Author: Anne Marie Miller

Without a doubt, last week was a bit emotional for me — and for some of you who read about our experience seeing the sex trafficking industry face-to-face while I was in Moldova.

“The Sex Cafe” was (by over five times!) the most read post on my blog in its entire existence and from what we can tell, has reached well over 50,000 people.  I’ve never had a post shared over 1000 times before, and that’s what we can just count. Thank you so much for using your voice to share this story.

If you read through the comments, one of the biggest questions that was asked was “How can we help?”

One way is through donating financially to our Stop the Secret Moldova fund. Currently, we’ve raised $1000 for these projects and still have quite a ways to go — $24,000 left — so by donating to the Stop the Secret Moldova fund, know you are donating to prevention and restoration organizations in Moldova that desperately need it.

We personally spent time with these organizations, meeting both the women and girls who have been rescued as well as the staff and volunteers who support them and I can not express how much confidence I have in the organizations we’ve partnered with.

Any amount, $1, $5, $50…will help provide much needed care for these girls.

You can donate by clicking here, and please put “Moldova” in the notes section.

Other than donating and spreading the word, I was wondering…

Sex trafficking happens both here in the States and abroad (the US is actually one of the largest importers of trafficked women).

What do you think are some ways we can act?

When I was reading about all thing things you should and shouldn’t do in Russia, I took note. My dad went to Russia a few years ago and remember him getting in a little bit of trouble.

I never expected I’d be leaving Russia earlier than I was supposed to.

We left from our week in Moldova and arrived in Moscow last Saturday. It was more of a “down” day to decompress from what we had experienced in Moldova. We did a little sight-seeing, visited a huge mall (where I politely ate my weight in Baskin Robbins – American food, yay!) and went to the theatre. Aside from being a little chilly, I instantly fell in love with Moscow.

Throughout our entire trip, I had been fighting what I thought was a cold. I actually had it on Monday, before we left, but figured with some Zicam and Advil it would be gone in a few days. Unfortunately, each day my symptoms got worse…my body ached more, my sinuses pounded more, and the big nuisance for me – my throat became more swollen and more, well, what burning in the fiery pits of Hades feels like, I’d imagine.

I knew I needed to rest, but I also knew I needed to experience everything. One afternoon earlier in the week, I returned to our dorm early to rest up and I did feel better the next day, but my symptoms continued worsening. After waking up in Moscow, there was a decision to be made.

That night, I kept waking up cold and sweaty. It didn’t matter how many of the 1980’s-style blankets I wrapped up in, I was too hot and too cold at the same time. My t-shirt was drenched in sweat. After the sun came up, I grabbed a mirror and went to the window where the sun was rising and took a good look in the back of my burning throat.

I’m no doctor, but what was back there was not from this world.

My tonsils were swollen and they, along with the rest of my throat, were red, white, and just nasty all over.

I took my temperature. Yep, definitely had a little fever going on.

One of my friends is a doctor, so I texted her, hoping she’d be awake. I gave her my symptoms and told her I had some antibiotics on hand for “just in case you get traveler’s diarrhea” but they were a versatile type that could also help with strep throat – if that is what I had.

She texted me back some suggestions and directions for taking the medicine, but noted if I wasn’t better in a day or so, to call her.

Not just text her — call her.

I began thinking…

If we would have planned to be in Moscow for the rest of the week, I would have decided to stay. There are a few Western-style clinics and hospitals available that would have sufficed. However, our plans had us traveling six to eight hours outside the city in more rural Russia. If whatever I had wasn’t getting better, the trip home would have been a lot longer and a lot more difficult than, well…if I came home.

I started to cry.

Finally, after two months of being emotionally stunted, I started to cry.

I pulled up Skype on my computer and a friend was on. I told him what our friend said and what my throat looked like and where we’d be going for the rest of the week. Without hesitation, he told me I needed to come home.

I didn’t want to hear those words, but I knew it was the best decision.

Fortunately, I was able to get on a flight from Moscow to DC, and then DC to Nashville, so I was home 17 hours after waking up. I went to the doctor yesterday and found out I have some kind of virus – a type of mono – although they aren’t sure what specific type yet as they are having to test my blood twice for some reason…but what I thought was an innocent cold turned out not to be so innocent.

So here I sit in my living room…spring birds chirping, the trees in our backyard budding hourly it seems…eating popsicles and sleeping most of the time. Whenever I wake up from one of my naps I check my phone – I still have it set on Moscow time – and wonder what’s happening on the other side of the world.

Last year, I got sick right before a speaking engagement so I had to cancel and I really wrestled God with “WHY?” Did I fail him in some way being a pansy and not pushing through my pain?

This time, I’m not so upset with myself or wondering if I should have stayed or if I should have come home – I know I made the right decision…but I do feel like I was ripped out of Russia, and part of me is still there.

And that hurts.

Even now, tears are spilling out and down my cheeks because I miss being there. I miss the women I didn’t get a chance to meet, the culture and the food I didn’t get to embrace, the stories of tragedy and redemption that I didn’t get a chance to tell.

But I know…I know that things happen. People get sick. It’s part of life.

I also know that by some “random” mistake at the consulate’s office, I was given a double entry visa instead of a single entry. We talked about how weird that was when we found out, but now that I’m home, I guess it just means there’s a time for me already set aside to return.

And return I will.

The organization that I came with to Moldova & Russia is called Children’s Hope Chest (CHC). After seeing all what we saw, Tom, the president, knew for certain that immediate action is required. So, after exploring and meeting with several NGOs, CHC has decided on helping fund two partners we found that are doing faith-based, holistic, sustainable, and aggressive work directly helping victims who have been rescued out of sex trafficking.

