Invictus Project: Protecting Our Children

Kingdom Pursuits, where you hear from ordinary people instilled with an extraordinary passion. Together we explore the stories of men and women who take what they love and let God turn their passion into Kingdom Pursuits.

Now, live from the Truth Booth, your host, Robbie Dilmore. Oh, talk about passion. We've got quite a show for you today, as we have Whitney Miller here, an old friend. She is with the Invictus Project. She's been here last year, actually.

You might remember, we were live out at their rescue run, and they have a rescue run again.

Next Saturday.

So it's a 5k. It'll start at 9 a.m. And what a cause it's for. It's in Asheboro at the Bicentennial Park. You can go to Kingdom Pursuits and find it there and you can register or you just go to Invictus Project, which that might you may know means truth.

But it also is an amazing ministry you're going to find out about today on Kingdom Pursuits.

So welcome, Whitney. Thanks, Robbie. Glad to be here again. And you're right, old friend.

So it's nice to have a moment to sit down with you again. It really, really is. And this project, the run is super cool and wonderful. But oh my goodness, what Invictus Project is doing.

So, for those who are not familiar with it, can you kind of give them the rundown? Yeah, and some people may have heard of the Invictus Task Force. The Invictus Task Force is really a gathering of our Forsyth, Randolph, Alamance, and Davidson County Sheriff's Offices, as well as Homeland Security and the State Bureau of Investigations. And their primary focus is focused on combating the sexual exploitation and trafficking of our children right here in North Carolina.

So, we, as the nonprofit side of that, the Invictus Project, support our law enforcement partners with any kind of supplemental funding and things that are necessary to bypass what typically holds them back from being able to act quickly and actionably on these cases.

So, we get to step in in that way, but we also educate the community around the things that our law enforcement partners are seeing firsthand.

So, we get to have instant, you know, understanding of what this fight looks like, and because it is just constant. Shifting with technology and really the things our children are exposed to. We have to stay prepared. And because we partner so closely with our law enforcement partners in that, we're able to speak very clearly and urgently with parents and community members so they get a really good look at what our kids are facing every day. Right, and what they're facing is really almost unthinkable from my perspective of the hazards and the things.

We're going to be a chance to talk about those a little bit today. Absolutely. And what you think this battle is and what it is when the what I thought the battle was even four years ago before I started working with Land and Rescue and with Invictus Project and what I now know it is is just Not even close because the days of the, you know, the van sitting out in the park that you're worried about your child getting into, there's going to be trafficking, that's so far from what's really happening. You're absolutely right. And so often, when we begin, you know, educating our community members or churches, whatever that looks like, we start with, hey, let's do some myth-busting, right?

Because we do have this preconceived notion that someone is going to jerk our kid out of the cart at Walmart and, you know, trap them in a basement somewhere. And we have that idea in our mind. But honestly, Robbie, the truth of what this fight looks like is so much scarier because we've invited those same people that we were afraid about on the playground 30 years ago into our child's bedroom by simply handing them a tablet or a cell phone or a computer unmonitored, right? And we don't like to look at it that way because that means we've got to do something within our own home. Right.

And we do. We get typically very, I'd call it like we end up with blinders. And the problem with that is if I see children. Trafficking for what I've been told it looks like on movies monetized by Hollywood, right?

So the take-in, the sound of freedom, which brought great awareness to these causes. But it doesn't necessarily look like that here, you know? And we even talk, you know, I worked with the international side of this for a little while. And so even the difference in what this looks like internationally versus right here at home, I think is really important for us to recognize as parents and as community members at large. And the size of it is way more than people, like just to give people a little taste of.

Like, how many incidences were recorded? You know, the name of the process that I'm talking about. Yes, give people a taste of that. Oh, I'm going to share some new numbers with you on that one, Robbie, because this is really interesting.

So, in the year of 2019, they're called cyber tips.

So, let me just back up for a second and frame that out for your audience because most people are not familiar with that. And honestly, I wasn't either until partnering with our law enforcement partners. Cyber tips are any of those platforms online, right? The Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook. If there are child abuse, sexual child abuse material online, or CSAM, child sexual abuse material, you'll hear that term as well.

If there's any of that on their platform, they are mandated reporters. And so they report it to law enforcement. And then basically, it trickles down to the appropriate jurisdiction, right?

