12.07.2017

4 Steps Forward

Changing their own lives. Working to change a sex-trafficking culture. In this quick video we give a glimpse of the first steps forward to enter honorable work. All for the well-being of their families and communities. Catch this short video and see a sample of what we do.

Poverty to sustained income. Slavery to Freedom. Lost to the Truth.

If you support our work, this is a grand day with a big step and you are helping it happen. If you are not yet a supporter, please consider joining the team with your sustaining support. Click here for tax deductible giving.

08.29.2017

McIntyre Law joins the cause

We appreciate our business partners who engage to fight this battle. This is a solid law firm with a commitment to help everyday folks. Thank you McIntyre Law for putting your significant influence into ending moder day sex slavery – wherever it occurs.

Are you a business owner? Join the fight to end human trafficking and show your customers/clients/community you have engaged in this cause.

06.01.2017

I’m not your boss, your banker or your boy……..

“I am not your boss your banker or your ‘boy” but I am your brother and I am here to help you change your world; to make a safe place for your family, gain an education for your children and an honorable income from your work. Together, we will change this world.”

These are some of the world changing young leaders that are empowered through our donors.

This is how I begin each of my sessions with the wonderful people I get to work with in Asia who desire to change the circumstances of poverty and illiteracy that hinder their ability to provide for themselves and in the process we uncover what the Gospel teaches about the sanctity of life so that with the education and with the honorable job they stop trafficking of children into sex slavery. They begin to make freedom choices in their own communities. Acknowledging that man is made in the image of God is a major step and perhaps the most permanent step for a trafficking culture to recognize and accept.

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.’ Genesis 1:26 ESV”

Now going on three years engaged in the work in Asia, we find some very distinct expectations from the people we are called to engage:

They expect that Americans (and any foreigners) will come in and insist on being the boss. After all, they are bringing the money and “expertise” and call it “their work”. The people have come to expect that we will be their boss and they will just be workers or at best middle managers with very little authority.
They expect we will become the bankroll to do whatever work is undertaken. Foreigners are wealthy (by comparison this is correct) and if they come all this way they must be rich and willing to pay for whatever needs to be done.
If a national can find a patron, someone who will bankroll the native persons own ideas, they often expect that we will just do as they wish and send short-term teams who drop goods, money and take lots of pictures but really have low expectations and very little accountability.
There is a however a growing group of national young leaders who desire something much different. They desire responsibility and accountability. They also want someone to walk with them as an equal, not a boss, not a banker, not a “boy” but a brother. This is what we find so engaging, effective and powerful. This is what our supporters empower us to do.

The longer I am engaged in the battle to end modern day slavery, the more I see exactly the same pressures in our American culture and exactly the same tragic child trafficking results. Weak families, poor education, very limited job opportunities and a disregard for the sanctity of life lead to the same end results in first world countries as we see in third world countries. It is real. It is real bad. It is really wrong and it is really changeable.

An entry level item from a village fighting to end the atrocity of trafficking in their own community

We are stateside right now selling goods made in our village work programs. Villages where planted churches, previously marginalized in Buddhist communities are now gaining influence as they assist their own friends and family in education, economic opportunity and knowing the Good News of the Gospel.

If you are a supporter, we cannot express to you the depth of our appreciation and the significance of your support. If you are a supporter, our effort is your effort; we are teamed together in this work. Share the stories. Create awareness. When you hear the tragic stories, cry for a moment then fightback for a lifetime.

~Take ACTION~
Buy victim made goods: Made27.com
Donate to the work: free27.org
Follow the stories: incurablefanatics.org
Sign up for the blog and encourage your friends join you.
Host an Awareness Event in your church, small group, school or business. (Contact madetwentyseven@gmail.com)

03.13.2017

Eyes of Hope

It is the new world-wide drug. Easily accessible. No cost to the seller. No needles or flames. Find a supplier, use and walk away. Child sex trafficking is the new drug spreading around the world.

Light morning reading – huh? Frankly, I’d rather not write about it. I’d like to say it was eradicated overnight by some big police dragnet, a highly focused simultaneously planned drone attack. Or maybe some Special Ops Team can be dropped in on all the dens of abuse for a one world-wide conquest.

Not going to happen that way and we all know it.

For a family starving to death even while working 12 hours 7 seven days a week and not earning enough to buy food and pay rent. The choices are few.

For a family who cannot pay their small rent in a small storage locker sized room after buying just a small amount of rice for a single daily meal, paying for education to get a better life is a pipe dream.

