Greetings,

Several weeks ago, I posted an article called, “Protecting Children”.  In this article I wrote about the numerous ways in which our children are being exposed to: beatings, school shootings, child trafficking and general abuse at home.   Within the depths of this article and research it was painful to read of all the suffering our children are enduring at the hands of adults on a daily basis.  And what’s even more painful is how little we have done in this country to eliminate these child travesties.

On July 4^th of this year, a movie was released called, “The Sound of Freedom”.  This was a movie directed and co-written in 2018 by Alejandro Monteverde and is based on the true story of Tim Ballard, who was played by Jim Caviezel (the actor who played Christ in Mel Gibson’s’ “Passion of the Christ”), a former government agent who embarks on a mission to rescue children from sex traffickers in Colombia.  The movie was originally owned by Fox studios and when Disney bought Fox Studios, the film was shelved and didn’t make it to the big screen.  When Angel studios discovered the film, they proceeded to do a crowd-funding to raise the funds to purchase the film from Disney and produce it.  With the help of Elon Musk and the social media platform, Twitter, enough synergy was created for Angel studios to make the purchase.  The film opened this month to large crowds of movie viewers.  I searched several places for tickets and most were sold out or front row seats only were left.  A big part of the problem for the film, was finding enough theaters that would show the film as they are controlled by Hollywood production companies.

While searching for tickets and reading comments from viewers, there was a post that suggested if you didn’t get to the film that you might want to watch, “The Fight Against Worldwide Child Slavery and the Sex Trade” hosted on Jordon Petersons’ YouTube channel.  This is a podcast interview by Jordan with guests, Tim Ballard who is the real-life inspiration for the movie and Jim Caviezel who portrays him in the movie.  I wasn’t sure what to expect from the podcast and I surely didn’t expect to feel the emotion that was projected from listening to these two men discuss their work.  The spiritual dimension these two individuals displayed, believe and voiced was piercing to my soul.

Of all the things said within the podcast, the one statement that stood out and took my breath away, was made by Tim Ballard as he quoted the response his wife gave him when he asked her if he should give up his current job with the DHS at the government, literally walking away from his pension at DHS, as he was days away from retiring, in order to stay in Haiti and rescue the children he saw there.  The DHS wanted him to come home and leave the children to their own fate.   Tim and his wife have six children and his wife’s’ response was ” yes”, she felt this was a spiritual calling and he needed to stay and rescue the children.  She believed this decision might be something they’d need to reckon with later and that she would not let him jeopardize her salvation by not rescuing these children.  Thus began his new career with O.U.R., Operation Underground Railroad, which locates and rescues endangered children victimized by sex trafficking rings.

Her immediate statement that she didn’t want to meet her God and explain why she refused to take action in this situation is what really caught my attention.  I asked myself, how many times do I worry or care about what God will say when I make a decision to do or not to do something.  Do I ever worry that I might need to reckon with a decision and why I made it?  I might worry about how the decision will affect my family, my finances, my health, or my security.  His wife stated that she didn’t care if they lost everything and needed to sleep in a tent, he needed to do this.  For me, this is definitely called, trust in God.  I think it’s easy sometimes to say we trust in God, but how far does that go?  It probably doesn’t go past still being able to live in my house and have food and comfort.  As I reflect back I can remember times that I failed to offer support to someone, as I didn’t have the time or money to spend.  But yet, I still had time to go to out for coffee.  And these are all little things.  If I can’t even do the little things, what chance do I have of trusting in the bigger ones.  It’s hard to let go of what we have and actually trust God in the unknown.  Patience has never been my strong point, and a lot of that is needed if one is going to turn their life over to God.  God doesn’t always seem to be on my time schedule.  Sometimes days, weeks or months go by before I might begin to see conclusions to events that I felt could have been fixed immediately if done my way.  But my way is not always the way of God.   My way may not fulfill all the dreams that God has for me, as I didn’t give God a chance to work in my life.

There is good and evil in the world and I feel many times today that evil is working overtime to spread it’s thoughts, actions and words into the world.  It tries to make us fearful and then we will choose the easy way and forget to trust God.  I’ve done this many times over.  Afraid to spend money for fear of being without, afraid to say something as I might lose a friend, afraid to let my actions show that I’m a person of faith.  Is that Trust?  Afraid to fail so I never begin.  So many instances over and over.  And so many times I let this evil lead me to bad decisions, as its often a carrier of fake news, rumors, cutting people down, pushing me to do it my way and not always in a good way!

The example of a Tim Ballard who risked everything and the words of  Jim Caviezel who voiced in the podcast that he would give his life today if he thought it would stop the child trafficking speak loudly to my soul.  We’re asked as Christians many times, would we die for our faith?  Words for me to contemplate.  How will I reply when God asks, and do I want to reckon with my choices?

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6

If you’re interested in finding ways to work towards elimination of child trafficking, here are some websites to review and see if something speaks to you.

1. Operation Underground Railroad
2. The Dressember Foundation
3. Save the Children Foundation
4. S. Department of State
5. unicef

I leave you with a wonderful song from Lauren Daigle, “Trust in You”.  Enjoy and trust in the word of the Lord.