CAPE TOWN, South Africa–“This has not been an easy day. It won’t be an easy night,” said Valdir Steuernagel, a moderator at the Lausanne Congress’s Tuesday evening session. He wasn’t kidding about that! Congress participants at Cape Town 2010 heard reports Tuesday on human slavery, human trafficking, AIDs, genocide, caste discrimination and other vital issues that are crying for an appropriate response from the global church.

Reconciliation was the topic of the day, and imparting Jesus Christ’s love to a broken world was the subject.

Participants heard several speakers reiterate that there are 27 million people enslaved today, most of them in India.

Pranitha Timothy of International Justice Mission told of her recent involvement in rescuing entire families from slavery after she became aware only eight years ago that many of the poor in her country are not just poor, but are enslaved by others.

“The sale of human beings is the second largest (after drug trafficking) and fastest growing black market worldwide today,” she said.

Joseph D’souza decried the caste system in India that has essentially dehumanized 250 million Dalit people. “Nothing but the concerted attention of global church will bring down the last slavery on earth – the caste system,” he said. D’souza is the President of the International Dalit Freedom Network.

A Palestinian woman and Israeli man shared the podium to talk about the desperate need for reconciliation between their people. Dan Sared said, “When Palestinians and Israelis can say, ‘I love you in Jesus name,’ the world will see the powerful reconciliation of the Good News.”

Anton Rutayishike, who is helping his country Rwanda recover from the 1994 genocide spoke at a press conference of the church’s delayed response and even complicity, “Some people went to church in morning and went to killing in the afternoon!” Can this be?

Testimonies from two AIDs victims, a woman who contracted it in childhood from her parents and a man who was diagnosed while in seminary studies, called participants to minister to the millions of people suffering not only with the disease, but with the associated stigma.

Doug Birdsall, executive chair of the Lausanne Movement, said late last week, “We are not meeting to have 10 days of happy talk.” He wasn’t kidding either!