For a family living in a world where the value of a human life is measured by its ability to provide income then letting old folks die and selling children is logical.

Then along comes the Gospel. Knowing that God created the heavens and the Earth and mankind is his special creation the families have their world turned upside down and often become outcasts within their own community. Options become even fewer.

In adult eyes I frequently see hopelessness. But in the eyes of children, those not yet trapped and abused or those believing we will help them escape – there I see hope. There I see a willingness to believe that there is a God who saves. Saves for eternity and provides hope for tomorrow.

In the eyes of the young I see a desire to change their world and the future for their own children. That is why we are here. Here fighting for strong education and honorable income opportunities and to show the Gospel is full of hope. Hope for eternity and hope for today.

And that is why we need your help. We can only do this if individuals, churches, businesses and communities help us be here to fight back. Please pray for us and please consider spreading the word that you are a donor to Incurable Fanatics.

Host a Human Trafficking Event: contact Madetwentyseven@gmail.com for info

Buy victim made goods for your school fund raiser: www.made27.com

Join the battle! Engage today. Cry for a moment, engage for a life.

02.01.2017

Reflecting

When Debbie and I determined to enter the battle of child sex trafficking I had one over-riding fear. An ambivalence to the atrocity because of our daily exposure to it in the context where it is so open and acceptable. As we were showing some new arrivals around the city several weeks ago I saw a man, 60ish, holding tightly to a young Khmer girl in the back of a Tuk Tuk driving down a Main Street in the busyness of the day. It was “normal”. Except it’s NOT!

Tear It seemed obvious to me that the little girl’s face showed signs of insecurity and even perhaps fear. She shared no glances with the man as though he was a “grandfather” or someone familiar. They were racially dissimilar. Nothing suggested the situation was comfortable.

The heat is our constant companion as are the smells and dust. We have grown accustomed to these sometimes not even noticing (well, we do notice the dirtiness that seems to cling to us each day). But we have not grown hard to the plight of slavery and child sex slavery. It is still a repulsive atrocity that continues to gain ground in a world that has not seen the sanctity of a human life and the value of each person to a holy God who formed each one. These are lives! They have futures. They have dreams. But I assure you, that little girl, if my sighting was accurate, has never dreamed of the atrocity she was about to encounter. The future that her perpetrator might bring upon her.

Here, it is open and in public view. In the western world like the US, the Tuk Tuk is replaced with websites and seedy handlers who move people around wherever there is a hot market for young children as sex slaves.

This is a modern day atrocity. This is our generation’s battle to fight. Get in it to end it!

Help enable us here and in the US by engaging with an Awareness Event in your community. Contact Madetwentyseven@gmail.com for scheduling.

Make a personal or business donation to enable us to keep fighting and continue raising the awareness about this battle. Donate Here (Engage).

If you are already a supporter, the victories are your’s too. Tell a friend, share this blog, encourage others to engage as you have. Shops Made27.com for victim made goods that give honorable work and income to those lifting themselves from the world that has surrounded them with hopelessness. Your gift, your purchases, these bring hope.

Yes, we are in it to end it! How about you?

01.16.2017

When the work gets bigger than life!

Life offers few experiences so full, deep and exhilarating that they turn you inside out. We are in the midst of just such an experience as we engage in the battle to fight sex trafficking in the world.

But, darkness can be chased away! The captives can be set free.

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; (Isaiah 61:1 ESV)”

Look at these pictures shared by one of the members of a Entrepreneurs Roundtable I get to operate in Cambodia. Do you see the hope that is alive in these faces? These are people who have seen and felt the atrocity of sex trafficking. The have watched family members, sold away into a life where they will be abused and often they saw no way of helping.

But, Hope is alive and growing in them and it is infectious. They are changing the darkness around them to light. Wow!

To our donors, thank you. These are your people too! We really need some renewing and new partners. Share this blog with friends who might be interested. Together we can bring this to an end.

To engage and donate please click here.

Join the battle to end modern day slavery.

To host a Human Trafficking Awareness Event contact Made27 (madetwentyseven@gmail.com/www.made27.com). They will provide a speaker to your church, school, community group to help you lead the battle to fight trafficking in your area.

DO IT. Every 30 Seconds there is a victim, between 27 and 30 million victims world-wide. You could help save one.

11.07.2016

Difference makers or not? You decide.

So what is it we, Incurable Fanatics, actually do here?

