Shaking the Trees! - Part 1

This is Stu Epperson from the Truth Talk Podcast, connecting current events, pop culture, and theology, and we're so grateful for you that you've chosen the Truth Podcast Network.

It's about to start in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, and please share it around with all your friends. Thanks for listening, and thanks for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Previously on Lantern Rescue... Welcome to Lantern Rescue, a ministry program dedicated to bringing light into the darkness of human trafficking. It's time to light the way to freedom. This is Lantern Rescue. We tell the stories, we talk about rescues, and we empower you to do something about it.

William Wilberforce once said, let it not be said I was silent when they needed me. This is Lantern Rescue. Welcome to Lantern Rescue, and wow, we're really excited. On this particular show, we're going to introduce you to a new team member and find out some cool stuff. So Mark, share a little bit about AC.

Hey, Robbie, glad to be on the show today. We're excited to have a good friend and a person who has been in the fight against trafficking for as long as I've known him, and probably many years before that, and look forward to him even sharing, revealing more about himself. But AC and I first met in Iraq, and just looking into his life and hearing him talk, he really was that first guy that I met who had a vision of doing some really big things in hard places to rescue girls from victimization and from trafficking. And he was also the guy who was like, you know, he didn't claim any credit for anything.

He was just a guy who was saying, I want to pull together everybody that I can who has the right resources for us to combat this problem. And I think we had that first discussion in a safe house in Iraq. And just from that point, he and I have been kind of distant friends, but not so distant.

We have the same similar heart and things. And AC really came back and recently we reconnected just this week over an issue. And he's kind of an example of what Landon sometimes faces, and that is trying to help other people who are in the fight too. And AC is a guy who has his thumb on particular regions of the world, just like we do, and very aware, and he's got his network and he can share what he would like to. But he's a strong example of someone who contacts us for resources. And Landon is a group that's always ready to be on call when we need to, if that means go to that country, X, Y, Z, and see if we can bring the rescue to fruition, or if that's just support them in other ways through our network.

And he's a guy like us who's willing to do that for other people too. So AC, I'm excited to have you on the show. And I know you're a believer and you love the Lord.

I know that. I know that you've rescued a lot of kids, but maybe just tell our listeners, Robbie, all of us, just share about you and we can get into maybe how we connected this week. Yeah, Mark, thank you. I really want to meet the guy you're talking about. He sounds really awesome.

When I look in the mirror, I don't necessarily see that hero you're speaking of, but I do see him in you. You know, one of my greatest Christian heroes really never stepped up on a preaching platform. He never really was a pastor. His name was William Wilberforce, and he's historically one of the greatest influences of his era. William Wilberforce was significant after 15 years, stamping out slavery throughout the British Empire. He did a number of other things. He helped change prison reform, child labor reform throughout the British Empire. One of my true heroes, not just because he stepped up and did something in the area that we all are passionate about, but he basically let Jesus Christ ring him out like a rag in every area.

A man like William Wilberforce is a man who I want to be. I want Jesus to literally use every microscopic ounce of my life, because he put every microscopic ounce in. And because of that, I literally eat out of the hand of the Lord, and I ask of him, what's on your heart?

What's on your mind? I mean, I could go do a lot of great things based on my gifts, and in my case, lack of gifts. I could go do a lot of great Christian-ese things, like start a church or be a youth pastor or, heck, even actually be an evangelist or whatever.

But the Lord continued over the many, many years. I've been doing missionary work for 33 years. From that moment that he saved me 33 years ago, he's impressed on me three things. Number one, don't go do something and ask me to bless it. Ask me what I need you to do. Number two, listen to my heart, because I'm always emoting, and I'm always passing information from heaven. If you'll align your heart with mine, you're going to get the plan that I have for you. And number three, when I tell you what to do, you don't ask anybody.

You go do. The last command we got from Jesus was go. Go into all the worlds and make disciples, and you see the list goes on. In fact, I remember hearing this one, John. The first two letters in the word God are go, and the first three letters in the word Satan are sat. S-A-T. And God showed me, don't you dare sit on your stuff and do nothing. All of those things combined makes up the true believer. I believe. I don't know how you could say you're a true believer. And then these components or characteristics from above are not at the very least spotted in your life.

That people can accidentally catch you being like that. In Matthew 25, Jesus said, I was hungry and you fed me. And they went, when? When did we do these great amazing things for you? And he always kept pushing it back to you. When you did it for the least of me, you did it for me. I'll never forget when he showed me.

I said it would be an emotional thing. When he showed me who the greatest demographic or the leastest of least of the world was, and he showed it to me in graphic detail. And he said, the ones my heart is going after and my eyes are on are the single most desperate demographic ever.

And it's young girls who are raped 20 times a night by bad guys. And he said, the cry of these girls has come up to heaven. And so I'm sending you.

