Latest Updates Around The World

Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network.

The following program contains sensitive content. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to Lantern Rescue, a ministry program dedicated to bringing light into the darkness of human trafficking. It's time to light the way to freedom. This is Lantern Rescue. We tell the stories, we talk about rescues, and we empower you to do something about it. William Wilberforce once said, let it not be said I was silent when they needed me.

This is Lantern Rescue. Well, I think you're going to be so glad you tuned in today. We've got some updates coming. We've got Mark and Wren with us on for a change. It's good to have you guys back. So, so, Mark, what's going on? Hey, Robbie, it is great to be on the show. And hey, Wren, we're not in the same location, but it's awesome to all three of us to be on the phone together. Yeah, there really is a great deal happening. Exciting stuff.

I actually just got off the phone. I want to say this. I just got off the phone with our Director Robinson over this past weekend. We rescued a two-year-old and just so glad that we have people on the ground at Lantern's working end-to-end with law enforcement to guide and direct people's steps.

Because, you know, I'm never going to see that two-year-old. We're so blessed now. Wren and I, this thing's grown so much now. We have people doing stuff in so many countries that, you know, we no longer get to actually see every survivor and every person we help. But we get to see and hear from our work that we put in place. And it is just as exciting because that's a changed life. I mean, that is a two-year-old who is being perpetrated by an individual. And now that child's in good hands and safety. Including another director of ops, we just secured an orphanage with almost 100 children in it.

Gangs had overtaken it and we were able to do quite a large operation to reestablish a secure presence there. So there is a great deal happening. I think Wren and I, what we're going to do is pull up our September report. And Wren's going to kind of walk us through even the stuff that she's involved in.

That's really good. And we're so thankful that we have in Lanter, somebody like her, I'm just going to say it, somebody who's a founder like her, who not just a military background, not just a caring spirit, but actually has the skill set and tool set as a prosecutor. And in daily involvement with law enforcement, doing incredible work here in the state. So Robby, thanks for letting us jump on with you. Oh man, what an honor.

And so, wonderful to hear like a two-year-old and then a whole orphanage, like, oh my goodness, if a gang were to take over that, you'd hate to even think. So again, those are great reports. Yeah. Yeah, they did.

They actually did take it over, but it's now not in their hands. So good stuff. But I look hard, Wren, you jump in and if she can take over and just even give the folks a little idea of September on the counter human trafficking side, I think people really like to hear this. Yeah, absolutely. So we had a lot go on in September. There was a ton of travel too.

It feels like everyone was everywhere. So in September, we had 23 rescues done in Western Africa, which is huge. And that involved traffickers and victims from five different countries. They're all going through the points that we have established there in Africa. So it's crazy to see that and to see how far reaching these trafficking networks are and how much they'll pull from anywhere. These guys are, they're predators and they're on the hunt and they're really moving across Africa. And we've got a lot of really positive things going on in Africa. We've got an incredible team that's working there and our task force leaders over there are just nonstop amazing people.

I feel like every day I'm getting a text from them about, you know, this witch doctor got arrested, this child was rescued. So, you know, we've seen some really incredible stuff come out of Africa recently, which is really counter to the narrative. And it is, Africa is a hard place to operate and it's really, really difficult. We've actually got a team there right now. And I'll talk about that here in a little bit when we wrap up with September, but you know, it's hard to hear how difficult things are in Africa, but when we're on the ground, it can be very discouraging to hear how difficult things are in Africa because that is true there. But we've seen so much positive growth and we've seen so much movement there and our teams are doing well. They're established and we're expanding now there. And that's really incredible to see.

So Africa is doing great. Here in the States, we had a lot going on. So we did have a trafficking case in the States, unfortunately, of a survivor that was being trafficked by both of her parents to another person. And that case is ongoing and we were able to interact with her. That's one of the survivors that I was able to interact with personally, interact with her and get her some, you know, she's now obviously with a new home, both of her parents are incarcerated, and get her some school supplies and some clothing and get to spend some time with her and really get to know the survivor and watch her progression in a positive way move forward and be able to be with her through the court process. And one of our other task force directors is heavily involved in that as well.

He was the arresting officer and investigated that. So that's a really, really hard case, but I'm very proud of her. She's been extremely brave, extremely brave, and I'm actually going to her course concert tomorrow night. She invited me and the arresting officer to that. So that's, that's incredibly special. I'm definitely gonna cry.

So if you see me there crying, no you didn't. Yeah, so we also stateside, we had a submission to NCMEC. We did identify two children that were shown in CCM images. So we positively identified them to NCMEC. And something that's maybe not commonplace in the conversation about CCM is, you know, we do a lot of victim, you know, we want to see if the victim's known, but when you find an image and you know, or you're able to identify the child that's in it, it's super important to pass that to NCMEC and to put in what's called a newly identified child report.