So the state of North Carolina in 2019 saw 4,000, I think, 900-ish. cases or tips, right? Last month, the month of July, North Carolina saw over 5,000 cyber tips. And I want you to understand, because you hear cyber tips, that sounds like a very sterilized word, right? But understand that these tips are video content of children being just abused in a way that we can't imagine, nor would I want anyone to have to ever experience, right?

And this is the videos and pictures of those being captured and sold and shared across platforms. In North Carolina. In North Carolina. Yes. We're not talking about a big scale outside of here.

And then let me also frame that out with what it looks like on the trafficking side, because I think that's an important component too. I think in 2023, 2024, there were 26 cases of minor. uh trafficking, minors being trafficked. Out of those, do you know where the majority of them met their trafficker? Almost all of them met their trafficker?

I'm going to guess online. Oh, you're right. You guessed right. You've been around on this one for a while, you know? You're right.

They met them online. Do you think those traffickers had to come in and kidnap those kids? No. No. They left home willingly to meet with this individual.

Right. And so that right there should reframe the way we're looking at trafficking. It's yes, clench your hand, your kid's hand tight so they don't get run over in the parking lot at Walmart. But if you're thinking that someone's going to swoop in and steal them every time you walk in and out of Walmart, that's all you look at for this fight.

Meanwhile, they're sitting in the cart with the tablet you handed them, unfiltered, unmonitored. You've given more access to your child in that. And that's more than just not even close to just Facebook and Snapchat. They have access through. The games.

Video games? Yeah. Yeah, that's been an interesting one. And I think that's a wake-up call for parents, too, right? Because.

You know, our kids, and I have two young kids, so I understand what that looks like, you know, and we've set really good parameters, I think, that have been helpful for us, but and I'm happy to share those as we move through this. But the video games is something that I think surprises parents because they don't recognize, you know, our kids say, well, that's my friend on that game. But their friend could be a 40-year-old guy that started talking to them on the last time they logged into Roblox or whatever it is.

So we don't really understand what that looks like. And man, the video game one, whew, we could spend some time on that one because there is just, our kids are exposed to so much in what we believe is an innocent realm. Right, right, right. And they get exposed. you know, for whatever reason, let's say it's on a video game.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Believe it or not, what freaks me out about the whole thing is that. The boys may be more vulnerable than the girls. Yeah, and when we talk about the sextortion component of that, especially, but even if you look at the amount of boys that are on video games versus girls on video games, that number is much higher.

Not, I mean, the gap is closing for sure, but you do see a lot of our kids on video games. And it's not necessarily that they are, you know, terrible things, but when you, again, it just goes, it goes back to what you know, I'll focus on and bring it back to you, but being actively engaged in our kids' lives to understand and know what is happening, that's important. And sometimes when they're on their video game or their tablet on kids' YouTube or whatever, we are not engaged because we believe that everything is fine, right? We've handed this over and we've got parental control apps and things like that on there, but that doesn't suffice. And so you can see how gigantic this rescue run is.

Yes. Right? That you get out there and support this. Not only are you supporting the law enforcement, but you're supporting the education. Education that Whitney and other members of her staff are going around the state helping people to understand what the fight is, what is at hand, right?

And so, again, the Rescue Run is coming up in Asheboro. You can go to kingdompursuits.com and register for that. It's only $45. Like, man, have fun. That's right.

You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion. And uses it to build the kingdom. And today we are so blessed to have with us Whitney Miller with the Invictus Project and especially their rescue run that's going on next Saturday.

So you got to go get registered. You can do that at kingdompursuits.com or at Invictus Project. They have their website, again, it's amazing. That there Beginning is 9 o'clock.

Next Saturday is $45 to register. We've got to get there a little bit early. I got to tell you, there'll be a crowd. I think they already have 190 people registered. But you don't have to run.

You can do like Tammy did last year. My wife was in it and she walked. And so whatever suits you, you know, just show up. It's amazing. They got vendors out there, all sorts of stuff.

And then very cool, very, very cool at 6 p.m., they're going to have a back to school bash concert, Christian concert, right with you. Yeah, yeah, we're excited about that. You know, that was kind of a neat add-on to this year. I had really just kind of had this desire to see our youth, A, look up from their devices, look up from their cell phones for a moment, but also do it in a space where they can fellowship with other believers before they begin to walk the halls in school that week. And so it lined up really well.

