Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Love Justice Podcast, where we share insights behind real impact in the fight against human trafficking. I'm your host, Hannah Munn.
Human trafficking can feel like a distant problem, something terrible that happens somewhere else to someone else. But imagine for a moment that the next person about to be trafficked was the person that you love most in the world.
Suddenly, it wouldn't feel distant anymore.
Today, I'm joined by John Molyneux, CEO and founder of Love Justice International, and Akshay Molino, Regional steward, to explore how that shift from distant awareness to personal conviction fuels the kind of sacrificial love in action needed to confront the world's greatest injustices and prevent human trafficking.
John and Akshay, welcome to the Love Justice Podcast.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Thank you. Glad to be here.
[00:01:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: John, we have a bit of a legend joining us for today's conversation. Could you please just introduce Akshay to our listeners and what makes her such a special guest?
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah, so Akshay is my wife.
She is the regional steward to Nepal. She. I met her in Nepal many years ago and fell in love with her. And now we're married and have two kids. So her story. She has an amaz story and testimony. Probably this isn't going to be the place to share the many details of that, but really excited to have her here on the podcast.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Yeah, same.
This is her first time on our podcast, and I think she's going to bring such a unique perspective and unique stories to what we're trying. What we're trying to unpack today.
So let's. Yeah. Without further ado, let's just jump in. John, something you are often reminding us about at Love justice is that God loves each person more than we love the person we love the most.
And how if imagining your daughter, son, spouse, or closest friend being trafficked wrecks you, that emotion is just a fraction of God's heart and emotion for that person as well.
I just want listeners to sit in that reality for a second that when our heart breaks, it's a reflection of God's heart breaking as well. And we're stepping into the things that break God's heart and internally. At Love justice, we refer to that as a brokenhearted anointing. And, John, you also talk about just the importance of having our heart broken, not just once, but continually, to stay relevant and to stay passionate and to stay engaged in the work that we're doing. So I'd love to just start this conversation by each one of us kind of taking a moment to share when the least of these became someone with a name and a face to us. So, John, why don't you go first?
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I mean, I had to make kind of make that happen.
Like, whenever I'm confronted with injustice and suffering, it definitely stirs powerful emotions in me. But I want to say that not powerful enough.
And I know this in my mind. I feel like I can prove it, that I should be much, much more upset about injustice than I am.
But I don't have the capacity to feel what it means that 50 million people live in slavery in the world today.
I think if I were to face up to the true reality of even just one such case, it would break my heart so much that I'd be tempted to turn.
But even that is not enough because of how other the victims of great injustice can be to our psyche.
And so we use, as you guys know, an exercise at Love justice that we call the greatest injustice, where we ask people to close their eyes and picture someone they love who is precious to them as we give sort of a generic account of human trafficking and what that person goes through.
And, you know, we use it actually as part of our monitor training when they're being prepared to start working. And then after they hear that, they get these black shoes that have a red flag on it, and they actually are encouraged to write the name of the person they picture just to remember how precious each potential victim of trafficking is in God's sight. And so when I do that exercise, as you guys know, I weep and everyone else does too.
We did it the other day when we had a team here, and it was.
I mean, it was. It's. It's so emotional. It's heavy, you know, and. And, you know, we. We have these Alexa devices in the office that announce intercepts that happen in real time.
And on that day, every single time one of the devices announced an intercept, I thought about my 3 year old and burst into tears.
[00:05:13] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:14] Speaker A: Akshay, was there a moment for you when the least abuse became someone with a name and a face?
[00:05:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
That moment for me was about 15 years ago.
I was in my early 20s, and I had this privilege to translate for a woman named Mina, and she was only a few years older than me. And I think that was, like one of the first things that just stood out to me was just our age difference. There wasn't much.
And the realization of how our lives had been completely different.