And that allows them, then they can hash value those images. And when those images pop up later in another investigation across the country, across the world, because they most likely will, they're able to say, okay, this child has been identified, law enforcement has done their part on this, that child is no longer in danger. We can move on and identify these other kids that are not identified, and we're not sure if they're still in danger. And that that's able to help reallocate resources to the kids that are still missing and are still possibly in danger. So that's really powerful. It seems like a small thing, but it really has massive effects. And another thing that can come out of that is those newly identified victims, they're able to go speak at other trials if they choose to.

That's absolutely up to them, but they're able to go speak at the trials of other people that their images are found on their devices and tell their story and get justice across the world. So that's really incredible. We had some tactical training go on here in the States. We had a four-day-long training course, 30 policemen in the US were trained, and they got a lot of tactical training, a lot of interaction with some of our overseas operators.

Just learning more about trafficking, how to do entries, how to handle victims, how to be tactical, be safe, but also be victim-centered and minded. And that's huge. Having a tactical operator is one thing. Having someone that's good with victims is a different thing. And when you can overlap those, even if it's not entirely, they're not sending a counselor in with a gun, right?

So we're overlapping them as much as we can feasibly and maintaining security and safety for everyone. But that's really, it's really powerful to have people going in on these raids that are not only the best tactically that they can be, but they also are going in being very mindful of victims being in there and the trauma that they've seen and really using that in their tactics to lessen the impact on them. And we had a lot going on in South America. Our task force leader over our South America is youth fantastic. And he had a lot of stuff going on down there, a lot of raids of clubs and some women that were reunited with their families in their home countries after being sex trafficked.

So, you know, we could, we could talk about all of these individual cases all day, but I know we're going to try to get some more in this episode. So I won't, I won't linger too much longer on human trafficking for September, but I do want to update on our team that is currently overseas right now. They're in Africa and they last night pulled 40, well, it's kind of hard, you know, the time zones are weird.

So last night for me, but I think today for them, I don't know. They pulled 40 kids out of labor trafficking in this region of Africa that they've been heavily investigating for a while. And this, we have been praying over this raid and we have been prepping for this operation and you know, a lot of, there's been a lot of road bumps, but it finally got to happen and the guys are doing fantastic. And we're really excited for what's going to happen next to this country. And they, you know, the government really came together to put this on and that's really powerful to see is the government was the one pushing and they were really involved and they were really committed to making this, this raid work and they did get 40 kids out.

They are looking for more. So I think we'll have an updated number. And when the guys get back, I'm sure they're going to do an episode on this.

So this is just the wave top, but it's really incredible. It's going to work. Yeah. I look forward to that. Wow.

Thanks Fran. And I know that for our listeners and Robbie, really it's probably like a 50,000 view, right? There's so much happening in parts of the world and so many good people working so hard for the sake of children. And we recently enjoyed even something that we always call special is when we get to interact and have a future interaction with some of our survivors, you know, because, um, we see a lot reintegrated with families.

We see a lot who, you know, put, pick themselves back up through the social services or their opportunities that are given to them. And a lot of those opportunities come from Lander and we, uh, we do involve ourselves in the care and, uh, of these survivors. And particularly, uh, my wife got to go down to South America and reunite with several victims from an operation from last year.

She was able to, um, love on them. And really what she enjoyed the most is, uh, she's a trauma therapist, but really it was her seeing our victim care specialist who is from a Spanish speaking country where the girls were rescued. And now in another country, seeing how much they, the survivors respected and depended on that victim care specialist.

So, uh, people kind of probably think later that we're all just a bunch of door kickers or something or former this or that, but that's a large truth of it. But I tell you what, I am so thrilled that inside of our task force when we can, and when the funding is there and when the need is so great, we feel like we fill the gap with the attorney general's victim care office by putting and employing, um, licensed people on the ground with our agents, with our people. And they have that beautiful, but hard job of loving on, you know, girls who are transitioning from victim to survivor, you know, and assessing their needs and being with them. And, uh, particularly this one that works so much in South America, she is such a, just a wonderful godly girl. And, uh, we've been part of her journey before schooling.

We, we helped her get through school. We've helped her get so much training in place that she can, uh, be part of our task force. And, um, I just want to share how incredible it is to see that interaction between survivors and continued, uh, survivor care.

Darrell Bock Wow. That's so, you know, I'm sure like me, y'all are glad you tuned in and, oh my goodness, do we have more updates? And certainly you can see that God is doing amazing things around the world. And we, so we got some special prayer requests coming up in the next segment. So stay tuned.