I'm not sure I knew what I was taking on with two events in one day, but you know what? God is so faithful to honor it and do great things. And so I really think it's going to be incredible to have our youth and our community come out and our kids see adults worshiping alongside them, but also kids that they're going to, again, walk the halls with the very next week starting school and remembering, oh man, that kid. I remember seeing that kid at that Christian. Concert, right?

And we also have so Elijah McCormick, who was on American Idol, he's going to be headlining that particular concert.

So that's really exciting to have. And we've had a lot of great businesses come along and stand in the gap and sponsor for both the Rescue Run and the concert, which, you know, That just speaks to my heart to see people that are committing. I know finances are not the fun thing for people to commit, but there is something there that just, I don't know, it's encouraging to see that people want to stand in this fight with us at all costs, literally.

So, is there a cost to the bash? How does that work? No, it is free. It is a free concert. And honestly, because of the Ashborough-Randolph Chamber, it's free.

If you need something to do with your kids on Saturday next week, this is a great space, you know. But the Ashborough-Randolph Chamber, their leadership group, came alongside of us to help us with this and garnered sponsorships from all around our community. And we're able to put this together. We're going to have a dunking booth out there, Robbie. That's going to be great.

You're going to, hopefully, we're going to get Ray in it. That'll be wonderful. If you don't know who Ray is, he is the founder of the Invictus Project. And I'm sure there's many people that would love to see him. Being a police officer, law enforcement, you know, he's not the kind of person that goes to take dunking lightning.

Yeah. No, no, no, it was one of his comrades in the law enforcement arena that made that happen.

So, um, but it'll be great. Um, and then we also uh we're gonna have food trucks out there as well.

So, we'll have food trucks. We've got, um, you know, just a lot of really neat activities that are gonna be going on meant to engage the youth. And also, again, our adults have them coming out and just encouraging our kids to A, look up from their cell phones, but B, recognize that there are people around them that they're going to be in school with that do love the Lord and walk with him. And I just think that's encouraging our kids, knowing what our kids are up against, I think as much as we can pour into them spiritually is absolutely vital. Oh, absolutely.

You know, so it's going to be a great day. It's going to be a long day, but we're there for it. It's going to be fun.

Well, it is Kingdom Pursuits.

So, speaking of rescue, you knew this was coming. Yes, it does. Finally. I know you may have missed me over the last couple weeks, but it's finally time to play shenanigans with the word rescue.

So. Here you go, one classic Robbie humor right out of the b bag there. We got. Is Randy back there to help you too? I hope.

Yeah. And uh. You've done this before, Whitney, so what's the best time to rescue a princess? The best time To rescue a princess. Hold on.

I don't know. Nighttime. Mm-hmm. Got it. There you go.

So, how do you rescue a dying monitor, you know, like you have on your computer? How do you rescue. A dying monitor. Mm. You know this one, don't you?

I feel like I do. You probably do. It's a screensaver. Yeah. I was still on the princess mentality.

See, I switched them up on you just to get you. But anyway, why did the lifeguard fail to rescue the hippie drowning in the ocean? There was a hippie out there drowning. Why did the lifeguard fail to rescue him? He didn't have a lifesaver?

Oh, that was a good call. That was. It was a good try. But, you know, being of the, I was of the hippie generation, I get, he was too far out, man. Oh, that'd be nice.

And my personal favorite on the list, although it's probably just crazy, but I just like it. Why did Cher, what did Cher say to the orphaned pig that she rescued? What did Cher, you know, Sunny and Share? Summon Cher, okay. What did she say to the pig?

The pig that she rescued. Oh, this one's going to be far out for me. I know. It is, but it's going to come home in a minute. Babe.

I got you, babe. He's still figuring it out. It's okay. There was a movie of the same era that was Babe the Pig. Oh, I might have a little bit of that one somebody watched.

Anyway, you knew at the end of those shenanigans we would have a chance to call in and win. And today we have a very interesting riddle for you.

So. If you call in and do this, it's going to be amazing. The question today is: who in the book of Judges defeated their opponent because they had them pegged? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Who in the book of Judges? rescued Israel and defeated their opponent. because they had them pegged. It's in the book of Judges. 866-348-7884.

If you know the answer to who in the book of Judges defeated their opponent and rescued Israel because they had them pegged. 866-348-7884. And if you can guess that, Nick, tell them what they'll win. Oh, yes, Robbie. We have a whole case full of Kingdom Pursuits prize just falling, Gal.

