God’s Hand in Rescue
Working in the anti-trafficking industry, I will never stop being amazed at the ways the Lord shows up, displays his faithfulness, and confirms his character; this past week was a true testimony that this is The Lord’s work, and not ours.
Last week, our new VP of Emergency Care, Robyn Carnes, and I met with a potential new Rescue America affiliate home - a pregnancy home in Denver that has felt called to house trafficking victims, but needed our support in programming through our emergency care program. After spending the morning with them and enjoying a homemade lunch, both parties knew that this was a divine partnership from the Lord, and we were all in! As we were parting ways, I told them we would be in touch about the next steps of formally setting them up as a Rescue America affiliate home, and also said “Knowing the Lord, He will just send us a survivor to walk out the relationship with!”
We didn’t know at the time, but a couple days before this meeting the Lord started to give us affirmation that He was in this and lining things up. Robyn was praying over our Program Director, Blanca, and saw the image of wheat. She didn’t know what that meant at the time, but Blanca carried that word throughout the week, trusting the Lord would reveal the significance to her. A few days later, Robyn forwarded the business card for our new Rescue America affiliate home to Blanca, and when she zoomed in on it, she saw the address - Wheat Ridge, CO. What a confirmation from the Lord that He was up to something!
The morning after our meeting with the affiliate home, as our executive team was driving up to the mountains for a retreat, I saw a call had just come through the hotline. It was a young woman on Amtrak running from her trafficker and wondering if she should get off at the Denver stop.
This survivor’s original destination was in a different state where she had found an open cot for a night, but as the train was pulling into the Denver station, she felt compelled to do a quick Google search and our hotline number popped up.
Having walked with the Lord in Rescue for the last seven years and seeing how He works, I knew immediately in my spirit that God was specifically orchestrating this exit, and we needed to take the first step of faith saying “yes, get off at the Denver stop!” We began losing signal as I started to communicate with our Rescue Operations Manager to proceed with getting the victim off at Denver and placed in our new Rescue America affiliate home; however, I knew we could trust that the Holy Spirit was going to unify and guide our team on the Rescue mission - even though the entire executive team was losing signal in the mountains!
Our Exit Strategist was able to connect with her - quickly telling her yes, get off in Denver.
Our strategist explained who we are and what we do at Rescue and asked if that was something she was interested in, and she replied “that’s exactly what I was looking for.”
She was ready to go! At the same time a Denver exit team was ready, equipped and deployed to pick her up - taking her to the new Rescue America affiliate home we had just begun a partnership with the day before, a home which was now ready and waiting to welcome her. Once settled in the home, our Program Advocate was then able to connect with her and explain our emergency care program, and she is now walking into her redemptive solution and new life the Lord has ordained for her!
I am continually amazed at how the Lord operates. How he honors unity in a team and commands a blessing over it. How he uses words and pictures to give confirmations, and how he works to show us that when we step in faith, He will meet us there. So many details in this Rescue show the Lord’s hand, and we give Him all the glory, as we are simply the vessels He chooses to work through. We say yes and amen to who He is and all that He has planned for the Rescue mission in 2021!