Elijah Rising
Elijah Rising
A Journey of Fighting Human Trafficking with Dennis and Bobbie Mark - Ep. 85
Join us for an inspiring conversation with Dennis and Bobbie Mark, founders of Redeemed Ministries and true pioneers in the anti-trafficking movement. After 19 years of dedicated service, they share their journey from strip club outreach to opening one of Texas's first residential homes for sex trafficking survivors. Dennis and Bobbie discuss the evolution of trauma-informed care, the challenges of building programs without precedent, and how their work has influenced law enforcement approaches to supporting victims
Their story reveals the heart behind the statistics and demonstrates how commitment to serving the most vulnerable can create lasting change. This episode offers valuable insights for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of anti-trafficking work and the power of restoration.
Learn more about Elijah Rising »
Follow us on Instagram »
Donate and Support Our Work »
Well, hey everyone, Welcome to the Elijah Rising podcast. We have some really, really special guests today Dennis and Bobby Mark of Redeem Ministries. I call you guys the OGs because y'all have really pioneered in this field and I wanted to read a little bit of your bio. Dennis's is too long, like his is literally two pages so throughout the episode you'll get glimpses of what all he's done but bobby and has been with redeemed for 19 years. I guess both of you guys have been with redeemed for 19 years. Um, you guys started as outreach volunteers in 2006. Um, in 2010, you and your a handful of amazing volunteers stepped up to open the first residential home for survivors of sex trafficking in Texas. Wow, Since then, Bobbi has been humbled beyond measure, working with incredibly strong women who walk through the doors of the Sparrow House and those who are living independently.
Speaker 1:She has learned how to speak more gently, listen more intently and love more fiercely. While the work is hard and the days are often long, she wouldn't change a thing and will forever be happy. She said yes to going on. That first outreach Guys, welcome to the podcast, and we're just going to jump right in. You know, 20 years ago, what was it Like? What was the moment where you were like I feel like this is something we need to dedicate our life to, you know. Addressing.
Speaker 2:I think David, for us it really was. I always jokely tell people we were at the wrong place at the wrong time and really got ambushed us. I was actually on a mission trip, completely unrelated to human trafficking. I was in Turkey with one of our pastors of our church who actually was a board member of Redeemed, and at that place I was actually exposed to human trafficking. It really before it even really had a name, I think, and so was there, heard about it, saw it with my own two eyes, came back from that mission trip and they had recruited us.
Speaker 2:They were like, hey, we're doing outreach work in strip clubs and we're an all-male volunteer team and for some reason people don't want to give us money to go on a trip, and so maybe if we had a married couple it'd be more legitimate, you know. And so we just talked to bobby about this maybe she would like to do this and I'm like, no, there's, I don't even know how to start this conversation with her. No, uh. But we ended up having the conversation and, um, to make a very long story short, uh, one night we were out. Uh, we had tried to recruit another couple to do this work and that fell through and so we went out that night with this board member and went to one of the strip clubs and that's where Bobby got hooked that night. It took me a little bit longer. Yeah, that first night was really on her.
Speaker 1:So what was it for you that really opened your eyes?
Speaker 3:Well, I think I was 42, and I had never stepped foot in a strip club. I was raised in a really conservative Christian home and I was pretty terrified. To be honest, I'd never stepped foot in a strip club in my life. I walked through the doors of that place and did not know what to expect and we sat down at a table. The waitress immediately said to the board member who was a regular. She said there's this girl I need you to meet. And she brought this 18-year-old girl to us and she said she's pregnant.
Speaker 3:And this young lady sat down and just started talking and I don't know what came over me other than the Holy Spirit, but I just started asking her questions. I said you know, how far along are you? How long are you going to continue dancing? And we just engaged in this conversation. That went on for about two hours and I just got to know her and ask her questions about her life. And while I was terrified to step foot in that place after two or three hours, I didn't want to leave and that's when I knew that this was something I had to do, and so we just kept going back for the next year and a half, two or three nights a week, we would step foot in that place and meet young women right where they were and talk to them about what they were experiencing at that moment in their life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's crazy now, because when you share that it's kind of like working in this space. We do outreach in the strip and it's just kind of like normal now but back then, like who was doing that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, at that time we were the only ones that we saw in the clubs. And after a year and a half there were a couple of other groups that started doing outreach and we knew then about trafficking, about what was going on in the strip clubs in the brothels on the streets of Houston, and because there were other groups that were coming into the clubs, going into the dressing rooms, that's when we knew that God was releasing us from the clubs and we were able to leave that location, that specific outreach, and move into the spas and the brothels of Houston. So yes, but in that very moment we were probably some of the only ones, we were the pioneers in that moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so like what was the learning curve? Like you know, cause now they have all types of books and schools, even I know there's college courses offered on, you know, trafficking, and but like where, how are you guys learning?
Speaker 2:well, it was shocking that if you did a google search on this topic back in 2006, you might get a page of information.
Speaker 2:It just wasn't there. In 2008, I traveled to vienna, austria, for the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Trafficking, and that's where, for me, the light bulbs went off to the bigger issue that was going on. While we were just focusing on commercial sex and what was happening in Houston, we really got to see the global stuff that was happening, both labor, sex and all these different things, and so it was just really going out and looking what other countries were doing at the time, because there really wasn't a whole lot of movement in the United States. The laws were still brand new, law enforcement was still trying to figure out what it all was, and so we just had to kind of just play by ear. It was literally like the old saying flying an airplane while building an airplane yeah, flying an airplane while building an airplane, yeah.
Speaker 1:So what was, I guess? What compelled you guys to make that leap into having the residential home? Or was it kind of like a gradual thing of just providing services?