And she had been approached by someone, and she had gone to a Gulf country, and she was given a promise, a hope of a Better life. And when she got there, she realized that it was completely different. Her reality was different. She had been lied to. She was deceived. She was in a place where she didn't have help.
And one of the things that she shared while sharing her incredibly, like, this incredible story was that she was sold like an animal over and over again and passed from a person to another person. And that was her experience living in a Gulf country and growing up in Nepal.
I had heard about human trafficking in my childhood, well into my adulthood. And there were public campaigns about anti human trafficking awareness and, you know, all of those things. But it was always a thing in a distance. It happened to people far away in villages, not to people around me. I hadn't met anybody who had been a trafficking victim in that close proximity.
And I was confronted by this situation and by this person who had experienced something so horrific. And so at that moment, I think it became a name, a face, a voice that was standing in front of me who was sharing this story for me with me and other people in the room.
So for me, I would say that that was the moment it changed for me.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: Yeah, that's powerful, Akshay. And I can't even imagine. I mean, I've seen the video of you doing the translation and the interview for Mina, and you're just, like, you're weeping with her as you're sharing her story in English.
And I would say that my experience is very similar to yours, although the environment was vastly different. Mine was at the Passion 2013 conference where they were talking about human trafficking for the first time and actually was sharing a story of a girl who had been trafficked and who was actually sitting in the audience. They put a spotlight on her and. And said that is this. This girl.
And they basically just told a story that.
The elements of that story were all of my worst fears growing up in the 90s as a. As a young girl, of being kidnapped, of being raped, of being abused, of being taken advantage of and isolated. And it was this very real, sobering and organic moment with the Lord where I was just so blown away by this story. And just the reality that this girl's life was my, literally, my worst nightmare. And she was living it out.
It wasn't theoretical. It was like that was her reality. And thinking, man, God, what is the difference between her and me? And I think we'll get into a little bit of. Of, like, inheritance, and we're going to get into some of those conversations, but I just remember thinking, man, if that were me, I would be so desperate for someone to care enough to intervene or to do something if I was stuck.
And so like, you know, as a selfish 20, 20 year old, I'm like, I'm not thinking maybe the person that I love the most was myself, I don't know. But like I was just putting myself in her shoes. And then you work that backwards of like, if it was my sister, if it was my niece, if it was my brothers, if it was my best friends and how that is someone's reality and it was that moment of like, I could never again say that I didn't know and I couldn't turn a blind eye to that. Of like, okay, because if it were the person that I love the most, or if it was me, I would do whatever. I would do whatever it would take to do something right. Like there's a certain level of desperation when you're envisioning it as the person that you love the most.
Which I, I think that this is a good segue into this next question for you, John, of none of us choose our passport, our family, our safety, our economic starting point.
All of these things being equal, the chances of being flat from the world's greatest injustices are staggering, staggeringly low.
John how should the fact that none of us choose where we were born change the way we think about injustice?
[00:10:20] Speaker B: Because where we're born makes such a difference and you have to think about like injustice. Like extreme poverty is less than 3 to less than $3 a day. 10% of the world's population lives in under extreme poverty. And we don't really have the tools to even understand what that looks like.
It would mean you don't own a pair of shoes, your family shares a toothbrush and you sleep on the ground just to try to give a picture of that. But there's lack of access to education or lack of freedom. Like 70% of the world's population lacks religious freedom, 38% live in countries classified as non free, lacking basic sanitation. 21% of the population living in a place where there's, where there's conflict going on and violence, that's 13%, food insecurity 11%.
I mean if you and I inherited, you and I inherited the situations we were born into and the people living under those injustices inherited those situations. And this is key, that neither was because of anything we did or failed to do. And it would be no less just if it were reversed if I was born into those situations or if my children were born into those situations. But I have to wonder like, if it was my children who were born into those situations, how differently might I feel about the obligation of the other side to help?
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's. That's really powerful. And even as you're talking, again, like, I'm just thinking about the weight that comes with the privilege that we were born into that we did nothing to deserve.
