How Eight Days Of Hope Builds Safe Homes For Trafficking Survivors

A doorknob that never turns in the night should be ordinary, but for many trafficking survivors it feels like a miracle. That single detail becomes a thread we keep pulling as we return to Retreat to Peace with a raw personal update and a conversation that doesn’t let us look away from what’s happening in our towns, our travel stops, and sometimes even our own families.

I start by sharing my own testimony after multiple jaw surgeries and an exhausting recovery that brought pain, isolation, and a desperate 2:30 AM cry to God. I also share a terrifying spiritual moment that forced me to fight for peace in real time and how I later learned a friend was prompted to wake up at the exact same hour to pray for me. If you’ve ever wondered whether prayer matters when you feel helpless, this story will meet you right where you are.

Then I’m joined by Steve Tybor, founder of Eight Days of Hope, a Christian disaster relief and rebuilding ministry that now also builds safe homes and healing campuses for women and children rescued from human trafficking. We talk honestly about why trafficking happens, how pornography and addiction fuel demand, how grooming works, and why most trafficking doesn’t look like the movies. Steve shares practical warning signs to watch for, common red flags in places like hotels and “massage parlors,” and what a real path to survivor healing can require: safety, counseling, medical support, and long-term trauma-informed care.

If this conversation stirs you, don’t let it stop at awareness. Subscribe, share this episode with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find practical human trafficking prevention and survivor support resources.

Transcript

Welcome And A New Beginning

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Retreat to Peace Podcast. This is an invitation to slow down, breathe, and reconnect with God's presence. Through faith and encouragement, heartfelt conversations, we invite you to find hope, healing, and lasting peace that only God can give. And no matter where you are, may this space remind you that God is near. His love is constant, and true peace is found in him. Welcome to your retreat. Welcome to peace. And I am your host, Catherine Daniels. I am more than excited to share with you our new beginning of a brand new look and feel of Retreat to Peace. It's been a little bit since we've been on the air, but I do want to encourage you to make sure you check out our website, listen to our podcast, and join and follow and sign up for the things that we're getting involved in because there's so much.

TMJ Surgeries And Stored Trauma

SPEAKER_01 1:06

I want to share with you also my personal testimony. You see, in the last two and a half years, I have had numerous surgeries on my jaw. I've talked to several people about this, and repeatedly they said, you need to share your story. So here I am. I'm sharing my story. So two and a half years ago, I was actually experiencing some pain in my jaw to the extent that I couldn't open it fully. And when I did open it, it it felt like there was an elastic band kind of tugging back at me and wouldn't allow me to fully extend my mouth open. So after seeing numerous doctors, I had ended up going to an oral surgeon who diagnosed me with a chronic TMJ condition where arthritis had eaten away the bone and the disc in the joint had removed and separated outside the joint and glued itself outside of the joint against some adhesions and scar tissuing and things like that. So to say the least, it was very painful, and I started a journey of going through extensive, extensive work on my jaw. So that being said, I had four surgeries. Um two of the surgeries were pretty minor compared to the last two. And the one, especially for the reconstructing of my jaw, as I can tell you, was extremely, extremely excruciatingly painful. And it broke my nose in the process, and there was an extensive healing process that was part of that. Now, the interesting thing about all of this is that for years and years and years I have shared with people my personal testimony of how I was brought up and my unconventional upbringing and how I was raised that I was to be seen and not heard. And I said to people over and over, you know, that this trapped trauma has gotten stored in my body somewhere, but I wasn't exactly sure where. And sure enough, it was stored in my jaw joint. So it wasn't really a surprise to me that something like this had happened to me because, as I said, I was not supposed to talk as a child, so I was supposed to be seen and not heard. The only time that I was okay to talk was truly when I was with the company of other people that gave me permission to share my voice and to speak. So all of this stored trauma gets stuck in my jaw, and here I am now having extensive surgery because I'm having all this trouble with my jaw. Well, during the recovery, it was a very extensive process. I could not lie flat because of the surgery to my head. So for about six weeks, I actually had to sleep in everything upright. And if you've ever done that, that's very hard to do. So I slept upright and I was constantly icing my face. There was a lot of swelling, it was very painful. And sleep wasn't the best thing because of all the pain. So even though I had a lot of medication to bring down inflammation to help with pain management, truly the the pain, the bone pain, if anybody's ever broken a bone and they know what that feels like, the bone pain was just so much so that there really wasn't anything that could really help with the bone pain.

