Impossible is a Dare

by Cooley, Ben;

Stories to share

  It’s always been a passion of mine. I may not have known the precise path my life would take or that one day I’d find myself sitting in front of Emma, but investing in the next generation has always been important to me. Even as a teenager it was important. That’s why, when Mr Stephenson – my secondary school English teacher – gave us a project to write a book for a primary school pupil, my heart leapt. In some ways that was a strange reaction for me. I never really did very well at school. I was always the funny, slightly quirky eccentric kid (I guess some things never change!). I was – and in many ways still am – a bit of an anomaly.

  I’m also dyslexic. Words are not my friends. Writing a book seemed a monumental task, even an impossible one. But Mr Stephenson’s project gave me an opportunity to invest in someone, a chance to meet with them, hear about their life, their hobbies, their likes and dislikes, and then write a book specifically for them. I was passionate about that part at least! For one of the first times in my schooling history, I was excited. And when I met with my pupil, Sam, this excitement only increased. I left our meeting with my head full of thoughts about what I could do, the story I could tell. The possibilities were endless. I was buzzing. I spent hours and hours on this project – hours and hours. I crafted each sentence, I planned each paragraph. I even drew some pretty impressive (in my opinion) dinosaurs. There were lots of dinosaurs. Everything was neatly coloured, every word carefully chosen. The book was finished. A masterpiece. Or so I thought.

  Mr Stephenson called me to his desk. The entire class watched as I beamed with pride, holding my book like a precious stone or regal crown as I approached him. I laid it on the desk. Mr Stephenson studied the cover. He opened the book, and within seconds grabbed his red pen and destroyed me. With every circle, every correction, he announced my failings. As he continued, there was almost a sense of delight as he crossed here, marked there. FAIL. Try again.

  I had given everything. I was downbeat but not broken. I went back and took note of Mr Stephenson’s corrections, tried to draw better dinosaurs, write more eloquently. You see, I wasn’t doing this for me; I was doing this for Sam. The next day I came back with the second edition. The red pen reappeared. The corrections once again began in full flow. I had made new mistakes but hadn’t been able to see them. FAIL. Try again. Next came the third edition, then the fourth, the fifth, each one draining more confidence, questioning my abilities, quelling the excitement I’d felt so strongly at the beginning of the process. ‘Never again’, I thought, promising myself that I wouldn’t have another go at writing a book. It was just not in me, not who I am. I’d poured everything into this and failed. It was impossible.

  But that’s not where the story ends – impossible is not an end, it’s a dare. I finished that book because telling Sam’s story was worth it. It was painful, it took effort, required patience. And that was just from Mr Stephenson! And here we are again. You are holding another book written by Ben Cooley, except this time there are no dinosaurs.

  In 2007 I became aware of human trafficking. Since then I have heard the stories of Emma and Zoe and Khalianna and William, and hundreds of others like them. These stories are not tales of fiction. They are real people with real lives and real families. These stories are not removed or distant, they are taking place today, in our communities. And so, once again, I am pouring everything into this. This time it is not for Sam, it is for them. Just like my childhood self in Mr Stephenson’s class refusing to keep Sam’s story to myself, I feel I have to write the stories in this book because they need to be read.

  Since the launch of Hope for Justice in 2008, I have had the pain and the privilege of hearing countless stories of individuals who have fallen victim to modern-day slavery. In the years that have passed we have done things wrong and done things right; had breakthroughs and breakdowns. But throughout it all it is the stories that sustain us.

  ‘What was done to you was wrong and we want to put it in the past’, I had so inadequately tried to tell Emma on that very first meeting. But first she needed to cry. That’s why this book exists. Only when we share these stories, acknowledge them and cry out with the victims of modern-day slavery will we be able to make such travesties truly a thing of the past. We believe there is hope. Together, we can end this.