If you know the answer to Robbie's riddles, give us a call at 866-348-7884. That's 866-34-Truth. Not only do we have the legendary Kingdom Pursuits. That gospel back scratcher, but we now have added That we have, I can't remember the stuff. You might know it.

But if somebody's overdosed on fentanyl, Narcan, we have them. If you want Narcan, call in with the answer. We got Narcan. We do. We have a whole packet on how to use it and everything else because of our race for drugs people that were on here last couple of weeks ago.

And so, you know, hey, our our prize vault is loaded. And look, somebody's already calling in. As you might imagine. I didn't think this was all that hard, but I do think it is humorous when you understand that who in the book of Judges defeated their opponent because they had them pegged. Oh, my goodness.

I know. I'm stumped on that one. And I want to be able to do that. Are you really? Yeah, I'm trying to think.

I would think. Whitney, you have a phenomenal understanding of the Bible. It's just for those who don't know, if you happen to live in Asheboro or in Randolph County, she hosts. Is it Thursday in the Word? What do you call it?

Yeah, Women in the Word is what we call our Thursday, Dario, Dario, Bible study in the morning.

So it's every Thursday morning, 8:30. It's such a great group of women from all ages, which I love. There's so much wisdom in that room and experience, life experience, and free breakfast. And yes, Dario is incredible, which, by the way, Dario is one of our sponsors for our rescue run this year. And so we have been very thankful to have them alongside us over the past years.

And so is that at 8 o'clock?

So we do ours at 8:30.

Okay. And we begin at 8:30, but everybody gets there between 8 and 8:30. And yeah, Dario provides breakfast for us. It is, it's such a neat space to be in. And we do, we work through the word.

We're in Daniel right now. Yeah, I like to do stuff. It's a Wednesday in the Word thing.

So we got Will is in Greenville, South Carolina. Will. Yeah. Who in the book of Judges defeated their opponent because they had them pegged? Jail.

You are absolutely correct. She put the old tent peg That's a quiet one. Ah, Sisera, he had a bad day. Did have a bad day. Yeah Oh, yeah.

He wasn't going anywhere. This wasn't going anywhere. I just, you know, it's just one of those things, man. This tent peg right through the temples. Goodness.

Yes. Yes. She uh Quite a lady, that lady, Jill. That whole area of the book of Judges has Deborah, and you can see the women stepping up in there. And it's amazing the women that step up.

In the Bible, you know, with Esther being one of the greatest Jewish leaders and arguably. the most powerful Jewish leader of all time. That that that she uh Did some amazing stuff.

Well, thank you, Will. I appreciate your call very much. You have a blessed weekend. No problem. You guys have a great day.

You too. God bless. Bye-bye.

So, we're going to find out what Will wants from the prize vault. I mean, how fun. Yeah. You know, if you're wondering how the legendary gospel back scratcher works, while you're scratching somebody's back, there's a red and orange, and I mean, red, white, and you know, the ones where you go through the gospel with a pit. Oh, cool.

See? That's pretty cool. That's nifty. Who came up with that? It was given to me by a missionary, the first one, and then we've restocked since then.

That's pretty awesome. But anyway, getting back to. Again, what what what's at hand is With the Invictus Project and talking about trafficking, especially when it comes to these devices and all that stuff. Kent, I think it was really helpful for you to walk through. You know, she's got two of the most delightful young men for, you know, I know them pretty well: Charlie and Harvey.

And so. Wow, did we use that whole segment? We did. When we come back, we're going to find out how you talk to your kids and at least give you some suggestions and some thought starters because. You know, there's a lot here.

Now, your grandkids, too, as the situation may be, again. We're so grateful to have you here, Whitney. Yeah, great. And we'll be back in just a minute.

Sounds good. And meanwhile, Will is figuring out what he wants. He could be getting that back scratcher. Who knows? You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com.

Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion. And uses it to build the kingdom. And so amazing to have the Invictus Project with us here today, Whitney Miller. And their rescue run. Again, if you haven't heard about it, it's going on in Asheboro next Saturday.

And you can go register at Kingdom Pursuits. It's only $45. There's a $4 sign-up fee, but nonetheless, oh my goodness, what a cause it goes to, as you're hearing about today. And then at 6 p.m., if you're anywhere near Asheboro, Not Asheville, but Asheboro. It's in the middle of the state.