A 2:30 AM Spiritual Battle

SPEAKER_01 5:26

So at 2 30 in the morning on a Tuesday night, I was literally just crying out to God to help me because literally, moment to moment, hour to hour, I was just suffering. I was suffering with such excruciating pain that I was wishing time away. I didn't want to be around anybody. I was very isolated. And at 2:30 in the morning, all of a sudden, I had this very demonic lava field that was in front of my face. And at first I was scared by it because I thought, oh my gosh, I've heard of people having this kind of experience, but I didn't know what exactly it was. I didn't know exactly what was happening to me. And I just remember feeling like so terrified, and also remembering that I needed to rebuke it, I needed to cast it away and ask for it to leave. And I do believe that the the evil that was attached to my job was now leaving, and it took everything that I had to muster up the strength to request it to leave in the name of Jesus. And when I tell you that was very, very hard, it was very, very hard. It's kind of like those dreams that you have when you are trying to say something, but you can't because no matter how much you're screaming in your head, it just doesn't go away. It's still there. So I finally do that and it goes away. And now I'm just in a pile of tears. It's taking everything that I have to even cry. And I choose not to say anything to anybody about this experience.

A Friend Prays At The Same Time

SPEAKER_01 7:27

And a few days go by, and I have this dear friend who comes over to visit with me, and she sits down across from me and looks at me and says, Something happened to you. I said, What? She said, Something happened to you in the middle of the night. It was 2 30 in the morning, and I woke up out of a dead sleep, and I had a check in my spirit to pray for you. And she goes on to say that she got out of bed, went down to her knees, and just started praying for my healing. And I started to cry because I did not tell a single soul about this experience. And when I shared it with her, she was like, Oh my gosh, she's like, I'm so glad I prayed for you. And I just share this message as a way to encourage you that during these times, if you have someone who comes to your heart or your thought and you know that they could use your prayer or sending some good thoughts their way, I encourage you to do it because you really don't understand that those little tiny moments matter in the unseen realm. So I encourage you to always act upon that and do something with it. And we will talk more about that. But for today, I'm excited to kick off our new show. I have a powerful guest speaker that will be talking about human trafficking and answering some really hard questions. I hope that you will listen to the end. It is a powerful interview, and I hope if you are called in your spirit to do something to help, I strongly encourage you to do so. So, thank you so much for allowing me time and space to do the work I need to do and heal and finally get back onto my feet and back on the air. So I love you all so much, and just continue to follow, like, and share. And I look forward to one day meeting each of you. With that, have a beautiful day, and here is the interview.

Meet Steve Tybor

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Here we go. Hi everyone, this is Catherine Daniels with Retreat to Peace, and welcome to the Retreat to Peace podcast. This is an invitation to slow down, breathe, reconnect with God's presence. Through faith and encouragement, heartfelt conversations, we invite you to find hope and healing and lasting peace that only God can give. And no matter where you are, may this space remind you that God is near. His love is constant and true peace is found in him. So welcome to your retreat and welcome to God's peace. And today I am super excited to introduce to you Steve Tybor. Hi, Steve.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Hey, good morning. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

You're so welcome. So grateful that you're here. I know we have an incredible conversation ahead, and I have done a lot of legwork behind the scenes to prepare for this interview because this one is a little bit tough. And I know there's people from around the globe that are listening to the show. And I just ask that you prepare your heart because some of our conversation is difficult, but we do want you to know that the Lord surrounds us in these difficult conversations and opens our heart to receive whatever information that we're hearing so that we ourselves can do something to help another person in need.