And what I think is really interesting and something, a unique piece of this conversation that you bring to the table is that you talk about how the world's greatest injustices tend to cluster together in the same communities.
And what does that tell us about how we should respond?
[00:12:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I think they cluster together because, like, the economic development is subject to these positive and negative feedback cycles. There's like, these pillars of economic development, business, governance, infrastructure, education, health, and they all affect the others. You know, if you have bad governance, that's going to affect infrastructure, education and health. If you have bad education, you're going to have poorly educated doctors, you're going to have poorly educated leaders and infrastructure workers, business owners. And so that, you know, business is the engine that pays for all the other ones. And so they all. And so if they're not developing, then that's having a negative effect. If they're not doing, you know, achieving their mandate. Well, and if they do achieve their mandate, that has a positive effect.
So, yeah, the places where those things are working, it makes it easier for all the others. Where they're not working, it makes it harder. And so the result is that some people inherit extreme poverty, lack of freedom, basic sanitation, food insecurity and violence. Well, any one of which would just make it would just choke the joy out of. Out of your life. You know, like. And others escape all of those things.
So, you know, those of us who have escaped them should count ourselves as blessed. We should realize how blessed we are. And, and, and we should do everything we can to help others who are still stuck in those things to come out.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Akshay, I think this is where you can really offer a unique perspective because you were born into a third world country. You were born poor. And that is something I don't. I don't know what that's like.
And so I'm just curious, like, how have you seen what John is talking about to be true in Nepal?
[00:14:07] Speaker C: Yeah, in Nepal, you can really see that most of the trafficking cases are women and children. And I don't think it's random. Traffickers go where there is vulnerability.
And a lot of the times they target marginalized, lower caste, poor people in remote places. And not just that. Even outside Kathmandu, there are certain indigenous groups that have been targeted, and there are studies showing that. And I think the study shows that indigenous women and girls make up the majority of the trafficking police in the call. And these are communities that have historically been excluded by other people in the community.
And also it's disproportionately women and girls from these marginalized groups within even the women and children that you see in the studies.
So I think you can see the pattern here that traffickers don't go after resource. They go where there is vulnerability. People who are poor, who lack education, who are hoping for better future, who want to just get out of where they are and move into a better place. And that puts them in an extremely vulnerable position.
And those are the people that traffickers we've seen target.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I think you bring up something so important, Akshay, because when, you know, I'm talking with people in the States about human trafficking and just the nature of it, right. Like specifically in Nepal and Asia, where it's all about relationship and it's all about connection of, like, how easily it is for someone like a young girl to trust a friend of a friend. And in the States, it'd be like, what? You know, like, that's not normal. Like, we wouldn't do that. Or, you know, we. We would know to look. Be suspect of different opportunities and really research it. And really, you know, and. And I think what's. What's really important is that we don't have the convergence of all those multiple injustices at play, like there is in poor countries. And so what feels outrageous of, like, why would you go with a stranger? Is not that outrageous in the context in where we work.
And so, John.
Yeah. I think the reality is that human trafficking is the convergence of all of those multiple injustices, creating a vulnerability that leads to the. The potential for evil.
How does. So talk to us a little bit more about how human trafficking intersects with those other injustices, like poverty, lack of freedom, lack of quality education, gender inequality.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the trafficking thrives when people are poor and desperate, and their desperation is what creates the.
I don't know if I want to say the hook. You know, it creates the impetus by which they end up being exploited.
And then it also thrives where justice systems are broken or where they're created ultimately to serve the powerful rather than protect the vulnerable. And so those are kind of the necessary conditions of a dictatorship.
It's how powerful, corrupt, protect their power, which has been happening everywhere for all of history outside a very small window, where the consolidation of power and the use of that power to protect and propagate that power and money at the expense of everyone else is the norm in world history.
But all this just makes it easy for evil to flourish and protect itself and difficult or impossible for the poorest to get justice. And cultural practices like gender inequality, they play a part as well.
