Crisis in Haiti

Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God Podcast, our show.

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Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. I've heard about on my show before, but he's back with some updates from the Middle East, maybe from Afghanistan.

I've got to be careful. Mark Smith, how much we say, but thank you for all you're doing with Lantern Rescue, and it's good to have you visit again. Hey, Stu, it's always good to be with you, man.

It's good to see you this morning. Mark, I've known you a long time and I have just I get tears every time I hear your show because I hear about young men, young ladies, children who are set free by your team. But you go into some pretty rough stuff, don't you? You know, our team is committed. And when when you work in the work that we work in, I see a lot of people get involved and then fall away because they do it for maybe the accolades that they receive. That's true about a lot of ministries, you know.

And so when I look at my team, that's not who our team is. And we're so I'm so honored to work with them. And I've got such a good group of people that God keeps putting around us everything from like the radio show. I mean, even your staff to even our our our command post, our intelligence people, our foreign assets and everything.

God keeps putting together the right people who do this for the right reason, with the right heart. And, yeah, we're going to mostly a lot of war zones, conflict areas, a lot of gang ridden areas. You know, I don't want to talk a lot about. But, yeah, we've been doing a whole lot with the Afghanistan issue to help and assist. And and we'll just leave it at that.

I don't think it's necessary. A lot of groups are saying things I don't believe they should say we could. We've got a lot of accomplishments, successes that you know what God knows about.

And we're just going to leave it at that. Then, obviously, in Haiti, anybody who's listened to our show Land Rescue knows we've been heavily involved in the Caribbean for many years. And we trained the first ever counter human trafficking task force there. We've done hundreds of raids. We know that gang.

We know everything about them. I would just say that we put together the intelligence brief. When the Department of State sent people down and FBI, we put together the briefs and continued to help. So some of our teammates are some of my teammates are there now.

But do do pray for that situation, an issue. And it's even greater, believe it or not, than just the 17 people that are kidnapped. We had a teammate kidnapped and shot.

We had a pastor friend of mine's niece kidnapped. You know, we've been working kidnaps in Haiti for years now. And so it's just now come into the light because it's Americans. But the entire entire country is worried all the time of being kidnapped. You know, our assets, the people that work with us have to be super careful because they're known. Hey, these guys work with Americans. If we kidnap that person, those Americans have money, you know, so they become a higher value target.

So we have to be careful. But right now, the situation in Haiti as a country, I don't know how it could get much worse. People are literally starving to death. They're not able to leave their homes. There is no gas. There is no fuel, no diesel.

There is no safety for them to move about and around, especially around the main cities. You know, so we've got to be in prayer for our Christian brothers and sisters there. That's the voice of Mark Smith, the founder and the fearless leader of a wonderful ministry called Lantern Rescue. And I'm so glad you all are still around. There's a lot of people. Human trafficking is one of those. I hate to say industry because it's a ministry for you all to serve and save these precious little ones.

But it's one of those areas that people it gets faddish, right? A big movie star. Someone will say, hey, we've got to save these kids. And they'll say, hey, there's there's millions of slaves. There's more slaves today than there were 100 years ago and this and that.

But the question is, what are they doing about it? And with Lantern Rescue, Mark Smith and your team, you've really tried to execute. You've really tried to go in and actually save young girls and young boys from these oppressive. Some of them have eight to 10 customers a day and you walk into the brothel with your team and it's it's not pretty, but it's literal deliverance.

But it's also bloody. Yeah. I really like when you said the word execute and I'm going to use that. That's exactly true. And I wish we just walked in, but we work with law enforcement to breach those places and extract those kids.

But that is the difference. Execute. And so everybody has a role and task in this fight to combat trafficking. I would say at the end of the day, for us, it comes down to how many children are we rescuing? Not that one life is worth more than another, but are we executing the job to rescue kids? And then how many people are we seeing arrested?

And those two things are changing the environment of regions of the world because we're arresting and we're rescuing. Wow. So I normally take pictures with my guests. We're in a cool coffee shop and that's a good looking nitro or whatever that is.

And I'm I'm drinking that my favorite of favorite autumn leaves latte and your wife is actually here. But this is a guest I don't I don't take pictures with. I don't do a lot of videos with because this is a very dangerous, extremely dangerous, extremely volatile area. This human trafficking and ministries like yours, Landry Rescue, Mark Smith, as you go into these rough places, a lot of folks aren't even willing to go. Some folks have the ransom theory. Oh, we'll just pay off the money. But when you buy a kid out of trafficking, that money just it just feeds. It's like this incessant cycle.

This never ends, right? Right. We don't want to do that.

And I know some do that. But our operations are always about would just tell us where that brothel is. Let us work with the authorities. Let us train the task force in place to go raid and remove. And, you know, and so we advise, assist and support that. And and, you know, we're boots on the ground with them. So I love this ministry because folks that support a lot of gracious people, even that are listening right now, that are Big Truth Network and support all of our wonderful affiliates from AFR to our friends at Wilkins, everyone that carries this program, some Salem stations carry this program. A lot of you have supported Landry Rescue because you want to help rescue kids. And when they give you a dollar, a dollar goes toward helping save a kid's life, get him to a Christian orphanage. And it could be somewhere in Africa, which is extremely deadly.

You've done a lot of training. You've helped the nationals there in some countries. I mean, that's a that's a miracle story. It could be stateside. There's trafficking here. I mean, a recent episode, it was about a girl who was exploited and trafficked here. And they can hear that. And then also in these islands, which those are the islands are big change or I guess channels to come into into America. Right. Yeah, they are.

Those are those are definite traffic routes to the U.S. And domestically, we've recently and there'll be more said about this, but we have a recent partnership with the Intercept Task Force in the States. And that's an organization put together by a great group of people we'll be talking about. But so thank you guys for your prayers. I really appreciate all that you you and Truth Network does for us, too. And, you know, you guys give us a platform that's safe. You give us a way that we without radio, without this opportunity, we really would never be known at all.

Not that we want to be known, but we want the issue to be known and want people to know we're trying our best. So you give us that opportunity. Thank you. And God bless Truth Network.

Well, thank you. And the Web site to learn more. You give us the site, Mark Smith, and they can learn more. They can hear episodes. They can actually hear these stories. It'll just shock you. Sometimes you're telling the story in the back of a Humvee on a satellite phone talking to the producer here in the States.

And it's it's raw. It's real. But what is the Web site and how can people get involved right now with what you're doing? OK. Yeah, we really appreciate Robbie to do more lantern rescue dot org lantern l a n t r n lantern rescue dot org. Awesome. Here are the broadcast there. Here are the podcast there, because that's in real time, any time. And we'll make this a podcast, too, so our folks can get updated on what's going on, particularly in Haiti. A lot of folks are praying for Haiti right now and those to your missionaries that were kidnapped.

And we're grateful for all you're doing to help there and all over the world. Mark Smith, Lantern Rescue Friends, get involved. This is the least of these. My brethren Jesus talked about. This is rescue. This is in the day of difficulty. Proverbs.

I want to say twenty four, but it's somewhere in there where he says, hey, don't stop. Rescue those who are being carried away. And that's what you're doing.

Thank you for what you're doing. Pray for Mark Smith. Pray for his whole team. Pray for these are these are men and women that have families. They have spouses. They have kids. They have grandkids. Pray for them for safety. And right now you can do something about stopping human trafficking, but you can support a Christian ministry that's taken the gospel there to lantern rescue. God bless you, my friend. Thanks. This is the Truth Network.