Eight Days Of Hope Starts After Katrina

SPEAKER_01 11:24

So, Steve, just uh share a little bit about how you got to where you are today and who you are.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Yeah, well, uh again, thanks for having me. Um grew up in Buffalo, New York, uh, moved to Mississippi uh in 1999 to lead a building material corporation. And while I was down there, a storm hit our country called Katrina. Um my wife and I had three kids at the time. And um we um we were gonna, my dad and I were gonna find three buddies each, and we were gonna go help somebody rebuild their house for free in eight days. The number eight in the Bible means new beginnings. And so in life, there's a lot of times you think you have a plan, and then God reminds you who's really in control. It was our smallest outreach ever. We're 20 years old now. Uh the name of the ministry is Eight Days of Hope. But in those eight days in December of 05, 684 people showed up, and we rebuilt 84 homes in eight days. It was like extreme makeover, but we didn't have a bus, and my hair is not cool. Um, for those of you who remember extreme makeover. But yeah, I just saw God move. I saw people uh that we were serving fall on their knees and say yes to Jesus. I saw volunteers who thought they knew the Lord realized they didn't have a relationship with him. And and so I saw all these spiritual things happening that were just amazing. And yet at the same time, I saw 84 homes be rebuilt in eight days. So um we now have um that was our smallest trip. Our biggest trip was to Houston. We took 4,962 people, we fed them and lodged them in 33 churches, and in eight days rebuilt 808 homes. Again, hundreds of salvations, $15 million of work. It was the largest volunteer effort of its kind ever in the United States. And that was just a couple of years ago after Hurricane Harvey. And so we have four arms of the ministry. I'm the founder of Eight Days of Hope. Uh, I left the corporate world at 55. So I did kind of both things for about 12 years, but then eight days of hope looked like it was starting to grow, and I had to make a big boy decision of like, do you just let someone else lead it, which I was fine with that, or do I take a step of faith and leave a very successful corporate career to go do ministry uh full time? And so uh we now have four arms. We have an arm that goes right away. It's called our rapid response arm, as you and I take this. Uh, we're in Mississippi right now helping out families after the recent tornadoes. Um, just a month or two ago, we were elsewhere helping out after an ice storm. Uh we have the rebuilding arm, which I just mentioned to you. We've now rebuilt 12,000 homes across the country for free, all in the name of the Lord. Uh, we started a mass feeding arm about three years ago. So there's a power outage, like in Laplace, Louisiana, after Kaneida, uh, we bring millions of dollars of equipment, we make thousands of meals, and we let the local church hand out the food because we're gonna leave and they're still there. And so we want to be a great partner with the local church. So rapid response, rebuilding and mass feeding on the disaster side. And then about 12 years ago, just my mind started to do a little bit more uh learning about trafficking. And um, it's a longer story, but I'll tell you that five years ago, uh we started an arm where we we build safe homes and campuses for women and children rescued from trafficking. Uh, we partner with ministries that are established and we build them for free. So between all the arms, we've done about 98.5 million dollars of work. Um, we're pretty much volunteer-led. We have 300 volunteer leaders and they lead the 65,000 volunteers. We have a very small staff, but we've been blessed with about six million dollars of equipment. Um, we have a weekly radio show heard on American Family Radio every Saturday morning called Hope Reigns. And we partner with Christian music artists and Christian music festivals to get the word out. Uh we're family friendly, and um, yeah, it's been uh it's been a whirlwind. It's been a lot of fun to be a part of.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

It's incredible everything that you're doing. And for full transparency, I actually met you at a concert, and it was really eye-opening to see you on stage, hear you speak to the people in the audience. And for people that are listening, it's difficult to see, you know, someone who the way their facial expressions are, their energy, you know, the way they're presenting themselves. And when I saw you on stage, you were on the verge of tears when you were speaking to the people in the audience. And you could just feel the deep conviction in you to really get across to the people, the need that the people you're serving that God has put you in place to serve, the need that they have. And I literally couldn't help myself but tear up and feel like, oh my gosh, this is incredible. And this is something that I feel really needs to be spread out into a global space where people can hear more about what it is you're doing. So one of the things that you did is you played a video about the eight days of hope in your campus, and you have people that are going through your program. And as someone who has been sexually abused, I was riveted by what the girl in the video had shared about she doesn't have to watch the doorknob anymore. And that was so hard because that's something that is taken for granted for a lot of people when they're in their bedrooms, and they don't really understand the gravity behind that. And somebody who has been, you know, abused in that capacity deeply understands. And as I was in my community this week preparing for this interview, I had asked people, different people, if you had a question for Steve, what would your question be? And it just seemed to be the overarching question how like why does human trafficking even happen? There's a lot of confusion as to what is behind this and why it's even happening. Can you speak a little bit to that?

