The Invictus Project

This is Robbie Dilmore from the Christian Carcai and Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build a kingdom. Your chosen Truth Network podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it and share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network.

Welcome to If Not Forgot. Stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick. Hey, this is Mike Zwick with If Not For God with Mike Zwick, and I'm with my old friend, Robbie Dilmore, and I'm with my new friend, Whitney Miller, from the Invictus Project. And Robbie, you actually introduced me to Whitney.

Yeah, Whitney and I are really old friends. We are. And had a chance to minister together in a lot of different ways.

So it's exciting to have her on here. Because when it comes to this subject, She has such a helpful perspective. And she's had so much experience, unfortunate experience in some cases, with dealing with her own students and things like that, and certainly working with different ministries and organizations.

So I think this will be a.

Okay. Plethora of wonderful information for listeners. Like, this is a show you need to listen up. But if you got small children, you may want to consider, you know, this might be a little sensitive at times. There are some topics that we're going to touch on that they are dealing with that, you know, we want to give you the right ways to engage those conversations, not start them in the car with you.

Absolutely. And so, you know, I always in the morning, and I know, Robbie, you do this as well, but in the morning time, I'll pray and I'll be thinking about what I'm going to be talking about on this show. And the verse came to me, it was Luke 18, and it starts in verse 10, and it says, Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood. And prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.

I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much lift his eyes up to heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

And so, yes, this is a very important topic. This is a very important show, Whitney. But what I think we can also do sometimes is we can look at these people who are doing these horrible things. And the one thing that I don't want the listeners to say today is: look, these guys are terrible, and I may be bad, but I'm at least not that bad. Because what Jesus says in his In the word of God, he said.

If you humble yourself, you shall be exalted. And so, yes, just because you're not that bad, Robbie, Whitney, and Michael Zwick were all sinners saved by the grace of God.

Now, that being said, Whitney, this is a very serious subject. What Alita, no, it is a very serious subject, right? Because it deals specifically with our children, a vulnerable population that we are given the space over to shepherd and love and mentor and encourage. And when we know that there's someone out there seeking to devour our children, right?

So, I love that you framed that. I will say also that we have to be in constant reminder that it's not, as we speak about maybe individuals, and obviously we won't be specific to the individuals, but as those individuals that are harming children, what we have to remember is there is an enemy that in 1 Peter 5:8, we are reminded that we must be sober, be vigilant, because our adversary, the devil, walks around. Like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And unfortunately, in the world of technology that we live in, he has had a full playground to operate on. And so I say that in many ways, right?

That's a concerning situation that we're up against when it comes to our children. Yeah, and so the Invictus project is a relatively new organization. Is that right, Whitney? It began in 2022. The task force portion, so that is the law enforcement component, and I'll share briefly what that looks like.

So I work with the nonprofit piece of the Invictus project. The Invictus Task Force, which many of our listeners have probably heard about in the news if you are local to the Piedmont Triad, operates as a partnership between the Randolph, Forsyth, Alamance, and Davidson Sheriff's offices, as well as Homeland Security and the State Bureau of Investigations.

So we have a large jurisdiction because of those partnerships with HSI and SBI. But they are the ones that are actively pursuing those that are harming and exploiting our children as it relates to sexual manners. And so they are the law enforcement component. And I sit on the nonprofit side.

So as a nonprofit, we work to support them financially because unfortunately, they don't always have what they need to actively pursue these individuals. And money should never be a reason our children aren't protected. Yeah, absolutely. And, Robbie? Yeah.

Well, you know, from my perspective. I had my eyes open to this. And it's horrendous. You know, and people think, oh, this is little girls getting picked up in a van somewhere. It's not even close to that.

And it's probably happening for most of us, for our children, for our grandchildren, even great-grandchildren, right under our noses through video games and chat things and social media and places that you would never dream that your child is actually aware of or going, but they're being seduced in so many different ways, and they are so vulnerable. They are, and we don't realize it because we aren't growing up in the world they're growing up in. Guys, we are in a time that looks far different than anything we grew up with, right? What we grew up with was the stranger danger, right? The white fan, don't get the candy from the stranger, don't pet the puppy, you know, stay away from the bushes at the playground.