Women and girls have less access to education, employment and inheritance. And then they become, because of that, more likely to accept risky migration for work or work in informal sectors. And the power asymmetry that can come to exist makes it easier for men to exploit women.
And then sometimes social norms like child marriage or dowry systems create conditions where girls are treated as economic assets. And all of this creates conditions for particularly sex trafficking, but for the trafficking of girls and women to thrive.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: Yeah, and I want to go back to this idea of the person you love the most could have been born into that situation. That's the theme of our May campaign that we're really rallying donors around and really inviting people to explore of. Like, what is that stirring you? And um, you know, we talked, I talked earlier about how it's not just about the one moment, it's about continually exposing yourself to that brokenhearted anointing that fuels what you're, what you're doing. And I, I'll start by first sharing maybe a more recent example of that, and then we'll hear from both of you guys.
But there was a story maybe what, like a year and a half ago, two years. And it came in a season where I was really wrestling and struggling with some burnout, just feeling tired, feeling exhausted and just having, you know, been at the grind of this for, you know, the better part of 10 years. And I'm, I, like you guys have been at the better part of this for like the last 20 years. Like my, my time compels into comparison with how much time you guys have invested in this. So I'm, I'm curious to hear from you, but there was an intercept story out of Zambia where a five year old boy was abducted out of his front yard by two men who were intending to sell him to a bigger boss in Tanzania. And there was a bus driver that noticed the situation, tipped off our team, who then coordinated with police to meet them when they arrived at the location that they were monitoring at. And in fact, once the team approached them, one of the, I think one of the suspects tried to flee on foot, but because of the partnership with police, he wasn't able to get away. And our team starts questioning the guys and they start talking to the little boy. And the little boy just kept saying over and over again in his local language, I want my grandmother. I want my grandmother.
Yeah, I could even get emotional about it right now of, like, what if that were Hudson? What if that were Jude?
Like, just how scary that would feel in that moment of, like, not knowing what's going on, what's happening, being with strangers.
And I feel the desperation of those parents in that moment of, if that were Hudson, like, I would not want the fragile hope of maybe getting rescued after he's been exploited or put into slavery. Right. Like, we don't. I don't want that for my son.
And how thankful I am that our teams were there to change the story that day. And that boy, they ended up reaching out to the village where he was from to confirm there was a missing persons report.
Those guys were apprehended on the spot. They had confessed that they were trying to bring him to Tanzania. And I can't even begin to imagine what that reunion was like with that boy and his family. And just the reality that by partnering with Love justice, we get to make that possible.
Um, and there was something, there was something about envisioning that being my son. That that day was like, maybe, maybe like a righteous anger. I know, John, even talking about anger, but just this, like, I do not want that to happen. That can, like, I, I. There's just like an anger of like, I don't want that to happen. And, and I am not powerless to not do anything about this. Like, I actually get to be a part of rewriting this story, both by working with Love justice, but then also giving to make that work possible.
Um, so, John, before we get into, like, you know, how love, well, how Love justice works, what we're doing, our model, like, when you imagine your own child being born into one of those vulnerable contexts, and to be honest with you, being married to a Nepali woman, like, that is not as far away as maybe, like my own reality. Being married to someone who is from my same cultural context. What is that stirring you?
[00:22:39] Speaker B: I mean, it stirs in me brokenhearted desperation.
And that's what I believe the church's posture towards injustice should be, especially the greatest injustices. And I think you get that by facing up to injustice and stopping yourself or preventing yourself from making the victim this other.
By remembering that we don't do things to make us deserve the lives we're born into and that God loves every person more than we love the person we love most and so we know that is his heart. It's broken over injustice.
And I just want to say something here because I think people might feel something like this is going to be really painful.
And there's a sense in which it is.
But the scriptures are full of promises of amazing things that we'll be blessed with if we do hard things.
