November 10th, Manchester: New Hope Community Church with Pastor Ezequias Santos was one of our favorites for freedom and worship. We danced and jumped and enjoyed God’s goodness. Carl Tinnion gave another powerful message, and we felt we were a prophetic voice in that community.

November 11th, Leeds:  Getting up to the North was fun for me because it’s more familiar terrain and it feels more homey. We had a nice kebab with the YWAM Leeds team and a  bit of a break that afternoon before our venue. We had a fantastic night with the youth at Bridge Street Church in the centre of Leeds. Dan Baumann joined us that evening and gave a powerful message about how missions comes out of a response to the love of God. We were all so moved to hear his powerful story of God’s goodness to him while he was imprisoned in Iran.

November 12th: We visited Easington Lane Apostolic Church between Durham and Newcastle. The presence of God was so strong the whole evening as we shared our hearts with a small congregation there. 

November 13th:  This Sunday morning we visited Elim Pentecostal Church in York. We were really blessed to have such a youthful and international gathering at the church and a wonderful lunch together with the Elim congregation. That afternoon we made our way to St. Michael Le Belfrey for the Grace and 7 congregations…two services and our “finale” to the tour. This was by far our favorite night of the tour, especially at the 7. The energy and anticipation in the room was electric and it felt like the roof was going to come off the church from the roar in the congregation. Some people told me it was the best service they had ever seen at St. Michael Le Belfrey. I felt very privileged that the leadership of the church trusted us with the services and gave us room to “go for it” but I have to say that this church has been a real blessing to me personally in York and I have nothing but respect for the leadership.

To read more updates from the Trumpet Tour, click here.

With so little time to plan an alternative venue, I was devastated. I just cried.

I asked people to pray and began making inquiries. I must have asked about 20 people but nothing was moving. I was wonderfully surprised when Emma, a girl I mentor in York, told me she thought I should come to her home church in the Wirral. I could feel the anticipation and faith rising in my spirit.

Emma referred me to Christine, a youth pastor at Emma’s church, Christ the Good Shepherd, and I could sense right away it was the perfect venue for us. Things fell into place and the leadership agreed to let us come to the church.

Then a few days later I was praying for the church and I began to write a song for that night. These words came out:

“Verse 1:

I was made for more than this

I was made to fly

I was made for greater thing—

To spread my wings and touch the bluest sky…

Bridge:

Jesus, I want to see who you are

Show me the way

Show me my part

Jesus I want to be where you are

Show me the way to touch your heart

Chorus:

And I’ll go where you want me to go

I’ll pray for your kingdom to come

I’ll go just as long as I know

You are here,  I am not alone

I’ll go where you’re going

I’ll say what you’re saying

I’ll be what you’re calling me to

Trust you with my whole life too…”

Verse 2:  I was made to see the heavens

I was made for life

I was made to live forever

To feel Your love in the pleasure of Your smile…”

I sang the song for the first time with Emma and the Trumpet Tour band at the Wirral meeting Maged Kalta preached. Over 120 people were there, mostly between ages 11 to 18. One young man, who wants to go into the marines, was crying because he was so touched during the response time.

Maged had encouraged us to obey God the way Moses obeyed God even though he felt inadequate and unable to do it.

Christine said the youth group has a phrase they have been using recently: “availability, not abilities.” Maged mentioned this several times in his sermon and the young people were a bit amazed at how God was speaking and confirming things to them and how this fit into the rhythm of where they are. As a team we had prayed for the evening and felt the youth were going to be the ones leading the church. Christine was so encouraged by that.

The conversations and prayer times that followed the service were impacting. Christine showed me a text she got from one of the kids who she said was “on the fringe” and it said “Thanks for tonight. It really changed my thinking.” Christine was so excited that God had reached this young boy.

Many of our team were talking and praying with people who lingered, wanting prayer, well into the night. People kept thanking us for coming and for the special song. The vicar of the church said it was the right timing for us to come as they are in the middle of the series about “stepping out of the boat.” 

To read more updates from the Trumpet Tour, click here.

I had no contacts, no team members, no money and no idea how to start planning the tour.
All I had was the peace that this was the right decision and the “green light” from my leaders to go ahead with it. There were moments when I had to ask the question Loren Cunningham, YWAM’s founder, asked many years ago: “Is that really you, God?”

