By Kevin Austin
Jodie can feel the tension in the air. Her father is shouting at her mother now. Pressure like an approaching thunderstorm grows in the house. From the fragile safety of her room, she can hear the smashing of plates. More yelling. Darkness and threatening destruction.
The police arrive. More shouting and noise. Someone called the cops. She can hear her father struggling, her mother crying. A police officer knocks and enters her room. Jodie’s taken. Hands firm, direction clear. No kindness, no meanness, just efficiency.
Jodie sits in a stark hallway waiting for she is not sure what. Her chair is hard. The lights are bright. A bad painting of a waterfall is hung on the wall, slightly crooked. Where is her mother? What happened to her father? Did she somehow cause all of this? Was it the cutting? She is hungry and a little cold. She would like to be in her room with her music and books.
A woman with a kind smile opens a door next to the crooked waterfall and invites Jodie to join her. This woman looks tired. Her name is Kim. She says she’s a social worker and wants to help. After an hour or so, Jodie returns to the stark hallway and waits. She’s still hungry. She’s still a little cold.
Now a woman approaches her and says she will be taking care of Jodie. That’s all she’s ever wanted — someone to care. Her mom loves her, she thinks. Her dad treats her like just another problem in a long list of problems. He has told her she is worthless, but she doesn’t think that’s true, but maybe.
There’s a boy at school who tells her she is beautiful, that she could be a model. She likes him. He cares for her. They have kissed and made out a few times. She wants to run away with him. He wants her to try some drugs that will help her escape even for just a short time. He buys her nice things. He’s older, but she likes him. She’s not sure what will happen next. She would like to run away.
This is how human trafficking begins: people in trouble. People who simply want to live, to be loved, to belong, but finding the opposite. Vulnerability. People preying on the vulnerable, wanting to take advantage. An estimated 60% of men and women involved in the sex trade in the United States at one time were in the child welfare system.[1]
Moved by Love (and Anger)
What do we do about this?
We call our pursuit of justice “love-driven justice.” We love. We love everyone: youth in trouble, abusers, mothers doing their best, fathers who are out of control, social workers, foster parents, sex workers, johns, and the police overworked and constantly under attack. We love. Our posture isn’t sentimental. Our love affirms that each person — regardless of their actions, beliefs, and more — are created in the image of God. Each person deserves respect and love regardless of what they’ve done or how we feel about them. If God is love, then when we love, we act as God’s representatives. As Mark Heard sings, “Love is not the only thing, but it’s the best thing.”[2]
Love breaks in and through. We were created to love and be loved, and this is one of the fundamentally broken aspects that lead to injustice and things like trafficking. By loving, we address a genuine, real problem. Our love offers hope and healing. Our love redefines reality.
But we do more than love. We get angry. Love and anger are E-motions. They are energy in motion. They move us. We love, and that moves us to reach out, to embrace, to forgive, to protect. Our righteous anger also moves us to do all we can to protect the vulnerable. Our love is not passive; neither is our anger.
If we can’t get angry about abused children, we are lost. Indifference is not an option.
And while we love and get righteously angry, we also get smart and strategic. We unite with others, asking good questions and networking. We pray and learn, dialogue and serve. God shows up, and before you know it, there is strategic momentum toward a transformational work.
While the above story is fictitious, it is real. So is the Set Free Movement’s love-driven determination to come alongside, to protect, and help in ways that make sense. We work at being smart and strategic.
Camille with team and social workers.
Fostering Hope
Our Set Free leader in Seattle, Camille, leads a team of super volunteers from First Free Methodist Church and interns from Seattle Pacific University. They run a program called Fostering Hope, which provides tangible help and support to foster children, families, social workers, and youth that have aged out of foster care. The program is called Fostering HOPE for a reason. There is hope.
Our leader in Hungary, Zsusza, leads her team into state-run homes for children who have been neglected and abused. I’ve been in one of these homes. The social workers are doing the best they can, but too many boys age out and join gangs. Too many girls age out and become sex workers. Can we intervene? Can we support the social workers and love on the children to such an extent that some change can come about? Yes. We can. We must.
Camille with youth.
Our Thrive leaders in Kenya, Yvonne and Lillian, mentor young women. In 2024, they mentored more than 100 women! One time, I visited a sprawling slum with them and sat in a dimly lit room and listened to some of these young women tell me their dreams. One wants to be a doctor. One wants to be a teacher. One had a young child whom I thought was a younger sibling. No, it was her child — children having children.
Hear these words from 1 John 3:10,18:
“This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does
Camille with interns.
not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister. … Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”
In the breaking of our hearts for these and others like them, love is breaking through. Allow your heart to be broken. Allow love to move you closer to God and to those who are desperately searching for hope and healing. Together, we are agents of hope and healing.
- You can learn more about the Set Free Movement and how we are ending human trafficking and creating new futures HERE.
- Learn more about human trafficking HERE and HERE.
- Write to me: HERE. I would love to interact.
- Please consider supporting this vitally important work with a financial gift today: HERE
[1] ncjfcj.org/webcasts/the-disturbing-connection-between-foster-care-and-domestic-child-sex-trafficking/
[2] Mark Heard, “Love Is Not the Only Thing” from the album “Second Hand,” 1991.
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Kevin Austin, D.Min., is the founder and director of the Set Free Movement. He is also a Free Methodist elder and the author of “Set Free: A Guide to Pursuing Liberation in an Age of Bondage.”
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