Latest / I Don't Know You / How a Pillar on the Acropolis Shaped Sandie Morgan's Fight Against Human Trafficking

Transcript

How a Pillar on the Acropolis Shaped Sandie Morgan's Fight Against Human Trafficking · I Don't Know You

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, and welcome back to I Don't Know You,
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: the podcast where I talk to leaders and executive directors of nonprofits
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: about their journeys and how they got to be where they are and practical application
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: of experience in running these organizations.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm joined by Sandy Morgan.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: She is the director and a professor at Vanguard University.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Heading up their school of global justice for women.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just a privilege to get to talk to her today.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Today is a little bit different and special because I got
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: to come alongside our associates program.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: At the Barnabas Group, who I do some work for.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's a conversation with our associates group.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have a Q&A time at the end.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's a really amazing conversation talking about the work that she's doing
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: in the human trafficking space.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Fighting against the amazing big problem that is human trafficking.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so she is an advocate for a lot of different programs and building out
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: an actual school and certification for anti-human trafficking.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm stoked to be able to talk to her and just grateful for her time and her experience.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope you enjoy.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: See you.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having us in your office.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: It really means a lot to me that you are willing to have a bunch of young bucks
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: in here and share your story.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: You guys are older than I'm used to though, just so you know.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: What's your average age in a class?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Our students are between 18 and 21.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they make it to 22 before
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm glad that we can bring the maturity tonight. There you go. Thank you.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: We'll ask very mature, challenging questions for you.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'll have higher expectations.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the class,
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: I expect a grade for all of us in gold stars or whatever,
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: however that works for you.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you work with TAs and they grade papers?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: I grade.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as we start, I wanted...
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, I like peer reviews better.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'd like all of you to give Matt a score at the end. Please.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Between 1 and 10.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's a lot of... Okay.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there you go.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you're the one who wanted a grade.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: I just...
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, maybe at the end.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, normally I send an email with a little... How did it go?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: What did you think?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: But as we start, I'm curious,
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: is there something in this room that tells a part of your story, like an object?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, he prepped me for this.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I brought this into this room.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Technically, I didn't prep you.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: You just started bringing this in.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, this is one of my questions.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I was born in Sacramento.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_02: And...
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: Grew up until I was 18 there.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then my dad, who was civil service, it was an Air Force community,
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: had always wanted to get stationed overseas.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I was a senior in high school, and we were going to go to the Philippines.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: We were going to go to Germany.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_02: I don't remember where else.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: He went to Turkey.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, we're going to Japan.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: And we all said, great.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: And kept on keeping on.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: And a month after I graduated from high school, we went to Japan.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so all of my prescribed next steps, college,
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: all of that changed overnight because I was 18th.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not staying home.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: I go with my family.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I got the opportunity to study,
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: work, have international experiences,
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: and then married
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: my sweetheart
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: who was in the Navy.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: And my dad was like this VIP guy.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: And my husband was like a peon.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was quite a different lifestyle change.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: But we went to Spain, so he still took me someplace.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: And we always felt like we would be
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: in a good place to be missionaries.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: And we We were preparing for ministry.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: He went to SCC.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_02: Vanguard was Southern California College after he got out of the Navy.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: And we did go into ministry together.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: And when we were missionaries in Greece,
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: I started working in anti-trafficking.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I was...
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: I was a registered nurse.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'd been an OR supervisor.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: I'd been a pediatric nurse.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I love nursing.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so I became very involved
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: in supporting initiatives to reduce violence against women.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how I discovered human trafficking.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: And my...