They got a free Christian concert, Back to School Bash. It's going to be absolutely amazing. But as we promised, we wanted to you know, the the situation is parents And I'm being one or a grandparent, you have a tendency to overcompensate. Like, no, you're not going to have a phone. No, you're not going to have, you know, and I see those situations going out there.

Then the kids just sneak and it's even worse because they're keeping things behind their parents' back. Yeah. And it's got to be, you know, it's hard. It is hard to navigate in this time, this era of time, how to make those, create those appropriate boundaries, right, for our children. And so there's a couple of things I would say.

I am a proponent of your kid does not need a cell phone until they are older because there's not a need for it, right? I mean, and we could, well, we could rabbit trail on that one, Robbie, but just knowing and seeing the thing that you're doing. And so what age would you say? Oh. Oh, never.

I don't. I mean, that's hard, honestly, because I think about how much time I waste on my phone, and I'm a grown adult. Right. You know, but if I had to put an age on it, I would, mm. Pf mm.

I don't know. Ah. 16. I know that sounds crazy, but 16, I could see reasonable. Most people are handing them to him at a much younger age.

Matter of fact, um, Charlie, you know, the power went out at his school last year and he was in fourth grade, and he um was upset because he was one of four kids that had to use the teacher's phone. One of four out of an entire classroom of kids, everyone else had a cellphone. Fourth grade.

Now, what's scary about that, Robbie, is the fact that we know the average age of a child ex being exposed to pornography is around eight, nine years old now. Right. You want to know how they're finding it? It's not the magazine under somebody's bed or the, it's not like it used to be, right? Oh, no, no.

And you can't, I mean, if you're doing any kind of searches or whatever, you can't, it is going to come up first and foremost because there's the most money involved with that. And you just believe me. Yep. And you know, people don't quite understand that, but that is one of the largest industries in the world. Financially.

So, if you think they're not, you know, desiring to target a customer base at a younger age, if you are a businessman, you understand how that works, right? It's easier to maintain a customer than it is to get a new one. And so, if they are able to capture them at a young age, maintaining them throughout life is a lot easier and more profitable as a business.

So, again, we could hold that one for another podcast, another day, but that is there's a lot to dig into that. No, you know, that's the thing that as Christians, I really guess I was just naive. Yeah. That I had no understanding. that prostitutes with as I've interviewed them have told me they literally hook their Whatever they call their clients on drugs in order to get them to keep coming back.

And it's the same thing with pornography. They hook the young ones on purpose because they know they're going to keep coming back.

Well, and so, you know, if we, okay, we'll travel down this one for a little bit because, you know, I think it's an important piece, especially because this is happening to our children. This isn't just some crazy random statistic, but within three swipes of your phone through YouTube, you will come across some type of pornographic material, right? It's just part of the algorithm. For me, on Facebook and Instagram, if you sign up as a male on any of those platforms, the target is sending you over-sexualized, over-stimulating things along those lines. For women, it becomes body image filtered, right?

It's so there they are stimulating that piece for women, and that they both correspond. Right? Because women are told young girls are told to be Taught to be desirable to boys, they must showcase certain attributes of their body. And that is beginning. In their algorithm at whatever age they get on that platform.

So if your child ends up on TikTok, which right, TikTok is Instagram, there's a little bit more in, you know, you gotta do a little bit more to set up accounts. TikTok, not so much. They can just get on there and scroll through. That is what that is that platform is designed to teach them. You know, and so then you've got a nine-year-old girl believing that she's already got body image issues on an underdeveloped body as it is, right?

And then you've got the boys that are consuming that content that's showing them that they should be paying attention to certain attributes on girls. And you collide those two worlds, and that is what leads to the work we're doing, right? Is now we are having to. Hunt down predators online, right? And people that are preying on our children in real life, not just online, but hands-on as well.

And, you know, so it just really creates this perfect storm and it is concerning.

So when you ask me, that's my holdback, honestly. When you ask me what age for a cell phone, man, you are, if whatever age you feel like it's acceptable for your child to start viewing pornography, how about that? Let's give that one to parents. And you know, I think I'm going to use that one more frequently. But because that's the reality of it, there's not enough parameters you can put in play.