Why Human Trafficking Happens

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Yeah, absolutely. Great question. Um, very simple sin. Sin is the reason why there's disasters. Sin is the reason why um people don't have self-control and they act on their fantasies. And um, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna look at my phone here for a minute. This phone, um, there's a lot of good things with the internet and access to instant information. And um we use a lot of it in the ministry world. Unfortunately, though, pornography is out of control in this country and in the world. You know, innocently, eight-year-olds and nine-year-olds are stumbling on pornography because they're on a social media site or their parents aren't involved or aren't aware they have access to the internet. And when they're exposed and their minds not prepared to see what they're seeing, I mean, think about sex. Sex is a gift from our father in heaven. It's meant to be between a man and a woman after you're married, and it's meant to be enjoyed, and of course, to produce offsprings and and brings pleasure and intimacy and it brings closeness. We as men have um made it into something that it totally wasn't meant to be. So now, you know, these 14-year-olds are on their phone, they're hanging out, doing a sleepover with their two buddies, and a buddy says, Hey, did you guys ever see this? And bang, there they go at eight, nine, 10, 11 years old, and they're seeing things that they have no clue what they're seeing, and there's some things going on inside their body, and their mind is confusing and it's and it's disturbing and it's exciting, and it's all these things are going through their mind. They're not prepared for all that. And so it's amazing to me when you look at the data, even in the church, how many men, how many pastors have a hard time staying away from pornography? And so, you know, it's like any other addiction. You start here, and then you got to look for your next high, and then your next high and your next high. And next thing you're you're crossing lines that you never would have crossed before you got into it. And so, you know, it's unfortunate. Um, you know, pornography is a big part of it. Broken families. We, you know, there's there's almost as many kids being raised in America by a single parent with one parent in the house uh that biologically is their parent than than than the two that maybe a lot of us were, it was more the norm when I grew up. You know, I'm in my mid-60s and you know, divorce happened, but it was very rare. And now today you have broken families left and right, and you have single moms with the responsibility of raising all the kids by themselves. And oh my gosh, it's hard with two parents, let alone one parent. So there's a lot of reasons why, but sin, pornography, broken families, our foster care system. I plot everyone who's part of the foster care system. Um, but I believe, my opinion, it's broken. Uh there needs to be some fixes there. Um but it's it's um it's really a combination of a bunch of things. Uh but I think when you look at pornography, when you look at sin, when you look at broken families, the foster care system. Um you know, we we live in a different world than when you and I grew up where we're looking for instant gratification, and that that just leads down the slippery slope on so many ways. So uh unfortunately it's the fastest growing crime in the world. You know, behind the drug uh movement in the world, it's the second biggest crime in the world. It's the fastest growing crime. Some figures have it over $300 billion. Think about this. If you put all the revenue of the National Football League, the Major League Baseball League, the National Hockey League, and the NBA, the basketball, you put the four largest pro sports and you put all the revenue together, all the money's made, it would not be trafficking is a higher amount. More money spent on trafficking than in sports, and we all love our sports. It just shows you how big of an issue it is. And that's why I think we, I'm a Christ follower, God's called us to love the brokenhearted. We need to To come up with solutions to find a way to help the women and children who've been rescued from trafficking. So yeah, that's the reason why it exists and it's the fastest growing crime in the world.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

One of the things that more recently, I'm glad you brought up, you know, the addiction aspect of it, because currently what people don't realize is since 2020 and a global lockdown and pandemic, there has been this shift in human beings. I mean, every single human across the planet has been impacted by the trauma of that and going through a grief process and their lives have completely been changed as a result. You still see evidence of it today, people that are still struggling with how to be alone or how to, you know, have relationships with other people. And this addiction in today's realm is 93% of men have an addiction to something, and 80% 87% of women have an addiction to something. Those numbers were much less five years ago. And it's just interesting to me because to your point, when a small child is exposed to their first sexual encounter, whatever that looks like, whether it's on their phone or they have a friend who has parents with an SM room or something like that, that curiosity that that angst in the body where they want more and more and more is rewiring their brain. And that rewiring of the brain is creating a slippery slope. And now you have all these children who are now compromised as well.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