Speaker 3:So what happened for us was we began seeing needs and filling the needs that we saw the gaps that needed to be filled. We were doing the strip club outreach from 2006 until sometime mid-2008. We transitioned to doing outreach to the spas and the brothels in Houston in 2008. We continued that until probably well, we continued that through like 13, 14, 2013, 14.
Speaker 3:But in 2009, we received a call from Homeland Security and they said we have a 17-year-old sex trafficking victim and she needs someplace to land. We went back and forth because there was no place for her and we said okay, you know, we'll take her in our home. They had no idea what to do with her, so they put her in a hotel and, of course, she disappeared. And then, you know, a few weeks later, we get another call and they had an adult woman who was a labor trafficking victim. So she ended up coming into our home, our personal home, because there was no place to put her. She stayed with us a few months and it was, you know, greatly successful and then, as soon as you know, we helped her get into an apartment. Weeks after that, we get another call there's another 17 year old who needs a place.
Speaker 3:We brought her into our home and while we were getting to know her, we realized this child needs other people who have experienced what she's experienced, and we knew she needed to be able to heal with people like her, and that's. We had no idea what trauma informed care was. We really had no idea what trauma-informed care was. We really had no idea what trauma was. You know, we were just two nice people who knew that this kid needed help and needed healing. And we had an 18-year-old daughter, and she was 17, about to turn 18, and we just thought, oh, this will be great, but they were on totally different ends of the spectrum, right and so. But we knew she needs other, you know, women who've experienced what she's experienced, and so we literally were just filling the gaps as we saw that they needed to be filled.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and were there any other people that you were in contact with that were running this type of, you know home for women who've come out of trafficking?
Speaker 3:No, we couldn't find anybody to learn from. We did not know what the heck we were doing. We searched. We couldn't find any other homes for trafficking survivors. We finally discovered that there was one home in Atlanta, georgia, for minors that were sex trafficking survivors, and there was a woman here who was working with that home and she was literally about to go to a training. And so she went to the training and she brought back information and we were like, okay, we can learn from you and everything she brought back.
Speaker 3:We gleaned that knowledge and tried to implement it, as we said, okay, we're going to, you know we can do this, but it was, you know, worlds of difference, you know, in what you might do with a child and what we were considering doing with adults. You know, but we learned what we could. And then, when it was time to, you know, bring an adult woman into the house, you know we were woman into the house. You know we were just lost. Yeah, because we had nobody to learn from, and so we just learned as we went. And when we opened the doors of our safe house on october 10th, 2010, we had one page with 11 numbers, with 11 rules you know, 11 rules, the guidebook, and now, 15 years later, we have you know 11 rules.
Speaker 1:That was the guidebook.
Speaker 3:And now, 15 years later, we have, you know, this handbook Like 43 pages front and back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, again, I think that's what's. You know. We're talking about the time of what 20 years looks like, right, and I think we've learned so much from so many different sciences about trauma, right, and you figure, a lot of what we learned about PTSD comes from the combat veterans, of people that experienced combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, and so we really didn't know a lot about that, and then that opened the door for how trauma affects a sexual assault survivor, and so a lot of the things that were learned by other means fed over into the stuff that we were learning, we're needing to learn, because we were seeing behaviors that we didn't really understand. You know, like the whole idea was, oh, we just get her off the street, she'll be fine, it'll be good.
Speaker 2:It'll be kumbaya moments A nice, warm bed for her and everybody will be happy. And that's not the case. These women were very angry, and understandably so, and not until you understand the full concept of what trauma looks like can you help them, right, that's the. I think that was a missing piece for us, especially in early stages.
Speaker 2:We, we were just, you know, like I always used to joke about how, like the nasa program, right, the whole reason that the mercury program that shot an astronaut in space just to see if you'd come back alive, right, and for the first six months bobby was in the house by herself with this woman, and just to see if bobby would survive. Would she come back after six months to be alive after that? Right, yeah, and then we expanded it and then I went into the house with her and so we then had women, and there was two of us in there and seen how does that work? And it was just we grew and adapted to the things that we learned, the things that we experienced, the things that we saw, the women themselves helping us grow, helping us understand where they're coming from. So it was just an ongoing process for us, just adapting to the environment we were in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I imagine trauma, informed care wasn't like a big word that you heard often, right? So you know what was. I guess. What was that? What was that learning process like? You hinted at it a little bit but did you feel like God kind of leading you and giving you hints along the way? You know what was. What was that process of like really going from? Like the way you know what was that process of like really going from? Like the 11, you know hair guidelines to like the handbook of like. Here's how this is what we've learned.
Speaker 3:Well, what's interesting is, in 2013, we went to a conference and learned about trauma. We still didn't hear this tag word, trauma-informed care, but we just learned about trauma and we started going whoa, that's familiar. That's familiar. That behavior looks familiar. That behavior looks familiar.
Speaker 3:And we heard about a woman by the name of Bonnie Martin, and so we invited her to come just to teach us. And we brought her here and we said this is what we're doing, and this is what we're doing, and this is what we're doing. And she said you guys are doing this and this and this. And she used all these words that we'd never heard before. And she said you're doing all of these things. You just don't know the right words for them, but you're providing trauma informed care and you're doing a really good job of it. You just need to learn the right words for it. You know, and you're providing these this really great program, but you know, you just need to learn, like this is what you're doing.
Speaker 3:And so we started learning. Oh, this is we're doing things right, you know, and we're doing some things really wrong, but we're doing a lot of things really well. And so it was in 2013, three years after we had opened the house that we started learning. Structure is really good and these ladies really do need structure and it's not just because it helps us, but it helps them. It helps their really good and these ladies really do need structure and it's not just because it helps us, but it helps them. It helps their brain heal. And so we really started learning all of those things and implementing programming and the structure and that type of thing. And it was about that time that we started learning. There were other programs out there, there were other organizations that had kind of started up around about a year within the same year year and a half as us, and so we were all on islands of our own around the country yeah and um, dennis, why don't you share a little bit about?