Like one of those, one example that is whoever leaves home or family for the sake of the gospel, whole family or field for the sake of the gospel, will receive a hundred times what he left in this age. And they should come in with it. Persecutions. That's one where I have experienced that. I've experienced how, that I have been blessed in this life with the persecutions. And the persecutions are hard, but the goodness of it outweighed that.
But I'll say like, even though I see how God has fulfilled that promise of my life and it makes me just start to think, what if all the promises are true? What if they're, you know. And I want to say like, my life does not reflect the Sermon on the Mount, but I just noticed this the other day, there are a handful of ways that I sometimes do the things in the Sermon on the Mount that some of the hard things, and I just want to give one example is like, blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
And I don't want to say that I do this regularly, but I have done it. I have faced up to injustice and mourned. I've wept for injustice again and again.
And out of that I was given a comfort. Remember the promise, they will be comforted. I was given a comfort that's so wonderful that I'm going to have trouble putting it into words.
When you weep, one thing is when you weep over injustice, all your petty problems and worries, they just lose their power. We get this freedom from like ruminating on them and all that does to our heart and our mind.
But I was also given this determined resolve, you know, that desperation became resolve and to make an impact in the lives of trafficking victims. And that resolve brought me and love justice through a lot of hard times, helped us to keep working and fighting for many years with a resolute eye on maximizing impact and that relentlessness that it gave me, that was needed. But God blessed me with that.
And now we've intercepted over 100,000 potential victims of trafficking. I get to live and work in this community of like minded believers who are serving such a sacred mission. And we know together how sacred is the Impact that we get to be part of.
And this thing we get to be a part of is so wonderful that when I think of doing anything else, like, when I look at other people's jobs or lives, no offense to anyone, is meant to anyone. And God created us all differently and for different things. But when I think of the life where I don't get to be a part of impact, like what we have at Love, justice, it just sounds so.
Just why would I want that? You know, it sounds tedious to me. It sounds dull. And so, like, see what great comfort God gave me because I mourned? You know, that's just what. That's just like. It really did come out of that. And so.
But it makes me start to believe that God is who he says he is. You know, he said he's a father who knows how to give eggs and not scorpions.
And again, it makes me start to believe all these promises, want to do more of the hard, high things he commands us to do, but which I and everyone else I know is terrified to actually do.
You know, like, lose your life.
Lose your life. And we hear that and we think, oh, no, that's going to be the worst. That's a scorpion. You know that I can't imagine anything worse than having to lose my life. But that's. That's not true. The worst is when you do what you want and spend all your time hoarding things that you think you want, but that actually don't matter and won't make you happy, only to realize that it's completely empty and you're trapped in it. That's the. But when you lose your life, remember the promise. You gain it. You gain the life. And we have the option to spend our lives doing the things that God created us to do. And my experience is that that all the ways in my life that I'm stuck hoarding things that don't make me happy, I'm miserable where I haven't lost my life, but in all the ways that I have surrendered and lost my life, I'm so happy and so fulfilled.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good, encouraging word that I think could prompt some thoughts, like in the hearts of people listening. And Akshay, you know, again, you have such a unique perspective to this question because you grew up in poverty in a third world country, and now your children are experiencing a very different reality. And when you think about how easily their story could have been your story, what is that stirring you? And how has that shaped the way that you see this Work and also continue to stay in this work for as long as you have.
[00:28:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
That is something that I have thought about often. And growing up in Nepal, growing up to the family that I did in poverty that I grew up in, and my kids now and they're growing up in a very different reality.
And what that just reminds me and confirms is that where you're born is not up to you.
And I think like how John said before, I didn't do anything to be born in a certain place. My kids didn't do anything to be born in a certain place. And it's just how it happened.
And that's how I see this work. I think so much of vulnerability is shaped by circumstances.
What you're born into, what opportunities you have, what protections you have or you don't have. And when I think about Mina, the woman that I translated for, that could have easily been my story.