You know, I've never I've never shared this publicly, and I don't even know if I've ever shared this with my wife, and I'm and I'm going to today, but I was maybe nine or ten, and I stumbled upon a magazine and I saw things, I didn't even know what I was looking at. I was, it was so confusing to me. And uh I didn't have access to it other than that one time because it was it was at a residence that I didn't, you know, I didn't live there. But I thought about it often and for for a long time. And so you bring up a good point. You know, our our kids today, you know, our rate of movies, uh they're accessible. You know, back when you watched an Rate of movie when I was growing up, you had to go to movie theater and prove you were 17. And now, you know, we with Netflix and with Prime Video and Hulu, you know, all these different acts, we have access to any movie we want to watch, even the movies that are in studio right now, and no one's verifying your age. So it's so accessible to us. And sometimes innocently, someone gets exposed to something and it starts changing some things, their thought process, how they look at things, how they think about things. And and that's and that's disturbing.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

It's disturbing, and I also feel like there's a desensitation that's the process that's happening with society. And it's just become this normal kind of thing. And now we're sitting in a cesspool of yuck trying to figure out how to unravel it, how to help people. I mean, when I hear these numbers of addiction and men and women, it just is mind-blowing to me that we have seven out of a hundred men that don't have an addiction. And that just that's that's just mind-blowing to me.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Um, it is mind-blowing. And let me stay there for a minute. I think one of the challenges we have in 2026 is the world has changed a lot, is to your point the last six years. You know, I've been married 42 years, and if I was watching porn on a regular basis, how can my wife in her 60s ever measure up to women who are being um modified using computers and AI and all that stuff that's going on now? I mean, you you it it changes even the relationship in in with your spouses if if you're if you're viewing porn. So one of my concerns in 2026 is now we have something called only fans. And even women who aren't being trafficked, but in essence, are trafficking themselves and are desensitizing and and and just the way they're presenting themselves to make money and and and there's a market for it. And so, again, there's been so much distortion, you know, now with AI, you know, getting very popular, you know, we're gonna see that in the porn industry as well. We we're already seeing that, and and there's gonna be consequences to that. So, you know, we live in challenging times, troubling times when you deal with this. But again, um, I'm a Christ follower, but I've met many people who have never been to church and they're disgusted by what's going on with women and children who are being trafficked. And so that arm of our ministry of eight days of hope uh has grown dramatically. And we're gonna continue to build facilities for free, including the largest campus in the world in Ohio, which we opened up a year ago. Um, it's the largest campus for teenage girls. We're gonna continue to do it until they're not needed. Now, we also want to work on the preventing side, educating and preventing. So today what you and I are we're educating someone out there who might not know much about what's going on with trafficking. Well, it's everywhere. And uh we have an amazing brochure on our website. Go to eightdaysofope.com, click under Who We Are, the Safe House Ministry page, and there's a brochure to download. So if you're a grandparent, a parent, if you uh belong to a church, you're a ministry leader or a pastor, uh, we will print off and mail to you as many as you want at no charge, but you can digitally download it as well. It will educate you how this is happening because so much of the world thinks, oh, it's like that movie Taken. You know, people come in and they take somebody. That's like 0.7% of the time. It's not even 1%. Do you know that? Do you know that about 17% of the time, someone is trafficked by a family member? I mean, think about that. One out of five is being trafficked by a family member. I mean, that blows my mind and it's everywhere. And so, uh, again, that brochure is online. I don't want to chase a rabbit, but um, I want to make sure people out there, uh, you need to be educated. This is real, it's the fastest growing crime, and you need to know how to protect your kids and grandkids and what things to look for.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

I agree with that, and I think that it's alarming to me because more recently I was traveling across the country.