How do we put our efforts into ending human trafficking by continuing our work in Cambodia and presenting Awareness Events in the US?

To our supporters, is our effort really making a difference? Is it significant enough to warrant your continued interest and support? fishing-village

Consider this.

These are questions we consider literally every day. We get home dirty, tired and sometimes quite frustrated. Other times we get home dirty, tired and amazed at the power of God to change the lives of people.

Here is a sample of what we do, an average day looks like this:
Meet with a church planting pastor who has identified a village or community where people have come to Christ and while now saved and eternity settled, they still face poverty and poor education.

Visit the village and its leaders to determine the existing skills resident, sometimes for generations, within the village.
Find a way to capitalize for their benefit on the skills that are already present.
Offer project ideas for the village to develop into commercial products – usually things that we can help them sell beyond their borders and achieve a more western margin. The margin is the key to overcoming poverty and poor education.
Publically assign credit for any project development and success to the local pastor and church to elevate the stature and influence of the church in the village.

So, here is how that plays out. Saturday I met with the pastor and elders of an almost 10 year planted church. A church d mending-nets eep, very deep, in poverty. The families are primarily fishermen by trade but when the rivers and ponds are not swollen, human trafficking is common. Even within the starving families of the church who with great shame, still traffic children believing it is the only means of avoiding starvation and death. The situations are desperate beyond comprehension.

In a common village like this, we find plentiful skill in making and repairing nets. They know the right fibers, the right knots and the sources of the materials. This is a skill set passed down from father to child – they get it. Their lives depend on good nets made from good materials.

We present the opportunity to make other things. Items we can help them sell like bracelets and necklaces from the very same material and on the very same tables in the very same homes where they prepare nets. The new items they can make can be sold abroad at significant margins to the workers and the path to overcoming poverty and providing education begins to come into view.

bracelets2 And it is the local church-plant that gets the credit. Not us. Not the foreigner. Not incurable Fanatics. We are careful to make sure the local leaders are seen as the wise helpers and are present ourselves simply as people helping them. And the church begins to grow in stature and become an integral component of the community.

This is just one example. This is what we get to do every day. This is God allowing us to help the movement of His compassion into people groups who feel captive to earthly despair.

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor: he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” (Isaiah 61:1 ESV)

When we are invited to share in a church, community, or school in an Awareness Event with Made27 (Made27.com) we bring goods made in these villages by victims and at risk workers. We become a voice that they cannot bring to the world themselves. We become advocates for their freedom and their opportunities.

If you are an individual donor or a church that supports us regularly, please know we are enormously grateful to you for making our work possible.

If you are a business and sponsor our work, please use our stories in your business newsletters so that your clients and customers know what you are doing to advance freedom around the world.

If you have never been a part of our support team, OK, pray about it and maybe there will come a time when you too can engage and become part of the world-wide battle to end human trafficking. Because God sent his Son to set ALL the captives free. Together, we can work to set them free.

IncurableFanatics.org / Made27.com

Tax-deductible Donation portal: IOM-online.com (Missionaries, Asia, Pete & Debbie Livingston)

08.29.2016

Make a difference with what you wear?

Is what you wear more than just a garment?

There is more to what you wear than just how you look. The garments you wear have a story to tell. The story of the garments you buy includes the story of the life of those who make them. Many, are trafficking victims. We are in a fight to end it. We see many lives changing. The garments we sell are the handiwork of victims of human trafficking, often a recovering sex trafficking victim. Your purchase is a piece of their rescue.

human-trafficking2 Debbie and I are engaged in a cause focused effort seeking to provide hope and restoration to those victims of trafficking. We engage in education initiatives, job training for victims so that they can overcome their past and move into a hopeful future. A future they could not imagine without help. The garments made in one of our village development enterprises is made by the hands of a victim who is being assisted in ending a life of abuse that surrounds them. Your garment gives them hope for better tomorrows. Your garment is a piece of restoration.

Silversmith We are now working with village craftsmen making garments, beautiful hand crafted jewelry, and items native to their community. We then work to develop export opportunities so that the profit they make provides a sustainable, non-weather dependent income. Your garment is a piece of reintegration.

Parents who once trafficked a child into brothels and KTVs (night clubs with “girls available”) in order to feed a family now have hope and KTV sign means to feed, educate and care for their children without the atrocity of sex-trafficking. The wage they earn, the opportunities we offer, fill the void that once seemed impossible without engaging in the tragedy of trafficking. Your garments are a piece of prevention.

