Snowy's 4 Siblings are Safe

Many of you have been following and asking about Snowy’s case. Thank you for your support and prayers. Clearly they played a part in bringing freedom, not just to Snowy but 4 of her precious siblings.

Now we can share some of the details of this case.

Years ago a “businessman” came to a tiny town in an Eastern European country. Many of its inhabitants were alcoholics, including Snowy’s parents. Long story short, Snowy’s parents sold her for a bottle of alcohol.

She was trafficked for 3 years and endured the unimaginable. When we met Snowy 1 1/2 year ago, she was riddled with disease and infested with lice. After a year of living with a loving, safe and healthy family she was thriving.

And then the unthinkable happened. Just a few weeks ago, Snowy's mother, accompanied by the “businessman,” came to court to try to gain custody of Snowy’s again. They came sharply dressed and full of falsehoods. Our team did a brilliant job defending Snowy.

The day after court, the judge sent an inspector to Snowy’s biological family’s home. The nice clothes were gone. Instead, they discovered Snowy’s mother and her accomplice drunk. 4 other children surrounded them.

With the court's blessing, Snowy's host family offered to take in Snowy's siblings. After almost 5 painful years, these 4 children are finally reunited with their sister! 

The rest is history! All five of the kids are safe. Snowy's siblings are receiving the physical and psychological help they need. Sadly it appears the children, ages 3-13, had already been abused and possibly sold for sex.

The children have a long journey of healing ahead of them. We hope to bring them to The Sanctuary for intensive, holistic healing.  

If you would like to be a part of these 5 precious children’s healing journeys, you can donate to The Snowy Fund here. This fund brings hope and healing to children under the age of 18.

Fighting for Freedom on Two Levels

Ending sex trafficking worldwide means we are fighting for freedom at two levels. We work one-on-one with survivors to equip them for healing. It’s a personal, intimate process for each survivor. We want to honor each of them as individuals. On the other hand, we know we’ll never be able to stamp out this evil without broad, systemic change.

For a few months now, Kim Westfall is serving with a coalition of over 60 organizations and professionals across Europe who are working to end trafficking. Together, we’re developing international strategies to combat trafficking and serve survivors.

One of the most pressing projects we are working on with this team is a plan to rescue and restore child survivors. As you may know, over half of sex trafficking survivors our team has worked with in Romania are children.

Right now, Romania has no national process for identifying and finding missing children. Even when they find these precious little ones, they usually have nowhere safe to send them. More than 80% of them end up being re-trafficked because they have nowhere to go.

We’re working to change that! As part of the plan this coalition is putting together, child survivors will be directed to the first Sanctuary and our aftercare program. These children will get to safety, where we can address all of their immediate needs and put them on the road to healing.

I want you to know that your support and encouragement paves the way for us to be a part of groups like this one. It’s your dedication that is going to help us change Romania, Europe, and then the rest of the world.

Let’s see trafficking end once and for all, especially for the sake of these precious children!

You Can Help Heal Trafficking Survivors

Awareness around sex trafficking is rising around the world. As this movement grows, people have been asking us, “What can I do to help survivors of sex trafficking?”

Hearing this question warms our hearts. Every person has a role to play in this fight. Every person can know the signs of sex trafficking and be prepared to step in. Every person can get involved by supporting a survivor aftercare organization like Uncaged. These are concrete steps that every person who wants to heal survivors of sex trafficking can take!

Beyond these ideas, we have seen that God has already given individual people talents that can help to heal survivors. Sometimes, they hide in plain sight. Hobbies that seem ordinary can be extraordinarily powerful for unlocking transformation!

One of our donors, who we will call “Gigi,” heard about Uncaged from a longtime family friend. When she learned about the horrors of sex trafficking, she immediately knew she wanted to take action. She got involved supporting Uncaged. Then, she wanted to go deeper. At first, she didn’t know how.

“I’m a retired executive from the corporate world,” she says, “I was thinking to myself, ‘what can I do for these people.’”

All the while, she was creating beautiful greeting cards in her free time. Years earlier, Gigi entered a card-making shop and was fascinated by the intricate paper designs on display. She picked up a multi-layered, embossed nutcracker card and inspected it wonderingly. Soon after, she signed up for a class to learn how to make that same card.

“I made a dozen of those cards,” Gigi laughs. “I realized that paper made me happy.”

Gigi decided to make cards with words of encouragement for survivors. Survivors have often received few tokens of affection in their lives. These beautiful cards were designed to brighten their days and give hope. She even took it upon herself to translate the messages into survivors’ languages!

Then, Gigi took it a step further. “I heard Kim and the trauma therapy team start talking about art therapy. They were saying that even the act of working with your hands, of doing creative activities, could rewire some of the trauma for survivors and give them relief.”

The idea struck: what if Gigi could create card-making kits for survivors to use as art therapy materials? She reached out to us to confirm it. This tactile activity would be perfect for the trauma-therapy program.

Now, Gigi has created dozens of card-making kits for survivors as part of her “Hey Beautiful” series. Each kit contains the card design, the materials for creating it, and step by step instructions for how to bring the card to life. The cards contain messages of hope and encouragement for survivors in their own languages. The cards range from basic styles to exquisite and finely detailed pieces.

“I love knowing that survivors make these and can feel proud of themselves,” Gigi shares. “On a personal level, it makes me feel even more connected to these courageous women and girls. Cards are about reaching out to people and touching them. In today’s world, reaching out to a person with something you’ve made is one of the most powerful things in the world.”

Gigi firmly believes everyone has a talent to bring to anti-trafficking work.

“I really believe that we all have a chance to be a part of this movement in different ways,” she states. “Everybody has something that they’re interested in that could be helpful to survivors. We take so many things for granted that might be new and wonderful to a survivor.”

Together, we are unlocking transformation for thousands of survivors. All it takes is people like you and Gigi combining our gifts and determination to be the key to freedom!

If you are ready to deepen your engagement and bring healing to survivors, please click here today or email us.