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The following program contains sensitive content. Listener discretion is advised. This is Lantern Rescue. So we have an amazing episode for you today on Lantern Rescue. I've got Whitney Miller with me and we've got just a really cool show on tap for you. The realities, actually, of how our kids are kind of groomed online and the idea of how these things happen to our kids online. Right, Whitney?

Right, yeah. You know, Robbie, really this is something that has just been brought back up to the forefront and I know we've spoken on this before, just kind of one-offs about that awareness component, but I really think there's a lot of value in what we're getting ready to talk about. I've had the ability to speak at a couple of different churches and youth groups over the past couple of weeks and along with those youth groups, we've actually brought the parents in as well and just been able to talk them through, hey, these are the things that your kids are experiencing and exposed to online and really just kind of do some misbusting around what we think trafficking is going to look like versus really how accessible the bad guys are to our children, you know, in ways that we don't necessarily, we're not prepared for as parents. So I am excited to kind of shed some light on what that looks like so that we as parents and those of you that are grandparents just have one more tool in your toolkit when it comes to preparing your children for the world ahead of us.

Yeah, so not only is trafficking not somebody pulling up in a white van offering your kid candy anymore, but it's actually not even the way that they would come to them online 10 years ago either. There's new stuff and actually new stuff probably since the last time we did this show and so I think that by tuning in today, you'll have something both that you can learn but also that you can share with other parents and other grandparents, right? As God, you know, is comforting you, we're hoping you'll comfort others with the comfort you are comforted with, right, Whitney? Absolutely. Yeah, you know, and that is the piece of this that I want to make sure we are really aware of off-gate is this is not a conversation that I desire to instill fear in anyone, but more than anything, give us the tools and abilities to walk faithfully in knowing that we have prepared our children and that what we are discussing here really just allows for us to meet more at ease knowing that, you know, we're bringing some things to light, right, so that the enemy can't work through them. So that's our goal here, right?

I would like to start with just a couple of little things that I think are interesting. You know, I began a lot of these conversations with that MythBuster idea that trafficking of children and exploitation of children isn't, it's not what I grew up with being mourned about, right? So for me, my parents warned me about the white van that had blacked out windows rolling down the neighborhood streets offering me candy, right?

Oh yeah, I did that same thing with my kids, yeah. Yeah, see, we started that instilling that idea, right? And so I think because we come from that generation and that mindset and that, you know, that idea, we're kind of stuck there, right? So that is what we've tunnel-visioned ourselves to believe is going to happen to our children so much so that we don't know how to look for those outliers and those pieces that are really moving as technology is moving, right? And so for that purpose, I think it's important that we pay attention to what's making our kids accessible beyond what it used to be. And again, it's not them riding their bikes in the neighborhood.

So there's our myth bust number one, right? It's not as likely, not to say it's not likely, it's not as likely that your children are going to be picked up off the street in a little white van because somebody offered them candy and snagged them, right? And why is that? Well, the reason for that is because bad guys don't need that kind of access anymore. They have access to a lot of the technology that we place in our children's hands. Naively, we don't recognize how these bad people work, right?

Because our minds don't work like theirs. So we're going to look at a little bit of how can we kind of put our focus in and shift our focus in how these predators are thinking so that we can prepare our children. Just to give an idea, I'm going to start here because I think this is important and interesting. I'm going to run through a couple of applications and games that are probably, if I'm guessing, on the devices of some of your listeners' children, okay? Snapchat, Instagram, Discord, Twitter, TikTok, Omeebly, that's interesting. We'll talk a little bit more about.

Roblox, Minecraft, Call of Duty, Fortnite. I guarantee you that a lot of our listeners listening in right now are thinking, wow, you know, I've heard my kids talk about that before, right? And you don't think anything of it because that's where all of their chatter and friendships are cultivated, and so we don't think much about it. Oh, your kid's got an Instagram account. Yes, but do they also have what they call an Instagram account, which is actually their fake Instagram account that mom and dad typically are not aware of, right?

And, you know, we can talk through ways that you find those pieces. But those are all applications that our kids are on a lot, right? Some of them are gaming applications. Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, Call of Duty, Among Us, these are things that our kids are just opening up like we used to with the old Nintendo console.

But the difference is now that every single one of those things I just listed off have a chat component to them, right? So what we've done and again, this is not to put blame on parents because I am a parent and I have I've definitely had my eyes open to quite a few things, which is why I find this so incredibly important to discuss is, you know, we've got our kids playing their little tablet and it's louder than we want it to be. So we hand them headphones, right? Like, okay, just throw your headphones on and play your game, right?

But the problem with that is we don't know who is in their ear, right? And these these predators are preying on these children through video games, through their Instagram accounts, through any chat component or feature that they can get their hands on. And it's as simple as, wow, is that your mom yelling in the background?