  * * *

  Chapter two

  Khalianna’s story

  Khalianna had trouble at home. Her family was very conservative and restricted what she did and where she went. In and out of arguments, Khalianna decided to move to the city and take care of herself. She would get a good job and prove to her family what she was capable of. She saved just enough money to buy a bus ticket.

  On the ride she met another young girl who quickly befriended her. They talked on the way about what they would do when they arrived in the big city. At the last rest stop, Khalianna’s new friend offered to jump off and get some drinks. She returned with two bottles of Coke, which they drank.

  Unbeknown to Khalianna, the ‘friend’ had spiked her drink with a sedative that quickly took effect. When they reached the final stop, the ‘friend’ was met by a group of men who took the now drugged Khalianna back to a hotel. She was repeatedly raped and told that she must make them money by servicing other men.

  Khalianna had had a dream to thrive in the city but now that dream had been shattered. Every day she was woken by her trafficker and forced to the room where men arrived to abuse her. Day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute. Raped, abused, spat on, hair pulled, devalued. She no longer felt human. When the traffickers felt like it, they would abuse her too. It was relentless. Her body no longer felt like her own. Her mind became numb. She looked in the mirror and did not recognize the face looking back. It was gaunt. It was joyless; lifeless.

  After months and months of unceasing abuse, Khalianna was rescued. The police had found her and immediately took her to Hope for Justice. There the team loved her, nurtured her and helped her to overcome her trauma and shame.

  Over time Khalianna has learned to protect herself and rediscover her future. She now lives in the city, runs her own café and is reconciled with her family. Finally she is free.

  Passion and purpose

  I grew up in the north east of England. I didn’t go to university, I went to a conservatoire. Yes, a conservatoire. And no, that’s not a glass extension to the back of your house. Not bad for a boy from North Yorkshire! I studied for two years part time and four years full time as an opera singer (a lot of people don’t believe this). But believe me I used to wear tights and make-up and dance around. I think one of the main reasons I went into opera was because someone once said I couldn’t do it. They said it was the ‘highest form of art’ and that I couldn’t do it. That was all the motivation I needed. I not only attended that place but eventually graduated from it.

  During my course I got married to Deb. She was an actress and at that time people would walk up to her in the street and say, ‘Hey, you’re that girl from the telly.’ Kudos to me. I thought it was amazing. We got married quite quickly and although I was still studying, I took various part-time jobs, started a vocal coaching business and got involved in some stage schools. Not long after, the family grew. We had our first child the year I left the conservatoire, when I was 23. We were now a family.

  Around that time a couple, Rob and Marion White, joined our church. They were part of a national event called Spring Harvest, and Rob had been National Director for the youth charity, British Youth for Christ. Marion was passionate. She had recently taken up a cause close to her heart, and was so passionate that she wanted to tour the country telling people about it. Perhaps figuring I wasn’t busy enough with my vocal consultancy, part-time job, volunteering for the local church and so on, she asked me to help her backstage at an event in Manchester. Requests for favours always fly in when you’re at your busiest. Added to the list of responsibilities I was trying to juggle at the time, I was now a husband and had a small child to look after. Life was bus
y. And yet I knew the very second Marion asked me that it was about to get even busier. It felt to me that supporting the event was something I needed to do. I felt compelled.

  Now don’t get me wrong: Marion wasn’t demanding that I single-handedly orchestrate the event or recruit the team. My job was just to pass the microphones to the speakers, but as the evening began, a video played, detailing Marion’s driving passion. It described an issue I had never heard about but would never forget, one that has since become very close to my heart. The video described modern-day slavery. The short film highlighted that 27 million people were held in slavery, that 1.2 million children were trafficked each year; that’s two children every minute. Girls like Khalianna and thousands like her. I was blown away; I could not believe it. Statistics can be so overwhelming. Watching from the sidelines, this video changed my understanding of slavery. It was no longer an abstract issue confined to the pages of history. Slavery was alive and well and on my doorstep. The statistics became people. I walked out of Manchester Town Hall that night and thought: ‘If that were my daughter I would do something about it.’ My next thought changed the direction of my life for ever:

  ‘It’s always somebody’s daughter.’

