OUR STORY
it began with AWARENESS
We are passionate about awareness and education because that is how our story began. In 2012, a sleepless night and a documentary on sex trafficking changed everything. Discovering that slavery still existed -- that children, teenagers, humans were being sold like a product…well, that made us angry enough to want to do something about it! Ignoring our strong desire to become vigilantes, we took a more workable (and legal) angle to use our gifts of speaking and teaching in the lane of education and awareness. We believed that we could not be the only people out there who didn’t realize this was happening or had some major misconceptions about the topic. We reasoned if awareness would move us to action – maybe it would move others. And if it moved others – maybe together we could make a big difference.
And so, we began the long (and dark) process of becoming educated and trained. For four years we studied, trained, attended conferences, listened to survivor stories. We aligned ourselves with other awareness organizations to speak and serve and began to share our knowledge with a variety of audiences. The more we engaged, the more we wanted to increase our capacity to educate communities. In May of 2016, we felt called to begin looking into mission opportunities that would allow our family to not only spread awareness on social injustice, but also to serve people and share the good news that Jesus has to offer. We formed our organization, Love2Hope, and began to strategize an awareness road tour to educate communities across the United States.
MOBILIZING . . . LITERALLY!
In July of 2017 we sold our 5-bedroom home in Minnesota, just about everything in it, and purchased a home on wheels. For over two years, this was our home as our family of five traveled America bringing awareness to human trafficking, with an emphasis on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking (DMST), and motivated communities to get involved. God blew open the doors and provided us with the privilege of giving over 400 awareness presentations in 27 states. We spoke to over 12,000 people attending our events and had a reach further than we will ever know because of newspaper, radio, and news crews that picked up our story and shared such important information.
COLLABORATION
We had the great privilege of interviewing, serving with, and speaking as advocates for a variety of non-profits and anti-trafficking organizations in each community we visited. This approach allows us to point our motivated audiences to action steps. We firmly believe that if you want to stop human trafficking, then you have to show up in the lives of the vulnerable – especially teenagers. Serving in different places all across America as a family provided invaluable exposure and experiences. Collaboration is our heartbeat and we still strive to align ourselves with a variety of organizations as we learn from and contribute to their work.
CONTINUING TO BUILD AWARENESS
We came off the road in the fall of 2019, and now live in Willmar, MN where Sean directs West Central MN Youth for Christ and we continue our awareness work. We believe that awareness will PREVENT more boys and girls from being trafficked and give parents and communities the knowledge they need to make their homes and communities safer and stronger. It is our goal that our audiences will be equipped with enough knowledge to not only understand the issue of human trafficking, but to use their influence in their own communities to make a difference. EVERYONE can do something.