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: My first encounter was a little Albanian girl, about 12.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: Prostitution is legal in Greece, in fact,
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think one of the biggest cultural collisions of my whole life living
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: in other countries was coming up out
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: of the metro and today's strike
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: where the prostitutes were on strike for better social security.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: And they had signs
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: that they wanted laws against the girls coming,
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: being brought over.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't use the trafficking language,
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: but the illegal women were taking their business.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: And as I began to understand what was happening,
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: then I started getting involved and became a Volunteer at the Doctors
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: of the World shelter for victims of human trafficking.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: And their stories were horrendous.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: Their stories were full of trauma, broken dreams.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I had,
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: we had lots of people come to visit us.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: Greece is like a destination, right?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so a friend of mine from Washington DC came
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: and I lived literally two
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: and a half blocks from the Acropolis.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: And on the back of the Acropolis
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: Of the Edithio Palace on the Acropolis is a porch.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, you saw the picture of the porch.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: And it has six women pillars that are holding up this porch.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: And as we walked by that, my friend said to me,
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: that's what The psalmist was thinking
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: of when he wrote Psalm 144, 12.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: And the first part
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: of the verse is your sons will be
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: like trees planted by the water.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: And the second part of the verse and your daughters will be like pillars carved
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: to adorn a palace.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I had been Working now in this field enough
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: that I had a lot of secondary vicarious trauma.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: I saw things that were really awful.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so how do you keep going back?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: And this became a symbol of how God saw these girls
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: that other people saw as throwaway.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: One of the girls, Maria, had been Lured there with the offer of a job.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: She was back in an earlier Ukrainian conflict.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: Her father had been killed and she graduated from high school at the top of her class.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so her mother and eight year old brother were counting on her to become the breadwinner.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so she looked for jobs
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: and the Soviet Union had collapsed.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so When she was offered a job in Greece, she took it.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: And when she arrived, it was actually, she was placed, sold into a brothel.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: And for the next, we figured out between 18 and 20 months,
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: she was sold, moved, sold, moved.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: She never even knew what city she was in.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: And when she was
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: She was one of 11 girls placed in a bar.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: And the traffickers, because you guys all know about good businessmen,
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: they unload defective product.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so they called the police and gave the tip.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: And they brought the girls in.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: It was just one heartbreaking story over after another.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: So beginning to think
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: about how God did not see them as broken,
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: did not see them as no future, no beauty.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I began to just...
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Live in that verse,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: your daughters will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: And there were six of them on that porch and they were all like a ton
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: and they were holding up this roof.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: So they had purpose and they were strong and they are gorgeous.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, And so I, I just lived in that verse and it was on everything.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: I actually, I have another necklace that is a charm of a,
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: of the karyatis and the, um,
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: The verse began to be the foundation
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: for developing strategies
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: so that the women began to see themselves
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: through God's eyes instead of the way
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: the world sees them.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so...
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: If you look at this,
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: you'll notice that her hair is really intricately braided.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: And as I studied,
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: I studied Greek architecture and the ancients and got all kinds of books.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: And the architects actually,
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: because women's necks are thinner, they...
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Gave them these beautiful braids in order to hold up as a pillar.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so, but I was like, but God says this is her glory.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: So the Karyatis became
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: a symbol of Healing,
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: restoration, purpose,
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: beauty for how God saw the girls.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: And that's been, wow, over 30 years ago.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I just keep
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: on doing this.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Was there like a, how did you, how did you first see this?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously like prostitution was everywhere, but how did you first see,
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: was there some sort of encounter that you had?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: I was used to walking by, so it's kind of interesting because Americans kind
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: of have this red light district mentality and Figueroa Street, whatever.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: But, um, The legal brothels
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: in Greece are next to the banking industry
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: because the population there went there
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: on their way to or from work.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: So the brothels had little white lights
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: when they were open, not red.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought that was kind of interesting.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so I knew
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_02: which Buildings housed brothels.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: And when I saw a little girl that looked Albanian, not Greek,
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: and she couldn't have been more than 12,
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: it was like something is very, very wrong,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: very wrong.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so I started doing more investigation,
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: learned a lot about what was happening.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: Became very involved in getting the Greek law against trafficking.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: We call it the Trafficking Victims Protection Act here.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: And the way that the Office to Monitor and Combat Human Trafficking works,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: they set up an annual TIP report that started, Trafficking in Persons report,
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: that started in the year 2000.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: And because it was a form of soft diplomacy,
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_02: soft maybe not,
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: but it was coercive
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: so that if your country didn't have a law
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: against human trafficking, against slavery, against selling another human being,
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: then you could be subject to sanctions.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: That would mean that we wouldn't do business with you.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: You wouldn't qualify for any humanitarian grants.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: You wouldn't be able to buy weapons from the U.S.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: So when the Greeks started preparing
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: for the Olympics in 2004,
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: they realized they needed
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_02: to have Trafficking Victims Protection Act.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so they got that done.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I was on the team that helped the ambassador at the time.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: He wasn't very involved, but his wife, Bonnie, was.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so we got the Greek law passed.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: That was a big victory.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's a big deal.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: That was in 2002, 2000? Yeah.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so a few years before the Olympics.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that, you would say that that, like,
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: turning point for you was that girl that you saw outside there.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's when I realized this was more than,
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: it was just deeper, darker. Yeah. Yeah.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then...
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll call her Maria, the Ukrainian 17-year-old.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: When we had more conversations with her,
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: you guys pretty much know the elements of human trafficking legally are force,
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: fraud, and coercion.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: So she had been offered a job that didn't exist and then she had been brutalized.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: To keep her in line.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: But they didn't lock her in a room or tie her up.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: They just said to her, if you leave, it's all right.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: Remember the job application you filled out?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: We know where your eight-year-old brother lives.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: And we'll go get him because there's a market for boys.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: And...
