I remember the day very clearly. I was listening to missionary Heidi Baker on the CD player, and I was talking to Jesus about what love looks like. I felt like the Lord said, “Will you take Breanna into your home”? I was taken aback, as my kids were young, my marriage was rocky, and I did not know how to bring another child into my life; but how could I say anything but “YES” to Jesus? I had a beautiful home and space for one more child. Little did I know then, that with Breanna would come two siblings, and that our lives would be changed forever
Many people are asking the question; “What can I do to help in the abolition of sex trafficking, our modern day slavery?” I would like to make a suggestion. If you have a loving home environment, free from emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, consider opening your life up to a foster-care child.
Children are being trafficked in the U.S. by their parents, uncles and aunts, and adults that are supposed to be “safe” in their lives. If the trafficking is found out, they are taken out of their home and put in the foster care system, which, in the U.S., is often broken. Some children in foster care are being trafficked by their caregivers. Something has to change!
Senator Rob Portman states, “There was a sting operation back in 2013 that the FBI did nationwide on child sex-trafficking, an issue that I’ve worked on a lot…Here is the amazing and very sad statistic in that — 60 percent of the victims that they recovered nationwide, from over 70 cities, were from foster care or group homes.”
I remember these city stings when I lived in Vancouver, Washington. I would sit in on our police department training and hear of the stings about to take place. We would celebrate the kids that were rescued, but they would go right back into foster homes, and if they got a bad one, they could go back to being trafficked.
In the words of the nonprofit, CityLimits, “When children feel that no one cares about them, and are moved from one placement to another, craving attention and stability, [they] can easily find themselves seduced by traffickers who initially make them feel cared for, only to find themselves used for financial gain. Many children in foster care have been previously abused, putting them further at risk. In addition, children who are placed into foster care as adolescents are automatically placed into group homes, since foster parents generally are only willing to take young children. In fact, traffickers will often send one of their girls into group homes to find girls and urge them to leave by saying things like ‘[you] will be well taken care of financially and have a “family”’, so to speak, ‘who will care for [you].’”
The Polaris Project reports that in 2015, an estimated 1 out of 5 endangered runaways reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children were likely child sex trafficking victims. Of those, 74% were in the care of social services or foster care when they ran away.
This is a serious situation and eight years ago I felt I had to do something. I was a stay-at-home mom, raising my young family, and asking God what I could do about this horrific injustice.
Breanna was my daughter’s friend since kindergarten. When she arrived in our lives, she was six years old (she is now 14). She was full of energy, had a skinny toothpick body, hair dull from malnutrition and she would light up a room with her excitement and her contagious smile. When she came for a visit, the house looked like a tornado had smashed through it. Some people go to a party – Breanna was the party!
After my husband and I said “yes”, Breanna, and her sister and brother, began to spend more and more time in our home. Their home situation put them highly “at-risk”, and some days they would be with us for over half a week before their mom would be ready to have them back.
I remember it clearly, I had just been at a Patricia Kings “Women on the Frontlines” in Phoenix, and as my plane landed, I knew I needed to check in on the kids on my way home.
I pulled up to their apartment and found the girls inside and mom gone – she had been put in jail. I offered to take the girls home with me until she was released. This “checking-in” ended up resulting in the girls being placed with us as a “suitable placement” with social services, and only days later their brother being placed with us as well.
Breanna was adopted out of our home into a Christian home and her name changed. She is a beautiful teen, attending Christian school, enjoying her church youth group and family. We still correspond with her and occasionally get to see her when we are in Washington. Breanna’s sister and brother, J & J, have been in and out of our lives for the last eight years. After being removed from their mother, they went to live with their biological dad. We have been their suitable placement, their foster parents, their temporary guardians, etc. They usually spend some of spring break, summer and Christmas with us unless there is a “situation” that places them back in our home full time.
Foster care is rough. There are sleepless nights, drama with merging family units together and a clash of completely different values and culture. Also there is working with parents who sometimes will do what it takes to get their kids back and other times will not.
For us, being foster parents has been so worth it! My husband and I, along with our two biological kids are in love with J & J. My kids can hardly sleep at night when their plane is scheduled to land the next morning. Recently, our foster daughter began to call us mom and dad. I thought my heart was going to explode. She also writes us cards of thanks for taking her in (see photo) and what we have done for her over the years. For mother’s day this year, she made me coasters that listed my attributes that she loves (see photo). Needless to say, I was wrecked!
Foster care needs a complete overhaul (that would be another blog post) but what can we do right now to be an answer? The foster care system in America needs loving families that will not allow kids to be abused, neglected or trafficked. If God has placed it on your heart to be a foster or adoptive parent, His voice is urging you, and you know that the environment of your home would nurture, love and be safe (and all in the home are in unity with this vision), then consider being an answer to over 400,000 kids in America who need a home. Of course this is just one of many ways to get involved, but if you need a nudge in this direction – take this nudge and jump into the deep end. God is faithful. His grace is sufficient for you to be all that He created you to be for these kids who need love, freedom from trauma, hope, and a safe place to call home.
Written by: Nita Weldon
My GPS was alerting me to turn left into the high school parking lot, but I was confused. In front of me was a police car with lights and what looked like a guard station. As I pulled into the lot a uniformed woman began to wave at me to stop. She came to the window and asked me my name and where I was going. I gave her my name and told her I would be helping with a presentation on sex trafficking in the auditorium. I couldn’t help but wonder if she was going to frisk me next, but she waved me through. It was as if I had just crossed the border or entered into a prison yard, but this is just how it is at some of our public schools in America.
In the United States an estimated 100,000 – 300,000 kids are trafficked. Many of the kids who are sexually victimized or trafficked in the U.S. come from foster homes or are on the streets as runaways. These young people often flee abuse and violence at home, but then become victims of sexual exploitation on the streets or in care homes. Experts have reported that within 48 hours of running away, an adolescent is likely to be approached by a trafficker. These are kids sitting in our schools, in our malls, in our churches, in our parks, bowling alleys, and bus stations.
Hope arouses vision and spurs us toward actions. Hope invites us to see, to pray, to give, to serve, and to be a voice in the battle against this modern day slavery of trafficking.