Saving Children w/ Lantern Rescue

This is Andy Thomas from the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we discover what it means to be a wholehearted man. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds.

Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. We are in slavery today, legalized slavery, illegal slavery, and so many of these are little precious ones. I'm Stu Epperson, and someone is lighting the way to freedom.

And that ministry is Lantern Rescue. And I am a how guy. How do I do this?

What do I do to fix this? And I was in a crowded theater the other day watching the movie. Everyone's kind of buzzing about this sound of freedom. And what I love about Lantern Rescue is y'all are doing something about it. Whitney, you're the marketing director here. You've seen so much. We've seen God bless this ministry.

Talk about the passion that you have for saving these children and what all is going on at Lantern Rescue. Absolutely. Thank you, Stu. And you're absolutely right. There has been such an awareness brought about both in this movie and music and just so many areas, right? And I think the reason for that is because the Lord is unveiling some of the darkness that's at hand. And we are called to be the light into those dark places. And so at Lantern, that is really, that is our call.

We're going to the darkest places of the world to search for the least, the last, the lost. And that's the push, right? And so bringing that awareness is wonderful. But the next piece of that is there's an action to happen because just awareness doesn't save those kids that they feel like no one's coming for, right? It doesn't change the situations that they're in.

So what does action look like? And for those that are listening in, I would say first and foremost, pray, right? The ability to pray. What a beautiful gift we've been given by God, the creator, to come and join him in sending forth his angels, right? And that's what prayer does. That's the power in prayer.

It pushes back the darkness. And so that peace alone, we're inviting you into that place with us. Come with us. Pray with us on that journey. And if you want specifically things to pray over, head over to our website because we have the ability to bring you into our community of prayer and a closer level. And the next thing is give. Find those places and give to the right people that are doing the work at hand. That is so important because things like our ministry, we can't move forward without people willing to stand behind us and give. And the beauty of that is it puts you on the front lines of the fight, right? We've got a map. We know where we're headed. We've got the vehicle to get there, but the people that are giving is they're putting the gas in the car. So every piece of it matters. And so I invite you into that piece as well.

And you can do that at lanternrescue.org. Continue to push that awareness out. We have a lot of people, a lot of churches that have asked us to come alongside them and share with their congregation and their youth groups and the parents in these youth groups. What does trafficking look like?

What are my kids up against? And those are pieces that are so vital in this fight on the front end to ensure that it doesn't happen to the people that we love and care about. So continuing that awareness. Invite us into those events. Invite people into the mix to make them more aware of what's going on, the realities of it right here.

I think that's a great way to get involved. And we've got our podcast. We've got information out there. Listen in to our podcast.

It is that movie on steroids every day. We are literally rescuing a child every single day. And let that sink in. Every single day there's a child being rescued. So that requires your prayer.

That requires your finances. That requires you to steward your time as well in that awareness component. So we're thankful for people like Truth Network to be able to stand beside us in the fight. Well, y'all are my heroes. And as we speak here in this nice air condition, the world headquarters of Lantern Rescue, you have teams out all over the place, all over Africa, all over the islands.

Children are being sold for money. It's brutal. It's atrocious.

It's evil. You guys are doing something about it. I listen to your radio program almost every week.

I love your podcast, your broadcast. I kind of have to because I'm the voice at the beginning doing the introduction. And I always give this William Wilberforce quote about when we do nothing. When we don't even light a candle. We can all talk about it. We can all go see movies like Sound of Freedom and other things. But what are we doing? What change are you?

Well, I'm sitting in a nursing home listening to the Truth Network or listening to AFR or one of the many outlets that carries this program. What can I do? You can pray right now. You can pray for the Lantern Rescue team right now who likely are being shot at because they're saving a child who had eight customers that day who's nine years old. You don't even know her name.

She's so doped up. And you be sure to follow our new Daily Truth Instagram page. And my nephew Watson has set that up. And he's going to take a picture of us doing this interview right here so people can kind of see what this looks like. But, Whitney, I just want you to talk about, like everyone matters.

Everyone listening to matter. I mean, y'all are grassroots people. I mean, I walk through these offices, there's people that are just y'all are just, you're super sweet.