Believing God every step of the way was not easy, but I have to say I am by nature a risk-taker and I like challenges. So I went for it…even if at times I had to question why I would create so much work for myself!

But God was faithful to guide me to the right places. One morning I woke up from a dream with a sense from God, “You need to go to Holmsted Manor (one of our larger YWAM bases in the south) and recruit for the tour.” That day I began to write e-mails back and forth with the leaders there to organize a time I could drive down there from York…a good four and a half hour drive. In the end, half my team came from Holmsted Manor, including my amazing co-leader, Gary Morgan, who has trained up the communications team and organized services for us. The team has experienced incredible unity and an easy family feel. I couldn’t have asked for a better team.

Now we are more than half way through the tour, and I am so pleased with the results. The birth pangs, contractions, and the final push to get things moving all feels worth it now that I can see the fruit and how blessed the churches have been by our coming. The team was buzzing last night with all the great conversations we had.

Yesterday morning we were at Plume Avenue United Reformed Church in Colchester where we are being hosted three nights (November 5-8). Last night we had our largest audience with 110 people from Kingsland Church, a congregation that meets over an Aldi Supermarket in town. Carl Tinnion was speaking all day and encouraging the team in Colchester. He did a remarkable job in bringing across a missions message that was accessible to all ages and every denomination.

In the morning an older man came to him and said, “Would you pray for me? I can tell you are a man who is positive towards the elderly.” Carl had just shared a message about his parents getting a missions call in the advanced years of their lives. Many of the older people in the congregation felt affirmed and renewed in their vision for what God could do in their lives.

I had a chance to encourage to 13-year-old girls about our summer outreach program for youth as well as DTS. In the evening several of the team spoke to young people about DTS and were amazed at how touched people were by the program. People stayed and chatted for a long time after the service.

To read more updates from the Trumpet Tour, click here.

We arrived in Taunton very focused as the DTS trainees and some of the core team walked and prayed in the city and enjoyed the hospitality of St. James Church in Taunton Keith and Melanie Whitaker, who are beginning a YWAM work in Taunton, organized all our food and accommodation and general promotion for the event in the town.

The audience in Taunton was a bit older but even so people were very encouraged about how God could use them. Hannah, an 18-year-old trainee on the DTS, spoke to a man in his 60’s who had been with YWAM and wanted to go back to Uganda. Hannah was able to pray for the man and encourage him.

Gonzalo, who is 21, talked to a woman who said to him, “All my life I was taking care of children, but I was so encouraged because of what you were sharing with us…that God could use me at my age.” There were many good conversations going on throughout the night about who God is and what He can do, and I wish I could convey the excitement from the team as a whole.

This was the last night of the tour for the DTS trainees and staff from King’s Lodge, and we said goodbye to the team on the morning of Nov. 4 as we thanked God together for all He had done. The group expressed regret that they could not keep going to more churches with us, but were excited to go to the DTS gathering in London, where over 200 YWAM trainees were expected together.

“I thought this whole week was going to be exhausting,” said Magda from Austria, “but I was so blessed every time we worshiped and prayed.”

After our goodbyes, the core team drove four hours to Cambridge. One of our cars got stuck in traffic behind an accident and it took them almost eight hours to arrive at our venue! They arrived just as we were meant to be starting. Unfortunately they had all our instruments so it was a flurry of trying to set things up at 7 p.m. and we had a late start 15 minutes later. Even so the night was full of the sweet presence of God. John Peachey led a DTS of 40 people from Harpenden to Cambridge for the day and his group were really touched by the worship and the message.

To read more updates from the Trumpet Tour, click here.

“I’ve never seen so many happy people. Why are you all so happy?” one of the young people at Milton Baptist church in Weston-Super-Mare told one of our team members.

Last night the Trumpet Tour team had a fantastic time in this coastal city of just over 70,000.

After almost four hours on the road from Romford, the DTS were up for a little adventure. Connie Taylor taught some basic principles of evangelism before the school hit the streets of the town in order to talk about Jesus with the locals. The students had a great time and several good conversations. Connie talked with a skater to wanted to follow Jesus and prayed with him to live for God right there on the streets! We were all rejoicing when we heard the news.