Travel Safety And Real-World Red Flags

SPEAKER_01 28:47

My husband and I were stopping off at you know different places, hotels and things like that. There is this incredible uptick of people hanging out around the hotels. There's an incredible uptick of you know, just kind of not feeling safe in a in a place that you should feel safe. And these are hotels. We're not talking low budget, you know, we're not talking extreme high budget, but the big brands, I don't want to name them here, but names that people would know in your hotel room, you know, there's there's almost um like a warning for the guests, like be vigilant, be on, be aware, these kinds of things. And these are areas that you ordinarily would feel safe. And I know for myself as a woman, I would, you know, say to my husband, like, please stay with me because I don't feel safe. Like that man on his cell phone that's hanging out by the door that you would key access into the hotel building does not make me feel safe. Like it gives me the heebie-jeebies. You know, it's like you have to listen to your sixth sense and just be super vigilant and aware. But it's not even just the hotels, it's the rest stops, it's these places that ordinarily you would be able to go to and and feel safe. And now there is this higher level of not feeling safe.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Yeah, you know, women, you need to be aware of your surroundings. If you have children, you know, don't just fill up your tank with gas and tell your 12-year-old, yeah, just go inside, use the rust, and when you're done, come back out. Uh, that doesn't happen in my house. And I've got a 21-year-old that I'm getting ready to drive to Montana for an internship, and I can let her head out herself. I'm going with her. Um, it's just the world we live in. It's a different world. And unfortunately, um, because of the addictions, because of pornography, because of some of the things that people have been exposed to, it's it's it's it's a rampant issue. And so be aware of your surroundings, but but also, you know, it's amazing to me. It's kind of like I said this maybe the night that you were at the Ben Fuller concert when I spoke. It's almost like we have blinders on. We know some things are going on, but we don't like really want to look. I want to talk about like the massage parlors. So as I travel the country, um, you know, I used to be a college athlete. Um, I was a pretty good runner. And so there were many times during my training that I would get massages, therapeutic massages to to keep the blood flow and work on a muscle that was giving me a hard time. And and boy, it helped me recover quicker. But there's massage parlors in so many cities that uh people are being trafficked, like right there next to where you're your food shopping, uh, right next to where you're buying your sports equipment. And and and so let's not be blind to what's going on in our community and let your local elected officials know that that's not acceptable. That's not acceptable. When you go to these massage pilots and the windows are fully covered with pictures and they got to buzz you in and you got to pay up front, that's they're trafficking, those people inside are being trafficked. And it's everywhere. I go to Texas for ministry or back even in the corporate world, and you'd be driving by some of these like strip malls, and you would just see these, and oh my god, and if they're there and they've been open for years, and we all kind of know what's going on there, but we all like look the other way, or we keep our blinders on because we got to get our kids the soccer practice, or I've got to go to my elders' meeting, or I've got to go to my, you know, my my my um my bowling match. And and I think we as we as we as people, we've got to do better of being aware of what's going on around us, not just for our own safety, but for the safety of the community and to protect against the sin that's rampant in so many of our communities.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

I'm glad you're bringing this up because this was one of my questions for you. So at the concert you had shared that there was trafficking all over in the community that you were witness to. I think that's one thing that people don't really understand how to look for those signs and what to look for exactly. And

What To Look For And Do Next

SPEAKER_01 33:09

then to piggyback off of that, what do you do? What is the next step? How do you keep yourself safe and out of harm, but try to help someone who's in danger?