We got a lot more coming up. 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 $150 billion 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, wow, this amazing episode update with Lantern Rescue today. So much going on, as Mark said, from a 50,000-foot view. So we got some more updates and special prayer requests.

So take it from here, Mark. Yeah. To this segment, we just want to talk to, now we want to talk about not just counting human trafficking, but also our crisis and conflict response in which we're trying to provide safety, vital networks, resources to individuals, families that are currently stuck in conflict or crisis zone. We didn't talk a lot about it, but we had a quick response to Afghanistan, both earthquakes, the first being very significant. What we were able to do, because we're already working there in a recovery fashion and have been extracting so many people in the Middle East, we responded with blankets and food.

And that sounds so simple, but it is so critical in those moments to provide that. And so I'm so proud of our team who set up so quickly, was very organized. I don't know what people envision, but you have an earthquake and there's an immediate response on the street to pull people out. And our teams are active in that. Our networks are very active in that.

But then it becomes the need of where do you collect these people and how do you take care of them? And so we have the network enough, even inside of Afghanistan, that we can secure locations and bring in blankets and food, and the people can come in and receive that and register that they received that. And so we did that in Afghanistan. We also just did a response into into Manipur, India.

Again, you guys know if you listen to The Path, what happened there, there's a great conflict between or a great persecution of Christians in Manipur. Back a few months ago, we did a very, very large response from the blessing of a donor. And we were able to help a lot of churches, a lot of Christians. Well, we just did a further feeding program for all the Christians who are still hiding in the jungle.

And we did that. Then, moving over even to Eastern Europe, you know, I've done a show before a little bit talking about our therapy programs. You know, part of our Crisis Conflict Task Force response, everybody needs to maybe learn this. Yes, we can do a fast response to move people. Yes, we can do a fast response to provide blankets and food. But humanitarian aid is not the end game in a crisis and conflict response. Some type of established therapy, whether that's something we establish and hand off, right to local NGOs or NGO partners, or we carry it ourselves. And so therapy is what helps a child recover. Feeding him and his family works at the immediate, but his brain and his soul is still traumatized. So how do we address that?

And we have been so creative in Eastern Europe. With animal assisted therapy, in September, we had dog trainers, four-legged companions, and we had pupils of the Soldiers Association. Children come.

We set up from an elementary school. We had trained dogs. They would follow the commands, not only of the teachers, but then we let the children, the traumatized children, start to give command. And it really caused a lot of genuine smiles and a lot of delight in those students and kids. A regional police lieutenant from a K-9 unit was also a special guest speaker at the event, taught children about the safety of how to operate in emergency situations, such as air raids and bombs, right, what to do and where to be in place to protect themselves. We also brought K-9 officers who registered emotional support dogs, and they do actively use those dogs for medical and psychological rehabilitation of military personnel.

And then the children themselves, you know, really bravely took part in working with police dogs, displaying genuine smiles of delight. So we're excited about that program. We're also fully still supportive behind our IDP warehouse, our internally displaced warehouse. And I wanted to announce on this show, too, that we actually have a name of that because, you know, calling it IDP warehouse, we've just been working so hard.

We didn't have time to slow down and come up with anything. But we're now calling it the welcome house. Because if I could take all of our listeners to Ukraine, where there are air raids and bomb threats going off, and I could walk you into the welcome house, you would know why it's called that. There are a group of volunteers, 50 volunteers, and some employees working in there, who welcome the complete oppressed, I mean, people who are distraught, people who just maybe two days or a day before saw a loved one die, saw their home level, lost, you know, their situation in life or have been lost for months now. And they finally found the welcome house, where they are given food and clothing and counseling, and told, hey, you can come back every week here as long as you need to, hey, here are some churches you could tap into, here's where you can get housing, all that given to them. And even inside of that, we started a career development program, which offers guidance for those who need who say how I'm gonna live in this area, and they need some type of sustainable income during the ongoing crisis of war. So that is really, really great. Welcome house.

I love it. We all Yeah, many, many of our chaplains in particularly in Eastern Europe. They provided food groceries. And then also we're trying to repair some homes and been damaged by missiles for families in need. And I'll tell you, our chaplain team is really dedicated to providing for remote villages that are isolated where nobody else goes, because they're still potentially mines.

There's still mortars landing in the distance. And so but there's people trying to go home, they want to go home, you know, if you're a listener right now, imagine that you ran and fled from your home, you didn't have time to turn the lights off. And, you know, your family has been without you've just been living in a homeless state or, you know, sometimes supplemented state propped up, and now you have an opportunity to go home.