You can email Tom by clicking here.

HopeChest is launching ministry in Moldova with a $25,000 Stop the Secret fund to support two “safe homes” for survivors of sex trafficking. These homes are not clinics.

Like HopeChest’s ministry in Russia and Africa, these partnering organizations provide for the holistic and long-term needs of girls terrorized by systematic sexual abuse and slavery.

The two organizations, Home of Hope and Beginning of Life are in it for the long haul and we are standing behind them to support them. Please click the links and learn about these organizations.

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HopeChest is raising funds to support two “safe homes” and provide the critical aftercare (physical & mental health) services needed to support these courageous young women.

Your gift will provide four young women with a safe place to live and round-the-clock care in their homes.

Click here to get a full picture of Stop the Secret.  Or just click here to donate to the Stop the Secret launch fund, and support ministry in Moldova that brings restoration and healing to young woman who have survived the terrors of sex trafficking.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just came back from being out all day and saw how many times “The Sex Cafe” story was shared through Facebook and Twitter and was just so grateful I almost cried.

(Still having issues with that though…)

Anyway, so many of you are asking “how can we help?”

Because this is so new to Children’s Hope Chest, the organization I’m traveling with, and there aren’t many people doing many things in Moldova, we have been exploring potential partnerships and are working on a way that will provide you opportunities where you can help specific programs and projects.

We hope to have this up in the next few days or by early next week.

Until then, this is the best way you can help:

Continue doing what you’re doing.

Share these stories.

Here are a few ideas:

• Email them to your pastor, your small group, your church staff and leaders
• Share them with your local newspaper, other news outlets like local news stations and even national/international news stations like CNN.
• Ask your favorite bloggers to write about them, link to them, or Tweet them.
• A few of you have tweeted links to celebrities. That’s such a creative idea. I know the chances are slim but hey, you just never know where the story may hit home for someone with an even larger platform for sharing and motivating people.
• Share the stories with your family, friends, and co-workers.

Basically, spread these stories as far as they will go. This is a darkness so dark it needs as much light on it as possible.

Again, thank you for all your help telling these stories.

We will have a very strategic action plan for those wanting to get involved posted Sunday night or Monday morning US time. We are heading to Moscow early tomorrow morning and are ironing out details of intentional partnerships with long-term help and care programs.

So…more to come soon. We want to make sure we’re approaching this need in the most dignified and respectful as well as sustainable way possible.

LOVE YOU GUYS. And I mean that. Thank you for sharing all this.

Imagine reading this news brief:

Breaking News: American Orphans Get Kicked Out of Public Schools, Nowhere to Go: Predators Wait

At the end of their freshman year of high school, American orphans are left fending for themselves. No longer integrated into the public school system, the federal government provides each orphan with $120 and a wish of “Good luck!” as they drop them in their respective inner cities.

These children stop to purchase a cell phone or some clothes, and then go one of two ways: Some move back to their neighborhoods, although they lack any family or connections, and others attempt to find jobs.

However, predators are numerous and falsely advertise vague jobs in the newspaper, offering a doorway into trafficking under the guise of legit employment opportunities. Others wait in the neighborhoods for those who do return, pretending to be employers looking for workers.

Most of these orphans end up kidnapped and working in Mexico and Canada, making pennies a day for sexual services.

That would be shocking, wouldn’t it? We’d be enraged. Rally.

Thankfully, that is not the scenario in the states. However…

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While we’re here in Moldova, we’re trying to learn everything we can. Yesterday, we started at the beginning — how do so many children (20-25% of Moldova’s population, most orphaned and most female between 16-24) end up being sex trafficked? Where does this cycle begin?

A lot of the problem begins through the orphanage system.

Take, for instance, the eleven year old girl we met yesterday at an orphanage. At fifteen, she’ll be released out into the world on her own, with no family or connection to anybody out in the city. The government will provide her with a small sum of money, not even enough to rent a room for a month.

This girl is completely vulnerable…and the predators know it.

They’ll advertise “real” jobs in papers, promising good work in other bordering countries. Naive and unsuspecting, these girls will go for an interview, and typically get drugged, kidnapped, and moved into another country. Their papers will be stripped away and changed and they’ll gain a new identity.

Sex slave.

Not knowing how to escape, being violated and told they’re worthless, and that nobody cares, they see no hope — no reason to escape. Some commit suicide.

The reality is nobody really will miss them. Moldova is a small country, and 30,000 women and children disappear every year without a trace. Without identities.

Nobody knows they’re gone, and nobody misses them.

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As we sat in a rather large orphanage yesterday, I couldn’t help but stare at each girl. They varied in age from maybe five or six to teenagers, and I knew the teenagers would be soon sent out on their own to fend for themselves. Some may find a transitional home which will help educate them, put them through tenth-twelfth grade (or beyond) and keep them safe. But there would be some who would simply disappear.

And nobody would know.

A year from now, I wonder if I’ll even remember their faces – glowing brightly with youth and what I could only imagine is hope.

Or will I also forget as they disappear into a system of the worst kind of crime and suffering?

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Today, we are meeting with some organizations that are on the solution side of this issue. I hope tomorrow’s update will have a better ending than the stories I heard today.

(**Note: Just in case it wasnt clear the story about American orphans is not true. It is a parallel to what is happening here in EU and Russia for context.)

We are here.

We are tired.

And very thankful for your encouragement on our journey (long, long journey!) out.

Tomorrow morning, we hit the ground running.

Until then, feel free to laugh at my tired self trying to be consistent with a daily video. :)

Much love, and THANK YOU for spreading the word.