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: Right next to City Hall.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll never forget watching the Olympics
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: and the bicycle marathon.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: What do you call a cycle for the Olympics anyway?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: Was right by City Hall and right by this bar where literally...
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: During the Olympics, they rescued,
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, eight or 10 little boys.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: And guys would come in the bar and ask
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: to see the catalog of rooms.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: And they would choose a room
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: which had a little boy's picture and get the key, pay for the key.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: To go to that room.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so they rescued those boys.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that was, it's huge,
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: the stereotype that all victims
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: of sex trafficking are girls is really way off.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that was, oh, go for it.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: In communities that you see trafficking, are they sort of like the kids don't have parents?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like you were seeing the father was killed.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: So if there are more communities surrounding the children,
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: are there less trafficking that happens?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: Or does it matter?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's yes and but.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: So The vulnerabilities of conflict,
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: not having a breadwinner, poverty,
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: those kinds of things make it more likely
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: that someone will fall victim.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: But in Maria's case, she didn't just want a job.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: She wanted a future.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: She was smart.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: She wanted to be a nurse and she told her mom when she was leaving,
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to send half the money to you and half I'm going to save to go
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_02: to nursing school.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: So lots of times
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: the victims were the more ambitious kids,
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_02: the kids with dreams,
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: the kids with a they want to get out and get something better.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: The, the,
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: The other aspect is the idea
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: that somehow
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_02: these kids are poor
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: and that makes them,
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: well, it's not that that's the problem.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: The problem is we think kids who are in really healthy,
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: Communities or they appear healthy.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody's in a nice house.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: Mom and dad both have jobs.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: But we still see kids trapped from those situations
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: because we don't always know what's going on behind closed doors and what's going
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: on in a kid's mind that might make them vulnerable.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's one of the things that I used to get very frustrated because people would say,
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: well, here are the red flags.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: We'll just go tell the kids, don't do this, this, and this.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: But that's based on a risk management model of decision making.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: So you have two problems.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: First of all, adolescent's brain isn't done yet.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I think everybody here, you're pretty close. Yeah.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Not me.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: No. Okay.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, they tell us, um,
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: that actually you already mentioned boys develop a little slower.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: So 28, 29 before your brain's done.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah. I'm 30.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it's already done.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Good. Good.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: But this idea that you can tell them what to watch out for, um,
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: Two problems.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: One, and it's very reported on in research,
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: is teen invincibility, especially boys, is a thing.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: And they really think it won't happen to me.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then secondly,
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: when I was in Colombia one time and somebody was going to go out
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: and do prevention work And they had made these red flag things that were connected
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: to a soccer game thing.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then they showed me where they were going.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it was literally in slums
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: where the homes were made out
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: of cardboard and corrugated things.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: Aluminum, those kinds of things, plexiglass.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't have windows.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: They had rags to cover.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: And if you think about risk, if somebody,
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: I got a nursing job offer in Saudi Arabia one time and it was
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: an astronomical salary.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, but I live here.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: I have a car.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: I have a house.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: So when I'm weighing the decision to do that,
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not very vulnerable to making a decision.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: But if you have no house, no income, and you don't know where your next meal is,
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: what kind of risk is that?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it will be better.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: So the red flag...
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, approach with kids with vulnerabilities is, is not a very good option.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: We have to do a better job of being very, um, uh,
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: proactive in teaching kids green flags
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: and what to look for in,
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: in a trusted,
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: trusted adult.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so, um, Prevention is getting a little more mature,
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: but there's still a lot of red flag mentality out there.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: Just tell the kids.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then my worst nightmare is when people blame the kids.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: And they say things like, well, did you see how she was dressed?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: And they'll say, well, we told her not to, and she did it anyway.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: And all of those kinds of things.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I think...
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think I'm way off from answering that question.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, these are always the hopes for my conversations is how do we make it a conversation.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for the question.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you were talking about like, oh, you started becoming educated more in all of this stuff.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: 2002-ish.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're like very deep into it because you're changing policy on like an international level.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know I'm at war with China now?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to get into that.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's so fun.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_02: No, actually, I first started working in anti-trafficking in 1997-98
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: because I was just like Americans.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's over there, except I was in Greece, and it was over there.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: It was in India, and I had friends working in India,
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: and I had them come and speak to my friends in Greece.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then we started understanding that we had it too.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: So when I came back to the States towards the end of 2004,
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of had this kind of Disneyland happiest place on earth.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to live in Orange County.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: My husband was invited to be missionary in residence here at Vanguard.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: And so we were going to have a nine-month vacation there.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then I could see the signs.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, people, don't you, do you not know what's going on?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: And that's when I found Derek Marsh.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: And he was a lieutenant at Westminster PD.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: He was the law enforcement founder of our Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: And really...