The evening meeting was powerful during worship when Edi from Germany shared the story of how he came to know the love of God. As a teenager he was invited to church to play electric guitar on the worship team even though the band knew he hated God and believed church was a prison. His church just continued to love him and invite him into meetings unconditionally. He was so amazed at this kind of love that he wanted to know Jesus personally. Edi shared that everyone can come to Jesus as they are.

The youth were visibly touched by Edi’s testimony and Connie’s radical stories of faith as she shared the “Call of the Wild.” One of the staff said she could see faces changing during the service. Connie’s message was essentially calling people to live for more than IPOD’s, video games, “steak” and good living, and material wealth. She was calling all of us to live for the great adventure of following God.

After the service Connie and James went over to talk to the youth and continued to share stories about their experiences in China. Connie also shared England’s great heritage of sending missionaries to the nations and the inheritance of all the people who have gone before them. The youth were all so hungry to be a part of it that they allowed several from the team to pray for them. James said it was like a “commissioning” time for them. The youth are planning a trip to Uganda later this year.

The youth leader told me privately that these youth are not normally excited about church and he told me he has been trying to challenge them to get baptized. He was amazed that they were so excited about a missions message.

The DTS is continuing to have lectures this morning as the “core” team for the tour processes program details and how to make things even better in terms of our communication and message.

I have to say I have not seen such a great DTS in a long time. They are completely available and ready to do whatever is needed and they are such an enthusiastic group of worshipers, ready to pray when the need arises and displaying great attitudes. It’s obvious to me God hand-picked this group to be on tour.

The over-all feeling is positive and full of faith for the next leg of the journey.

To read more updates from the Trumpet Tour, click here.

As I was chatting to one of the elders of the church, Emo, who is originally from Nigeria and moved to the UK 10 years ago, he said that he feels the UK brought the gospel to Africa and that it was their responsibility to bring the gospel back to this nation. Emo said his hometown honours the missionary Mary Slessor and her work amongst Nigerians to abolish the practice of killing twin babies. He said he was so blessed to hear Connie share about this woman’s life and work in Nigeria. Emo has visited Mary’s grave in Nigeria.

We held three services at the Apostolic church on Saturday evening, Sunday morning and Sunday evening. The services went from two hours to three and a half hours long. On our last night, we just kept worshiping God and there was an altar call for healing. Trainees from the Discipleship Training School were filled with faith after a weekend full of encouraging teaching from Connie. “Living by faith is not living in unreality,” Connie said. “It is facing the facts and saying ‘God, you are bigger than that!’”

Connie had been sharing about the father of faith, Abraham, and how he believed in hope against hope that Sarah would have a child when her womb was “beyond dead.” The messages of the weekend were essentially “Nothing is impossible for God.”

After the Sunday morning meeting, one church member told us, “I’m not leaving until the next meeting begins.” She waited in the church for hours because she was so touched at the Sunday morning service where one of the DTS students, Carissa, shared how she was healed of cancer as a child. She had the disease at age 11 and suffered for a couple of years before God healed her at a youth camp. She testified powerfully to the fact that God is able to do more than we think or imagine.

Another young DTS staff, Phil from the UK, shared miraculous stories of healing while he was in Uganda where someone was healed of malaria, and praying for healing in Spain. He said, “The same God that was in Africa is here in Europe!”

Connie preached about God being a covenant God. She shared some of the church history of England, and talked about God re-opening the wells of revival in the nation. The Apostolic church finds its roots in the Welsh Revival and revivalist Evan Roberts who is renowned for waiting on the Holy Spirit and maintaining a sensitivity to the Spirit of God. In our worship times we felt that same sweet sensitivity to wait for God.

The school leader for the DTS, Matt Partington, said to me, “It’s interesting how you never know what to expect. I didn’t realize we would be so blessed just to worship God here.” The worship times have been powerful.

There has been unbelievable unity amongst all the team members and people can be found praying in twos and in groups regularly. I have to say this is the most loving and unified team I have ever been a part of and feel very privileged to work with these people.

To read more updates from the Trumpet Tour, click here.

The team hopes to “sound a trumpet” as a kind of wake up call to the church here in England. Biblically speaking, the trumpet was used to gather people, to announce God’s power, to rouse people to fight, and to prepare people for battle. There is a sense of that the church in England is gathering and networking with new and unprecedented unity. It seems God is getting the church ready for another move of God and this is just the right season to call people into what God is already doing.

