God’s children are not for sale.

A Staggering Statistics

“There are 40.3 million individuals trafficked worldwide and 25% of them are children.” – Tim Ballard, Founder and CEO of Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.)

After watching “Sound of Freedom”, a movie about the rescue of children trafficked that began in Honduras and ended in Columbia, Carmena said, “we should do more at MEANS. We should make our ministry partners aware of the dangers of trafficking children.”

What can we do?

One of the things ALL of us can do is to become STORYTELLERS. Tell our family and friends, our churches, ministry partners, that trafficking children is the no. 1 international crime today. It has surpassed the sales of narcotics and drugs. Someone said, we can sell drugs at one time only, but selling children, even one child can be done many times.  It is called sex trafficking. 

Let us do our part in making people aware of this global crime.

GOD’s CHILDREN ARE NOT FOR SALE.

What is MEANS doing?

Speaking of helping children, MEANS has, for the longest time, been doing its part in helping children. We are part of many ministries that help protect and improve the lives of children, especially those living in poor communities:

1) ELPIS Ministries partnership in Maesot,Thailand – it was started with the intent to prevent Burmese children especially little girls living in the border of Thailand and Burma from being trafficked. Its mission is that every child be given hope, transformed and empowered.

2) OPlan shelter. Its precursor was the formation of Kabataang Malaya and KM Center. Young boys who were gang bangers became followers of Jesus Christ, with the gang leader sent to study at Febias. PND Wesleyan Church was also started in the same area infested by gangs.

Oplan Shelter houses children whose parents are drug addicts and who are also being influenced by their parents to use drugs.  Most of the time, they live on the streets and have become easy prey to drug lords and sex traffickers. Children as young as 3 years old had been brought to the shelter for rehabilitation.

3) MEANS Read to Grow Ministry – serve mostly children by teaching them how to read and write.  RTG also teaches children to read gospel stories from the Bible and books with Christian values.

4) Child Education Care – This is a ripple effect of RTG.  After we learned that many children come from poor families and their parents cannot afford to send them to school, cannot supply their school needs, or some have been abandoned by either their father or mothers, we rallied our friends and donors to help send them to school.

5)  Educational Leadership Initiative and Discipleship Training– Since 2013  MEANS has provided scholarship for deserving students who cannot afford to go to college.  We also help them to attend leadership and discipleship training run by IVCF Philippines for both high school and college students.

6) Serve a Meal – poverty and unfulfilled basics needs are causes for children to be lured into sex and slave trafficking. Thanks to our partner churches who combined Read to Grow with Serve a Meal, the nutritional needs of poor children in many underserved communities are being met.

7)  Livelihood Program – helps single parent or abandoned housewife to start a small business that is income generating. MEANS doesn’t just support needy individuals financially. We maintain relationship with our ministry partners by encouraging them and showing them that we are also interested in them as people, partners and co-laborers in Kingdom building, making sure that they are not alone, but that God is with and for them and that we are helping them, too.

8) Partnership with Christian NGOs in the Philippines who are serving sexually abused women and those who came out of prostitution.

I challenge our ministry partners to DO MORE in helping the children in their communities. Let us help them by making them aware of the danger of trafficking.

Lina Padilla, MEANS Board Chair