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: He saw it in Westminster because of the Asian massage parlors.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so he was one of the first in Orange County to really identify it
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: from a law enforcement perspective.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: So at what point are you going back to school to get your PhD in all of this?
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay. So I think I mentioned to somebody, I was kind of more,
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't really care about paper.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I told you we moved to Japan.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I went to Sophia University in Tokyo for a little while.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: I took courses at the Air Force Base from University of Maryland.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: So
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: Because I was in Japan, I studied economics,
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: macroeconomics, microeconomics.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: My fellow students were embassy brats and princes and princesses.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: It was just so funny because it was a very elite school.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: So very wealthy families sent their kids there.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: My dad just trusted me to get on a train
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: and go to the center of Tokyo by myself.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: I still don't get that, but I did it.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: And then came back and went to Sac State.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: My sister had gotten married and her husband...
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: They had their first baby and then her husband was diagnosed with lymphoma.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: And this is back when there were no cures.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: And eight months later,
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: she was a 21-year-old widow
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: with a baby and no real...
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: Skills for a job.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I had plans eventually someday
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: to get a doctorate and teach English or philosophy.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: I loved debate in high school.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: I don't remember ever losing a debate, but it could have happened.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and, uh,
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: I suddenly realized, I think I need to go in a different direction.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: So I got my nursing degree and became a pediatric nurse
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: and then an operating room nurse, my favorite surgery in the whole world.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_02: Is a knee replacement.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: I love orthopedic surgery. It's great.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: You get to have these big tools, just like my dad had in his garage.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: He was doing knee replacements in his garage?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, no, but he had all the equipment.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: If he'd have known how, he could have.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Only he had you there.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah. So I loved orthopedic surgery.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: How long is that surgery?
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: You don't want it to be very long, less than 90 minutes,
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: because they pretty much cut circulation off to your limb while they do it.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Why was that your favorite?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Just because of the big tools?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, because people's lives were changed just like that.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: They went from not being able to walk to a couple weeks later,
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: they're They're walking without a walker, those kind of things.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: So, but I loved
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: nursing and Realized that I could use it in so many different ways.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: And then we became missionaries.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a really long time.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: So we went to Germany.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: We worked with our military.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: We were serving our military
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: when you guys probably weren't even born for Desert Storm.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: And we had...
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: An international and a military church.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: And we had daisies and missionettes and prims.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: And my daisy leader calls me up and she goes,
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: Sandy, I'm being deployed to Kuwait.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, you're being deployed?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: They can't deploy my DAISY teacher.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: So she was, yeah, so it was a new experience.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: And then we were reassigned to the Canary Islands.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then just before we were supposed to go there, they said,
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: could you go to Greece on your way to the Canary Islands and just be there
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: for six months?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so 10 years later, yeah, we just stayed.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: Have you visited the Canary Islands yet?
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, actually, our director told us,
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_02: before you say okay to accepting a more permanent assignment in Greece,
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: we want you to go and check out the Canary Islands.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: And, oh my gosh, we did not like it.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: It was just all tourists and mostly very,
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: very wealthy Northern European
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: who expected people to just, I mean,
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: they didn't treat the people around them very well.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: Less human trafficking?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: No, didn't see that.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm sure if I'd have stayed, I would have seen that.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: So we went back to Greece and didn't look back.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: We go to Greece a lot.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's like our second home.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: And but
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: In 2000,
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: well, my sister-in-law got breast cancer.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: And while they made their last family trip, she was 45.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: She was in Greece.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: She couldn't climb the steps to the monastery.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I stayed with her and she did one of those, you're going to be there for my kids, right?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah. And so, so in 2003,
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: I went home to be there for when my nephew graduated
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_02: from high school and because I promised his mom.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_02: And while I was there, you know, I spoke for some women's stuff and did this and that.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: But I also spent more than just a few days with my daughter and grandchildren.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I began to see things
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: that made me really concerned.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so when I left,
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: I told my daughter I'd like her to go see a therapist, talk to a counselor.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: And that was in August.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: And that was 2003.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: And the run-up to the Olympics for a missionary,
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: it's brutal.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody wants to send teams to you.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's just brutal.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so one of the teams that came
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_02: in October was 34 people,
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: 31 were women
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: and they actually came in September and they left October 12th.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so my daughter had said,
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: so what time do they leave?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: And we're like, okay.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: So after we got back from taking them to the airport,
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_02: we get a call from our daughter and she said,
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: so my counselor said that my silence is my prison and so I have
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: to tell you what's going on.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: And she was in a very We had
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: a very close friend,
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: minister, and psychologist,
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: and we asked him to meet with her, and his summary was, that's my daughter,
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_02: I'd go get her now.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so we
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: made plans,
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: and what do you do?