You know, you name the list of stranger dangers, right? But now, stranger danger is this, and I know our listeners can't see it, but it's our cell phone, it's in the hands of our children, it's the tablets they hold on to, it's the things they're viewing on TV, right? We have a society that is grooming our children to be, you know, oversexualized, and just there's so many components to this that is different than the time and world we grew up in. And so, I think that sometimes we miss it because we are just not fully aware of what our kids are up against, and our lack of knowledge just kind of allows us to hand things over and say, Oh, well, you know what you're doing, right? And that's scary.

And I'll share a story. Really quickly, and this is one of those, like, not for little kids' stats.

So, here's your warning. But understand that our children, the average age in which children view pornography for the first time is eight years old. Average. The average age of first viewing pornography, eight years old. And you know what?

Many of us are still thinking we don't have to have that conversation until high school. Yeah, and so one of the things that came out, I think it was a couple of years ago or so, is there was a movie. That came out and it really got everybody's attention. And I believe it was about a guy named Tim Ballard, is that right? Who went and he fought this overseas and he rescued these children who are in these different countries.

And it's a good thing, in a sense, because, and what was the name of the movie?

Sound of Freedom. The Sound of Freedom. And it was a good thing because it really got people's attention as to, hey, we need to look into this child trafficking thing. Absolutely. But I think, on the other hand, what people didn't realize is it's not just in other countries.

This is some stuff that's happening right before our eyes. And it's not just people kidnapping children. Absolutely. So here's the scary truth about it, right? Because sometimes, and very often, actually, the truth is scarier than the reality Hollywood paints for us, right?

But the reality of it is, if you look at the kidnapping rates versus one runaway rates, there is a huge shift where kidnapping has gone way down and runaways has gone way up. Up.

Well, what do you think the reason for that is? Because people are accessing our children. I just told you, society is grooming and over-sexualizing our children.

So it doesn't take much for someone on the other side of their Instagram or their YouTube or their video game to say, hey man, your parents sound rough. Let me get you out of that place. Right? And our children are seeking something, they are seeking love, they are seeking acceptance, they are seeking worth, and they are seeking safety. And if they don't find those things at home, then they're searching for them somewhere else.

And let's be honest, that's what we're all looking for. Yeah.

That's ingrained in us, right? Yeah, and don't think it's not in North Carolina because we're one of the hotbeds.

Well, and that's, yeah, let's talk about that real quick. In the last 18 months, our task force officers have arrested over 100 individuals that were sexually exploiting children. Yeah, and one of the things that I think it was Ray. Ray is the founder of the Invictus Project. Right.

Ray and I were talking about at our church with you, he said that. A lot of this is children voluntarily going to these predators because these predators have found them online. They know what to say. They know what not to say. And so it's kind of a sticky situation.

It is very sticky, especially when we don't have oversight of parents seeing what's going on on the flip side of the technology we're handing our children. Yeah.

And I think Ray said, you know, people are watching out for the white van that's at the park, but that's been replaced by every application you can imagine on that tablet, that cell phone, that device. Absolutely. Well, just go into any restaurant you want to. Yes. Right.

And watch what happens when a little child, I mean, and Tammy and I were noticing it when we were, you know, traveling recently that they would be four, five, six months old and they're sticking a tablet in their hands to entertain them. And I get it. I like to eat a hot meal too. I'm a mom. I understand.

I love to not warm my coffee up four times a day before I finish it, right? Here's the reality, and here's the scariest part about this, and I think the Lord is revealing it more and more to me: is we have bought into the lie that we are actively engaged in our children's lives simply because we're in the same room with them. And it's so sad because you know what? Our children believe that too. They believe that we're engaged in their life simply because we're in the same room as them.

But meanwhile, we are scrolling while our kids are watching TV or scrolling on their little devices, and we are furthest from being engaged in their lives. But how perfect is the enemy that he would create that, that delusion for us? That's right. And so you said there have been 100 arrests? Yeah, so they've had 100 arrests.

So last year alone, they had 76 arrests. By the time they finished out the year, they had identified over 440 children and then rescued eight children out of the immediate hands of their perpetrators.

So, and you know, I mean, those numbers tell a story, right? Because each one of those is a child behind that. And so they work with something called CyberTips. Currently, there are 30, we are on track for 33,000 cyber tips in the state of North Carolina.