You're not like, you're real. But like you're dealing with real people, real moms and dads who some modeling agency came by and said, Oh, we want to take your kid and put them on an airplane and make them famous and let next thing you know, their kid is being sold. And next thing you know, their kid is ended up in the Middle East, and they'll never see him again. So that's the center lantern rescue. Yeah, I mean, that is the reality of it right is, is we can't, we can't emphasize enough just the level of work that we that we are invested in, you know, trafficking looks different in every area that we operate, whether it be children or, you know, slave labor, right, it's sex trafficking, that's a big one and truly sex trafficking probably is the underlying component to every other aspect of trafficking as well. There's always that component why because people to these bad guys are reusable commodity. Right. So, but that's where we kind of come into the picture. Right. And our job is to go in and really prepare our task force of people there that are on the ground capable and able to come after the bad guys.

Right. So there's a lot of great organizations going in and kicking down doors and that's a great thing. But at the end of the day, there's got to be a sustainable model at play. And that's really what we're invested in is that longevity of change. And that's very much the idea.

Hey, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. So that's where lantern comes into play and in networking and creating relationships in these countries are our purpose behind that is so that the work is being done forever, right, whether we're there or not, the work is still done and they're empowered to do it. And that's a huge piece of it, you know, you got to empower the people to be able to save the people around them as well and continue this fight, no matter what, one day I hope we work ourselves out of a job. I know you mentioned William Wilberforce and I want to I want to leave you with this quote because this really is a powerful one, especially for those that are engaged in that awareness component that may find themselves sitting in a theater. You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.

Wow. So now what you do with that. That's where that's where the pressure is, and you guys are you guys are the tactic to the strategy, you guys are the answer to the question, what do you do later and rescue, but just like you know missionary comes through town hey send money to my missions well for all you know, they're over there in a yacht or something not doing any missions at all.

So you do your homework so like the same thing is true I guess of the human trafficking, the ministries, and the different surrogates that claim to this claim to that will do a little homework. I've seen you I've seen money come in here go right back out, I've seen people being very generous you've got the TiVo foundation they love you guys and what you're doing your work with all kinds of ministries churches pastors. Mark Smith goes into churches and preaches and people are in tears he came and spoke to our men's group, like we literally, you could hear a pin drop, I mean you could have talked for five hours we wouldn't we wouldn't have budget, you go and share with people you're on your way to Texas to meet with some folks are fundraising. And one thing you can do very practically coming up is you can strap on your sneakers, and you can run 5k, which I'm telling you right now. I may have to come participate I mean I am a specimen of an athlete these interns will tell you but tell her what about that real quick and how they can practically end if they can't again, run in the 5k you're doing for land and rescue and Ashboro, North Carolina, they can send a check in to support that but tell us a little quick quick quick plug about that.

Yeah, absolutely. So we are hosting the first 5k rescue run in the Piedmont triad of North Carolina, it's going to be right here in the heart of Ashboro, North Carolina, so we're super excited about that. And yes, people are so welcome to join us both in walking and running that day.

It's really to build out that community around us and let them know hey there are people in this fight willing to fight on a lot of levels. So, and we also have sponsorship opportunities so if there are any businesses that are listening into this locally or abroad, feel free to reach out to us and that way as well you can reach out to us and give at lantern rescue.org, and that will allow us to send you some sponsorship information. We also have a landing page on our website under get involved for the rescue run. And I do want to mention this really quickly if you feel like the Lord is leading you to give to a ministry that is truly on the ground fighting this evil. We have a, an awesome donor that has come alongside of us and has asked, or has said that they will double your impact right so anything you give up to $100,000 is being doubled right now for the next 30 days.

So we're on a timeframe with it but man, what a beautiful time to be involved and have your impact really just stretch beyond where you feel like you are right now, you know, matching gift opportunity folks give $1 give $10 Mr Mr a couple lattes this month and you can have you can give you know $15 $20. But, you know, but you're going to give $1 that dollar is going to go to rescuing a child so you're going to you may see a little kid in heaven. They're going to be abused and attacked and trafficked, you may see them and like, they say that you can't you say thank you because, because Martin the team and these other wonderful dear saints. They came in, they pulled me out of this brothel, they got me to a Christian orphanage and now I'm following Christ and I'm in heaven today because of you well that's our prayer. And that's why we love land and rescue the website one more time for folks listen to the podcast if you can get past the introduction which is my voice and you'll be you'll be okay because it's a lot better after that. And donate support this put your money where your mouth is and share Christ's love through supporting these critical missions of saving these precious children. This is how you can respond to Lana rescue what's the website final way to get involved. lantern rescue.org is where you can find us you can also find us on your social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, definitely reach out to us we're quick to respond and we're so excited to have people join us in this fight.