  I needed to do something.

  That night Deb and I lay awake in bed. We couldn’t sleep. We were angry. Yes, we were angry at the traffickers, but just as angry that this issue was so huge and we had never even heard about it. I felt as if I’d been living in a bubble and was angry at my ignorance. You may not have a particular faith or belief system, but that one short video had challenged my own faith to the core. For me, a person who would describe himself as a Christian, those five minutes of footage shown in Manchester made me question everything. How had we never heard about this issue before?

  Both Deb and I had grown up in a largely Christian environment. We’d sat through however many church services and meetings of one kind or another, but for all the church’s charitable efforts, it was crazy how few of those occasions had been taken up with this kind of issue. Here is this incredible injustice but few people seemed to be asking ‘What can we do about it?’ Slavery is an issue that should challenge everybody, not just people in the church. The church is a community that claims to bring light to the darkness and, as churchgoers ourselves, we couldn’t help but think: ‘If we are not concerned about justice, who is going to be?’

  At the time, Deb and I were really involved in leading worship and other creative aspects in our own church. Worship can often be associated with the songs Christians sing in church on a Sunday. But it is so much more than that. To limit worship in this way makes people think that worship is for a certain type of ‘worship person’. If you don’t go to church you may not know about the worship-leader stereotype. Right now it seems that unless you have an incredible voice and scarily tight skinny jeans to help you reach the high notes, you’re not cut out to be a worship leader. But that’s nonsense. Worship is for everyone. Whether you have an awful voice or baggy jeans, Christians are called to worship through all areas of their lives. It transcends culture, ability, interests, style and all the other things we’ve made it into along the way. Sitting awake in bed, unable to sleep, we realized that ‘justice’ was exactly the same. Justice is one of those issues that has absolutely nothing to do with your personality or your training. Justice isn’t something that is for some people, it is for everyone. We couldn’t just ignore it.

  And so my mind and my spirit were restless, and the questions were no longer just about what I would do about human trafficking. I questioned what life choices I would make. I began reading book after book, getting impacted by the story of Mother Teresa who said, ‘Live simply, so others may simply live.’ I started making note of quotes such as this from Edmund Burke: ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ I started hearing from all these people who were passionate about justice, passionate about action, passionate about changing the world.

  Something had started to awaken within me. All I had done until now was not enough. This issue would not go away; it followed me around like a shadow. A friend of mine years later told me that he saw within me a ‘pure, naive spirit that wanted to change the world’. Everyone I spoke with knew that something had gripped me. Even some of my vocal coaching students had to stop me mid-modern-slavery-flow to ask, ‘Do you mind if we do some singing now?’ But at this stage, that ‘pure and naive spirit’, lacked purpose. There was an abundance of passion but no purpose, no plan.

  Deb and I had been invited to speak at a conference in Bangor, Northern Ireland. I say ‘conference’: there were 40 people, so more a weekend away. Even so it was a sell-out, and I wasn’t used to writing a message. Nowadays I know people who spend hours and hours preparing this type of talk. They carefully craft each sentence in order to encapsulate the essence of the message they want to get over. Now, through blood, sweat and tears (and many good friends pushing my pen down to paper!), I may have got a bit better at writing a message, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this book. But at that time, that talk, that was just not me. I would write three words. Three. Words. Then I would talk around them.

  Deb, on the other hand, was different. She had already prepared her script and, stupidly, I had a look at it before we spoke. It was a couple of days before we were due to do the talks and when I read her message, I was blown away. It was incredible. She had crafted something outstanding. Naturally I’d love to tell you I rushed towards her saying: ‘Well done sweetheart’ or ‘I am so blessed to be married to such a gifted communicator’. I didn’t. All I could think was: ‘It’s better than mine.’ In fact it wasn’t just better, it was on an entirely different level. Think of Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream. It’s amazing: caramel, marshmallows, chocolate – the works. That was Deb’s talk. Now think of a bog-standard supermarket value brand ice cream, more ice than cream. That was my talk. The cheap alternative. I had to do something about it.

