God's goodness

So we got home Friday morning, and now it’s Monday… hopefully that has provided enough time for me to process our amazing trip. I’m thinking my last blog for this trip. Although, we are heading to Chicago tomorrow night for one last interview Wednesday morning, so that may change.

Anyways, it’s been a little weird being back home for a few days, but things have been feeling more like home for me. Between the hour and a half drive Thursday morning to our interview and the entire drive home from Boston, I spent approximately 17 hours behind the wheel Thursday/Friday. About four hours into the drive home, I decided I wanted to see if I could pull of the entire drive home. So I did it. Most of the drive was beautiful. I never really thought this before, but I really like it out east. I love all of the mountains, hills, rivers, and just nature in general that lined the highways. Michigan and Ohio, on the other hand, were going to be the death of me. Those two states are so boring to drive through after coming from the states out east. But I did get to see both the sunset and sunrise in the same drive; that was an awesome thing to see. But yah, needless to say, I was exhausted when we pulled into the church parking lot Friday morning at 7:00. Being our first day back and being so tired, Friday was a weird day. I stayed up until about 11:00am and then crashed until 5:00pm. At that point, the day felt all out of whack. It felt like morning to me, but it was already the evening. I managed to stay up for another five hours before falling back asleep at 10:00pm and then slept all the way until 7:30 the next morning. I went straight from no sleep to a lot of sleep… no better way to throw off your body.

But now that I’m home and settled in, I want to look back on the trip and process a little. I know it will be difficult because I never had words to explain when somebody asks me about the trip. There was simply too much that happened in these three weeks to process all at once. That was the purpose of keeping a journal and this blog, to break things down into smaller pieces to look back on.

It was actually three weeks ago today that we conducted out first interviews. It feels like that was so long ago, but yet it didn’t seem like we were on the road for three weeks at all. Time was such a difficult thing to grasp on the road. Nonetheless, that day was an interesting start for us. God had provided us with the ability to set up equipment for our needs far more than we deserved given our preparation. Aside from the trip coming together and us actually getting on the road in the first place, this was the first big sign that God had big things in store for our journey. Day one, and we had already completed a set-up in a tiny office with our interviewee still sitting at his desk working in one smooth shot. We were impressed. We were humbled.

As the week went on, we continued to witness God work in various other ways. After a few days of working off of very little sleep, the doubts of everything for the trip working out smoothly began to roll in. We wondered how we would ever be able to finish three weeks of the madness we were experiencing, let along six weeks, if our original plans were to come through. But somehow, we woke up each morning with a refreshed breath providing just as much energy as we needed to get through our day, and really nothing more. It was obvious that we had no control at that point. God knew just what we would need to get through each day, and he provided. Provided without failure, I might add.

Aside from energy, he also sparked connections in areas we had never expected. One evening after an already busy day, we had a meeting at a coffee house scheduled just to talk with a local organization in Columbus and discuss possible partnership opportunities. Considering we were on a film tour for interviews, we debated if the meeting was really worth it since we had no idea what we were doing and weren’t going to be filming anything. But again, God provided. That meeting was huge. Art for Abolition is an awesome organization, and they fit in so well with the scope of our work. We really look forward to our future opportunities with them. God definitely showed that if we put ourselves in positions of unknown with the door open for him to work, he will work. Things were getting exciting.

As we moved on from Columbus and began the remaining two weeks of our tour, God really made himself evident yet again. After that first week, we were dead. We worked hard and took virtually no time for ourselves. Planning the trip, we saw some chunks of days where we had nothing planned and were scared about our time not being put to good use. We knew being out on the road not doing anything costs money too. But we hit our first weekend and figured out very quickly why God left those days open. We needed those days. We needed rest. It’s so cool to look at a situation and see God’s understanding and knowledge of what’s happening when we never saw it coming. When we finally got a couple days with a free schedule and a chance to relax, we were ever so grateful. We knew the energy would be necessary to make it through the week ahead of us.