It is the message of Youth With A Mission to call people to know God in intimacy and then go forth to share this message with a world in desperate need of Jesus.

For the first week of the tour, the “core” team of 11 will be joined by 15 trainees and staff from The King’s Lodge who will help to pray and intercede for churches, set up for the tour at each location, and be available to share their testimony of God’s goodness. Connie Taylor is the guest speaker visiting from Cambridge and traveling with the team to spread a fiery message of God’s call to burn like never before for Jesus.

The team began the tour in Nuneaton at Lifechurch Friday night, and will continue the tour Saturday and Sunday at The Apostolic Church in Romford.

A part of this series, we will have perspectives from Lisa Cuellar, who is leading the YWAM England Trumpet Tour.

Lisa’s Take

I have never done anything like this. I began planning the tour about eight months ago, and I am a bit amazed at how God has brought things together. The last three days here at the Lodge we have been working 11 hour days together, getting ready for the tour, doing team building, communication training and band rehearsals. I think the team is a perfect mix because we have the “know God” part of YWAM’s motto represented in what the worship team is doing to call people to intimacy and we have the “make him known” part being communicated through the communication team.

My team is a mix of people with varying degrees of missions experience. I have people from age 21 to 45 on the team and it seems to be a perfect fit of giftings and teamwork. Gary Morgan has been heading up the “communication” team that are doing the main MC and media parts of the tour, including testimonies and creative intercession. I have been working with the worship team to get ready to make the worship something that is accessible and challenging that will also reveal God’s heart for people and the lost. In just three days there is a huge sense of family. I am loving every minute of this.

Tonight I got to a pray with a 22-year-old man named Pete. He was so moved by the worship and Connie’s challenge to be “wild” for Jesus that he is seriously thinking of doing a Discipleship Training School, because he said to me, “I can tell you all have something I need…”

God is at work.

“We really learned about God’s authority and power in a realm that sometimes we’re not very aware of ourselves,” said Hayley Bullen, who organized the booth. “Over six days, we prayed for about 400 to 500 people at the stand, gave away over 100 Gospels of John, referred about 200 people to the Alpha course, saw numerous physical healings, and watched as seven people made a decision to follow Jesus.”

It was easy to point people to Jesus, said team member Seth Dunham, because so many people at the festival were open about where they were on their spiritual journey.

“One of my favorite times was talking with a Reiki healer. She was telling me about how she talked to angels, and I asked her if she would like to go straight to the source and talk to God. She said OK, so we sat there and listened, and she got to hear God for herself,” he said.

In an environment thick with various spiritual beliefs, God made his voice clear to the team, and to those who came to the booth for prayer.

“Several people asked, ‘How did you do that? How did you get that information about me?’ And we were able to tell them it was God,” said Phil Manning.

A large number of people who came for prayer commented on the peaceful feeling they had upon entering the stand. Others saw visions and heard words while they were being prayed for.

Dondi Carter recalls an encounter she had with a woman named Dena*: “I got a really clear picture in my mind of her surrounded by boxes. She was crying out for help, and didn’t know where to go. It turns out her entire house is filled with boxes right now as she’s divorced. I really felt like God was just saying that He loved her. She said she wanted that ability to just talk to God like we were doing. She said, ‘Wow, I wish I had that!’ We told her, ‘Guess what? You can have it!’ We prayed with her and she accepted Christ! As she was leaving, she said, ‘For 8 or 9 years I have been searching for something, trying all these different things. Who would have thought that the answer was so simple as Jesus?’”

Bullen said the incredible response was a result of lots of prayer and reflection on what God wanted for this year’s festival.

“Spiritually, a lot of prayer went in to this time. We didn’t want to assume that God was going to do the same thing He did last year. We didn’t want to barge ahead with what we knew how to do,” Bullen said.

From the practical side, the team needed a larger booth to be able to offer more prayer, and more signage to show people what was being offered..

“We decided to take a step of faith and book a bigger stand, which was twice the price,” Bullen said.

Another need was follow-up, a place to point people who were interested in learning more about Jesus and Christianity.