I grew up in the same country. The reality of thousands of women could have been my reality. And for some reason it wasn't. And it's not. I mean, I don't think it's because I'm any more special than the other person.
But also I'm really thankful that that wasn't my story because I think it's just a fear that that could have been me or that could have been my child. Now the boy, the story of the boy that was shared when I read that story, you know, like to think about my child being in that position as a mother, I'm filled with gratitude that it wasn't my child. But I think there is also an urgency that this can't continue. It needs to be done more. This has to stop.
We need to make more impact with the work that we do.
And I'm really thankful that from when I was born, the experiences that I gained, just the life that I've lived and injustices and just the society that I came face to face with in Nepal really allows me to be on this side where I can help prevent more of what happened to Mina from happening to someone else. And it could be a 5 year old boy today or a 20 year old woman, like it could be anybody.
So I just feel grateful that that wasn't my story, but it could easily have been. And I'm so aware of that reality and same for our children. But I'm also very grateful to be on this side where I'm working with people who feel the same way that I do.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And John, I think it's like as we're talking about This, I think it's equally important to acknowledge, like, empathy fatigue or compassion fatigue or just this temptation to turn away from stories of injustice. I'm talking to me as much as I'm talking to anybody else of, like, you're so inundated by all these things. And it's so tempting for me to be like, okay, you know, I have such a personal connection to human trafficking, but, you know, a kid without water, Like, I just, I'm not thinking about it. Like, I just, I can't. I can't think about it. And there's almost like this temptation to have a hardened heart towards all the injustices that are currently out there.
So why is it tempting to turn away from stories like that? And what is it that look like to, like, resist that instinct, too? It's too much. I, I can't think about it. I, I don't know what's going to happen if I go there.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
You know, I, I think people must think of it as a scorpion. They think it's. It's going to be, you know, really hard and.
But I, I just want to say, like, it's not. It's an egg. It's a, It's a bless better than it's. It's a blessing, you know, like, when I think of the wonderful blessings in my life that have come out of that, out of facing up to injustice, it's just really, really clear to me that it is a blessing, but it hurts. And it causes us to weep.
But it's not like it's not the same the way you would weep if you're looking at someone else's child being trafficked versus how you would weep if it was your child.
If it was your child, there would be a sense of despair, whereas when it's another child, there's a desperation. But it's this blessed, hopeful weeping.
And I think it just might be one small taste of what I think is the greatest thing in existence.
And that's the love that made Jesus die to redeem the world.
[00:33:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I had a thought that I was going to follow up on this, but I feel like I. It's like it fails in a comparison of what you just said. So I'm going to let that, that sit for a minute and also ask a. The same question of why was it important for you to press into Mina's story instead of turning away from it? And maybe what I mean by that is allow yourself to feel, feel the empathy in sharing her story versus matter of factly just translating for her why was it important for you to do that?
[00:33:42] Speaker C: I think it's tempting to turn away because it's uncomfortable. And when you're faced with an injustice or when you're faced with a person who's gone through this injustice, it asks something of you. Like, you cannot not think about it, or you cannot not do about anything about.
Really is easier to keep it at a distance and not really sit with it. And throughout my years with Love Justice, I haven't done it.
There have definitely been time where I've looked away or not allowed it to just be, you know, to be with. To let it sink in, in my heart and to just really feel the feelings that I feel or the thoughts that, that I have.
Because sometimes it also feels like the problem is much bigger compared to what I can do. And I think sometimes that also is an uncomfortable feeling that you don't know what you can do about it. And for me, what has helped with staying with Mina's story or just staying present when hearing about injustices around the world is just listening, being present, and not moving past it because we're so busy, we need to get our work done.
And even when it's hard, just allowing it to stir things inside you. And I think Mina's story was the first time it really became personal to me that I could have treated it like a job and just moved past. But hearing her story, sitting with it, holding her hands, crying with her, feeling angry about all made it real. And once it's real, it's really hard to look away.