We began our next week and really got to feel love poured on us. We spent three says with Andrew’s cousin, who he had just met for the first time when we arrived to the house. Although Bj and his wife, Alison, knew none of us, they welcomed us into their home and treated us all like family they knew for years. You never really expect how good it feels to live life like family while out on the road for so long. We got to feel like we weren’t actually out on this hectic road trip for a few days. Home cooked meals, comfortable places to sleep, a chance to do laundry, hanging out with the kids… a great time that was never planned into our itinerary. In addition to feeling at home, we had many more experiences of going out and leaving the door open for God to work and surprise us, and getting to watch just that. Again, God provides so well.

As we made our way into our last week, things began to finally set in while many other doors began to open up. Approximately three days before heading home, the magnitude of what we are doing really set in for our team. I cannot even begin to describe again the power of the Spirit moving through that night. If you haven’t yet, I suggest checking out my last blog to hear about that night. And then all of these awesome opportunities with an organization that focuses on demand began to pop up on days’ notices. Honestly, we had not even heard of them entirely just a week before meeting with them. We were given the chance for an interview with an awesome lady that has done amazing things with her life, and we also discussed further possibilities on how Hope for the Voiceless can play a role in the national reduction in demand for purchasing human flesh for one’s own desires. We never saw any of that coming, and we are so thrilled to be in the positions we are in today.

I’ve been mentioning specific events or themes where God has been evidently present in our journey, but that doesn’t do him justice. The entire trip, we could feel the Spirit moving through our lives and overcoming all of the mistakes we made in planning for this trip in order to make this a great experience. God makes this trip an experience that glorifies in fullness in spite of our human mistakes. The entire trip, he demonstrated his love, his mercy, his grace, and his power to open our eyes to the majesty he really is. All too often, I down play all that God can really do through a few passionate people that he created to do his work and bring glory to his name. These past few weeks have reminded me of the perfection that comes with the name of Jesus and all that he can do through us. I am beyond excited to see what else God has in store for my life, the lives of this team, and this journey as a whole. God is good.

peace and love,

words cannot describe

Oh my goodness, I don’t even know where to begin right now… tonight has been so moving. No, tonight has been ground-breaking in our journey. Leading into this trip, I always talked about how I had hoped that the magnitude of what we are doing wouldn’t set in until we were back home because I knew it was going to be an overwhelming feeling. Well, we almost made it, but tonight was our night. Things really set in. God really set in. I wish I could explain the conversations our team had tonight in any sort of justifiable manner in comparison to how big they really were, but I don’t think that is possible. You really needed to be there to feel the presence of the Lord moving through our hearts and our minds, but I will do my best to put those feelings into words. 

The last two weeks have been unimaginable. It’s so hard to explain. In the last 14 days, we’ve conducted at least 17 different interviews (a few of them with multiple people), had three unfilmed meetings with different people learning and building connections, experienced a court focused on rescuing women from the daily controls of prostitution, and explored numerous cities. There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t forget what day it even is. Everything seems so recent, but yet so long ago. I think back to our first week in Columbus and have to convince myself that it was even on this same trip. Such a crazy feeling. But we’ve still got three busy days ahead of us that we are greatly looking forward to. I will come back to those days after I try and process through our conversations tonight. Oh boy. 

So we were just sitting at Starbucks tonight to use their wifi because the wifi here in our hotel can’t even handle one of our computers on the internet. It all started at Starbucks, the last place (well, probably second to last behind an all-vegetable grocery store, or something like that) anybody that knows me would expect anything amazing to happen for me. We were just working on looking over documents and articles for the people we will be interviewing in the next few days, and God decided that he had something so much bigger in store for tonight. He really wanted to remind us of exactly why he has us on this trip. And then the mind blowing began. 