Speaker 1:because you you helped law enforcement and trained them on trauma-informed. So what were some of the things that you learned in the home that was able to translate?
Speaker 2:I think what was really incredible about that opportunity to serve with HPD in the role of a task force coordinator was that I think they were needing that.
Speaker 2:I think that they knew there was a missing piece and how they were doing their investigative work, and it really came down to focusing on the idea that these women are not criminals.
Speaker 2:They're actually victims of crime, right, and so it was just a. It was a major mind shift for them, I think, to understand that, and so that's what I got to go in and do is the first few months was just simply observing how they conducted these operations with the women, right, and I remember the first time going out, a very surreal experience, the very first operation I went on is we're in a hotel and it was like everything moved in slow motion. I'm in the room with the team that's going to go in and make the arrest on the. It was actually a buyer arrest, but I remember watching these guys line up to go into the room next door and I'm watching them set up and I'm also looking out the hotel window of a family playing in the pool and it was just so surreal that trafficking was that close to this family and they didn't even realize it right, yeah but going through those operations, I got to observe and I just really did.
Speaker 2:First, I had to build trust with the officers I was working with. Right, because I'm I'm an outsider, I'm not, I'm not a police officer and they, they have very limited trust to outsiders. So I got to develop some trust with them. But I remember the first time we did an interview with a woman they they had the woman sitting on the bed and two detectives were interrogating her and they weren't interviewing her. They were interrogating her and I remember making notes and saying this is something we're going to fix, this is this, is it? So?
Speaker 2:I think that was really the turning point for me and for them is when we did the debrief for that I was able to say look, you have to change your mind to how you see this woman, right? Because again, in the reality of coercion, when you're taking somebody who's been coerced into this, they're not doing this of their own free will. This is being forced upon them, right? And so when we talk about sexual encounters against someone's will, we're talking about sexual assault and we're not talking. You know, in most cases a woman might experience a sexual assault one time in her lifetime, but these women are doing it 10 or 12 times a day, right, and so change your mind about how you see this person as being a sexual assault victim. That's one, two. You would not interview her on the bed where she's being raped. That's just. It's just wrong, right, yeah, so let's take her out of here, let's take her someplace safe, and then that's not even you guys don't even talk to her until we get services for her that somebody else is able to do it. So we change the whole dynamics. So we talked about that trauma-informed approach as I went through it and I rewrote some of the policies on how they conducted operations from that trauma-informed perspective. Right, and that, like the first principle, is safety, creating an environment of belt safety.
Speaker 2:Right, trustworthy transparency, peer support. Is there somebody can be on, who can be on the team that is actually a survivor that can come in and actually talk to the woman as well on the first encounter with her. Right, is there collaboration and mutuality, again, bringing service providers in a part of that, being that piece Empowerment, letting the woman make choices about what's going to be next for her and then understanding again where she's coming from this, this cultural competency of what she's experienced in her past. I used to tell officers all the time is that because they would ask me I'm trying to help her. Why is she mad at me? Why is why is she upset with me? I'm trying to help her, and I would tell them because when she encounters you, what she remembers is the reason why she's talking to you in the first place.
Speaker 2:It may be that sexual assault or molestation that happened at a very early age and so that generates an emotion of anger, knowing that if that had not happened, she would be talking to you now and so you're going to be able to pront to that. So understanding where a person comes from really changed our dynamics of that and we saw an increase in outcries from the women as we changed the policies and how we did that. So from the trauma-informed perspective, that was the big key element for that and I love the fact that I was able to train officers and detectives and sergeants and lieutenants so that when my time was up, they're still doing that, they're still engaging in that kind of operational aspect of investigations.
Speaker 1:So did you feel a pull to get involved in that because of the work with Redeemed and what you were seeing?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean, when I got the email from the Office of the Governor asking, would you be interested in doing this, I definitely saw it as an opportunity to change how things were done, because, again, talking to the women that had been in our house and how they interacted with law enforcement was not the best thing in the world.
Speaker 2:They'd had really bad encounters, right, and we actually had women who told us if he had just asked the right questions, it would have changed my answers and it would have possibly given me an opportunity to get out at that time, and so I felt like everything I had learned in the house working with women, having the women trust me, was going to be beneficial for changing that dynamic for law enforcement and how they engage women in the future. So, yeah, it was definitely a no-brainer for me. It was hardly redeemed because I loved working with Bobby and I loved that environment, but it was also a necessary thing. That I think and even one of the people that was talking to me encouraging me to do this is this is what God wants you to do. This is an opportunity.
Speaker 2:God's presenting to you because, again, with no law enforcement experience whatsoever right. And being presenting to you because, again with no law enforcement experience whatsoever, right. And being able to have such influence in a department like that that really wants to learn how to do things better. It was just an easy yes, wow.
Speaker 1:And I guess so with the home. You know what is is I don't want to say what is trauma-informed care, because that's going to be uh, that's a long response. But to that, the person that's maybe listening to this, they're probably hearing this and they're like well, I don't know why, you know they're getting some hints in the stories and stuff, but I guess when did you guys really begin to feel like you're getting a sort of handle on how to care?