And I think that's what shaped how I see this work.
[00:35:33] Speaker A: Yeah. And even as you guys are sharing this, I'm kind of processing real time. Like there is an invitation whenever you're facing up to the world's greatest injustices. And I think ultimately what that invitation is is to press into your relationship with Christ and what you believe to be true about him at its, at its core. Like, at its core because I think what happens when you face up to the world's grace and justice is, is you're wrestling with theological questions, which I think is a really good segue, John, into this next question of, you know, you consider a broken heart over injustice as spiritual formation, and how do we hold onto the power of that compassion without becoming overwhelmed by the brokenness.
[00:36:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, the, the natural thing to do when you, when is to. Is to say why? Why God? You know, and, and, and I think you, you need to take that to God. And, and so for me, like, like, I mean, I see it as spiritual formation because God's heart is broken over injustice. And if we want our hearts to align with him, ours need to be, too. And we know that because he loves every person more than person we love most. And of course, his heart would be broken. And so, you know, to get God's heart over injustice, face it and weep.
But then you're very quickly asking, why God? And for me, the way, the like, the only way that I know of to avoid becoming overwhelmed by that brokenness is to believe in God's love and sovereignty.
You know, the scriptures say that no sparrow falls outside his care.
And so, like, I believe that, like, God cares a lot about those things, but despite all appearances, he has it under control without us. And our choice is not to be anyone's savior, but to be a part of what he's determined to do with or without us.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And how does that love move from emotion to action, specifically in the fight against trafficking? Like, that's, you know, we're in that field. We're in that kind of lane.
Let's talk about that. Let's talk about. And there might even be a little bit of, like, a relief in that. So you can talk about even that tension of doing.
But how do you move from emotion to action, especially when the problem can feel so big and like, okay, is my action actually going to do anything or make a dentist in this?
[00:38:09] Speaker B: Oh, I think the right word here is resolve.
You know, that you. You need that you need to convert that brokenhearted desperation into a resolve that creates this relentlessness, this tenacity, this determination.
Those are the things you need to get started and much less persevere through the many challenges that come.
But for me, it's. It's important. Like, you know, I lived in Nepal for 20 years. A lot of that time was hard. Some of what I would describe as traumatic. A lot of it, I would.
But the blessings that came out of it were so great that they made the hardship feel like nothing.
But what I want to say is the real story here for me is not the story of me or love, justice, doing something for the world.
The story for me is a story of God doing something in me.
And he has.
The weeping changed me.
And the determination through hardship, that also changed me. I became a different person. I became a better person. Akshaya could speak to this. Things that would have really affected me and resulted in negative emotions like anxiety and anger and fear. They just affect me a lot less now and in some cases, not at all.
And so this hardship turned out to be a blessing.
It used to look like a scorpion. Now she does something more wonderful than any egg. And again, this is as much for me as anyone. Listen, it has me asking, what if all the things God asks us to give up for something better are that way?
[00:39:43] Speaker C: Hmm.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: Yeah, that's, that's a good, thought provoking question.
John, thanks for, for just prompting our listeners with that. And Akshay, I'd be curious to hear from you. Like, I imagine that before you join the work of Love justice, because you guys, like, you guys met after working several years strictly as colleagues, like, you didn't. Your introduction to Love justice wasn't. John, you chose to work for Love justice on your own.
And I'd just be curious if there was a confrontation with injustice or a brokenhearted anointing in your own life that really led you here to this work. And if you could briefly share that story.
[00:40:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
For me, it wasn't just one moment.
Growing up in Nepal, in Kathmandu, I had seen street kids around.
And I think that was something that really stood out to me growing up was I was this person who had parents, and then I could see these kids who were out on the street and they didn't have parents, they didn't have an adult with them. So I think that was my first introduction to things not being equal or same even within the context that you've grown up in.