I don’t even remember how the conversation began. The earliest part I can remember was Luke bringing up how pornography plays such a big role in driving men into the path leading them to being johns and purchasing sex, while at the same time, its connection can be so weak. There is no doubt in our minds that pornography plays a role in the destructive path that a man takes from being a normal, productive member of society to a position where he is actually seeking out purchasing sex from another human being to satisfy his own personal desires. But at the same time, we understand the pornography does not lead every man down that path by any means. Then it clicked. Every time somebody asks me to explain the goal of our documentary, I tell them that we are exploring how it is and why it is a man in our society finds himself on that path from a productive member of society to a man purchasing sex. I never realized just how pivotal that explanation was to what we are actually doing in this fight. We are trying to figure out exactly what it is in between pornography and the act of purchasing sex. What is happening biologically? What is happening psychologically? Our organization is based off of a “fabric of exploitation”, if you will, on the different steps men take in this destructive path. We need to know the difference between men who view pornography and have no desires to go beyond that and the men who view pornography and feel the need to seek out more. What’s the difference between the high school kid that can’t break his tendency to get lost in pornography until the day he finds himself speaking out against those very struggles and the man scanning Backpage.com for his next fulfillment? What’s the difference between me and him? How can we ever understand such a thing? To be honest, I’m not really sure how that will ever happen. But that is what we are going for. That is what we, as Hope for the Voiceless, are setting out to understand. 

Once we found ourselves all on the same page understanding what we are doing with this documentary, God really started to move through the conversation, showing us just how in control he is. For the last month or two, I haven’t really been planning on being able to work on this project next summer because I want to do a summer project with Cru at school to help build my ministry skills. All of the sudden, while sitting at dinner at Applebee’s, I found myself saying “I don’t think I’m going on a summer project next summer.” I never expected those words to come out of my mouth because that is something that I really want to do. I really want to experience all of the different ways God can use my life. But it now feels like that is not God’s timing. I just don’t think that three weeks of next summer would be enough to devote to this film project before I would have to leave for a Cru summer project. I know that God has specifically chosen this team to prepare our hearts in a special way in order to fight this evil. He doesn’t choose too many people to fight these battles because it’s just not an easy thing to do. And I now realize why I’ve felt so called to devote my life to this endeavor. It’s because it’s requiring that level of devotion to accomplish the things we are working for. I’ve been able to half-off everything we’ve done so far and still manage to get everything done by the grace of God. But I don’t see that happening anymore. I feel like God has officially called me to put my big-boy pants on and step up to the work he has called me to or step away. It’s all or nothing. Luke shared the fears that we all have… it’s so hard to fully devote ourselves to this endeavor because we are afraid of what happens when it is our life and something fails. Where do we go from there? So we call it a project we do on the side of our lives to provide some sort of assurance in case things go wrong here. But that’s not where God needs us to be. When people ask us what we are doing this summer, our responses are no longer things like looking for a job, or working on this project, etc. It is about time that our response is confidently “I am filming a documentary.” This is what we are doing with our lives right now. This isn’t a thing we are doing, this is our life. This is where I see myself going with my life. I don’t know that we will find an answer to the questions we are seeking to understand in our lifetime, but I’m sure ready to seek out that answer until the day God says it’s time to come home. That’s a little scary, to be honest.

Now, for the final topic of discussion, I think. We are only four people out here on this journey. Four people. You don’t film a documentary with four people. Heck, you don’t even like each other after having four people stuck in such confined spaces, often in fairly stressful situations, after this amount of time on the road. But we are doing this. No, God is doing this. We spent a lot of time comparing this trip itself to the will of God. First, we had to realize that nothing will change in our audience without Jesus. The only way we will truly change the hearts of men in America, and throughout the world, is with Jesus. We may not be sharing the Gospel everywhere we go, but we are surely carrying Jesus on our backs everywhere we go. In 1 Peter 2:12, Paul says “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” If nothing else happens while we are in an interview, we are determined to make sure that each person we come across knows that there is something different about us so that, in the end, they will praise God for the things he does. But really, we look at each day of this trip and there isn’t really anything that is absolutely mind-blowing by itself, but when we combine the last 14 days into one event as a whole, our breath is taken away. Honestly, we have experienced more in the last 14 days than some people will in their entire lives. The same thing can be seen in God’s will. You look at each one of our lives as an individual, and it’s fairly insignificant in the scheme of everything going on in the timeline of eternity. But then you look at how intricately and beautifully he has woven all of our lives into one body of Christ living out his will, and we cannot help but to be taken aback.