And I told him so many times, I'm sure Mark, you did this as well. I don't have what it takes. I'm not smart. I'm not gifted.

I'm not resourced. What do I do, God? And just as Moses of old, he said, just go. I'll be your voice. I'll be your, just take a step back, put the stick in the water and watch me target. And so I've lived 33 years of my life with putting a stick in water and watching God work. But primarily the last 11 years of my life, I had, I have eight kids. And my wife and I at that time, my wife has recently left me over a year ago. So I'm now a single dad.

Sorry to miss out on the radio, but that happened. And basically 11 years ago, we had moved home from India. We lived in northern India, the missionary family. We were doing the missionary thing. We were church planting, eating the hurting Dalits and all those sorts of amazing, awesome above ground things that Christians do. When we came home from India, the Lord spoke the vision called Express Missions International in my heart. And he even named it Express Missions International. And what it was is he said, I want you to change the world overnight. I said, well, gee, thanks God. That's amazingly awesome macro vision and mission, but how the heck am I going to do that? And he said, very easy. You're going to do everything you do for the indigenous networks.

In other words, you're going to pour into them. You're going to find them, discover them, live with them, cry with them, eat with them, sleep with them in their homes. And you're going to discover their mission work, and you're going to support them in their vision for their region. And so within a year, we were already in 10 countries. Two years, we were in 18 countries and God was just showing his exponential power and his rate of ministry speed is go get it now.

And so we were doing that and oh my gosh, we were doing great and everything was fine. And then he had to go and give me a mission. He just left me alone to do the Christian thing that was easy. But then he gave me a dream. And in that dream, he showed the little girls in Cajun screaming for someone to help. I woke up that morning, I was in a cold sweat and I was asking God, what does this mean?

I know you showed me a picture of this in India, but what does it mean now? And he said, I want you to go find them. This is what you're going to do for the rest of your life. Do what?

How am I going to, what am I going to do? He said, you're going to reach, rescue, and redeem these little girls and women from these bad guys. Okay, well, good luck with that, God, because remember, I told you I'm not anything. And he reminded me, I know I made you to be not so awesome, but I could use the least common denominator to change the world, which generally is his way.

As the Word of God says, he takes the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and the simple. Anyway, so he gave me that visual. Three weeks later, I get a phone call. It was a Skype call from a little internet cafe in Myanmar, outside of Yangon.

It was in Kalei State, actually, Kalei State, of Myanmar, former Burma. There's a guy by the name of Sam, and that's all the name I can give you is saying was Sam. And he asked me, he said, AC, are you serious about reaching these girls that you told me about? Because he and I had been in conversation about the mission or the dream that God gave me.

I said, absolutely, Sam, I really would love to do that one day. He said, good, I'm looking at three cattle trucks full of them right now. He said, what will you do? So, in keeping with every good Christian person, I said, well, I'll pray about it. God almost slapped me off my chair.

He said, don't pray about it. I told you to go do it. Now go help save those three cattle trucks full of girls. Again, I reminded God of how non-resourceful, how my lot, Yangon, he told me, he put his finger through his mouth and said, hush and go do it.

Long story short, before that day was up, before that day was up, we rescued 58 girls 58 girls and 21 babies from being slaughtered that day in Myanmar. And all I can say is, from that point on, I was hooked. It didn't really take that necessarily, but I knew God said, not only did you do this, but I told you, I've called you this mission. It's a mission straight from me.

Now you go do. From that point on, I literally just said, okay, God point me in the direction. Give me your divine appointments and give me your favor, your blessing, and your paved paths, moved out paths to these girls and women. Well, over a period of the next four years, 2010 through 2014, we were able to rescue 4,884 girls, all median age of 11 or 12. Some of them as young as seven, five, some of them as old as 16, all of them sold by, either sold by the parents or motorcycle parts or whatever. Many of them we rescued and we intercepted between the parents between the parents and the bad guys by paying more to the parents that were selling them than the bad guys were going to pay. In fact, in 2011, we were able to intercept parents to bad guy and ransom 3,569 girls in 2011.

All of them gave their life to Christ within a 24 hour period. I hate to jump in on this AC because it's more than compelling, but we got to go to a break. But I know every listener, so while we're at this break, I'm hoping you can, and you may not be able to tell us a lot of details, but I know everybody listening is like me, like, okay, so you got these cattle trucks full of women and they got saved, but ow! So when we come back, we're going to dig into that and see how God actually pulled this off. It's just more than compelling.

Stay tuned, sir. We got a lot more Lantern Rescue coming up. Lantern Rescue is a USA-based organization that conducts international rescue operations for people suffering from human trafficking. Lantern specializes in sending former US special operation law enforcement and intelligence personnel to partner with host nations and assist them in creating specialized units to combat ongoing security problems such as genocide, terrorism, and human trafficking.