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: We get back to the States to help her.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: We can't bring her home with us.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's called international kidnapping from his attorney.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: And it was really brutal.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: And we realized we had to figure things out.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: So we did.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: Long story short, we took a couple weeks,
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_02: went to the States, got her out.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_02: Put her in an apartment complex
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: because at first we thought like she should stay
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: in the house with the kids, right?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: But it was up in the foothills of Auburn and it wasn't safe and he would come back.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: And the domestic violence assessment, he got a nine out of nine for violence.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so they said, you have to move her someplace where they have very thin walls.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: Because she's going to be safer where she's with people.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then we tried to figure out how to leave.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: And we were the lead missionaries for all of the Olympics things
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_02: that our churches were doing and hosting.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: So we literally booked our flight
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: for the day after the Olympics ended.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_02: And...
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: We had come home, we got her started,
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_02: and we went to, when we came back,
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: we went to her first court date with her, and we never missed a court date.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: And my kids, my grandkids are wonderful.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: You saw pictures of them, they're young adults.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: But our Greek friends were like, There was no guilt.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you can't leave us. None of that.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: They were like, can we help take you to the airport?
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because this is family and they knew our kids.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: So that's how I ended up.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: Back here.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I started getting involved with the task force.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I still thought we were going back to Greece.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, somehow somebody found out that I had been an OR supervisor in Northern California.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so I got offered a job at Hoag.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I would have had to sign a contract because I'd been out of acute care nursing for a while.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: That I would work at least a year after my onboarding.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I'm only going to be here nine months.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: I can't sign that.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I didn't do it.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I went to work at a church office to help out,
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_02: getting paid like $10 an hour.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then somebody asked me to help with something here at Vanguard.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I started taking students out with me.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: To do high school presentations in the end of 2005.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_02: Because of a pastor friend of mine whose kids said,
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: come to my high school and tell them about this.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like, yeah, sure.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then they offered me a job here.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: And my boss was one of the founders, if you look on the panel outside.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_02: And she told me, so you need to get your PhD.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because then you can be the director when I retire.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was like, okay.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_02: She told me to do this and I'm first born overachiever.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_02: If I'm supposed to do something, go do it.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I did.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I went to Biola where they told me mostly I couldn't do what I'd already done.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, hmm, I don't get that.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: But the whole...
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: You can't be a minister.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: You can't have leadership.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_02: Your husband has to be your covering.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so and the interesting thing, if Gene were here,
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: he would tell you I was the one who almost broke our engagement
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: when I really felt God call me to be a missionary.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I told him and he said, well, I'll support you.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was like, yeah, no, I was like, so it took a while for him.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: But our youth leader at the time told me you had already said yes.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_02: And betrothal is a promise.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: And God knew that you made that promise.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not going to ask you to break your word.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, okay, I'm not sure if I go with all of that as logic, but I liked it.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: So, so we got married and, um,
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's when he was in the Navy and we lived in Spain and both
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: of our daughters were born there.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I've lived in Japan, Spain, Germany,
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: and Greece and traveled a lot of other places.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was during my research.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like, well, how do I how do I like condense this?
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: Conversation into it.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like what's the through line of it all?
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like a lot of it is the work that you're doing here now
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: and the kind
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: of education that you're giving a lot of young people
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: and through your podcast around human trafficking
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: and what to look for and kind
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: of how to think through it.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I think like even the certificate stuff that you guys are doing
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm curious, like as you kind of because you you spent a lot
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: of time like working through these problems, educating yourself,
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: getting what was your Ph.D. in?
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: Intercultural studies.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: So like a lot of the experience you have lived through all of this and bringing
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: in the data and thinking through it,
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: like I'm curious as the through line of anti-human trafficking, like how has your,
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: like you've gotten to see like the worst of humanity for a really long time.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: How has your like faith held up During that and how has it changed as a result
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: of kind of the education that you've had for so long doing this?
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_02: So one time one
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: of my students created what looked like an algebraic equation
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: because I grew up in a home.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_02: My dad didn't go to college.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: My mother didn't finish high school, but Knowledge was really valuable.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_02: We had five sets of encyclopedias.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: We did not have Google, but if we asked dad a question,
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: he said, go look it up.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so knowledge was always really prized.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_02: And when I was...