Man, she doesn't sound real nice, you know, and then it begins, right? They're looking to gain the trust of that child. Do you know it takes less than eight minutes for a predator to groom our children? Less than eight minutes.

That's less time than it takes to load and unload a dishwasher. Yeah. At that point, they've gained the trust within eight minutes of our children, you know? And so we think, well, if they're on something for a long period of time or over time, the predators may reach out to them. But really, it takes no time at all to start building that that trust and idea, you know, and and these these perpetrators, these predators, they know the things that your children are interested in.

Right. They have narrowed down what video games certain age groups play. You know, they know they know where to find what it is they're looking for. And so we have to be prepared and preparing our children for that. And a lot of that comes from creating strong relationships with our children. You know, as these groomers build these relationships, they're building them off of something they find that child lacking. Right.

That child wants to have a friendship. Right. That that allows them to speak openly and freely. But maybe they don't feel that they can do that with their parents. Right. And so these areas are areas that we as parents can step up to the plate because at the end of the day, they are they're just looking for our attention.

Right. They're just looking for for a way to to be involved with what we're doing day to day. And, you know, we have to give our children that space to be able to be involved. And I know life is so busy as a parent of young kids. I understand that it's hard. It is hard to slow down and play airplanes. Right.

Or or army man or whatever it is your children enjoy playing or go outside when it's 97 degrees for three hours. I get that that's not always an easy thing after you've worked all day. But if we don't step into that gap, there are people preying on them and looking for that gap to step into. And I you know, we look for a simple like we're just not going to let him have a phone. Well, you know, if that works in your family, you know, that's one thing. But it may be that you're playing right into the groomers hand because, you know, if you take it away, they'll probably find a way to get access. And when they do, you know, they don't trust you. Right. And so it seems like what you're describing is to grow the relationship in mutual trust.

But also, if what they're really in the video games, you know, what's wrong with playing them with them? Right. Yeah. Yeah.

And those are options. Right. That is a way to kind of reach them, you know, and be a part of what they're doing.

If they're interested in something, show interest in the fact that they are interested in it. Right. Learn more about it. You know, I know that technology is moving quickly and we cannot always keep up in our kids. My you know, my young kids are able to work my phone easier than I am, you know, and they don't get a hold of one very often. So it's just ingrained in them to be able to move quickly with technology.

And I fall behind. But as a parent, it's our job to see what are some of the areas that my child might be at risk on the platform. You know, if you're a parent and you know your child's got Instagram, get an Instagram and figure out how it works so that you can be prepared to ask them those questions.

Right. To ask them difficult questions. I think those are little things that we can do.

You step into that world with them so they don't feel so alone or that you're not going to understand when they come to you with questions or concerns. You know, Google is at our fingertips just like it is theirs. And I encourage parents to get out there and ask those questions on Google or whatever, you know, whatever, DuckDuckGo, whatever search engine that you prefer. Get out there and ask, hey, what what is my eight year old subject susceptible to when it comes to predators? Right.

Google the question. There's information out there. We are just so used to waiting for someone to present us with information or waiting for the problem to occur that we become reactive instead of proactive. You know, and that's not we don't want to be on that side of the field when it comes to predators and our children. No, I love the aspect of it is, wow, you get a better relationship with your child and you protect them all in the same package.

Absolutely. And, you know, that's that's another thing we've talked with, been able to talk with parents about, especially as they are again, we're becoming that reactive piece. You know, it's like, OK, well, my kids have already done these things. I've had a lot of follow up phone calls after speaking at some of these youth groups where parents have come and said, hey, after we spoke, you know, she spoke to my kids. They actually they told me about a weird situation they had online.

Do you think this is grooming or predatory behavior? And we've had these discussions and talked through it. And in some of those cases, the answer is yes, absolutely. And if someone's sending your child gifts from another state, another country, and you don't know who that person is, that's concerning. That's a red flag. Right. One of the instances was this person, you know, her her child was playing video games with someone in another country. This other person sent a package to her child aware of the age difference and all of that. Right.

And that package was, you know, just cool stuff from that country. But there's there's an issue there. Right.

We've we've we've been taught that nothing comes free. Right. And my concern and question that we, you know, kind of engaged in after that, well, what do you know about this person? You know, how do you how do you know them? Have you reached out and have you talked to them? Are you aware?

Are they aware that you're aware? You know, and after a while, this person ended up just kind of backing off because the parents got involved. Right. Well, I hate we got to go to a break, but we do. And so we got a whole lot more to talk about that.

We think, you know, again, wouldn't it be great to just have a better relationship with your child and feel like, you know, involved in their life and protect them all at the same time? You know, that's our hope in today's show. So stay tuned.