Wow, this has been a lot to unpack. I will try and get back and fill you guys in on the next couple days soon, but I think my mind has used every bit of power it has to unpack all of this. Like I said, you really needed to be there to truly experience the power of the Spirit moving through our conversation and how pivotal tonight really has been in our walks in this endeavor, and with Christ in general. But I hope that you can at least begin to feel the excitement we experienced tonight through this post. I love you guys.

Lord, lead me where you need me.

peace and love,

change of pace in DC

So we've been in DC for a couple days now, and I'll be honest, it hasn't felt like we've done a whole lot at all. We haven't conducted a normal interview in 4 days. Compare that to our 16 interviews in just 5 days last week... But it has been such a good break for us. God has blessed this team in more ways than I could ever imagine. We are currently staying with Andrew's cousin BJ and his wife, Alison, in Leesburg, VA while we do our work here in DC. It's about 40 miles outside of the city, and about an hour and a half drive with the traffic, but it has been absolutely worth it. I could have never imagined the blessings God would be lavishing on us here. Once again, such a beautiful host home for us to have a place to just get away from our busy schedule and relax. Three nights in a row with home cooked meals. BJ even took us to this really fancy restaurant called Jaleo for lunch just so that we could experience some downtown DC dining. What a generous dude!


One thing I've been noticing on this trip is the commonality of beautiful families that we have come across. There is honestly nothing that I treasure more on this earth than a beautiful family. It's one thing I look forward to having in such a great magnitude. I cannot wait for the opportunity to build a loving home, chasing after and loving Jesus. That's even part of why this issue of trafficking is such a big deal to me. I could not stand the thought of something like that ever happening to my family, and I do feel like God has prepared my heart to do something towards not letting that happen to anybody else's family, because nobody deserves to have to sell their body. I don't care who it is; I don't care if people say they are doing it by choice. In absolutely no manner should anybody ever need to sell their body to support themselves or their family. Our culture should not have such a desire for purchasing somebody else's body that allows them to fall into that position.

How about a little update on DC now? Well, we got into town Sunday evening and BJ and Allison   welcomed us right in and got us feeling at home. BJ fired the grill right up and made hot dogs and burgers for us. Mmm, the first hearty meal we had since leaving for the trip. We took the opportunity to stay up a little later that night to hang out as a team, study God's word together, and just relax since we didn't have any pressing schedule for Monday. The next morning we got up around 9 and made our way out of the house around 10:30 to head on into the city. We definitely did not experience a good first impression on the city. Never ever ever try and find parking for a 12 passenger van downtown DC... worst idea ever. To make matters worse, I had to pee worse than ever before for some reason. I didn't understand; I even went before we left. But I knew we couldn't stop until we found parking, so I figured there was no use in me complaining about having to pee, so I kept my mouth shut. That didn't matter. I was sitting there in  the back bench clenching my jaw, grabbing the door, grabbing Andrew's seat in front of me, pressing my head into Andrew's seat, just doing anything I could possibly think of to get my mind off of how bad I had to pee. I honestly felt like I was going to pee my pants. The whole time, Kimberly thought I was just frustrated with traffic haha. But thankfully, God got us lost and on a street that led us out of town and right to a park with a bathroom! Luke pulled into the park and up to a stop sign, and I jumped out of the van and ran to the bathroom. Such a relief! After that fiasco, we finally got parked and into the city to meet up with a few people that we wanted to pop into offices and talk to. No interviews, but still a successful day for us. After that, we just drove back to the house and hung out. Tacos were for dinner last night! After experiencing that crapiness of driving in the city yesterday, we decided to ride into town with BJ today on his way to work. We had to get up at 6:30, but it was worth it; it made our impression on the city much better today. We didn't have any interviews scheduled today either, so we just kind of roamed the city and hung out. We got a couple of people to do street interviews with us, so I guess you could say we did interview people today. BJ showed us a little around the town, including the beautiful view of the city from the roof of his building. That was a really neat opportunity! Now we are back at the house waiting for a pizza dinner = ) ... I wish we never had to leave,

It's been a really good few days for us; I'm super excited to see what God has in store for us in the remaining week. Things just continue to get better! Praise God for the strength and cohesiveness he has provided in this time. I honestly don't know any better feeling that having the ability to study God's word together with some amazing friends each and every night. We are constantly growing together as we pursue him on this journey, and we would be nothing without him. Boy, this turned out to be longer than expected... Especially considering we have no new big interviews to talk about. God is good.

peace and love,

week one concludes

This morning began our first day off of filming on the trip. We drove into Louisville last night to visit a friend while we were so close to him in Cincinnati. But I want to unpack yesterday a little; it was a very good day for us.