As a nonprofit charity, they offer services free of charge to their host nations. Human trafficking has grown into the second largest criminal activity in the world, reaching an estimated $150 billion in annual activity. Lantern Rescue has developed rapidly to combat trafficking. Lantern operates through a trained international network in order to rescue women and children from sex and labor slavery and facilitates holistic aftercare services.

They're gearing up for operations right now, and you can go to lanternrescue.org to see how you can support them financially. So welcome back to another. I can't tell you what an honor it is to be able to hear these stories, share them with our audiences here on the Truth Network. I know also on the commandment radio, you guys are so blessed that God has given us this insight into what he's doing through these wonderful saints. So I don't want to take any time up because I know you're like me, you want to hear more of how all that got done specifically.

Mark? Yeah, I'm so glad AT is sharing his beginnings because for me and for all of our team, those moments are like lasting memories that are where the conviction started and the resolve to continue forward. And I'm telling you, AC, sometimes I feel alone in this world. And then there are people like you and I sit back and I'm just listening to some things I already knew about you and hearing your heart. And I don't feel so alone in the world. And I know others who have the same passion. You're inspiring them.

So man, tell us more. Yeah, the abolitionist movement has historically been one of the loneliest, one of the costliest. You just ask any abolitionist when we get to heaven, how did it go?

And they'll all say, oh, that underground ritual thing was the worst. Harriet Tubman and the list goes on. So I'm going to get up Harriet Tubman when I get to heaven first. Harriet, talk to me.

This was terrible. Why did you do it? Harriet was just like us, stupid and crazy and loved you.

And of course, there's so many more through the Holocaust time that hit Jews and all those sorts of things. All I can say, guys, is when we were working with indigenous networks, we were pouring in, we would basically that the first rescue operation, what I was tasked with was three things, getting money, going and shaking, donating trees. And I begged all my best friends and begged all my worst enemies, please, please, please give me some money. And then, you know, they trusted me, knew me.

And I am, praise God, a miracle happened, people gave. Number two, put together what's called an operational security plan. What I did was in a short period of time, and so often it happens this way, Mark knows, you don't necessarily have the luxury of a lot of time to put together every moving part and component of an offset.

You sometimes are at the mercy of time. And so you put this basic operational security plan together. And then I handed it on Skype back over to Sam and Mark. So Sam takes this, he takes this team of indigenous networks. Now you got to understand, these guys have lost their mind. They live on right, and that's it, and they're barefooted indigenous missionaries who don't give a flip about their lives.

You can read about in the book of Hebrews, they did not love their lives even unto death. Well, that's the missionaries I've been associated with, and I know Mark has been as well. These crazy and lovely people abandoned their lives to go after these girls. Now, in the cattle trucks, the AK-47 wielding bad guys went into a cantina to get washed, and that's what Sam told me.

He said they might be in there six hours, and the girls were screaming out the bars, and the peasant former villagers couldn't do anything because they were scared because they didn't have any weapons. Well, our guys went in, and somehow, some way, they were able to pull it off and go in and unlatch the cattle trucks and literally set those girls and babies free and get them to the indigenous orphanages. We were already supporting orphanages there in Myanmar, so they rushed into these orphanages. Now, they had over a hundred families, Burmese families, that were working on the front end, the middle end, and the back end of this operation. So when Sam called me, he already knew I would respond. We had eaten bread together in Myanmar, and all of his team and family knew me. If I said something, I was going to do it.

Come hook or crook. So he prepared these over a hundred families that were ready to be a part of this on the rescue side, to the receiving side, to the rehabilitation side. Those crazy indigenous missionaries pulled it off. And what then happened was a template for the next four years was set in place.

So God showed us. He said, that's what you're going to do. That's how you're going to do it. You're going to work through these indigenous networks. They're going to blow and go like crazy and come back and report. And you're going to be a part of some of these as you go over, but most of them you're just going to run from your headquarters in America.

That's what I did. For the next four plus years, I just went through these indigenous missionaries from Africa. We had an African guy named Lino, South Sudan. Lino was crazy in love with Jesus. And he actually was a former South Sudanese Liberation Army officer, turned Christian, turned renegade Christian. And he was always going back into South Sudan and liberating little girls out of there.

In fact, one time we ex-filled 19 out, just through Lino and a couple of his many Sudanese guys. And Mark kind of knows this because working with him in Iraq, he knows those indigenous guys. They know the lay of the land. They know the territory. They know the legal system. They can eat the food and drink the water.

Ten times more effective than expat guys can be, at least on the front. So that's what we did for four plus years in the next. Wow. And can I just say to our listeners, as I heard something really significant that AC said, he said he went and he shook the trees to get the fruit to come down. And, you know, if you think about what Jesus said about John the Baptist, that you come out to see a reed shaken by the wind. And it was a prophecy that's in Isaiah. He was quoting that saying, when the wind blows the trees, the fruit comes down. And this show was designed by Mark and by God, essentially, to shake our trees.