We got a lot more coming at you. Lantern Rescue is a USA based organization that conducts international rescue operations for people suffering from human trafficking. Lantern specializes in sending former U.S. 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 one hundred and fifty billion dollars 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.

Welcome back to Lantern Rescue. Today's episode, we're talking about some of the realities of what happens on our online with our children and some of these statistics. Whitney, these are new statistics.

Twenty, twenty three. Things are changing fast. They're alarming, though. They are. You know, there are definitely there's definitely a concern at hand.

Right. Especially when it comes to how people are approaching our children. I would share this is a this is a very scary statistic to think about. You know, our kids obviously on their platforms have all of these friends that they're connecting with. But the scary part is most of those people they don't know in real life. Right. So ninety eight percent of cyber predators are people that children don't know in real life. That's crazy to consider. They are. I mean, I think about like the kids I worked with in high school as a teacher.

They had these great big friends list and it was such a big deal to have all of these followers and people liking your photos. But those are the same people that are stepping into that world to get to know them for a bad reason. Right.

And so a lot of that can be it can be stopped early on. Right. Having those conversations with your children to say, hey, do you do you know these people like your friends list? Let's go through it.

Who are your friends? Right. What do you know? These people, you know, probably look at our Facebook and Instagram as adults and say, I probably don't know everybody on there. Right. Not even in the same world.

Do I know? You know, that's something that that is that is a preparation that we can have as we've got as you've got children that are aging into maybe being having a technology device, a cell phone, a tablet. Most of them are issued some kind of technology resource at school. Having these conversations are important early on.

So what are some of those preventative steps, preventative measures you can take? Well, one of them would be ensuring that your child is an age that's appropriate to have those items. Right. There is a learning capability in technology that we can't ignore. Right. We have to be able to teach our children how to use these devices, but how to do it responsibly. And so when they are looking to have their social media accounts, making sure you're setting those parameters up that say, hey, don't accept anyone you don't know as a friend. I'm going to be checking through it. You know, like, let's talk about these people that you're accepting and let's make sure we actually know them.

Set that parameter. Be aware of what your children are posting. A lot of times these groomers are pulling information out of the pictures or comments that people are making on their photos. I think about Instagram and, you know, the younger generation doesn't use Facebook as much. They've learned that that's a place to put things that you want your family members to see, but not necessarily your friends.

And so there's a definite difference in the two. But there's Instagram pictures. You know, these these predators are able to figure out what our children like because they're living their life out loud on their social media. Right. So they can easily figure out and even from our Facebooks and Instagrams. Right.

They can easily figure out, oh, that you were at your kids, you know, baseball tournament last year. So obviously your son is interested in baseball. Right. And they use that as a as part of their grooming methods. Oh, you play baseball.

I love baseball. They're just looking for nuggets to be able to create a bond. Right.

Something a connector. And so we can be aware of what those posts are looking at. What are our children posting about? Are there things that are in those pictures that might allow someone to learn more than we want them to about our children?

All right. And those are simple little things, just little things that we can be preparing our kids for. You know, we don't we don't want the world around us tries to emphasize fear in everything.

Every social media outlet, every news station. There's always this underlying tone of fear. So it's not that we want our children to be fearful, but we do want to teach them how to be discerning.

If someone asks you something that just makes your tummy not feel so great. Right. We teach it to them for for people that they interact with on a daily basis in front of them. But we don't necessarily teach it to them when it comes to online relationships or or that component.

Teach them the same thing. Hey, if something doesn't make you feel right, come to me and let's talk about it. But that requires us as parents to have that open platform of conversation that they don't feel like they're going to be punished. If someone reached out to them and they entertained a question or, you know, relationship with this person online, friendship, whatever. They need to know, like, we're not here to we're not here to ground you and take everything away from you immediately. We're here to have a discussion and figure out what we can do different that this doesn't keep occurring.

Right. And so, you know, some of the things that just jump out to my mind, I mean, things we talked to our granddaughter about is like you don't give out your address. You know, somebody wants to know where you live. You know, that's one of those that ought to make your stomach curl a little bit if you don't really know who that person is. And what are some of the other things you think that should be those things that make people's stomach turn? You know, it's scary because there is a lot of questions that these people are asking. I would say, you know, again, they're typically asking those those interesting. Oh, how old are you?

Where are you from? Right. They're learning those little details.

But I would say when someone starts creating and isolating your child from family members. So maybe you notice an attitude change in your kid after they get off of that video game and you know, they're talking to someone on their headset. Right. They and that is a key grooming technique, even even when it comes to, you know, the physical piece of trafficking and grooming. Right. Online, they're doing the same thing. They want to isolate the individual. Right. All of a sudden, your child is is pulling back from you. Right.