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I spoke at Barnabas one time.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: You guys were all probably still in high school then.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: But I really focused
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: on what I think I would identify as my through line.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's Philippians 1, 9 through 11.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: Because I get so tired.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's why my friends and I during COVID turned the podcast into a book.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: I want the church to do this well.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: And lots of good, well-meaning, kind,
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: wonderful church people say, well,
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to love on them.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to show them God's love.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then they do silly things and sometimes they do harmful things.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so in Philippians 1 says, Nine, Paul says, if you want your love to abound,
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: don't buy cinnamon hot hearts.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: He says, you need knowledge and insight.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_02: Knowledge and insight.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I figured out,
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: and I remember making the decision
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: To go get my PhD in 2007,
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: I was back in Greece.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_02: I had a friend from the State Department with me and I was trying to decide
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: because there was a State Department job in the office to monitor
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_02: and combat human trafficking.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_02: Do I take that?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: The big reason I didn't want it was I would have to buy a snow shovel again.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I tried that in Germany and there was no place to go to the beach.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: So didn't want that.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I decided then that being at
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_02: University where I could teach the next generation
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: because I was already too old
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: to go to this place or that place.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I was too old anyway.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: So knowledge and insight and passing
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_02: that on became the focus because the rest
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_02: of that passage says with knowledge and insight,
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: you gain discernment so that you will know what is best,
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_02: pure and blameless.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: And The best is, it's like just yes, no,
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: this afternoon I was in a meeting where we were doing some research
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: with Nottingham University on a Templeton grant
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: about faith-based organization responses to human trafficking.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so our hosts
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: in Costa Rica didn't want my research team To spend any time going
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_02: to see this one really well-known big group
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_02: that were very church-based.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: She says, no, no, no, they don't do good work.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: And my team is like, yes, that's why we're doing this research,
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: because we want to show that with knowledge and insight,
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: then you're going to have best, pure, and blameless.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: So best practice evaluating and calling people
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: to that space and pure space.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: That people would have the right motives.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of times I remember getting sent what we call a MAPS worker,
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: a missionary associate program worker
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: who literally made a bargain with God
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: that if she came and worked on the mission field,
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_02: God would bring her son out of addiction.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I don't think that's how it works.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: And she was a mess.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: So that didn't work.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_02: So this, why are you doing it?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_02: What is your motivation?
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_02: And then the last, blameless, to the day of Christ and his righteousness,
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_02: what I kept seeing happening is people...
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: When I would be in government offices, when I'd be in aftercare programs,
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: they would say, oh, you're from that church.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_02: And they didn't want to have anything to do with God.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_02: So they blamed God for our poor actions.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so I felt like it was really important
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_02: that I be part of training up
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_02: a generation that understood best, pure, and blameless.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: And raise the standard.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_02: And now, I have literally sent out hundreds of students.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_02: And just a couple weeks ago, we had our annual fundraiser.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_02: And one of my alums came back.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_02: And he's now an FBI agent
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_02: on the California Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like... Yep.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: Isn't that great?
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_02: Isn't that great?
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_02: So he was a women and justice minor too.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah. So that's my through line.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_02: Philippians 1, 9.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to bring reproach on God.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't want any of my protégés to do that.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you mentioned there are some like, I'm sure there's a whole book on it that you wrote.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: But what are some common mistakes that like well-meaning people,
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: churches make when they jump in to this without studying?
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe just two or three examples.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_02: They go like right here in Orange County, a pastor in his church.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_02: He wired up, he made a date.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: Went in the hotel room to rescue a girl who didn't ask
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_02: to be rescued and then had
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_02: a news team waiting to record their rescue.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_02: And in the middle of all of that,
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_02: he blew up an investigation that had been going on for several months
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_02: and involved four different law enforcement agencies.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_02: Tens of thousands of your tax dollars.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_02: The trafficker got away because they had no law enforcement partner.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: And the girl wasn't safe because now her face is all over the news.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_02: And he was at church on Sunday testifying
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: about the wonderful rescue God had allowed them to do.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_02: Brutal.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I was part of the team that got her
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_02: in another place outside the state of California. Yeah.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: So that makes me crazy.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I was in Washington, D.C. at a DOJ conference.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_02: I was the task force administrator. Oh, yeah.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: I left out.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_02: Derek was my boss before I was his boss.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: The tables have turned. Yes. Yes.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't let him forget that.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_02: But...
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_02: He, gosh, what was I going to say about that?
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: You were at a DOJ conference.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_02: DOJ conference.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_02: And at the lunchtime, they would always break us up into task forces from different states.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_02: So we were with Texas.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_02: And the topic was, what is one of your big community engagement?
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_02: Challenges.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_02: And the guy from Texas kicked his chair back like he'd watched TV all his life
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_02: and he knew he was a cop.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so he said, the wacko church people.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_02: And my guys all looked at me and they said, and then finally,
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_02: Lieutenant Marsh says she's one of them.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so I said, yep, I can marry you and bury you.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so we had a wonderful conversation.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I...