After another solid night of sleep in our hotel just outside of Cincinnati, in Kentucky, we started our day. Considering I made a bed out of extra pillows that we had on the floor, I slept really well. Those pillows turned out to be quite comfortable. It was great not having our first interview until 10:00, rather than 9:00, too... that extra hour of sleep makes such a huge difference!

SO we got our room cleared out and cleaned up, packed the back back up, and we were on our way to the Cincinnati Union Bethel to interview Mary Carol Melton. Once again, another program that was very exciting to hear about. She started "Off the Streets", which is a program focused on getting women stuck in prostitution off the streets of Cincinnati. The really cool thing is that the staff are all women who had previously been stuck in prostitution themselves and have since recovered from their trauma. I think that opens up such a huge door of comfort for the women they bring into the program. We actually had the opportunity to interview one the staff ladies out of the blue; Mary Carol thought of the idea and called her in. This lady, my goodness... She told us that after being on the streets for 14 years, she has now been off of them for 17 years. The craziest part was when she told us her age. I wouldn't have put her a day over 40, but she actually turned 60 today. Happy birthday Carol! But really, I don't understand how she looked so young, especially after the life she had endured. So powerful.

After the interviews, we got to spend some time hanging out taking pictures downtown. The first thing we did was go find somewhere to eat. By suggestion of Mary Carol, we ended up at this place called Skyline Chili. What an awesome place! All of the staff must have known it was our first time because it seemed like every one of them came over to greet us at our table at one time or another during our meal. Everybody was so nice, the food was awesome, Andrew got a bib, and they even gave us goody bags before we left. Really, what restaurant gives their first time customers goody bags?? So cool! I definitely recommend it to anyone visiting downtown Cincinnati. Then we decided to be creative and take about 500 pictures downtown between Luke and Andrew. Those boys really like water. I will say that the pictures did come out really sweet.

We left downtown to head to interview Noel Bouche, Vice President of Pure Hope. Pure Hope is an organization that brings Christian solutions to a sexualized culture. I really, really like what they do. I knew Noel's interview was going to be good when Luke told us that he asked  to do it at his home. We arrived to his place, an we were instantly welcomed in. What an amazing God seeking, justice seeking family. We probably sat and just talked for an hour before we even started the interview. And then we got to just talk even more after the interview. Noel and his wife, Vanessa, are just so encouraging. It is so obvious that God is moving through them in huge ways, and they love to share that with others. It was just so encouraging to talk with them about how God is moving in this journey with us because we don't often get those chances other interviewees. And Noel reminded us another important thing, noting down the blessings God has provided as we journal through our experience. I honestly don't know if I can keep track of them all from amazing hosts to free meals. This entire trip has been an incredible blessing on its own.

But like I said, we are now in Louisville catching a little break before we move on to DC and continue this journey. I'm looking forward to this rest more than I would have ever imagined coming into this trip. We didn't know we would need it, But God has surely provided it.

peace and love,

God is moving

So we have found ourselves a little down time today. Much needed down time, I might add. These last few days have been such a whirlwind that I often have a hard time remembering what day of the week it is. It really does not feel like we left a mere 3 days ago... I feel like we've been gone at least a week. We all feel like that, and so do our bodies. Fortunately, everything has been such a rush and growing increasingly better every interview that we don't have time to realize how tired we are throughout the day as we are working. The nights, on the other hand, have shown to be a full display of our exhaustion. Tomorrow and Friday are going to be another couple of busy and demanding days for us, but we will finally get a few days worth of a break this weekend. We are looking forward to that for sure.

But through the exhaustion, God has definitely been able to shine his glory upon us. He has made it very evident that he is right here working with us just by providing us with the strength and energy to get through our busy days. The more we find ourselves needing to rely on his strength, the better we see our days go. He is our strength.