Speaker 2:I think it was the fact that we had, like Bob was saying earlier, that we were doing things right. We were just doing things that seemed natural to us, seemed common sense to us. It just seemed that this is how you do it right. And so I remember the first time I found this document. It was put out by the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies and the title of this document is Expert Consensus Treatment Guidelines for Complex PTSD in Adults right? So it's a government document. It has a long title, right, and basically what it does is it outlines what trauma is, and then it outlines what the trauma-informed approach is right and the principles assigned to it, what it really defines kind of everything is. And what's great about the document is it tells you what, but it doesn't tell you how, right. It just tells you this is what the elements of trauma is and what the elements of trauma-informed approach is. It just tells you this is what the elements of trauma is and what the elements of trauma-informed approach is, but it doesn't tell you the how to. And so it outlines it basically in three things, and it outlines some goals there that should be involved in the trauma-informed approach. And what we did was we looked at this document and we looked at our methodologies and what was great about what was happening was our methodologies were providing the means for the goals that were listed in this document. So it was validation to us that God was doing stuff in us, giving us understanding and knowledge that was actually in alignment with what the sciences were really learning about.
Speaker 2:Trauma-informed approach. That was it, and I think a lot of people throw that term around trauma-informed approach. That was it, and I think a lot of people throw that term around trauma-informed approach a lot. And I actually had agencies that would come to me oh yeah, we're trauma-informed and I would start asking them questions and I'm like, yeah, you're not trauma-informed Because it's not a one-size-fits-all, because the trauma-informed approach is to be tailored to the environment it's used in.
Speaker 2:So what works in law enforcement won't work in a home, and what works in a home won't work in a courtroom or with a defense attorney or in a counseling service or in a hospital. They're unique to each environment, and so that's why I think people don't understand. It's not just the what, it's how you do. It is very important, yeah.
Speaker 3:And I think the way that I would answer that question is a little bit less technical, right? So I would say that I agree with everything Dennis has said, but can you ask the question one more time?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just saying what is trauma-informed care.
Speaker 3:What does that look like for us? Yeah, what does it look like? So what I would say is one way you know you're trauma-informed is and you have to be very careful about this but when the individual is more important than the rules, so we have to have rules, because without the rules and without the structure we're going to have chaos. But when the woman who is sitting in front of us is more important than that, that guideline or that rule, and we can look at her and we can make a decision based on where she is in her healing journey, and we can say, okay, here's the rule, here's the guideline. However, you know X, y, z, that's being trauma informed. If we need to make adjustments for her healing, then that's being trauma informed.
Speaker 3:Also, when we're being, when we're client centered, we're being trauma informed. When we are survivor informed, when we're bringing in survivors that are helping us to make our policies, making sure our intake you know our intake policies, our intake paperwork all of that, all of those steps are trauma informed. That's how we know that we are indeed trauma informed. And whenever we are doing everything we can to literally do no harm, but we want to heal. Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that a lot I mentioned this to a conversation I had earlier this morning. Some people will say that trauma-informed approach is not a cookie cutter. Right and it is and it isn't right. And the reason I say that is that you need the cookie cutter, but you need to be able to shape the cookie cutter to the needs of the woman yeah right and so because there's, there's an outcome you're looking for, but it's unique to the individual right.
Speaker 2:That's, that's the the trick. Yeah, because again, we have women who come into the program and they're so, they're so unique in their own unique ways, and so, while it does work for one, it will not work for the other.
Speaker 3:And so, again, being able to adapt to that is a trauma-informed approach, but also, I think, trauma-informed is knowing what your limitations are as an organization.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 3:Because even with Redeemed Ministries and Elijah Rising, we have worked together as organizations. You know where we've been like, hey, this resident is not a fit here or not working here, and we've worked together, you know, to transition residents back and forth and you know, and that has worked well. And so I think that is also being trauma-informed, knowing hey, this resident would do better in your program and this one would do better in our program and that works better for that resident and that individual. So I think that's also being trauma-informed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think a mistake that a lot of organizations will make is they want to be the answer to all of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can't, you can't be the answer to all of it. You have to know your limitations and stay within your scope of care yeah, yeah, let's talk about limitations.
Speaker 1:Uh, obviously you know this work is not easy and I think for most people listening they're probably like well, what's the big? You know, all you do is just house women and take them to appointments and but it's just there. But it's hard. And for you guys to be doing this for so long, especially when there was no, you know, guidebook there was no course you could take to to hand you.
Speaker 1:Here are the things that you can avoid that can prevent, you know, stress or trouble or issues in the home. You guys are figuring this out on your own and doing the work too.
Speaker 2:So you know what.
Speaker 3:I mean, what is it that keeps you going? I think what has kept Dennis and I going for almost 20 years is that we have not quit on the same day. You know, like on the days when I have given up, when I am exhausted, when I quit, he encourages me and he has the strength for me to keep going, and on the days that he's throwing up His hands and he's done and he doesn't have it, I have the strength and the encouragement for Him. And so I think you know, we have not quit on the same day, and that is one thing that has kept us going, and I say it all the time. I think that this may sound really corny, but when God was knitting me together in my mother's womb, he was literally creating me for such a time as this, and he was creating me for this position, for this position in life and to work with this population of women. My heart beats when I'm in that safe house with those women. My heart beats when I'm having those hard conversations with them, when you know when I'm celebrating with them or when I'm mourning with them. You know it's when I'm planning a meal with them.
Speaker 3:Today I was texting with one who's. She's in the stage of her our program where she's working outside the home and she has her own cell phone and tonight she is on kitchen duty. So it's been a very busy week and normally I have the meal planned right, but I don't have it planned tonight. So I'm texting her what sounds good for dinner tonight, and so we've come up with a meal together and I'm like, oh, that sounds good for dinner tonight. And so we've come up with a meal together and like, oh, that sounds good. And so we're texting that this same person, a couple of days ago, had a terrible day at work. And she's like that's it, I'm done, I'm quitting. It was easier in the life, you know, and it wasn't easier in the life, and she knows that, but she had a really tough day at work. And so you know we're talking through those things and you know so I was created for such a time as this and I know that that's what has sustained me for 19 years.