“This year we partnered with Alpha [course], who allowed us to put their Website on our contact cards,” Bullen said. “We also knew we needed Bibles, or a portion of the Bible to give away. We ended up giving away over 100 Gospels of John, not just to anyone, but to people who really wanted them.

“I think this year, we came better prepared, and it proved to be really powerful,” she said.

Despite the many healings and words of knowledge that the team received throughout the festival, the most powerful thing was seeing God’s love for the festival goers.

“I got to see how much God loves people, and how He chases after them,” Dunham said. “No matter how many times I prayed for people, and got all these incredible words, in the end, I just felt God saying over and over how He loved people, and wanted a relationship with them. So many great things happened, but in the end, it was simply, ‘I love you.’

I had no idea how long I would be there, so I just trusted God from day to day. I had no idea what Haiti would be like, but I knew God called me there, so I was going to be obedient and just trust him. The first week I was there, I had a divine appointment with a local Haitian named Wesner. He wanted to show me around town and take me to the local market, so I went with him.

As it turned out, he knew everyone. His friendship opened a door for me to minister to everyone in the town. I started playing basketball on a local team with Wesner, and every single day I went to practice, God brought people to me to talk about my faith in Christ. I got to share with lost people and other local Christians in Montrouis about having a relationship with Jesus and how God looks at our hearts.

It was a God thing for sure, and I know the Holy Spirit was just giving me words to say to each person that I talked with. After basketball practice we would go and hang out in downtown Montrouis, and Wesner would introduce me to people. I got to share the love, grace, and forgiveness of Christ with them. I built real relationships — hanging out with them, laughing, dancing  — whatever I could do to tell them about Jesus. It was definitely out of my comfort zone, but I knew I had to be obedient to what God was telling me to do.

I lived about 40 miles from Port-au-Prince. We were shaken, but not stirred by the earthquake. I was actually playing basketball up the street with some locals when it happened, and it was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced. By God’s grace, no one here was hurt. We had no cell service, though, so we couldn’t call to let everyone know we were okay. There was extensive damage in Port-au-Prince and other areas.

In Port-au-Prince, and other areas, the destruction was massive. Buildings collapsed and killed many, and many more were missing. Some people that work on our campus in Montrouis lived in Port-au-Prince in the area that was hit the hardest. Without cell phone communication after the earthquake, they were not able to get through to their families and only could listen to local radio talk about the thousands of homes that had collapsed. We spent the night in prayer and prepared to take them to search for their families first thing the morning after.

As we made our way to Port-au-Prince, it was clear that we were in for a tough day. We were able to pick our way through streets strewn with debris and power lines. Every hospital had closed gates and thousands of wounded and dying lay on the sidewalk outside. We stopped at one hospital to search for our friend’s wife and while we were there, we started treating people with non-life threatening wounds.

Digging chunks of cement out of gaping wounds, cleaning head wounds — the work was gruesome. One of our friends, Dr. Kerry Reeves, had a mother beg him to go and check on her little girl. When he got there, she was completely covered with a sheet. Upon pulling back the sheet, he was pretty sure she was dead — covered in flies with a gaping head wound and disfigured face. Kerry was able to find a weak pulse and get her to respond. He got the girl some water and tried to see if there was anything he could do. Unfortunately, he was only tell the family how to care for her as she waited to see if the hospital would open. Kerry prayed for her and her family and left broken-hearted.

We picked up a 12-year-old boy whose parents and friends some were carrying him down the road using a door as a stretcher. They needed a ride to the hospital. While in the back of the truck, we tried to help him but he had a major head injury and a crushed shoulder. I wept over the little guy, so broken that we couldn’t help him. I felt so burdened that we had to talk to him about his faith before he died. We got down on our knees as he looked at us through swollen eyes. He gave a testimony of loving Jesus and believing that God was waiting for him if he was to die. We prayed and wept with him. We dropped him off at the hospital and left not knowing his fate.

On the way back home, all I could do is cry. Seeing all of those dead bodies tore me up inside. All I could think was, ‘I hope they know Jesus.’ When we got home, I praised God for everything – for saving me from the earthquake, for the people we were able to help even a little. I fell asleep for about 20 minutes and got woken up by another aftershock.

