Is Human Trafficking Really an Issue in America?

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Get ready. It's one of America's most important, influential, and respected voices on cultural and political issues. An apologist, Christian political advocate, and author, here is the founder and chairman of the Citizens for America Foundation, Dr. Chris Hughes. There's a plight in America today, and that plight is human trafficking. It's terrible what's happening across the nation as children are being brought across the border illegally and kids are being sold into slavery. And not just kids, but adults too are becoming slaves in the area of human trafficking. And there's a man with us today, Pastor Willie Montague, who's joining us to talk about this situation.

So I want you to buckle up, get ready to take notes, so you can find out what you can do to fight human trafficking in the United States of America today. Before we get started though, I want to welcome the Christian perspective. You know, this is a show where we dive into God's Word each and every day in order to develop a biblical worldview so we can then take that biblical worldview into the arena of public policy and politics and try to influence the culture and impact the culture for Jesus Christ each and every day. We're coming to you live from the beautiful studios in Memphis, Tennessee on the campus of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary and Mid-America College. If you are, if you have a student or maybe you are a student looking for a place to go to college, I encourage you to go online and check out Mid-America College. And of course if you, maybe you've been established in a career for years and you just decided you want to learn more about God's Word or maybe you're at a point in your life where you're going to surrender to full-time Christian ministry, I would encourage you to pray about attending Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. It's a beautiful campus right across the street. If you remember Adrian Rogers years ago, he was a pastor before he passed away of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis and the campus is just beautiful here.

It's the home of our studios and I would encourage you to check out Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. And of course I want to thank our sponsor, the Citizens for America Foundation, for making the Christian perspective available to you each and every day right here on your favorite radio station. Well Pastor Willie Montague, you are living in Florida right now, I believe down in the Orlando area, but you've worked for years in the area of human trafficking and trying to protect people from the plight that's really across our nation today.

People don't realize that there are probably more slaves and sex slaves in the world today than at any point in the past in the history of the world really. And so can you tell us a little bit about you and your ministry and then we'll jump into the issue of sex trafficking? Absolutely, and thank you for this opportunity. It's always a pleasure when you actually get on a platform where it's faith-based and Christ-centered. So my background is I was born and raised in Moorhead City, North Carolina and when I left from there I went to Bible College in Raymond and Tulsa, Oklahoma. And from there I started my journey through ministry as you were just mentioning and sharing with the audience about having that call, the full-time Ministry of the Work of the Lord, and that's where the journey that he took me on back in 2007. And from there the journey began with me starting an organization that works with youth and young adult boys between the ages of 7 to 25. And before then we would just simply open up our house and doing mentorship, teaching about things, life skills, cooking, cleaning, those things that should have been taught.

But a lot of these boys were fatherless and did not have that role model to really help steer them in the right direction. And then we fast-forward into where our organization really took a grasp of just where we're supposed to be placed when we moved here to Orlando, Florida in 2015. We got incorporated, we got our 501c3, we started off with the boys and then from there we started adding different components of the organization. And in 2016 is when I ended up, our program and those that were with us, we ended up in a homeless situation and that is where the journey began with human trafficking and seeing what was happening on the streets live.

What a testimony of how God took you to the right place at the right time. Before we jump into that, I just found out we had something in common, Willie, that I didn't know we had. So you're from Moorhead City, North Carolina? Yes, born and raised, Moorhead City, North Carolina. I know I'm a lot older than you. I've got a head full of gray hair.

You're a good-looking guy without all the gray hair that I have. But when I was a boy, I lived there for many years and it's one of the favorite places I ever lived was in Moorhead City, North Carolina. The fishing was great, the people were great.

I have a lot of great memories from there. So that's exciting that we have that connection. But I also wanted to touch on something just for a minute and then we will jump into the issue of human trafficking, is your ministry for mentoring. Willie, that is such an important ministry that really every single person listening could mentor somebody else. And I know that's not what I told you when we were talking about the show today, but can you share a little bit about that? Because I bet it's changing so many lives when you mentor these young men and teach them the life skills that they need, particularly if they're coming from a single parent home.

Absolutely. This mentorship came and stemmed from my personal life. Most of everything that I've done is a reflection of what I've gone through. And before I left to go to Bible College, I was laying on the floor and I was praying. And at that time, I was just really, really like, you have that zeal and you're just out there. I was just, woo, just like praying.