"but the who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and now grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." -Isaiah 40:31


peace and love,

filming, day one. check.

Did we really just start this journey yesterday? I'm not sure if my body is still feeling good or is super tired already. It's been a big day for us for sure. We successfully made it out of bed at 8:00 this morning after staying up until 2:00 last night preparing and relaxing. The McSweeney family were out wonderful hosts last night. Thank you Keegan for that = ) it was great to hang out! Keegan got to join the team for the night as she helped us practice set-up for our interviews and joined us in studying God's amazing Word. A good night indeed.

So back to today... it was a busy day. After getting up, we got ready, ate breakfast, got the van all packed up (we already need to reorganize that mess), got dressed, and hit the road for the Indianapolis State House by 10:00. As I was hinting at, the look of the van was already starting to get to me on our drive to Columbus. It looks like all of our stuff had exploded into the entire van. Bringing out a little bit of the OCD feelings for sure. But the look of the van was the least of our concerns for today. We had a booked schedule; an interview with Indiana Senator Randy Head and another with Assistant City Attorney and John School Director of Columbus, a wonderful three hours away.

We got to the State House around 11:00 and got checked in with security by 11:30. I spent all of this time circling all of these different places for us to look into for parking as we drove there only for us to find a street parking space in the drive leading up to the State House... of course. Better safe than sorry, eh? So we get through security with all of our gear and head on up to the Senate Chamber. What a beautiful place. The guy working the front desk, as well as the guy standing at the desk talking to him were both surprised at how early we were considering our appointment to start setting up wasn't until around 12:30. The guys standing at the desk says "We're in government; we're late for everything." I found that to be a little funny, if I do say so myself. Fortunately, the room that they provided to interview the senator wasn't being used for anything else today, so they let us into the room an hour early, and we had an hour and a half to set up everything rather than a half hour. That helped relieve a whole lot of stress from our minds. We got everything set up and had some time to relax a little bit before the senator got to the room, and then we began our very first interview of this journey! I really can't believe that was only this morning... I feel like it was quite the successful first interview for us as a team. Things went smoothly on our filming end, and the senator had a lot of good things to say. He's obviously a busy man; he knows exactly how to talk quick and clear. It made for a good interview when we knew we had very limited time with him. Once we were finished talking with the senator, he had to run off to another important something that he had going, and we packed everything up and hit the road for three hours with the 4 hour break we had in between interviews.

Next up was Michael Allbritain. Two official government buildings with security checkpoints to get in, in one day... that's pretty impressive. We got up to Michael's office and he still had work to finish up, so we got to set up everything with him sitting at his desk already. That was a little intimidating. Fortunately, we managed to pull off setting up our lighting in one try. We definitely don't have that kind of skill yet... God was definitely walking us through that time. It's always relieving to look around and see how God is working in this journey. All in all, I really enjoyed Michael's interview; it was a great way to end our day. He had a lot of great things to say and definitely seemed to follow a similar train of thought as we do, so it made for great conversation off the camera as well.

Now we are at Nate and Jen's home, our hosts for the next few days. They have already shown to be a very welcoming family, and I am excited to have such a nice place to get away to and relax at nights during this very busy week we have. We've gotten all settled in, eaten a wonderful dinner made by Kimberly (thanks Berls!), unloaded all of our footage to be ready to fill the memory cards again tomorrow, started a video journal, and now we are about to end the night in our Bible study. It's been a great day. It's been a long day. I'm definitely ready to get to sleep (as you can tell by the progressively shorter paragraphs). Tomorrow is going to be another long day. Talk to you guys again soon!

peace and love,

t minus two days

friends and family,

I just wanted to start off thanking you guys for taking the time to follow my journey in what looks to be quite an amazing summer ahead of me. I started this blog a few weeks ago and have yet to post, so here it goes. You might be wondering what this ‘wild goose chase’ is. Some of you may remember this theme from Real Life Student Ministry’s very first Mystery Road Trip back in 2009, but most of you probably have no clue. This wild goose chase is my personal journey chasing after our wild Messiah. Following Jesus is no walk in the park; it is an experience that will take you for a few spins. And I want to invite you to join me in my journey.