Speaker 3:When they're mad at me and they're saying, f you, it's not easy, you know. When they're frustrated with me, when I have to be the hard one and say no, you know, and you can't do this or you cannot do that when they're arguing because somebody ate the last yogurt for crying out loud, you know, and it just seems ridiculous. You know, like sometimes a couple of us staff members will look at each other and we'll be like I don't think people would really believe us if we told them about this argument that they just had, you know. But you know, there's these hard days and we're just exhausted, you know, at the end of it.
Speaker 3:But then there's those days of joy where last night, one of our ladies came home from a Bible study and she sat down and she goes just so, you know, I'm about to unload on you and she told me everything about what she had just learned at this Bible study, about God's love and God's love for us and the non-romantic love. And I just sat there and I was working on budgeting because I'm doing this dual role. So I closed the budget, the 2025 budget, put it aside and just like, okay, you know, let's listen to this. You know, and we talked about, you know that, and that's what I was created for, not budgeting, not, you know all that. That's what I was created for. Let's, you know, let's talk about this. Let's talk about god's role in your life. Let's talk about that. I think that that's what's sustained us, and the fact that we're doing this together as a husband and a wife, um, and that's a long answer for a podcast.
Speaker 3:I know that's great but you know people come, we have. You know staff turnover in this, in this industry, in this business, is tremendous yeah, not just with redeemed nationwide yeah um, staffing is the most difficult part of our work and I hear it from every organization. Every time I go to a conference to speak or to attend, it's staffing, staffing, staffing, staffing. Because this work is so hard, it's hard to maintain. But I think you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think for me again, I agree with everything Bobby said because the uniqueness of us being able to work together I think that's for a lot of organizational leaders out there who don't have that that's really a limitation that hurts them the most, I think, is not having a person that you're joined together with, that understands you and you're able to share your feelings and vomit, when you need to vomit, all the stuff that happened that day, and so I think that's a very true statement. I think, for another part, for me is, again, it's the mindset of being missionaries.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, because my heart had always wanted to be a missionary, right, that's why I was in Turkey. I was drawn to that, but God had completely different plans. He's like oh yeah, you're going to be a missionary, but not in Turkey, it's going to be in your own backyard, you know, because this is where I need you. And so I think the missionary mindset is critical to success Understanding and my pastor just spoke to this not too long ago that we are sanctified for our calling, but we are also sanctified in our calling right. And so I think God sanctifies us.
Speaker 2:The things that are hard, the things that hurt, those things build us up as to what God wants us to be. And so I think understanding that and trusting God is doing something in you and through you is very critical to that success as well. And longevity, because then you know that you're not doing it for yourself, because I tell people all the time I didn't choose this, this is not something I chose to do. It's something that happened to me and I could not say no at that point in time for me, when it became a real thing, I I couldn't walk away right, and even though I did take a little break, it just it needed to happen for my own well-being.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I just had this thought because I'm on staff at Elijah Rising and my wife is Micah, so we have a lot of similarities, yeah, but we only have, like, two other male staff members, and so I'm curious to hear your perspective on this. But is there a healing factor to having healthy men in the home, like interacting with the women you're serving? Because, when you look at it, the people that have abused them have mostly men, either the trafficker or the buyer.
Speaker 3:Can I answer?
Speaker 3:that first one of the things that I've seen that it's so beautiful. Um, we, one of our rules is dennis is not um supposed to be alone with any of the ladies, right, and that's for his protection, for their protection, for their felt safety. Um, and it's so, just so beautiful to see this. Um, one of our ladies had only been in the house just a few weeks and her son was given a bike for christmas and, um, they're, we're a home where it's just the women and they don't have their kids with them, but she, she was just. She says, do you think Dennis will help me build his bike? And so, okay, sure, so you know Dennis is there and I got a picture, you know, from a distance, of him helping her build the bike. You know those moments where you know he's able to get in there and redeem some of that.
Speaker 3:One of our ladies who is a graduate she was in our home for two years and she graduated. She was then in our graduate home for another two years. She's now on staff, full-time. She's getting married in something like 75 days or something has asked Dennis to walk her down the aisle Talk about redeeming right Because she has been abused by so many men, but she has said like this is redeeming because I've been able to see a healthy man here, healthy, a healthy man here and so you know I we hear so often from our ladies just the impact that it has had to be able to, you know, have a healthy man and be able to see that and to see a healthy marriage. So I know that the women that you guys serve are also able to see that healthy marriage in you and Micah as well.
Speaker 3:And that's redeeming and that's healthy for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because one of the things I learned is like we literally would have girls tell us like I've never seen like a couple get into an argument and not like beat each other up?
Speaker 3:Yes, exactly, and I was like what.
Speaker 2:It's like they've even said to us, like they tell them well, I've never, we've never used language or called each other a name in the 42 years we've been married.
Speaker 3:And they're like well, how do you have an argument then? How do you have an?
Speaker 2:argument, then how do you not cuss each other and I call each other names, like because you don't?
Speaker 3:yeah, he's never called me the b word. Well, I mean like, how do you have an argument like and so it literally, like, like you literally see them, like.
Speaker 2:that's a concept I can't even comprehend.
Speaker 3:That's for them, and Dennis has a really cool Jeep and so the ladies are like you know, well, hey, you know Dennis is going to the office. Can I ride with Dennis, you know? And so there's moments, you know where, it's like okay, so she wants to ride with you. It means she's going to be alone. You know like I want to ride with Dennis. You know I want to go to, you know, because I got to be in the Jeep. So you know they love that I treasure the trust, right.