So I'm going to share with the listeners, especially what that cyber tip is, because, man, I hear it all the time. They're just pictures. But when we say a cyber tip, I'll give you an idea. One case we did off of one cyber tip led to over 70 arrests throughout the country.

Okay. Throughout the country now, 70 arrests, one cyber tip. And I just told you that there are 33,000 coming in this year. January was the highest month we've ever seen on record of internet crimes against children's cyber tips. That's scary, you guys.

And we're still looking for the white van. But in that one cyber tip, there was almost a terabyte of videos and pictures of children being abused in the worst ways you can possibly imagine off of one cyber tip. And I just told you how many were coming into the state of North Carolina on track this year.

Well, and there may be some people who say, Well, you know, oh, you know, there's all these people and there's all these kids, and you guys have arrested, you know, 100 of them. But I was reminded of the story of there was a young boy who went out to the beach and his, you know what I'm talking about. His grandfather, you know, or some older guy saw him and he was taking these starfish that had washed up on the beach and he was throwing them back into the ocean. And his grandfather came up to him and he said, What good are you going to do? There's thousands of starfish out here.

You're not going to make a difference to all of these starfish. But he took, the little boy took a starfish and he threw it into the ocean and he said, I made a difference to that one. Can you give us some specific stories of where you've rescued children?

Well, I'll leave that for the law enforcement piece. And honestly, I can't share a lot about that because they are minors, right? And that's their story to tell one day. But that is definitely something our listeners can be praying for. And over is those children.

But what I do want, I want people to understand, you're right, it is just one, right? And for us, we arrested 100 of those individuals that were perpetrating children or soliciting them for their own selfish desires, right? But also understand that 85% of those statistically are hands-on offenders of an average of 13 children.

So by arresting 100 individuals, and actually, we'll cut it down to 85, and let's say 85 of those 100 individuals that were arrested actually put hands on a child. That would mean that 1,105 children were safeguarded by the arrest of 85 individuals.

Well, it's kind of like I heard years ago. I think they said that by the time somebody actually gets arrested for a DUI, they've driven home like maybe 200 times. And a lot of people think about smaller children, and I see that. But what's almost scarier for me. you know, personally as a man or as having grown up as a boy, I mean, you think about the lure of pornography to a young boy of 12, 13 years old.

Well, Whitney, share how this boy can be trapped and In horrible ways. Yes. And things, because this will blow your mind, Michael. And you'll just go, oh my gosh, what do we do? Yeah.

So, and that is scary. And I'm so thankful you brought that up, Robbie, because I think, especially as believers, we must address these issues, both from the pulpit and in our own homes, right? This is not an issue you just should hear about on the radio. This should be something that is concerning your churches, your family members. It's concerning, right?

So I just told you the average age of a child viewing pornography now is close to that eight-year-old mark, right? But understand that. Again, the world has shifted. And so pornography, as we knew about it, was via a magazine wrapped in plastic behind the checkout, right? And it was like your mom covering your eyes while you're at the gas station, right?

But understand that our children are experiencing this. Online which means it's not still pictures. It's videos. And there is an overwhelming level of, um, of just really, really, really, um. Unimaginable, like hard pornography that is that violent pornography that is occurring.

And that is what our children are exposed to. That is those are the things they're seeing. That is what that world has shifted and become. And you know, I'll share I will share a story with you of a parent I spoke with. I spoke to a great, wonderful Hispanic group of ladies and they were telling me About their children, what their children have been exposed to.

Well, this one mom shared with me that her daughter, who is nonverbal, was watching Bluey on her tablet on kids' YouTube, right? And all the words were playing out as bluey. But when she walked over there to check on things, just to do a quick check-in, you know, she saw that that tablet was actually bluey characters, but they were performing sexual acts on each other. On kids' YouTube, that she had handed her nonverbal child, had no idea the sound was, they were normal. They were making a normal show.

It was a normal show, right? That is why it is so vital for us to be vigilant. We are told to be vigilant, to be sober-minded. That is why, because our enemy is, he is smart in his tactics. He is not old to this way, right?

And yes, while he is defeated, think how scary it is to operate from a place of no hope. That's where Satan operates. You've got nothing left to lose. That is the position that Satan operates from.