We could not count the dead bodies in the streets and on the sidewalks in Port-au-Prince. Everyone was afraid to go back into the buildings, so they built sheet tents in the streets and all over parks. Many of them are still living in these conditions. One of our good friends that barely escaped before his house fell spent the night standing in a parking lot with over 2,000 other people, praying God would let them see one more day.

After the earthquake, we were doing a lot of going back and forth into Port-au-Prince with different groups from the Montrouis area, distributing food, water, clothing and toys. It was great working with everyone, being used by God, sharing his love and being the hands and feet of Jesus. We were so busy, working long days. It was so hard going back and forth, still seeing all of the people living in tents.

Haiti is in a desperate place as a nation. While aid groups provide physical help, the people of Haiti needs God’s help. They will not ever recover solely from humanistic aid. They need the transforming power that God brings. We need intercessors to come and prophetically declare God’s truth over the nation, to come and usher in His presence into the refugee tents and the rubble-covered streets.

The Red Cross is not full of the Holy Spirit. Haiti’s Civil Protection is not full of the Holy Spirit. The UN is not full of the Holy Spirit. They bring help, but not the Kingdom. Haiti will be changed as people begin welcoming in the One who can make beauty from ashes.

Philip Causey was a Discipleship Training School student at YWAM Pismo Beach in 2009. He served for several months in Haiti before and after the earthquake, and will be joining staff with YWAM Pismo in May 2010.

Interested in going to Haiti? Project Sixty One, a ministry of YWAM Pismo Beach in Central Coast, is leading teams overseas to bring aid. For more information, visit their Website. You can also follow them as a friend on Facebook and Twitter.

Cover photo courtesy of Billy Scanlan.

Dominic Laing: As far as this trip to Cambodia, how did you come to this team and this time and this place?

Holland Prior: It was a very bizarre series of events that I can only describe as, ‘This is what God had for me at this very time.’ I’ve, over the last couple of years, been getting more and more educated on human trafficking, and getting more involved in what my particular denomination, the Wesleyan Church, is doing to combat human trafficking. Back in September I went to a conference at our headquarters, human trafficking and what we as a community can do, you know, like raising awareness, education and buying products not produced by slave labor and all that kind of stuff.

So, went to that conference, met some great people. That was in September. So a couple of months later I got this mass email, I think that was sent to everyone who attended the conference, like ‘Hey, we’re taking a trip [to Cambodia] in May.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, sweet, that’d be interesting. I’ll think about that after Christmas, when I have more time.’

I thought ‘That would be fascinating,’ because WorldHope, the organization I’m traveling with, who’s affiliated with the Wesleyan Church, has been in Cambodia for a long time. They run an assessment center where they do after-care and recovery for girls pulled out of brothels. So they work closely in conjunction with International Justice Mission and other organizations that raid brothels, pulls girls out, and they give the girls to WorldHope, essentially, and WorldHope does the after-care.

Then about a week before Christmas I got an email, specifically to me, that said, ‘Hey Holland, we’ve got a last minute opening on our February team. Are you interested? And I went, ‘Well, now that’s interesting.’

Finally I connect with [the trip coordinator], and she answers my questions, and she goes, ‘By the way, if you want to go on this trip, we need your stuff, like, yesterday, because we have to purchase airfare at least six weeks out and it’s six weeks out right now.’

So, I was, I remember distinctly, I was sitting in front of my computer and just went, (claps hands) ‘Okay.’ I turned around and I asked my boss, ‘How would you feel about me taking a couple of weeks off in the middle of the school year?’

Then I went right into the process of collecting all my application materials, because WorldHope requires that you submit a few references, and get all your proof that you have all your travel documents and everything. I basically drove straight to my pastor’s house and was like, ‘Here’s a reference, fill it out while I’m watching, because I have to go fax all this in right now.’

It was pretty crazy. I was able to track down everything that I needed that day, fax it all in. I had this conversation with the lady on Friday. By Wednesday, I had a plane ticket for Cambodia.

D: Wow. Incredible.

H: I’m still…I walked around for a couple of weeks – ‘I’m going to Cambodia. What just happened?’

D: How long are you going to be in Cambodia?

H: I will be there about ten days.

D: And it’s you and who else on the trip?

