Articles for tag: Sex Trafficking

September 1, 2023

Laura McKillip Wood

The Esther Project Shop Gives Hope to Artisans

The Esther Project Shop Gives Hope to Artisans

By Laura McKillip Wood  Stacy Hollingsworth grew up in the mountains of East Tennessee and lived in Senegal for several years as a missionary. She then returned to the United States and worked as a forensic psychologist on violent crimes. Doing that work with the state, she saw firsthand how hard life can be for people with traumatic backgrounds.   As an adoptive parent of six children, she is invested in improving the lives of children in her South Carolina community. However, her vision for helping impoverished people who have experienced trauma expanded when she visited Kenya for the first time

February 5, 2020

Christian Standard

Scholarship Honors Mike & Sharon Bell (Plus News Briefs)

Compiled by Chris Moon and Jim Nieman Glendale (Ky.) Christian Church has established the Mike and Sharon Bell Scholarship to ensure a legacy of their kindness. Mike now serves as executive minister with GCC and has been with the church for 50 years. Sharon, his wife, passed away in 2015. The couple met at Louisville Bible College in 1965, married the next year, and moved to Glendale in 1970, according to an article in the News-Enterprise. The Bells impacted the entire community through their many civic activities. “Hardin County’s excellent reputation throughout the commonwealth is due in large part to

November 2, 2017

Christian Standard

A Light in the Darkness: StreetLightUSA 

By L. Mackenzie  How one church reached out to God and founded a mission helping victims of domestic child prostitution. ******  The underground sex economy is a multimillion-dollar industry in the United States; pimps and traffickers can make more than $30,000 a week in major cities, according to a research study reported in 2014 at urban.org.   Information on child prostitution and rape is difficult to source due to the heinous nature of the crime. According to the FBI, children and teens living on the streets engaging in prostitution is at epidemic proportions and life expectancy of a child in trafficking

December 13, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

What Women Can Do

By Mark A. Taylor While opinions differ about what women should or should not do in a Christian church, no one can deny that God is working through women today. And, as Matt Proctor, Jennifer Johnson, and Chad Ragsdale remind us this month, women have always been at the center of God”s work on earth: “¢ Several significant and surprising women are included in the genealogy of Jesus. “¢ Mary, the mother of Jesus, demonstrated strength, character, and obedience to equal that of any male Bible hero . “¢ And in this virgin”s submission, God showed the divinity of her

December 8, 2016

Christian Standard

An Incomprehensible Grace: Interview with Naomi Zacharias

By Jeff Vines Her work with abused and suffering women worldwide has spread hope and helped her experience healing herself. Naomi Zacharias blew into the foyer of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) 10 minutes late. She had been caught in a typical Atlanta, Georgia, traffic snarl. With a large drink and a half-eaten sandwich in her hands, she was on the move. She greeted me and then escorted me to her office, making sure the door was left open to remove any question of impropriety. I was immediately impressed. I wondered if Naomi, the daughter of perhaps one of the

November 17, 2016

Christian Standard

The Jesus House

By Jackina Stark After years of guerilla warfare, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge (Red Cambodians) gained complete power over Cambodia in April 1975 to begin Year Zero and form a Communist peasant farming society. Foreigners were expelled, all national and international communications were cut off, health care was eliminated, and the inhabitants of Cambodian cities were evacuated on foot by gunpoint””2 million in Phnom Penh alone. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, monks, former soldiers and their wives and children””all the educated, religious, and wealthy””were executed. Those allowed to live were forced to labor in the fields 18 hours a day, typically

December 18, 2014

Christian Standard

The Crime-Poverty Connection

Book Review by Doug Priest The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence Gary A. Haugen and Victor Boutros Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014 The Locust Effect made me extremely angry. I seethed with righteous indignation for the entire first half of the volume. Gary Haugen is the founder of International Justice Mission, an international human rights agency that provides service to “impoverished victims of violent abuse and oppression in the developing world.” His book begins with several gut-wrenching illustrations of injustice in the majority world. From Yuri, the small Peruvian child who was raped

October 10, 2014

Christian Standard

Interview with an Actor

By Jonathan Williams “Most people grind it out for years as servers, bartenders, and baristas before they book their first acting gig. I was lucky.” Ben Jeffery is lucky. After moving to New York from Kansas City, Missouri, almost five years ago, he found work in commercials and in TV shows, including Louie. “I mean, I did spend some time working as a barista at Starbucks,” Ben tells me with an affable nod, “but I basically got the chance to live out my dream as an actor right away.” For the past three years, Ben has entertained capacity crowds as

December 8, 2012

Christian Standard

God”s Love on Display at Sex Show

By Jennifer Johnson Building wheelchair ramps for the disabled . . . leading VBS sessions in South America . . . digging wells in Third World countries . . . all of these are popular short-term mission trips. But volunteering at a trade show for the sex industry? Although this type of mission experience is far less common, it was the focus of a four-day trip for several women from SouthBrook Christian Church (Miamisburg, OH) last month. “For the last four years we have partnered strategically with XXX Church, an organization that offers resources and support to fight porn addiction,”

September 11, 2012

Christian Standard

Giving It Away

By Darrel Rowland Mounting a successful fund-raising drive is challenging enough for any church, especially in these difficult economic times. But two churches not only carried out smashing one-day giving campaigns earlier this year, they turned around and gave it away””all $176,000 of it. In fact, most of the money went to places not even associated with the church. Leaders of both churches say your congregation should try it, too. Launched in 2005, Forefront Church in Manhattan began an annual giving event called Celebration Generosity in 2009. That first year, members chipped in about $27,000 for various social service organizations

September 24, 2011

Christian Standard

Battling Slave Trade with Nativity Wrapping Paper

By Jennifer Taylor   It may be August, but for the youth group at Martelle Christian Church (Jones, IA) it”s time to think Christmas. At summer camp in 2009, the MCC youth group learned about human trafficking, the millions of people currently enslaved, and the billions of dollars captors earn from victims. “We were shocked by the horrific practice of kidnapping young girls and forcing them to work as prostitutes until they are so filled with disease they are literally thrown out,” explains Troy Titus, youth minister at the church. “I felt moved by God to do something.” The group

January 26, 2011

Christian Standard

Go, You (Why You Should Attend the National Missionary Convention)

By Teresa Schantz Williams I thought it would be awkward, like showing up at a wedding rehearsal when you”re not in the wedding party. Attend the National Missionary Convention? I had no credentials: I”m not a missionary or a forwarding agent, I don”t serve on a mission committee, and I”ve never been on a mission trip outside the United States. “You should come,” my sister insisted. “Going there just . . . changes you.” I didn”t ask what about me needed changing (I”m pretty sure she”d tell me). Instead, I went. On November 18, we drove from Missouri to Lexington,

December 30, 2007

Christian Standard

More Than All We Ask or Imagine!

By Jackina Stark Transformation is a cultural phenomenon. I know this because I have television. HGTV is practically devoted to it. But I think every network has hopped on the transformation bandwagon. Aren”t you amazed at Extreme Makeover? Of course, most of us are amazed that people would stand before cameras in their underwear and have someone draw lines to show what kind of work is going to be done. What a nightmare! But I must admit the unveiling is exciting, as each brave and transformed soul steps out of the limousine that transports them to their reveal party. I

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