Well, and you had mentioned something about when I first met you guys about a millstone. Oh, yeah, the millstone tying the millstone around the neck, right? For those that harm. Yeah, yeah. And that's, um, I can't, I think it's out of Peter as well.

1 Peter, maybe? I could be wrong. But that Bible verse 12. I think it was Jesus actually who said that. He said it's if you were to cause one of these little ones to stubble, stumble, he said it'd be better that you would be hung at the bottom of the sea with a millstone hung around your neck.

But the interesting thing about this is this: many people who go to jail and commit crimes, the recidivism rate is pretty high for a lot of these. But when it comes to these types of people, Yeah, I mean, we haven't we have not experienced seeing that shift in these individuals. And I think so much of it is because of because it is something that, you know, and we probably don't have time to get into this, but I'm a talker. Anybody that's listened to me before, you know, it's there. But there is a there is something special designed in that intimacy relationship that Christ designed, that you know, he desires out of marriage, right?

And so when it is perverted by the enemy, it just. It saturates differently because it was something that is held, I think, in such sacred space for the Lord, that level of intimacy. And so I often wonder: you know, I know that anyone can come back from hard things and walk away from a sinful life, I know, because I've experienced walking away from a sinful life, right? We all have as believers. But man, that one has just we have not seen a lot of Recidivism in that really just Again, I was referring to is that What a perpetrator will do, right, is he'll just fish for boys out there, whether it's on Facebook or wherever, and till he gets somebody that's, and he acts like a girl, or it might be a woman that's acting like a girl.

It's a distortion, yeah. Right, right. And so he says, Look, I'll send you a few pictures of me if you'll send me a few pictures. And so he sends whatever pictures he has. And so this guy thinks, oh, wow, I've got this girl and she's willing to show me all this.

Yeah, you got 14-year-old Johnny and little 16-year-old Mary sends him a message. Yeah, he thinks, man, this is awesome. I'm going to send her whatever she wants.

Well, once he does that. Yes. Then all of a sudden, it's extortion happens. And immediately he's going to say, oh, this extorter is going to say, well, I now have all these pictures of you. And you are going to, I'm going to share this with your parents and all your friends on Facebook.

You send me $2,500 right this minute or it's coming on you like you wouldn't believe. Right. And they do because they have nothing to lose, these individuals have nothing to lose in sending that photo. Right. And sometimes they send the $2,500 and they still expose them.

And so some of the suicides that you see, the girls do, they do the same thing to little girls, right? That they pretend to be the most caring, loving little boy ever. And next thing you know, they have him. And these things lead to unbelievable horror. Yeah, that is.

And that is just think how. Gullible, I would have been. I can tell you, I would have been as gullible. I mean, praise God, this didn't have, you know, because I would have been, you know. Just Food for the whatever, if you know, if God hadn't protected me.

Well, and now add on that exposure rate to sexual content at such an early age, it's normalized, right? The idea that this girl is asking you for these photos, you're like, I'm sure that little boy feels privileged, like he's got something to share and prove, you know. But then all of a sudden, the script flips, and that individual is not who they say they are. And the scarier part about that now, Robbie, is AI has made that even more interesting because now our children don't have to send nude photos. Individuals can nudify our children via AI and sex stort them the same ways.

Well, there was a, this is a true story of something that actually just happened. I have a friend of mine out in Texas, and she has a neighbor who comes over and plays with her kids. And this young boy came over to her house one day and she said, something's different, something's wrong.

Well, it found out that this kid's grandmother's best friend next door, he was going over to her house. She was watching him for the weekends and she was showing him pornography. Oh, desensitizing, desensitizing, probably even in you know, touching him and doing all these bad things. And so one day, she the little boy came over and she said, Something's wrong. And he finally told her what was going on.

And he said, Okay, I'm gonna, she said, Okay, I'm gonna talk to your mother or your grandmother about this. And they said, Okay, just give it a day or two.

Well, by the time they all got together and talked together, he said, No, this never happened. I was just making it up. And what they found out was that. The mother of this boy was actually running from the law. And so she, I mean, it's just, it gets pretty sick.

But like you said, it people have become desensitized. Yeah.

I remember during 9-11, and I don't know if you're, you're probably too young for this. Oh, no, I am not. I remember 9-11 very well. But, you know, during that time when people first saw those planes going into the building, they saw it and they're like, oh my gosh, whatever. But what happened was, they saw it again and again and again and again, and they became desensitized to it.