And that was just, I think, what stirred in me to really try and see if there's something I can do with it to help somebody else that was in more need than me. And that was also something that my mom did really well. She really should like that something that she did really well was just helping others, even when we were in need. And that was something that she instilled in us. I think she used to say, like, oh, if you have two pairs, you can give away one to somebody who doesn't have any, you'd still have one. So I think it was just this constant reminder of whatever you have is a blessing. And there's always going to be somebody who is in need. So I think it was just like a continuous teaching and just seeing my mom do it so beautifully growing up in childhood and then the opportunity to be with Love Justice. And I started my work with Love justice, just working with orphaned and vulnerable children. And that was my first introduction to this in a bigger sense. Like, I had seen it away from me in different settings of just seeing the kids on the street, but never interacted with them. And now here I was interacting with street kids interacting with orphan kids and kids who had been broken, who had felt rejection from their parents or from adults in their life and who's seen so much trauma.
And that was my first intro, like big introduction to it and. But also seeing what happens when they're met with love, care and protection.
Like the transformation that happened in this children's lives that came into not justice, that's what stayed with me. The hope, just the joy, the smile. Like all of those things when they changed, I think that was a continued anointing is what I would say is not just the brokenness, but the hope that also exists.
And that's what stayed with me. And I think that's what has led me here.
The work that we do with anti human trafficking. And it wasn't just a broken heart for what's wrong is what I would say, but also seeing what's possible with someone when someone is protected and loved well. And I think that's what keeps drawing me into this work.
[00:43:29] Speaker A: Yeah, that's amazing. And I love even hearing the generational aspect of like your mom and learning from your mom and that idea of her giving not out of a surplus, but giving out of like the opposite of that and still how she had such a heart for that. That's amazing.
If you're listening right now and you're imagining the person you love the most in these stories and in this conversation, I want you to know that for thousands of families around the world, human trafficking isn't hypothetical. Someone they love is at risk. Right now, every minute, several people around the world are trafficked into slavery.
But every 20 minutes, something else happens. Love justice monitors are stationed at strategic points of transit, intercepting someone before they are trafficked into slavery.
John, I'd love for you to briefly share about our model, why it works and why it's impactful.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: Yeah, we fight human trafficking through a strategy called transit monitoring, where we have staff who stand in key transit areas like a bus station, train station, a border crossing, and they look for signs of human trafficking. When they see those, they intervene and use and question people. They follow a questioning protocol to try to uncover red flags that may suggest human trafficking. And if they believe someone is in the process of being trafficked, they'll seek to intercept them and prevent them from going on, either by convincing them by involving their parents in the case of minors, or involving the police. So we have intercepted more than 100,000 people around the world and it costs us $112 to do so. So there's I mean, there's nothing we've ever heard of that has a similar impact on the dollar or in fighting human trafficking than transit monitoring.
[00:45:19] Speaker A: Yeah, and if you could do anything to protect the person you love the most, we wouldn't hesitate to do it. We would just do it. It would be second nature. It would be reflux.
So this is the invitation that we have for our listeners today. Let that same love compel you to protect someone else's life. When you partner with Love justice, you can tangibly help to prevent human trafficking and drive the downfall of slavery.
Like John mentioned, a gift of $112 can fund one interception.
Someone who could have been trafficked stays free.
Because of you, someone else's loved one gets to make it home safely.
Just like I think about that little boy being reunited with his parents.
And I know that if it were me in that situation of welcoming the person I love the most home from a prevented tragedy, I would be so grateful. Like, what a gift. And what a mercy. And what a Grace.
Visit Lovejustice NGO InterceptPartners to learn more and consider giving today. Guys, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
[00:46:27] Speaker B: Thank you, Hannah. Thank you, Aksha.
[00:46:29] Speaker C: Thank you guys.
[00:46:32] Speaker B: We are grateful for the generous support of the Love justice community. Please consider joining our family of donors. Learn more at lovejustice N.