I spoke with an incredible mama who her child was a special needs child. And she was, she would give her daughter a tablet while she was cooking dinner and put it on YouTube Kids. Innocent, you think that there are boundaries in play because this business has told you there are boundaries in play. That also profits from, anyways, from your child being addicted to it. But puts on YouTube Kids and is letting her watch a very common cartoon that is common amongst very young, young children.

So I don't even want to say what it is because I don't know if I can get in trouble for that, but it's a common cartoon that your child would definitely know. And this cartoon had been remanipulated on YouTube Kids to where everything that was being said. was like the cartoon, a regular cartoon. But the cartoon was the characters in the cartoon were performing sexual acts on each other.

Now had that mother not walked over to her child, looked down at the screen, To pay attention to what was on there, she would have never known. The volume was up, everything sounded fine, but what was occurring on that screen was something totally different. And so that's what I say: like, you know, that question, it always is a hard one for me to answer because my poor kids are going to be, they're going to end up with like life alert or something before we have to deal with a phone. I just, you know, but all of that to say, you know, there is. You counter that by being engaged with your children, because here's the reality of it.

you're not always going to know what your children's up to, what they're doing, and where they're at. But if you have created a relationship with your child, a truly engaged relationship with your child, they're going to want to talk to you. They're going to want to open up to you and share these things. And we'll talk a little bit about, I know we're coming up on time soon, but in the next part of this, I want to be able to share with the listeners, especially just some of the things that we've learned as parents on how to do that and how to, you know, begin those conversations with our kids.

Well, begin it, and we'll just control it. All right.

Well, I will say, you know, and it started really early for us, especially with our second son. Our first one, you know, I was still learning what this world looked like and navigating being a first-time parent. But with our second one, it came down to small and simple questions like, hey, buddy, when he was in preschool, hey, buddy, who takes you to the bathroom? Right? Like, I want to know what's going on in your day today.

I want to ask you what would be strange questions so that I can begin to build this. A conversation that mommy's going to ask you questions, you know, and I'm not looking for like little surface yes-no answers. We're going to dig, we're going to go deep. And so, that was one of those things. Like, well, how do they help you, right?

I'm working on creating a blueprint where he understands what's acceptable behavior and what's not, not just by his terms or by him, but what's acceptable in other people's behavior, right? Because we know that there are hands-on offenders out there, right? People that are soliciting our children online have an average of 13 victims in their lifetime.

So, there's hands-on offenders in places that they have access to children, right? And so, I wanted to prepare those conversations.

So, I would say that is a great way. Start with engaging your child on conversations that you would seem that would be hard, right? We just said pornography is viewed at age eight and nine, right? Average. Begin those conversations.

I know I grew up in an era where your parents didn't talk to you about those things until probably high school, if they talked to you about it. But now we're seeing that that conversation has to start sooner.

So if that conversation is coming at a younger age, well, there's probably some other conversations we need to be having before that as well. Yeah. And it. The simple thing is, it's not that simple. Yeah, unfortunately, no.

But it is totally engaging and doing awkward things, asking awkward questions. Absolutely. That's beautiful. We'll be right back. Again, the rescue run to help fund all this education is happening next Saturday, 9 a.m.

You can go register at kingdompursuits.com. You're listening to The Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to King of Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the kingdom. Today we have Witness With Witnesses. We have Whitney Miller, who is a witness with the Invictus Project, which is...

tremendously involved in this state of North Carolina in helping out in trafficking and crimes against children in so many different ways. And again, that rescue run is going to start at 9 a.m. and you go register at kingdompursuits.com. And then they've got the big back-to-school bash that's going on afterwards. But when we left our hero, we were talking about engaging our kids.

And so this story here really, it really touched me the first time I heard it. I think it'll impact you. Yeah. And so I'm so glad you brought it up, Robbie. And that is the beauty of us knowing each other and having these conversations, right?

But that conversation, that initial conversation with my youngest son, asking those harder questions, you know, beginning those conversations allows us to move into this next one where my older son, you know, and this is why we can't prevent everything, right? But turned on our TV to Disney Plus. And unfortunately, at that point, there was a merger that occurred between Hulu and Disney Plus. I had no idea about any of that. But when he did, a certain show popped up as their advertisement.

And so it was an advertisement that went across all Disney Pluses. And it was dying for. Sex was the name of the show. And all of a sudden, I hear my 10-year-old son yell out, Mom! You know, as I'm taking towels to put them back in the bathroom, he's over here.