I felt it. And from there, the instructions I got in my spirit was, if you do all that I tell you to do, I will bless you. I will save your family.

I will save them. And I remember saying that, God, if you provide me a platform, I will not do to others what was done to me, which was having the absent father seeking direction from church leaders who I don't think they knew how to really get the direction. And so myself and seeing my brother, what he was going through, my brother right now is currently incarcerated until 2023. I've been there almost about five or so years.

And I look at, what if someone was there? What I'm doing now is somebody was there for him to help to instruct him and give him the wisdom and knowledge to kind of steer him the right direction. And so mentoring to me and working with these boys is just from my heart and what I needed, what I did not have, and how God had to heal me and deliver me from the wounds and the scars of all the trauma of growing up without a father in the home or any type of a male role model. And so going through that, I recognize that when I show up to homes and schools, when people call me, that these young men are just like my brother or me, whether they're, whether it's behavior or drugs or whether it's simply needing someone to talk to, they need that opportunity to know that someone is there for them and care about their concerns, because what it does, it forms like a heart and heart, and they don't know how to, one, receive instructions, and two, they definitely don't want to hear anything when it pertains to Jesus, because their heart, their heart is so hardened, and if they can't receive the natural man, they're not going to receive the spiritual either.

And so that is the journey that we take, and we've seen a lot have come, a lot have come out with victory. I was just at the juvenile detention center for Orange County last week, and they gave me an opportunity to go in to speak to, it is actually through the school system, I was able to go in to share the straight up truth, and of course you know some have their little, you know, class clown moments, but most of them were actually yes sir, no sir listening, and raising their hands, like I said, I will help you, when you get out of here, I will help you to be the better version of you that you want to do, and one guy was like telling the teacher, like hey, you know, give me his number, I want this, I don't want to live this, so they want that. These young people, these young boys, they want discipline, they want someone to be there to help instruct them, but they don't have it, and especially when you're around the same people that do the same thing you do, you know, the competition is trying to be the coolest, not trying to be the one that does the right thing, and so that's really where, you know, my heart is with it. I've seen those who came in full of anger and hate and drugs, and I've seen them leave with the Bible touching their arm and telling me, hey, I'm going out, I'm going to evangelize, so this is somebody who slept in the car, who, you know, was on drugs, who the family didn't want them in the house because they didn't know how to, you know, listen to them, to someone who's carrying a Bible and saying, now I'm going to go be a evangelist for Jesus, that to me is what keeps the fuel in my fire to continue to go and know that if there's nothing but one, which there's more than one, but there's just one that could have that mindset, we can change the world.

Wow, amen. What a powerful testimony, and you know, there's not a person listening right now who could not be a mentor to somebody, and maybe, you know, you may not be the person called to mentor boys who come from, or even girls from single-parent families, although I want to tell you it's so important, particularly for young men, and women too, to have a positive male role model in their lives, and you know, that's a real crisis within family unit today, Willie, is there are so many families where there's been a divorce, or either they were never married in the first place, and children were born out of wedlock, and there's only one parent there, and many times involved in those lives. I know you said you're going to the prisons, and I don't remember the statistics, but there's a huge number of, particularly those that are incarcerated, young men in particular, that come from, I think it's like 75 percent of the incarcerated men come from single-parent families, so we could get involved and be mentors and help them, but not even in that situation. I mean, think if you're a 70- or 80-year-old woman, you could pick some young woman in your church to mentor. Willie and I are finding out we got something in common, we're both country boys from North Carolina, and I don't know about him, but Willie's seen me, he knows that I like to eat, but you know, there are a lot of young ladies today who don't know how to make biscuits and gravy and all kinds of good stuff anymore, and that's a way to mentor, Willie. You mentioned you teach cooking and stuff with these young men, too, but a lot of you that are senior citizens might be saying, well, I can't go in the mission field, I can't do this or that.

Yes, you can. You can be in the mission field right there at home by picking somebody to mentor, and it's something as simple as calling, like I said, some young ladies in your church and saying, hey, I'm making biscuits Saturday morning, why don't y'all come over and learn how to make old-fashioned biscuits, or making cornbread, or maybe some of you men picking younger guys and say, we're gonna have a barbecue Saturday, come learn how to cook a hog, or fry fish, or whatever it may be. There's many ways to mentor, and even...