And they said, oh, no big deal. And so, what you're talking about is people sending pictures of themselves or whatever it is like that. But that is also a common thing amongst teenagers. Oh, it is. One in four.

One in four kids, one in four teenagers from that 11 to 14 mark.

So we're only talking about three-year range right there. One in four of them have sent nude photos of themselves.

So, yes, you're right. And us as parents are like, oh my gosh, not my child. Not mine, not my sweet little Nancy, you know, or whoever, right? But unfortunately, that is the reality our kids are up against. And you know what?

They're not telling us. Why? Because we are not actively engaged in our children's lives. We're not adequately informed on what's going on in their lives. And we've just passed by saying a simple, you know, oh, good.

I'm glad school went well today, honey, right? And so when those things do occur, when that child, that boy does get that extortion or sex stortion component, that suicide rate is so high. Why? Because our children are stuck carrying shame and guilt and all of these very hard emotions at an age where they're not capable of understanding them. And they're not running to tell mom and dad because we have not created that open space for them to talk to us.

So it sounds like we should be, I mean, at what age would you recommend us to start talking to our kids? See, I've got an eight-year-old, an almost seven-year-old, and a three-year-old. At what age would you recommend me starting to talk to my kids about?

Now, do it now because you know what? We are out of that time frame of we've got we can buy till high school. That is not the case. I just told you statistics, right? I told you some scary numbers at really young ages.

And those conversations can start out really small, but they need to be honest, right, with your children. You know, me and my 10-year-old have hard conversations, right? He, y'all, I turned on Disney Plus the other day. I'll just throw it up there. I didn't turn on, he did.

And I'm in the kitchen, which is right beside our living room. And he turned it on, and the main screen of Disney Plus was a show advertised called Dying for Sex. That is what came up on Disney Plus for my ten-year-old child turning it on. Yeah.

Had we not had conversations prior about inappropriate things, right? And what is that, so that you understand it, he wouldn't have known what to do with that. But immediately he's like, Mom. Mom, there's something inappropriate on the T V. Right?

It wasn't a visual, but the words were there, and he knew because I'm willing to have hard conversations early on with my child.

Now, I know there's another group where we are where they actually will put on a seminar and they'll talk to the parents, or maybe do you guys do anything like that? Absolutely. Invite us into your churches. Why? Because this is a spiritual battle.

Right? And we cannot continue to leave it up to the world to fix the world's problems. The problems created by our world aren't going to be fixed by them. They're going to be fixed by Jesus.

So the church is where this needs to be rooted. And we are we believe that profoundly so. I think that is something that if you would like us to come and speak, we would love that. Visit our website. We have great opportunities to engage with the Invictus Project.

What is the website? The InvictusProject.org. And if people want to donate? Yes, please, please. That is, you know, that is what propels this fight and allows us to continue doing this.

We are not federally funded. We are totally community funded, right?

So you are. pouring into us fighting for your children. And in this area, right? Because this is airing on TRU. We got a big run.

Yes, we do. In August. And you can take part in that and donate and get more involved and get more information. Yes, we're looking for Rescue Run sponsors, business sponsors for it. But the Rescue Run is August 23rd.

You can find out about it under the events tab of our website. And we would love to have you come out. It's a run or walk. I will be in the side-by-side picking up anybody that doesn't make it. I will not be running in it.

But we would love for you to come out with your family, engage your children. And that evening, I think we're actually also more to come on this. Hosting a youth-geared concert. And I would say, since it's If Not For God Michael, that I guess because of my connection with Invictus and Lantern. That As much as the enemy is ramped up stuff, This is if not for God.

You wouldn't believe the stuff that God has brought. To combat these problems. But like all things, you know, communication is awesome, and I just love what Whitney does to bring it to everybody to just tell the truth. We're not supposed to be afraid of the enemy. The enemy is supposed to be afraid of us.

So go to theinvictusproject.org or dot com.org. Theinvictusproject.org. Follow them on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, wherever you can find us. Instagram, Facebook. And Whitney, I want to thank you for coming on.

Support the Invictus Project. God bless you. If not, forgotten. All right, for my YouTube channel. If not for God with mighty wick Just like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell.

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