Speaker 2:I treasure the trust of that of being with the women and you know and it's interesting because I can kind of know when that gets established is the first time they really make eye contact with me. I know that they're trusting me, right, and they ask me questions and ask me what I think about things, and so just that trust is so valuable, right, and so I can understand what Jesus' words were If you cause one of these little ones to stumble, it's serious consequences right.
Speaker 2:And I take that very seriously, right, and so I respect that trust, I honor that trust that they've given to me, and so I love to be able to serve the women the way we do.
Speaker 1:And it reminded me of a story. I love to barbecue and so we have a little Weber grill in the back of the home. They never use it, and so I was like, well, let me teach you guys how to grill. And we started fire and I brought fajitas, and so all the ladies are out there having a good time, and one woman is just terrified, and I didn't find this out until later. Woman is just like terrified, and I didn't find this out till later, but she had had traumatic experience with a grill where they, you know, would burn her you know different body parts on the grill and she was like I thought you were gonna, you know, slam my face in the grill or something.
Speaker 1:And I was like that is the furthest thing from I mean I'm not even contemplating that that's your fear. But anyway, she came to the grill and was like, hey, will you, will you allow me to flip this piece of chicken? And I was like, sure, go ahead to me. I'm thinking like, you know, just flip it. And she, you know, she's like shaking and I'm like, flip it, come on. Yeah, not knowing that this is like a healing, redeem, redeeming moment, but to us it's just like this is every day.
Speaker 2:But to them it's like I'm overcoming something that I don't have words for to describe the pain that caused Absolutely the reality is especially, you know, because working in operations, hpd, and seeing the buyers and and and understanding, you know, trying to understand where they're coming from. Again, it's a mentality that's out there. Where it comes from is all over the place. I mean media entertainment, all these different things, the sources of, of the wrong ideas, about the exploitation of women. Right, and men have to get back to the point that we have only one role and that's a protector. If you're not a protector, then you're an abuser right.
Speaker 2:And that's a black and white issue, and so you've got to choose that role, and so, for us, as men, we have to be the protector of women. It's part of our tasking from God, and so I think that's an important issue that got overlooked, and that's what these women are wanting. They're wanting to know that there's someone's going to be able to protect them and not abuse them, and it sent a clear message to them for for who we are and how we treat them wow and david, there you have the reason for such a short resume, because how do you put like on your resume?
Speaker 3:David Gamboa griller. Griller yeah, and teacher of how to cook fajitas and chicken, and he who helps somebody heal, you know like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know like on your resume, right?
Speaker 3:I mean because God created you for that moment in time, to help that woman heal, right? You know? And that is what it's difficult to even stand in front of people at a fundraiser and somehow capture in words and tell people. You know, we were sitting at a dinner table once and one of the ladies, she just kept kind of staring and you know we said what? You know, what are you thinking right now? And she said well, I'm just waiting for dennis to pick up a plate and throw it at you, because my stepdad every night, you know he'd get he when he got angry with my mom, he'd pick up the plate and throw it, you know, at her.
Speaker 3:And I'm just waiting, you know, and dennis is like yeah, no, that's not gonna happen, you know yeah and a similar concept you know, so they you don't know what's going through their minds, but we're teaching them something every single day, whether it's how to boil an egg or you know. Tonight I'll be teaching how to make, you know, gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato basil soup, and the ladies will be in the kitchen and that will be the conversation We'll talk about the day and I'll help them regulate their emotions. And it's hard to encapsulate that even when you're talking to people, it's really difficult to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, unless you're in it, Unless you are, not everyone can be in those spaces, yeah it you're in it, unless you are Not. Everyone can be in those spaces. Yeah, it is difficult.
Speaker 2:Right now, in the state we're in right now family dynamics I only get to go in the house every other week, so if I was there all the time, then I come in every other week, and one of the things that I treasure is the fact that the women miss me when I'm not there. Wow, they like me being there. Wow, they like me being there. It's not like I don't make them uncomfortable. They like me being there because I add value to their healing journey. Yeah, there's something.
Speaker 3:They store up their questions. Another thing is they naturally see Dennis as a spiritual leader. It's interesting. They naturally see him as a spiritual leader. When is Dennis going to be here? They stack up a spiritual leader. When is Dennis going to be here? They like stack up these spiritual questions. You know, like the chosen is, you know, just big for a couple of our ladies and you know there's these questions. You know that a couple of them kind of just stack up like I've got all these questions about the Bible, like when is he going to be here? And they see him at the office every day at the education center. Um, you know, they naturally kind of gravitate to him to ask those spiritual questions, and so that's also a beautiful thing to see yeah, that's interesting, um.
Speaker 1:so we talked about, you know, you guys starting redeemed and being in this for 20 years, and we were talking before this episode of about someone saying, you know, man, it just feels like the needle hasn't moved and, you know, you said something really, really powerful.
Speaker 1:It's like, from your perspective, it's moved incredibly far. And as I'm hearing you guys talk, I'm like, yes, like there's so much more resources now In many ways, like there's this analogy of a map maker and they spend their years traveling the world, mapping out the land and the seas and the passageways, and for them to put it down on a piece of paper and hand it to the next generation, like they don't have to go back and redo that whole process, and so I really feel like this is where we're at, where you guys have gained so much knowledge and, and so many other people too have have gained experience and and there's, you know, the, the shelter care institute and just so many great resources. You know, what do you guys see kind of down the line, the next 20 years, um, being of importance?
Speaker 2:well, I think, going back to what you're saying about, you know that idea of being the original gangster, so, as an ogs of this work you know, one of the things I I constantly tell people, because in fact, I have two conversations coming up very soon with two other organizations. They're trying to open a home right and they're asking hey, can you give us advice?