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: I was just as frustrated as he was because here I had a pastor blowing up an investigation.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: I had people calling me
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: and when I wouldn't send victims to their homes.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_02: But we have an extra room and you have trauma-informed license, care, blah, blah, blah.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_02: You meet all this.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: I told people that I was persecuting Christians
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_02: and And I wouldn't let Christians have access to the victims.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_02: I said, we have an amazing volunteer program.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: You come, Salvation Army runs it, you get all the training, and then you can work with them.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_02: But they didn't want to do that.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_02: They just, yeah.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted to be the weekend warriors.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yes. And they wanted to be the heroes.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_02: They all had savior conferences.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as we think about this room, and I think you answered it a little bit,
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: but I'm curious, we're all in different careers.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: What does it look like for this, like, everyone can do something mentality?
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: Would that be your advice?
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: Go get trained to know what to look for.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: Volunteer here, get into the program and the certificate program that you guys have.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: What would be your advice to all of us as we You know,
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think if you're called to do this, you need to get the specific education.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, the certificate program is a great idea.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_02: If you are...
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, living your best life,
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_02: probably reading the strategies against trafficking
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_02: for churches book is, is a great primer that gives you an overview
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_02: and an understanding of the things not to do and the things
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: that can be more helpful.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think everyday people can make
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_02: a difference with everyday choices.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: We have, in fact, you guys are all invited.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's October 22nd is our fair trade fashion show.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: Our students put it on because 11 or 12 years ago they were very frustrated
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_02: That all people talked about was sex trafficking.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: Sex trafficking is horrific, but it's one in four, one in five of trafficking victims.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_02: So they wanted people to focus on labor trafficking.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_02: So they came up with this wonderful idea to disrupt fast fashion where there's
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_02: so much labor trafficking.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_02: Just, it's horrific.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_02: So they put on a fashion show
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_02: where everything is either certified fair trade, the supply chain.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, California was the first to pass a Supply Chain Transparency Act in 2010.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: Makes me very proud.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_02: We did not follow it up and put any teeth in it, but we passed it, the U.K.,
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_02: Modeled theirs and improved.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then Australia made theirs even better.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_02: So we do thrifting.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: Everything is thrifted.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_02: And we talk about fair trade implications in your home,
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_02: in the products you buy,
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_02: the choices that you make.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_02: Do we really need to have a whole new wardrobe every season?
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_02: And...
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_02: Candy, I remember, I can still remember it was in 2007 that I discovered
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_02: the cocoa plantation,
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_02: child slavery on the east coast of, the west coast of Africa.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I never could find that picture again,
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_02: but I saw, The bottom of a child's feet,
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_02: a 12-year-old boy who ran away.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_02: And when they captured him, they sliced the bottom of his feet so he couldn't run away again.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like,
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_02: there isn't any chocolate good enough
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_02: that I will eat that I know
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_02: unless I know it is completely slave-free.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_02: Because otherwise, I just see that little boy's feet in my mind.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not going to eat chocolate that somebody bled
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_02: for and didn't get an education.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah,
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_02: so that's, I think getting educated.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_02: Doesn't mean turning around.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of why I love teaching at this undergrad level
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_02: because students are making choices for the rest of their lives.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_02: And like Nick who became an FBI agent,
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_02: His his whole life changed because he became a women in justice minor and he went
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_02: on study abroad with us.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things I love
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_02: about Barnabas is how these
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: very successful business families come alongside
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_02: nonprofits and the
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think in probably the last four to five years,
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_02: I've become much more grateful for philanthropy.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_02: Philanthropy is a way.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_02: To make a difference.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_02: And if making money is what you're good at,
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_02: then come alongside and support my students to go on study abroad because that's
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_02: where Nick figured out teaching people about this was what he wanted to do
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_02: with the rest of his life.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_02: One of my very first students that went
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_02: with me Became a Homeland Security agent
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: in Los Angeles on the Human Trafficking Task Force.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: And she called me one day and she was like sobbing, Dr. Morgan, Dr. Morgan.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_02: I had to put double handcuffs on because he was so big.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_02: But the trafficker was this huge guy.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_02: She says, I had to put two pair together to arrest him.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_02: But it was her first caller.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_02: So that's...
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's an epic legacy.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah. So every year I send... Now, though, it's changed.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I am honestly in a season
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_02: where I've trained up another team.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: I have Derek...
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_02: I have Jamie, I have Brenda, I have Ruthie,
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_02: and they can do things better than I can.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_02: If you start listening to the podcast, Ruthie's going to start doing some of them.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_02: So as I hand the baton to them,
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_02: they're the ones who are going to say in five years,
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_02: oh, She was my student.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm going to say, okay, so does that make me her grandmother professor?
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm reading
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_02: a book about writing like you teach.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_02: And this book was something...