So what takes off two days from now? Two years of planning, stress, and shear excitement will be taking off. On Sunday, May 6, I will be setting off with Andrew Moore, Luke Hassevoort, and Kimberly Somerville to film for three weeks throughout the east coast for a documentary we will be creating. I’ll get to the documentary in a bit. Andrew has been a best friend of mine since the 7^th grade.  Luke and I shared a house together with five other guys this past school year in his senior year and my sophomore year at the University of Michigan. Kimberly… well I haven’t actually met Kimberly yet. I will be meeting her today at our preparation planning retreat for the film, so that’s super exciting! She’s a brave girl preparing herself to handle the three of us boys for an entire three weeks traveling together in a 12-passenger van.

As I just mentioned, we are heading up to a little cabin/cottage (whatever you want to call it) in Newaygo, MI courtesy of the lovely Whitmyer family to get away for a solid 24 hours of final team preparation to head out and film this thing. We are hoping to finalize our expenditures list, finish reading our interviewee bios and writing interview questions for each of them, set down a solid travel plan with our maps, talk about what the rest of the team will be doing while we are out on the road, and you know… those sorts of things that people do when they film documentaries. Tonight will probably be a late night of planning before a couple of the girls head home tonight for plans tomorrow, and then we will have the morning tomorrow to finish up any last bit of details with breakfast and lunch provided by our wonderful ‘steering’ team member, Brian Norton. We will hopefully arrive home tomorrow prepared and feeling good about leaving on Sunday (SUNDAY! Wow, that’s close..). Hopefully being the key word.  I am confident that God has led us up to this point step-by-step holding us up by the collar of our shirts, so I am confident that He will lead up to use this time to prepare as best as we possibly can.

Maybe I can actually fill you in on this whole documentary thing now, eh… In a mere two days, this four man (well, three man and one woman) team will be setting out under our organization, Hope for the Voiceless, to begin gathering footage for our documentary exploring the demand of domestic sex-trafficking. That is people (very often young girls) being forced, deceived, or coerced into sexual slavery right here in America. Yes, trafficking happens in America. Yes, trafficking happens right in your own town.  Maybe it’s not happening right now in your town, but it does happen. So we want to go out and understand how and why it is a man (generally speaking) can go from being a ‘productive member of society’ as we describe it with a good job, a wife, and even children to actually going out and seeking to purchase sex. What drives a man to do that? We have our views and opinions, but we will reveal those as time goes on as we are setting out to explore what is happening, not to prove that our ideas are necessarily correct. To do this, we have two main categories of people we are planning to interview. These are the johns and the specialists. John is a general term we use for men who purchase sex while the specialists will be people specialize in law, demand reduction, sex/pornography addiction, neuropsychology, and so forth. We want to hear the personal stories of Johns and how they got to where they were or even are, given men being willing to talk to us, while demonstrating the love Jesus has lavished on us by not dehumanizing or tearing them apart. We want to show these men a path of love where they can turn away from the desires of the flesh and seeking to purchase sex and to be able to turn to the relationships they already have and find the true love they are seeking out. Our hope is that by showing America what our sexually saturated culture is doing to the world around us, including our own nation, we can begin to change the hearts of our men to no longer desire purchasing sex, and therefore wiping away the very demand that drives traffickers to bring in these girls as sexual slaves. We believe the only way to get rid of human trafficking is to get rid of the demand or there will always be more girls brought in to meet the demand. The only way to fight the demand is by changing the desires of the heart.

I hope I was able to make sense for you. If you have any questions or want to talk more about this journey, please feel free to ask away. I would love to talk more about this with you. These three weeks are definitely going to be a wild adventure chasing after Jesus and wherever he leads us. I’m so excited that he has chosen me and prepared my heart to fight the battle as I know it’s not something meant for everyone. I absolutely love how God uses each of us for his plan in our own unique ways. I can’t wait to hit the road and share more with you guys as I keep you updated on the road and as I move into other adventures God has in store for this amazing summer!

peace and love,