What you wear is really much more than just how it makes you look. You are changing lives when you purchase fair trade items for yourself and as gifts. The story spreads with each item purchased. Your garments are a part of a cause to end this atrocity.

To purchase limited edition fair trade items from our enterprises, visit www.made27.com or on Facebook, @made27.

For more information our visit website, aim.radicallymarried.com or on Facebook: @sendhelpincurablefanatics. We are Incurable Fanatics in this cause. We are a donor supported operation. You can support our work directly by going to the website and selecting ENGAGE to make your tax deductible donation. Donate if and when you can.

Thank you for being a part of changing lives. We hope to hear what you are wearing.

07.23.2016

Joy Unimaginable

Sometimes in this battle for lives trapped in modern day slavery, it seems as hopeless as painting over termite infested walls and patching Spackling a few holes; like we are only making things look better. But then it happens, someone sees there is hope and a future in Christ and there is joy unimaginable. Truly, we are seeing enormous progress and new life directions are becoming more common. So is the end to the filth of treacherous perpetrators. Every rescue uncovers more victims deeper within the travesty of human trafficking. More opportunities to set captives free with an understanding of the work of the Gospel.

Recently, a young, very young girl just 7 years old, was caught in the trap of a brothel and efforts to find her have not been fruitful and this brings frustration. But knowing that the helpless need help and that Christ sent help for me when I was helpless, I know we are right in the middle of what is right to do. These are thoughts I have at the end of a long week when I must remind myself that we are working with and seeing change one life at a time. Freedom is slow but it is happening.

When one child is delivered from a trafficked life, or one family gains enough work so that their children are not for sale, then we know it is a very worthy work. Even just one life is worth all the effort. As the Word of God says, when Christ enters in, “all things are new”. When a generation or two fail to understand the Gospel, they fall into natural choices and that leads quickly and deeply into horrendous sin. That is Cambodia, that is much of the world where the Gospel has not yet penetrated the lives and living of people. Following Christ is so much more than just saying a prayer and being baptized or growing up in a Christian family or going to church. Following Christ is actually about letting him lead your daily life. Not some decisions but all decisions. And that following, as these victims and high risk families are learning, takes them to a joy unimaginable. This is our work. This is our joy. To our supporters, this is your joy too!

Engage Now if you can. Pray always. Share this blog with a friend.

Visit Made27.com for victim produced items and help them earn an honorable living.

07.11.2016

One Life, One Village at a time.

There is a certain glitter and sparkle in the eyes of child when they look up to their mommy’s eyes. This gaze acts like a magnet drawing them together for the great celebrations of joy in life and through the most tragic of circumstances. Moms and their kids can connect without words. It only takes a look, a meeting of the eyes and all that needs to be said is said.

trafficked Or, so it should be. Increasingly in the world today it does not work that way.

Slavery is outlawed in every country in the world, and yet it exists widely. There remain enormous, almost unbelievable, numbers of individuals trapped in slavery. The most commonly accepted estimate is 27 million people worldwide RIGHT NOW serving in some capacity by threat of force, drugs, starvation, harm to family and other means of coercion. This figure is staggering.

80% of all slaves are sex slaves, 50% are children, many not even yet teenagers. It is possible to get lost in the magnitude of the atrocity and wonder if fighting back can make a difference. Not only can it make a difference, it is!

We have engaged in work where the sparkle is gone from the eyes of many. We have emersed ourselves in a place where mommy has frequently been a dangerous person. Where mom and dad are sometimes the most vile people in a child’s life.

Silversmith Together we are doing more than rescue kids and more than prosecute traffickers. Together we are entering villages and educating the children for the future. We are establishing micro-businesses that provide positive economic opportunities. We train the next generation of teachers and community leaders. We work alongside the local church to see that the Gospel permeates village life.

Together, we are seeing change. Together, we are making a difference. Together, we are ending the atrocity of sex trafficking one community at a time. You may have a part in all of this.

We want you to pray for this endeavor and if you can, support the work through the SENDHELP! Funding Campaign. Also, by purchasing survivor/ at-risk worker created products at www.Made27.com

For more information on the work, corporate sponsorship or tax-deductible donations please visit aim.radicallymarried.com Or contact us: Pete.livingston@gmail.com or debbieglivingston@gmail.com

We can help you prepare your community, school, business and church be a positive impact for fighting back where you live. Contact www.Made27.com to begin an Awareness Campaign in your area.