Start asking questions. I think we have really or they're searching for privacy. Right. I think we've really been in the mindset of becoming a friend instead of a parent to our children. I hear a lot of kids talk about their privacy. Well, let me just tell you, when I talk to my parents about my privacy, I ended up with my door taken off of my room.

That was a no go for me as a child. Right. And my parents are quick to say, hey, this privacy thing you think you have. Obviously, if you're you know, your children have the privacy of changing clothes and going to the bathroom and does normal things.

Right. But when your child is seeking privacy and running into their room to shut the door with their cell phone or video game or whatever. Question it. It's OK to question it. Worst case scenario, you get on their nerves a little bit.

If you're not on your kid's nerves, I'd say you're not involved enough in what they're doing. So I know we got we got to move in. We got some really important prayer requests you want to share, right? Yes, I do.

And I do want to chat a little bit about that. You know, we we have quite a few and I know we're shifting gears kind of midway through. But I do think it's important and valuable that we have our listeners who are incredible prayer warriors come alongside of us with a couple of operations that we have got going on in different countries. I would just I would ask our prayer warriors to continue to pray over our operators that are on the ground. Like I said, we just we have a lot coming our way, which means that there are a lot of people in very vulnerable situations. And I would ask our prayers to pray specifically for the sustainability of those victims while they await rescue.

That the Lord would just cover them in an unexplainable peace and presence and that they would not be fearful when people come to their rescue, but that they would recognize it as the Lord answering their prayers. And then that protection over our operators. Some of these operations are going to be a little bit more sensitive than others. And so and are going to be a little more risky.

Right. And so just praying over the family members of our operators and our operators in these situations would be wonderful. We also have quite a few domestic cases that we are working through as well. So on the domestic front, please continue to pray for both of our operators here locally as well. They've just got they've got a lot of heavy caseload. And, you know, that stuff doesn't just stays with you.

Right. And so our hearts are heavy burdened for those that are in these situations. And we we look forward to nothing more than being able to rejoice with new hope for them when we rescue them. So just please continue to stand by us and praise specifically over the next two months of operations. So and along with that, Robbie, I do want to share, you know, we have a pretty awesome campaign that is being launched and it's the Liberator campaign.

And you're going to hear a lot more about it, actually. I think we'll end up putting a whole podcast around the heart behind it and how we developed it. But part of that Liberator campaign is, you know, coming into the fold as a monthly donor for Lantern Rescue. But that also that gives a little bit more access to things like these prayer requests and immediate needs. We're really trying to create a group of just people that are coming into the fold and dedicated to the mission at hand long term.

They want to see the longevity of what they're pouring into. And we want to invite them into that fold. We want to invite them into the Lantern Rescue family on a deeper level because they are they are showing that ongoing commitment to seeing, you know, seeing what we're doing, what we're doing. So as part of that Liberator campaign, we were able to offer just kind of exclusive access, we'll say, because we know these people are dedicated to praying with us and standing with us. And we're excited to be able to give that and grant that to those that are in the mission and in the fight with us. Right. And that Liberator initiative, is it already at the Web site?

It is. You can actually get to it from Lantern Rescue dot org backslash Liberator or you can do from the main page. It's under the Get Involved tab.

And it says Liberator on there. It'll direct you to it. It's got a great video we've put together out. And you're just you'll learn a lot more about the heart behind it as we begin to unfold it and discuss it. I'm looking forward to that podcast as well, because it's just it's come from a special place in our heart to put this Liberator campaign together.

Yeah. What an opportunity. You know, talk about a prayer request. You know, God, this is something you put on my heart to to partner with them to be a Liberator. You know, obviously, I'd love the idea of the video and all that.

It's all there at Lantern Rescue dot org. Right. And you can see if the Lord's put it on your heart to join us in that.

How fun. Does not go to waste. I assure you, every person that has come alongside of us in this fight has been so instrumental, mental and monumental for what we've been capable of doing. You know, so and we look forward to continuing that partnership with everyone moving into the expansion that's ahead, because it is not a it's not a fight that's slowing down at all. Oh, and not to mention that the Lord came beside us right on Saturday. You guys had an amazing event as your first, you know, Lantern 5K, right? Yes, we did. I wish I had plenty of time to tell you about that, but we did.

We had, I think, one hundred and ninety six runners as our final count come out. And really, our community just poured out in an amazing way. There is definitely a heart cultivated to see justice and truth be brought to life and really just to be a voice for those that are truly voiceless in this fight.

All right. Well, thank you so much, Whitney, for all you're doing. And and thank you for listening. It means so much to us. And believe me, it's coming fast. All that the Lord is doing through this. So I can hardly wait till next week's episode. Right, Whitney? Well, so excited. Another program powered by the Truth Network.