You're hearing things that you had no idea were going on. I know there was no way in my wildest dreams before I was involved with Land and Rescue that I'd ever heard of girls that were being raped time and time again, little children, and God's heart hearing that. Well, God is sharing that now because he wants to shake our tree because we all have fruit. And that fruit may be prayer, it may be amounts of money, or it may be some other way that he's put the call on your life.

So don't miss the shaking that AC is sharing here. You know, God wants us to listen. He is hearing these girls crying, and he's needing us to take part in what he's doing, the dignity of joining him in what he's doing in the kingdom. Mark, I'm sure you would have something to say along those lines.

Yes. I always marvel how much God cares for just one individual and how much he will go and do and create and cause to happen within the circumstances and his sovereignty. And there's times where you have a plan and you push along and you're unsure if God cares enough.

And then he reminds you, I absolutely do care enough. I will take 100 local people. I will take 100 people from America. I will take whatever it takes to save or rescue this one victim. This marvels, you know, it's just amazing. I'm sorry, I'm a little speechless because I have the same memories in Asia Pacific of local pastors who risk everything.

And I have the same vision in any country within the local law enforcement we work with. All of those folks who are so willing to risk life and win in a place that seems like there's no hope, you know, but they're pursuing it with all their hearts. And, you know, part of this is just, I'm just marveling at the Lord that he lets us do what we do. Yeah. And Ren, I know it's a similar thing.

He shook your tree, but good. Yeah. I think it's cool to hear and for the listeners to hear that, you know, there's so many people out there that are feeling called to help in this type of work and to really put so much effort into it and dedicate their lives to it. Yeah. So, you know, Mark, AC, how are you guys, you know, you had mentioned you'd got reconnected here recently.

Tell us what's going on now. That's hoarding a lot of years. God has used us to rescue over 11, almost 12,000 girls internationally, 500 plus domestically.

And I went in and personally got 12 out of my hometown in my area. So working with networks and going in and just flatlining for Christ. Well, one of the biggest things that in the human trafficking world, in fact, if you take slavery and if Mark forced me right now to work for him as his labor slave, that would be terrible. But when you take and you force a girl to become a sex slave, this is not only the greatest number of slaves ever in history in all of the centuries combined is going on right now, but then the kind of slavery is not work slavery only, but it's a terrible situation called sex slavery.

Now that is the worst thing you can do to someone is rape them and violate them. So one of the things we have been doing is just getting that heart of God for every case. I've worked so many cases of the youngest of the young to some of the oldest older women. The one niche that I have not yet seen being filled is this thing called forced marriages.

Sure, there's some great work out there, I just don't know of anybody doing it. And so the Lord told us, he said, you're going to get these girls who are being forced to marry these old men, old as their grandpa, and many times forced to convert. You're going to go in and you're going to build an underground railroad and get them to safety because the girls were forced by their family and by the men's family. So they were literally in a situation that they could do nothing.

If they tried to escape, they would be killed. And in many cases they are. And there's over 112,000 per year that are forced to be married to an old man against their will.

And so often the average age is 12 or 13. So in Pakistan, one of the places where we work, we have a great, amazing, connected indigenous network there that is always pursuing or slave after slave from child slavery to the brickyard to every kind of slavery. And they're going after it.

Well, they're also going after these forced marriages. Well, recently, the most recent case, the one I've talked to Mark about, was this 13-year-old girl. And this is so common, guys. You think, oh, when I tell you the story, you're going to be shocked. But then you're going to, wait a minute, it's almost like the most common practice in these terrible cultures. Well, this 13-year-old girl, going along fine, going to school, she's kidnapped, abducted, raped by a 44-year-old Muslim man. Well, she's a Christian girl in a Christian colony there in Pakistan. Well, he rapes her, and then he keeps her and tortures her, okay, and continues to rape her. So believe it or not, when he was brought to tax, high court in Pakistan ruled in his favor that he could take her as his forced wife. I have a video of this girl being ripped from her family, and she's screaming, and her parents are just telling her, go with him.

And his family's just, you know, come with him. It is the most heart-wrenching thing you've ever seen or heard. I really, really hate to jump in, because I know the listeners, their trees are getting shook.

Mine's certainly getting shook. But we definitely are going to have AC back, and I think that we've all gotten quite a shaking and opportunity to see how God would have us bear fruit in this fight against trafficking in ways that we never would have dreamed. AC, thank you. Mark, Rem, you guys are on our prayers and our hearts in what you're doing. Yeah, thank you, Rob, so much. Appreciate your listeners. Thank you for your precious heart for God and for the hurting that has broken. Robyn, thank you so much. I'll wait. This is the Truth Network.