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_02: That my friends wanted to do during COVID, but now I want to write.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that's my next season for passing knowledge on.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_02: Not exactly sure. You know what they say.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_00: The pen is mightier than the sword.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote a speech when I was 12 years old and won a prize with it.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I did. I love that.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_02: I just quoted it recently.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_00: What's the name of your podcast so we can listen to it?
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_02: Ending Human Trafficking. Awesome.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's not very, very original.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_02: Straightforward.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah. I'm assuming it's on everything. It's easy to do. Yeah.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, Oh, gosh, I did not want to do it.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_02: But if you want to look in my office,
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_02: I have my own little studio set up around my desk because my producer,
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_02: who's also my board, said we're losing our audience.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_02: And it's because everybody's moving to YouTube.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so we have to be on YouTube.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_02: And we have students, like I saw somebody this last week and she said, Westmont's,
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_02: I forget the name of the fellowship,
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_02: their students all have to listen to your podcast. Oh, that's awesome.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't it? They're not even at Vanguard. Yeah.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_02: And we get to influence them. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_02: But eventually I have to pass that on to somebody else.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, well.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_00: Want to open it up if you guys have questions at all for, I mean,
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_00: she has an incredibly, you've lived a very interesting life so far.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_02: Can I tell you about China and me? Oh, sure. Yes.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_02: So in July, I got this phone call.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_02: From State Department, because I'm a SME.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_02: Do you guys know what a SME is?
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_00: Subject Matter Expert.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, very good.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_02: And they said, can you go to Tonga, blah, blah, blah, first week of August.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_02: I said, no.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_02: Tonga.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's an island in the South Pacific.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_02: And The girl who called me is from Sacramento.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_02: The only reason I answered is
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_02: because my sister was just moved into assisted living.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it was a 916 area code.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_02: I don't answer calls from people.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_02: But it was Carly from State.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, no, sorry, I can't. I can't go.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_02: She called me back a week later.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_02: Can you go on this date?
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_02: No, I can't. She called me back.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_02: She goes, okay, they just want to know when can you come.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so I figured out when I could fit it
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_02: in between things because they were really insistent.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then when I get there, I find out it's really a rather small,
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_02: very Christian monarchy.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_02: I met the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have to do any sort of like ritual type stuff with them or was it like handshakes?
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, handshakes. Okay. Yeah.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_02: There had been a case of bride trafficking from the island and it's very, very poor.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_02: All those vulnerability things we were talking about.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_02: And these girls thought they were getting a bride price for their families
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_02: and they were being sold in Northern China.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then it was a horrific experience.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_02: So totally fraud, totally the force and brutality.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then When they get back to the island and they're trying to figure this all out,
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_02: is it human trafficking?
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_02: The Chinese government makes an official statement that it was a marriage dispute.
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_02: There is no trafficking.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so our embassy, very young embassy,
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_02: they're going to get their first ambassador by the end of the year.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_02: So they just have a deputy embassy.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_02: In charge and a policy officer decided they needed
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_02: to have a SME come,
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_02: but not just any SME.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_02: It is a very Christian nation.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_02: So when they were looking through all of the profiles, Reverend Dr. Morgan.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so every,
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_02: I have never in five days Been introduced as the Reverend Dr.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_02: Morgan five, six, seven times a day.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_02: How did that make you feel?
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think it kind of canceled out some of my Biola experience. Good, good.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_00: The head didn't get too big.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, no, no, no.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_02: And they asked me to pray at the beginning of every meeting.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_02: They asked me to pray at the end of every meeting.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_02: So the big reception at the end of this week is
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_02: at this kind of American-type bar
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_02: and bar restaurant.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so...
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_02: The microphone stuff is set up over.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_02: And remember, I'm a missionary.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm there and suddenly I hear, Reverend Dr. Morgan, will you come and open in prayer?
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I had to go to the microphone in the bar so I could open in prayer.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_02: And the day I left,
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_02: our embassy posted about the Chinese government.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_02: Case and said, Reverend Dr. Morgan assessed blah, blah, blah.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_02: And within the hour, the Chinese government posted a rebuttal.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's quick.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_02: They're watching you like a hawk.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know. You never know.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_02: You never know.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, David and Goliath.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah. There you go. Fascinating.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going back.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is like an uncovering, this story is happening live.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're in the middle of it.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I got to train the police department, the victim services, healthcare providers,
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_02: high school counselors. So cool. Anybody.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I have also never worked that hard for the State Department, but...
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_02: It was fascinating, fascinating.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_00: Are they like a Catholic nation?
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_02: So if you see me at Barnabas and you want to introduce me to your friends, please,
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_02: Reverend Doctor.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.