Speaker 2:as I, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna share with you all of our mistakes because we don't want you to reinvent those right yeah because I think that's again there's perceptions and realities and expectations, what it looks like right, and, like I said, we've made so many mistakes, um, so many things that we thought, oh, this, oh this is going to work. And then we do it and like, no, that did not work, that was a bad idea, and even from a trauma-informed perspective, I mean, there's so many different moving parts to it, and so I think that's a beauty of what we want to be able to do with people is we want to be able to share the failures, you know, the mistakes we made, so that they don't reinvent those and have to experience the heartbreak of that, because it it hurts when you make a mistake and it costs somebody their healing, right, yeah, and so I think that's a valuable thing about the growth of what we want to do, moving forward is how do we share that with other people?
Speaker 2:you know, because, again when you look at the limited resources of beds in the country for the number of victims that are potentially out there, it's shockingly, shockingly inadequate, right? Yeah, and so that's what. That's what we want. We want to be able to share the information with people in the next 20 years or so so that more beds are open. They stay open yeah that's the scary thing is facilities open and they're closed a year later?
Speaker 1:yeah because they just weren't ready for the reality of what that looked like for them yeah, I think people think of a city has a home, then they're good, but I'm like we probably need like 20 other homes just to meet just a small percentage of the need. Yeah, and staffing, and staffing, yeah.
Speaker 2:The staffing part again is the most difficult piece is finding the right people to do the work. Again, it's this idea of and I teach this all the time about expectation gap right, we all have expectations of things, the way things should go, and then reality comes in much, much lower than the expectation.
Speaker 2:And there's such disappointment and frustration and aggravation, justification, all these things that live in that expectation gap, and so what we want to do is limit that so that people don't experience that and go. This is really what you're walking into. In fact, we've had people come to us in the past who were on staff. You know I want to open a home. Well great, come work with us for a year and if you still want to do that at the end of the year, we'll help you figure out a way to open a home.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Not one of those people has ever opened a home. People has ever opened a home, wow right. They went into other fields of study, like counseling or social work or whatever, but after working a year in the safe house, they're like no, I don't want to do that. That's not what I expected yeah and so that's.
Speaker 2:That's what it looks like for the next generation of people is just don't try to start something new. Learn from the people that are doing the work and have been doing the work for a long time, so that you'll be sustainable and you'll be in it for the long haul.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I also think the face of trafficking and sexual exploitation is changing, with some of the apps that we have, with just the face of what exploitation looks like, with only fans and a higher percentage of kids and adults, men and women, boys and girls, girls kind of entering a world that looks like self-exploitation, with more and more what looks like legalization of prostitution happening. This, the sexual exploitation, I think, is going to look different, and I think the services that we provide are going to have to look a little bit different as we go. And so the types of homes, like you said a second ago, we're going to need more homes and I think they're going to have to each be unique in the way we serve Specialized.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:We need to expand, we need to increase our capacity and, as we do that, we need to specialize and tweak just a bit. We may not necessarily need to go. Okay, now we're going to open a home for moms with their kids which we might, because there's a need for that. There's a need for moms that are pregnant, there's a need for men, there's a need for teenage boys, there's a need for those, right. But there's also going to be this need for more of the LGBT community, right. There's going to be more of a need for women who are coming out of the OnlyFans, people who are coming out of strip clubs who are feeling like, well, I never had a pimp to have been sexually exploited, but they will not identify as trafficked. So that could be over the next eight or ten years I don't know how long it's going to take but we in this field just need to be prepared, for what is it going to look like and how do we prepare for that? How do we prepare to serve um?
Speaker 2:you know, in general, you know just get just be prepared for that changing landscape so that's, that's the important aspect of what the trauma informed approach does is. It doesn't matter the uniqueness of the population you're working with. The trauma is always going to be the same the brain's going to be affected the same way in the exploitation right.
Speaker 2:Either through trafficking or even through self-exploitation. Right, there's still going to be trauma there and most times, like even for most of the women that come through our program, it's not the exploitation happened in the trafficking. It was the stuff that happened to them before they ever entered into trafficking that they're dealing with.
Speaker 3:That's what they talk about the most.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's what they talk about the most, and so you're going to be dealing with people who may not have ever been had a pimp or a trafficker, but that trauma is still there. That childhood trauma, developmental trauma, is still going to be there, prevalent in their life and affecting their ability to make cognitive decisions that are best for their health and well-being. Their ability to make cognitive decisions that are best for their health and well-being yeah.
Speaker 3:Because a lot of our grants right now, I mean most of our funding the requirement is force, fraud and coercion. And so that is our requirement for intake is the presence of force fraud and coercion, or force fraud or coercion, and so at some point in time we're going to have to look at.
Speaker 1:Yeah, expanding that definition. Yeah. So last question if you had unlimited resources, what is one thing you would implement in the anti-trafficking space?
Speaker 2:Do you want to challenge me on this one? Yeah, I you know we jokingly talked about this earlier, but I think again. It's a, it's an idea of that definition of unlimited resources, right?
Speaker 2:and how you look at it, it's the willingness of people to redirect funds to something that's serious, right? If you think about I saw a meme the other day that if you want to save $10,000, stop spending $27.41 frivolously every day and you would save $10,000, right? So we think about the frivolous spending that goes on in the communities around our nation and around the world. Right, we redirect those funds to the anti-trafficking world. It would give us unlimited resources to provide all those services that are needed for the population of people at all different levels, right? Um, and so I when I when I hear that unlimited resources, we have unlimited resources. This is the fact that we don't have availability and access to those unlimited resources. I remember my good friend, dave battsatson, said that, yeah, you can teach a person to fish and he'll feed himself the rest of his life, but if he doesn't have access to where the fish are, then he doesn't do any good to fish. So I think that's an important aspect of this. And so if we look at God as the person who gives us all things, right, and we trust him, as the word tells us, he is our shepherd we lack nothing. We have the ability to. It's just the willingness of people to step into the role and people willing to fund the reality of that right and yeah, and, and not waste it on things that, um, that don't really matter.
