little more than sign off on the agendas of the males in their lives. 

 

Bushnell’s lifelong quest was affirming the integrity and equality of women before God. That’s how she ended up in northern Wisconsin, right in the middle of the logging camps.

 

Her goal was justice. No local authority, however, would provide assistance or information concerning the status of the prostitutes. 

 

So Bushnell did her own investigating. Risking her personal safety, she won the trust of dozens of the girls who lived in virtual slavery. She carefully documented their stories. 

 

Then, to the horror of everyone complicit in the sex trade, she went public.

 

Wisconsin’s elected leaders screamed denunciations. The state inspector general declared that Bushnell was herself “unchaste,” and therefore unreliable. 

 

Kate Bushnell was a compelling, even charismatic public speaker. But even she was anxious when she was called to testify before the Wisconsin state legislature. Having received threats of violence, she was shielded by a police escort. Could she trust them?

 

Standing before a hostile gathering, she felt exceedingly alone. She was the only woman in the room.

 

Then she received a gift.

 

The door to the legislative chamber opened quietly. About 50 women walked in and “stood all about me,” she later recalled. “There were no seats for them. They stood all the time I talked – and I had plenty of courage as I realized how good God was to send them.”

 

She spoke in the spirit of Psalm 82:3: “Defend the weak and the fatherless, uphold the cause of the poor and oppressed.”

 

The chamber may not have listened well that day. But the nation did. Independent researchers poured into the upper Midwest and confirmed Bushnell’s findings. Ultimately a legislative initiative to banish sex trafficking was passed by Wisconsin’s public servants.

 

It came to be called the Kate Bushnell Bill.

 

Bold action that frees captives and rescues the weak requires courage. And perseverance. And a yearning for justice. And hanging on with all of one’s heart to God’s promises and power.

 

Even if you’re not the one at the center of such a drama today, look for someone who is.

 

Then choose to go stand alongside them.

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