H: It is me and five other women, so there’s six of us total. I don’t know any of them. They are all out of a church in Buffalo, N.Y. Their church decided to put together this team to send a team over to Cambodia to work in the center. And the reason I got called in was, I guess, initially there was, I think four, there must’ve been four, that were gonna go, and then another woman signed up. WorldHope prefers to travel in even numbers, and they didn’t find anyone else at the church who wanted to go, so WorldHope — I still don’t know to this day who at WorldHope gave them my name — but WorldHope contacted me right away and said, ‘Do you want to go?’

D: So you’re working in the center?

H: Yes. They call it the assessment center, the girls are there for, I believe, up to 60 days. They’re between the ages of 4 and 14.

D: That young?

H: Yeah.

D: Serious?

H: Dead serious.

D: I would’ve thought they were like, 12 to 18.

H: Yeah. The girls are between the ages of 4 and 14 at the center, and I believe they can house up to 50 girls, and they’re usually full. During [their time there] they call it the assessment center because they kind of assess, ‘What’s the situation?’ Does the girl have a family to go back to? If she goes back to the family, are they going to sell her again?

And then they try to decide is the girl’s family safe? Is the family the reason she was in the brothel in the first place? Did they sell her? Was she kidnapped? Or somehow, was the family tricked? You know, like, ‘Hey, I’ll take her into the city so she can go to school and whatnot.’

D: And then she disappears.

H: (nods) So they assess what to do next. Does she go back to her family? Does she go into a long-term facility where she’s given some education and taught how to make a life for herself?

D: Does the assessment center offer any medical assistance, if necessary?

H: I believe so. I don’t know as many details as I think all the women from Buffalo, because I came on so late.

D: The girls that are in the assessment center, are they mainly coming from brothels? Or is it a combination of slave labor and sex trafficking?

H: It is my understanding that this specific center is sex trafficking. So the girls are coming from brothels.

D: And ages 4 to 14?

H: (nods) Ages 4 to 14. Which breaks my heart. Absolutely. I was, like you said, expecting 12 to 18 [year olds,] but when she said, ‘Oh no, all the girls are between 4 and 14,’ I almost cried right then. Four years old?

D: In your opinion, are people in Cambodia aware of what’s happening, and are people in the United States, or in your community, aware of what’s happening?

H: I can’t really speak for Cambodia. I haven’t been there before and this will be my first time. I don’t really know what the climate is. My general impression is people know what’s going on. Because you kind of know if a girl disappears, I mean you pretty much know what happened.

D: And as far as American awareness?

H: I think Americans are woefully uninformed, unaware, blissfully ignorant, whatever you want to call it.

D: What misconceptions do you think people may have about human trafficking? Like, my thought that the girls’ ages were between 12 to 18, when in fact they were much younger.

H: I think the biggest misconception is that these girls are somehow at fault. Like, ‘Well it’s their fault. Maybe they got into debt or whatever, and they chose to be a prostitute.’ Or, ‘Well, being a prostitute’s the lifestyle they chose.’ They never chose this. I’m not saying there not prostitutes in the world who have chosen it. But girls living in brothels, who are victims, there’s no way they’ve chosen this.

The second misconception is that they stay there by choice because they’re not shackled in any way. So it’s, ‘Well, why don’t they just escape? Why don’t they go get help? Why don’t they try to make their lives better and get out of there?’ The answer is — they can’t. Because we don’t, most people don’t understand what fear can do to a person. I mean, if you’re 4 years old, and I steal you from your family — I tell your family some story about, ‘Oh, I’m gonna give you an education or whatever, and take you into the city with me…’

Once we get there, I sell you into a brothel, and then say ‘If you ever try to escape, you’re going to be arrested because you’re now a criminal. You’ll go to jail. Your parents will go to jail because they willingly let you come and do this. If you try and go back to your parents, they’re going to hate you because of what you now are.’ I mean, you are completely imprisoned. It’s just not in a physical sense. So I think that’s another big misconception that there’s something they can do about it.

And I think the third one is that there’s nothing we can do. I hear that a lot. ‘But, there’s nothing I can do about it.’ False. No, not everyone is going to go raid brothels with International Justice Mission. Not everyone is going to be traveling overseas and doing that. But newsflash: Human trafficking is in America, too. It’s no excuse to not educate yourself; to educate yourself, educate your community.