Speaker 2:I mean, I spent, you know, in my break from redeemed. I spent a year and a half and as a hospice chaplain wow, and one of the things, one of the great things I learned about that is the things that we think are important in life when you're in hospice care aren't important at all, right, and the things that you thought mattered don't matter, um, and so you, I. I dealt with a lot of people who had regrets about how they spent their time, spent their life, spent their money, um, and would love to go back and reshape how they they did live their life, and I think that's really what it is. But if we had unlimited resources, there are so many opportunities that could be reached with those unlimited resources. So there's not just one thing, there's too many things to list.
Speaker 3:So if I had unlimited resources, first thing I would do is buy a new van, right.
Speaker 1:First thing I would do is buy a new van right.
Speaker 3:But I mean there is such a need for trafficked women with mental health issues and we did talk about this earlier, when you know, before we started this filming, and that's probably the hardest, one of the hardest things for the sustainability of our staff and it's an unbelievably expensive aspect the appropriate medical staff to be able to serve women with a higher level, a higher acuity of with mental illness needs, you know, and because that is definitely huge.
Speaker 3:Yes, there is a huge gap there, a big needs gap, but absolutely, there are so many of the small needs, you know, are there are so many of the small needs, you know, and, like Dennis said, there is, the money is out there and we just have to be able to tap into it. But the huge needs, you know, if we had those unlimited resources, absolutely, if there were millions and millions out there, you know, yes, we would definitely be able to tap in and take care of those with a higher acuity, even medical needs, because we're seeing women who are aging, who are, you know, outside of our scope of medical care that we're able to give, because they were trafficked 20, 30 years ago and their bodies are breaking down and we're not able to take care of them at this point, but they need someone to, because the system can't take care of them, and so that would be another specific need. But that would take, you know, some of those unlimited funds, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think you asked earlier about the hook, you know, and it kind of circles back around to the hook that got me was in the strip club and I remember the night we were there and I noticed a lot of very young-looking women working that night and so I asked one of the waitresses that we were in a relationship with there. I asked her about these that night. And so I asked one of the waitresses that we were in relationship with there. I asked her about these young women. He goes, oh, they have their IDs. And I'm like, yeah, they're probably fake IDs, but no big deal, right? So this is back before they had to be 21 now.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I said but they look really young. She goes oh yeah, yeah, they're high school at the time, wow. As a dad, I could not wrap my mind around the fact of my girls working at the strip club to earn prom money, right, yes, that was really the dynamic, for that changed me. It was really like god speaking to me saying so, dennis, this was your daughter.
Speaker 2:Wouldn't you want someone to intervene in her life? Right, right, and I think that's the trick to help understand people, to get this what this is. Right, it's not some person that's unknown, that doesn't really exist in reality. It's someone's daughter, it's someone's sister, it's a child that's been, you know, been exploited and continues to be exploited, right.
Speaker 2:And so changing that dynamic of how people look at this changes the dynamic of how they spend their money, right, because, again, if this was your child and I've gotten those horrible phone calls from parents, right, my daughter's in this and I don't know what to do, and they would be willing to spend whatever money they have in their savings account to rescue that child out of the life. And so, if we can get people to understand the reality of what that looks like for them, you don't want that to be your child, and so what would you do? What would you spend to get them out of that situation? You would spend everything you had to get them out of that, and so I think that's the reality is helping people understand what that looks like for for these, for every woman and every man and every person who's being exploited, that they're a child of god yeah and they deserve to be, live a healed whole life, and so that's an important aspect of how we get those resources.
Speaker 1:It's how we communicate well, I have tremendous respect for both of you guys I just want to say this is this has been like a joy for me to just listen to you guys share and get to know you more and, um, I just have mad respect for you guys and what you guys are doing at redeemed. Um, as you guys know, we were partners in this with elijah rising and so, as we kind of wrap up this podcast episode, how can people stay connected with what you're doing? If they want to learn more, if they want to, you know, partner with redeemed, or maybe they're, you know they're thinking, hey, god is leading us to start a safe home. Can we connect with you? Share a little bit about how people can get connected?
Speaker 3:Well, if they want to connect with us, I recommend they go straight to our website, wwwredeemedtxorg. If somebody is wanting to start a safe home, I if somebody is wanting to start a safe home, I completely recommend the Institute for Shelter Care. Yeah, because they are leaders in helping organizations every step of the way. Yeah, and I believe you guys, as well as us, are adjunct faculty in training on that.
Speaker 1:No, we're the students, you're students, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:Well, we are adjunct faculty and help training, so I just recommend that.
Speaker 1:Institute for Shelter, and they have online resources and videos. It's fantastic. It's amazing.
Speaker 3:They will help new organizations. But if people want to get connected with us, to volunteer, you know, bring resources, professional resources, whatnot? Our website is the best.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also on Facebook. You can follow us on Facebook. A lot of stuff that goes on in the safe house. Day-to-day things happen there Celebrations and all the things that are going on with the ladies in our program. You can learn about from there as well. Just kind of follow along and see what a day in the life looks like in our program.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, guys, thank you for having us.
Speaker 2:Thank you for the opportunity to be here with you today. It really means a lot for us, the partnerships we have and the longevity of both of our organizations and doing what we're doing. It's just unique and we get the pleasure and the benefit of God using us in this work. Well, thank you guys.