  I got a deckchair and headed to the beach. That might sound like a glamorous solution, but remember this is Northern Ireland! The beach was rocky. And it was cold. Not just normal cold, it was Northern Ireland cold. So there I am (with a woolly hat on), and I’m seething, seething at my wife’s brilliance! ‘Right, Ben’, I thought. ‘You need a message. A message that will transform people’s lives.’ Then I thought what I really meant: ‘Ben, you need to write a better talk than Debbie’s!’

  ‘Help! Help!’ Somewhere further down the beach I heard a voice shouting,

  ‘Shut up’, I thought. ‘I’m trying to write a talk here.’

  The voice repeated, ‘Help! Help!’

  ‘Shut up’, I thought again.

  Then it happened. I don’t profess to hear the voice of God audibly on a regular basis. In fact this may have been the one and only time in my life. But for me it was at that moment that I heard God say: ‘I hope this is not a picture of the church: millions of people trapped in slavery and crying out for help, and you are so bothered about crafting the perfect talk, building a platform and being better than your wife.’ You see the Jesus of the Bible is about the poor, about the marginalized, about the oppressed. If Jesus had been sitting on that deckchair and heard the cry of ‘Help!’, he would have stood up and gone to find that person. He would have gone to give that person peace, love, hope and restoration.

  I walked away from the beach that night with an urgency. Not just an urgency to be passionate, to be restless, but an urgency that the church and other communities should be an answer to that voice. It was at that moment that, in my mind, I saw an arena. I had a vision of gathering some friends, of booking an arena and telling the church about modern-day slavery. It was a big vision, and one that for a 26-year-old with very few connections and even less experience would rely on that ‘pure, naive spirit’ my friend talked about. But as may be clear by now, my mind tends to go to the big places. So when I first saw that arena, I wasn’t surprised by its size. I was, however, surprised by i
ts purpose. For one of the first times in my life my ‘big idea’ wasn’t floating on unbridled passion, it was anchored by purpose: a purpose to help people find freedom.

  Deb and I came back from Northern Ireland and immediately invited Rob and Marion over for lunch. We couldn’t shake the feeling that perhaps if they, with all of their church connections, with all of their years of pastoral leadership and all of the people they’ve met along the way, could gather all those people, we might be able to inspire them to get involved in this cause. And that together we could make a difference. Perhaps if we had an event and just invited as many churches as would come to rally people, we could inform them, talk to them about the issue, tell them the things that we’d learnt. The issue of human trafficking was so huge, so appalling that it felt too big. But drawing people together to talk about it? That felt within our reach. Talking to Rob and Marion was our next step. They had vast experience of running big events but more importantly, they had incredible wisdom, wisdom we would desperately need if my vision was to become a reality.

  I approached Rob and Marion after church and said we’d really like to talk to them about an idea. We invited them round for Sunday lunch and began to share our thoughts. At this point I was feeling pretty relaxed about it all. Usually I’m mildly intense because that’s just my nature; in fact the intensity has only increased over the years! But at this point I was relaxed because although I had had the vision, I thought I would tell them and they would just take it on and I’d have nothing more to do with it. Job done.

  ‘So I’ve had this vision of an arena’, I began.

  ‘What?!’, they perhaps unsurprisingly said in reply. Rob and Marion were definitely taken aback. You could see in their faces that what I’d just announced was a surprise. But they were not dismissive.

  Together, Deb and I continued: ‘You guys have all these contacts and we have this passion for worship, and maybe we can help with that, but what do you guys think about doing something, getting a venue somewhere, having an event in aid of this cause?’ We talked about inviting some prominent leaders; talked about inviting people who could bring people not in ones and twos but as a crowd; talked about getting as many people there as possible and then empowering them to go back to their own communities and begin to do something.