At PneuProject, we recently partnered with Chris Baker of Ink 180. He transforms gang and sex-trafficking tattoos into something beautiful. We have spent the last couple weeks getting to know him and his ministry work better, and I tell you what, it is GROSS - as in human depravity style YUCK. Not Chris - Chris is awesome - but why he is in business is straight up nasty.
See a tattoo is not an instantaneous process. So he sits and works on a beautiful artistic endeavor for hours - on someone's body who has literally been violated, stolen, abused, made to BE worthless. And they tell him their stories.
And since he is working through the law enforcement in order to provide his services, he talks with a lot of officers and agents, the courts etc, and hears THEIR stories about all the icky, nasty stuff that we all honestly hope is not really a part of American society. But it is. It is PROLIFIC. And it is horrific. I am so ashamed by what we are allowing - each of us - all of us. Remember in school hearing about the people in the towns next to the gas chambers, how they insisted they didn't know it was happening? Well we ARE those people - because it is right here, in our towns, on our watch.
Kids afraid, made to run drugs, beaten until they become part of a gang, kidnapped or sold into sex-slavery. Tattooed by their 'owners'. Marked, shot, arrested, scarred, lost, incarcerated...hopeless.
And Chris allows them the chance to move forward without the sign of their oppressors still inked into their very bodies. He gives them the simple dignity of choosing, perhaps for the first time in their entire life, what their life might look like...literally.
See a tattoo is not an instantaneous process. So he sits and works on a beautiful artistic endeavor for hours - on someone's body who has literally been violated, stolen, abused, made to BE worthless. And they tell him their stories.
And since he is working through the law enforcement in order to provide his services, he talks with a lot of officers and agents, the courts etc, and hears THEIR stories about all the icky, nasty stuff that we all honestly hope is not really a part of American society. But it is. It is PROLIFIC. And it is horrific. I am so ashamed by what we are allowing - each of us - all of us. Remember in school hearing about the people in the towns next to the gas chambers, how they insisted they didn't know it was happening? Well we ARE those people - because it is right here, in our towns, on our watch.
Kids afraid, made to run drugs, beaten until they become part of a gang, kidnapped or sold into sex-slavery. Tattooed by their 'owners'. Marked, shot, arrested, scarred, lost, incarcerated...hopeless.
And Chris allows them the chance to move forward without the sign of their oppressors still inked into their very bodies. He gives them the simple dignity of choosing, perhaps for the first time in their entire life, what their life might look like...literally.
If you feel obligated to find out more about what is happening right HERE all around us in comfortable suburbia, come out to Tap House Grill on 3/18 at 7:30. We will be interviewing Chris & showing some of his work. He may even bring someone who has chosen to make this transformation to share.
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