Mom, I'm like, what in the world? He's like, what, what is this? Why is this here? And it is on his normal, our normal screen, you know? And so you can't prevent everything, but you know what?

In that moment, he recognized I was a safe place to bring that up. He didn't turn the TV off. He didn't switch to something else. He said, mom, this is here. It's not supposed to be.

Had we not had these conversations, these harder conversations prior to that, it would have just, I mean, he wouldn't have known. He wouldn't have known anything, right? It could have been something he clicked on. It could have been something he just kept, you know, scrolling through.

So I think as parents, we are often afraid to have these conversations because of the questions that might ensue afterwards, that we're not going to be prepared for those. I would A, tell you to lean in to the Lord on that because the Lord will guide you in what to say to your children, right? He's given us what we need, the tools we need to raise our children. Trust him in that space too. But the other thing I think is also really important, and I see it more and more frequently, and honestly, we had to address it in our own home as well.

But is the idea that, you know, I tell everybody, be engaged, right? The best educational resource you have is to be edgy, I mean, to be engaged in your children's lives. And what does that look like? That looks like putting our phones down when we ask our kids, how was their day, because they're paying attention to it. They're catching on.

And so if they don't see us authentically engaged in their lives, they're not going to come to us with the hard days. They're not going to come to us with the hard problems or the things they heard at school that they're unsure of. They're not coming to us with that because they don't see us actively paying attention to what they're saying to us. And I had to learn that one the hard way too, right? Our, at the time, three-year-old, four-year-old, four-year-old looked at me and said, mommy, will you look me in the eyes when I'm talking to you so I know you're listening?

Talk about a peg, right? Like that staked to the heart, right? Was a wake-up call for me where we had to really look at that and understand. And when you look at it, man, how much, how many hours have we stolen from our children and grandchildren because we get stuck scrolling on our phone or looking up something? Or it could even be, we can, we tell ourselves it's good things we're looking at, right?

And it can be good things, but what is it taking the place of? And it's that authentic engagement. And our kids are becoming a product of not having real people engaged in their lives. And that's a problem because they don't have someone to run to. And the enemy's taking full advantage of that.

Right. He's going to be the one they that's exactly the vulnerability they're going to run to. Absolutely. And I don't want to miss this piece because to me, it's the most horrifying. Yeah.

Right. And that's the sex torsion piece.

So you've got a young boy. Yeah. And they've been. You know, you and pornography or whatever. Not even, right?

They just have an Instagram account. And all of a sudden, or any account, and someone, you know, solicits them. This beautiful young girl online says she's 16 from the county over. It sends a friend request. Our kids are used to accepting friends' requests from strangers.

Not a big deal to them. And now all of a sudden, she's having a discussion with 14-year-old Johnny. And so you've got Susie 16 in the county beside him, and Johnny 14. And all of a sudden, Susie says, you know, hey, Johnny, if you send me a picture, I'll send you a picture. And 14-year-old Johnny smoking hot Susie, he's like, oh, well, you know, what are we going to do here?

And he sends the picture. And now that same person, that, you know, that bad actor is what we call them, that portrayed themselves as a peer group, is not. It's an older man in another country that is soliciting multiple children and sextorting them by saying, Hey, I'm going to share these pictures with all of your friends if you don't send me X amount of money. And it's happening so frequently. And the scariest part about that, Robbie, is because we have disengaged as parents, many of our 14, 15, whatever, our young boys are not running to tell mom that they oops and sent a bad picture.

And now have somebody that's asking them for a lot of money. No, they are burdening that weight, and that weight is so heavy because we know who's behind it, right? That shame is so heavy that they are choosing suicide as an option. And what does that say? That says that we have to be engaged as parents, asking hard questions, being there for them when they need it.

That is, you're right, that is a scary piece of this. And why it's so important to me that we take part with Invictus, right? And they've got this run coming up. Maybe you can't run. You just want to send in the $45.

Again, you can go to Invictus Project, you know, dot O-R-G, is it? Yep, Invictus, the InvictusProject.org backslash rescue run. Come and learn more about what we're doing and the task force and the arrests and all the things. And don't forget the big bash coming up afterwards: the big concert. Concert, absolutely F-R-E-E free.

So hey, get your kids to come out there to that. Again, Invictus Project, remember that and share it with somebody.

Meanwhile, we're just going. Grateful that you listened today and that you've got so much truth coming up. Encouraging prayer with James Banks coming up next.