I mean, you want to at least lay eyes on things is my car still in the driveway, right? Is what part of my house got leveled and what didn't is to you know, what what happened with, you know, all my pictures, my computer, all my vital documents, are they still in the home, you know, some people are trying to go back in and we're trying to protect them and give them that access as well. We were also able to deliver food supply to an orphanage in East Africa. That was a particular response from a threat of terrorism area and then we're able to help in that part.

We also provided sewing and gardening classes to a small village in Asia. They're trying to rebuild their livelihood and economy. They've been under attack.

So that's just some of the things in the crisis and conflict. You know, definitely keep praying for our art therapy center. Keep praying for our chaplains. Keep praying for our incredible crisis and conflict task force members who are risking their lives in a lot of ways and conflict areas to do the things that we just talked about.

If I jump up real quick, we'll end the show with recovery and extraction. We got three new requests this month. We sheltered, we safe housed one individual who needed help. We were also, a group of Christian colleagues in the Middle East were targeted for their faith and it led to the arrest of 18 of them, including an American. So, for those, we were able to help escape the country before they were arrested and the arrests are still requesting our help in ensuring their safety and we have a team that's working hard on that.

You know, that takes lawyers, that takes immigration, that takes governments and so we're doing the best that we can. In Pakistan, our recovery extraction team actually took a group of persecuted girls and worked to allow them to attend a Bible camp. It focused on the father and the hard God and it was incredibly impactful experience for them.

They really were able, they were introduced into God's love and were ministered to. So, I would love to tell you one more about a young Pakistan girl who's 13 years old. So, from that camp, one of the young attendees of the Bible camp was a 13 year old girl whom our team had actually rescued from really horrific situation. She'd been abducted, forced to convert to Islam, she was abused by her captor and this girl suffered so many bodily injuries that she needed to be taken to ICU immediately, the moment that we rescued her. And in that moment at ICU at 13, Robbie, she found out she was pregnant.

Pregnant with the child of her abuser, right? Now, with the care from us and everybody working on her behalf, she and her baby survived, but obviously she is plagued with nightmares, PTSD from the terrible experience, all of that, right? As she was at the camp, she was prayed and ministered to and we really saw and she gave testimony that from that Bible camp, she received an inner healing that was crippling her and that her mind was healed and that she is sleeping peacefully at night now. So, it was like another, that's a real rescue. Yeah, the physical was rescued, but now we have this job and not just us, but other people that God introduces into her life from now on, right?

Is the spiritual rescue that has to happen and the saving of her soul, she's a believer, but then the repair of her mind and the overcoming of the fears in her life. So, I just love sharing that report. I love the fact that God has blessed Lanter so large that that happened even without me or Wren or the initial team that you guys have heard for so many years now on this show. This is how God is working. He just keeps giving us great people to do these things and intercede for our brothers and sisters and those who are oppressed, those who are exploited, those who are persecuted, and those who are displaced. And that's what we wake up and we do every single day. And that's what we're doing our best at. And so, we really appreciate this show. We really appreciate the prayers that are generated from this show. We really appreciate the people who give to us from this show, those who are liberators, who give $35 a month. God bless you because you are part of all of that and we can't thank you enough.

Yeah. And so, if you're not familiar with the Liberator Program, of course, go to lanternrescue.org. And you can see if you heard something today, I know I heard 50 things, please, than what God's doing, that, wow, you can support that with prayer at the lanternrescue.org. They give your latest prayer requests to the prayer team, but also, you know, how you can become a liberator and be part of that. It would be such a blessing. So, Mark, are there any prayer requests that people could be praying for right now? Well, given the complexity of the world right now, in the Middle East, particularly between Israel, you know, and its terrorist enemies, listen, that has created a great deal of enemies for our Middle Eastern shelters right now, okay?

And our team, I mean, everybody who's working in different parts of the world. So, we will ask for this week, please pray for their protection. Please pray for the protection and safety of our team as they're working a lot in the Middle East. There's stuff we have just been doing for a couple weeks now in Israel. I'm not going to talk about it on this show.

We'll talk about it another time. But, you know, we've been active there and working to do what we can do. So, please just be in prayer for us.

Oh, wow. And, Wren, how about for you, any prayer requests? You know, I always want to remind people that as much as we have going on, and there's so much exciting stuff happening, that you always keep the victims in your mind and those that aren't rescued yet. It's very exciting to share with people who've already been recovered, who've already, you know, great things are happening, and I'm so excited for them and definitely always be praying for those victims in recovery.

But those that we haven't briefed yet, I always want them. Oh, that's wonderful. God bless you guys. Amazing stuff. I appreciate it so much. Thanks, guys. This is the Truth Network.