There’s a fabulous group down in Orange County out of Vanguard University. They go around to the free clinics, where they speak languages other than English a lot of the time. A pimp will hardly ever take one of his girls to a hospital if she gets sick, because the authorities might become involved. But they will take them to these free clinics where they’ll probably never see the same doctor twice, they don’t all speak English, so it’s not a huge risk. This group will go into those kind of clinics and train the staff to recognize signs of human trafficking, so they know what to look for.

D: Do you know the name of the group?

H: Sandy Morgan leads it. She’s the administrator of the Orange County Task Force for Human Trafficking. And she is also, I think, the director of women’s studies at Vanguard University. She coordinates a lot through the university and has her students go out and do a lot of this stuff.

D: Before talking to you, one of my misconceptions was the size of the problem in the United States.

H: Mine too. I would have said, ‘Well, that happens overseas.’ But that’s not true. And also, where you put your money — into the clothes you buy, the food, the products. Pay attention. Do the companies use trafficked persons? Because, human trafficking is more than sex trafficking. There’s slave labor, forced labor, bondage. I’m ashamed to even go through my closet and see that most of the stuff that I own is probably made by a slave.

I just read the latest watch-list and found out IKEA is horrendous for their use of slaves. IKEA and Hollister, and I forget the others that were on top, but I was just like, ‘Oh, gosh.’ And people are generally becoming aware of free trade coffee.

D: Right.

H: That’s kind of becoming a trendy thing. But we don’t realize the scope of it and how much of it is used, how much [clothing] is produced using slave labor. I mean, you see a nice blazer in a store, probably cost, like 60 bucks. And you’d probably think, ‘Hey, good quality, name brand, that’s a decent price. 60 bucks.’ The woman in Bolivia who produced that, probably gets paid a dollar per coat she produces and it probably takes her two days to make the coat.

D: And that dollar for the two days is all she gets?

H: That’s all she gets, and probably, she has three kids. I’m totally making up this scenario, but…

D: But it’s almost like a statistically proven hypothetical.

H: Yeah.

D: I think hearing even just a little bit of this, it’s easy to get the feeling of ‘Oh, there’s so much…again, it seems so impossible to…’

H: It’s so big, I can’t do anything.

D: Right. So where did you get the inspiration to keep going?

H: In truth, I’m still a newbie in this field. There’re people who’ve been doing this a lot longer and who know a lot more than I do.

D: Sure, but to actually say, ‘Yes, I’m going to go on this trip…’

H: Yes. The more closely I come into contact with who God is, and what God’s desire is for all of His creation, for each individual human being, the more sickened I am by things that are happening to these people. Every single person is created in the image of God. I have the image of God, you have the image of God, each person has the image of God. But also, collectively as humanity, we bear the image of God. I don’t think we fully understand what it does to us when that image is stomped on, even if it’s not personally stomped on in me. It effects us all.

D: It’s like a dedication to the image of God and to prize the image of God in other people.

H: I really truly believe we are marring and distorting something beyond what we can measure and we don’t understand the cost. We really don’t understand the cost.

When we ignore, or fail to fully understand what it means to bear the image, I mean the imago dei, the image of God within us is part of what helps us understand who God is. So if we’re not in touch with God, if we’re trampling on it, then of course we’re going to have a misunderstanding of God.

D: So what have you done in so far as preparing for this trip?

H: I found I don’t really know how to prepare. I mean I sit down and get out my journal and pray be like, ‘Okay God, how do I emotionally prepare for this?’ And then I would realize what I just said and say, ‘How do you emotionally prepare yourself to see a 4 year old child rescued from a brothel?’ I think that should shock and horrify me. I don’t think I should be prepared for that. So, beyond making sure I have bug spray and everything, I don’t know what other preparations to make.

I know I’m going into something I’m not fully prepared for, but in many ways, I think it’s good that I’m unprepared. Because I think to go and see that, I mean I don’t know what I’ll feel like after this.

For more information concerning WorldHope, please visit www.worldhope.org. For more information concerning International Justice Mission, please visit www.ijm.org.

Dominic Laing is a writer, director, editor, and anything else. He lives in Pasadena, Calif. For more of his writing, please visit www.dominiclaing.com