The fast team has been meeting “fast and furious.” {HA!} They have on an excellent job of getting educated on the issue of sex trafficking, both internationally and in the Houston area.
Freedom Church Alliance
Most recently, the team has joined the Freedom Church Alliance in Houston as one of the advisory congregations. This means that St. Mark will be influential in the decision making process for Houston area churches involvement in the fight against sex trafficking. This is excellent!
The team has not yet discussed whether it will consider changing it’s name to “The Freedom Church Alliance at St. Mark Lutheran.” We will let you know if that will be happening.
Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance [HTRA]
Kimberly Radke and I were blessed to be able to attend the human trafficking rescue alliance meeting for the Southern District of Texas. This is a group that has been around from the Justice Department since 2004. It includes agencies like the FBI, the Harris County district attorney the Department of Justice, the Department of Public Safety, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, the State of Texas, the U.S. Department of State, HPD, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Texas Attorney General, the Department of Homeland Security, the IRS, and more! The group works together to help put an end to trafficking. This meeting is one that will now be open to the public once a year. It was very interesting to see.
MODERN DAY SLAVERY – “Elephant in the Room” Sermon
On Sunday, August 30, I will be preaching about Sex Trafficking to bring attention and education to this crucial topic for the Church. I hope you make it.
ELIJAH RISING – KENDLETON FARMS
As mentioned previously, we have donated $15,000 toward Elijah Rising’s work with their Kendleton Farms endeavor.
We are also “getting our hands dirty” (literally) by helping to clean, sweep, remove carpet, etc. the facilities, to get it ready for rescued girls and women. We hope you will join us!