SPEAKER_00 33:21

You know, we worked with organizations, we've partnered with 21 organizations. We're getting ready to build another safe house in Naples, Florida, with a ministry called Eden House, and then in Memphis, Tennessee, with a ministry called The Way Out. Some of our partners actually do rescues. So Elijah Ryzen in Houston, they actually go out and do rescues. Now, these people are very trained. Um, I've been on a tour to kind of they have van tours. So two things. They have van tours that take people like you and I, and they take you throughout Houston and they show you where people are getting trafficked at the local cantina at the massage parlor. When you're in front of a massage parlor and you see in one hour 15 men come in and out, and not one lady going in and out, someone's being trafficked there. It's strip joints, right? I mean, we all know strip joints are a huge thing. In the back room, what happens upstairs in the back, no one's looking. Everyone makes a little money on the side. So it's all around us. You know, I remember growing up thinking, oh, Las Vegas, maybe New Orleans and New York City. No, it's happening in Erie, Pennsylvania. It's happening in South Haven, Mississippi. It's happening in Tyler, Texas. It's from coast to coast. Here's why. When you sell a drug, you make profit, but the drug is used and now, you know, you can't you can't sell it again. A trafficker can sell a person over and over and over. Um how to protect yourselves. You know, if my wife is traveling and she's in a unique situation where she's getting out of her car, sometimes she'll just be on the phone with me, talking as she's walking. You know, I'm I'm 65. I have life 360 on my phone. Um, my kids are on it, my wife's on it, so there is communication of where they're at. You know, if if they're in an awkward situation, you have to be around, you have to be aware of around your surroundings. You brought up a great point. Truck stops. You know, we stop, and and I almost said some names, but even some nationally known, oh, that'd be a fun place to go to, right? Oh, wow, that's the biggest gas station in the South. It's got a unique name and it's got an animal, you know, and it's and it, you know, it's those stations, they're everywhere. And and we're blind to think that traffickers aren't looking out. And and I will say the takens are are not a huge procession, uh huge number of people unning trafficked. Really more of it's grooming and and family, but we have to be aware of our own surroundings. We have to be aware about the coaches that coach our kids. I mean, we you know, sleepovers. I'm I'm gonna tell you, okay, I'm older now, right? I'm in my mid-60s. I tell my kids, you're a fool if you let your your kids go sleep at another kid's house. You don't know what they're being exposed to. You don't know what that family's all about, what's their mom's about, dad about alcohol. There's gonna be a 16-year-old boy there. Um, you know, who's sleeping where? What's going on? What are they gonna watch on TV? And yet we're so afraid to put limits or boundaries around our kids. It's not a control thing. It's we live in a different world today in 2026 than we did when Leave It to Beaver Cleaver was on TV and people couldn't believe that they showed a bathroom scene or they showed a toilet, all right? I mean, things are happening now so quickly, so innocently, and we don't even think about it because it's all around us. We've got to do a better job of protecting our kids and our loved ones. And that's one of the ways. So if it's everything from putting something on a phone to keep track to, hey, if you're gonna walk to your car from the mall by yourself, I mean, even now, my daughter's 21. Um, and you some of your listeners might think I'm crazy, but she does not go to the mall by herself. She doesn't want to go to the mall by herself. She goes with a friend, another adult, or she goes with a family member or someone from school. You know, their safety in numbers. So it's all those little things. Um, but the grooming part too, we haven't talked about that yet, but you know, kids who come from broken families, um, traffickers catch on real quick who's not getting attention at home or whose home is is not right or whose home is is is not in a loving atmosphere with two parents. And again, no family's perfect, but they see that and they start grooming these kids. Oh my gosh, it's it's just unbelievable how that's happening as well.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

Yeah, and is that something that you see evidence of in your community? You know, like you have a young teenage girl who is dressed provocatively, walking the street by herself. Is that like an example that potentially Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 37:56

I I think you know, everyone's looking to fit in somewhere. Everyone wants to be loved. We all want to be part of something, right? And so if you have a loving family and you're being poured into and and you're part, and again, not every family is a great um, you know, family, some families struggle. I mean, you know, you you can't live for decades and not have a family member go through some tough times. But you can usually tell who's looking for attention. Traffickers know. That's why so many traffickers, when they're grooming someone, um, a mall's a great place to go because they're looking for those. I mean, I went to the mall the other day, and I don't know how some of these dads, and there's probably not one at home, would let their 13 or 14-year-old girl dress the way they did to go out in public. Oh my gosh, these are little girls who are trying to present themselves as young women, and they're and you know, as a man, I can't control my first thought, but I can't control my second thought. But you see it, you look away and you're thinking, what the heck is going on? No wonder why this crime is the fastest growing crime in the world, is because distortion of you know, broken families and the distortion from young people of what, you know, because they want to be accepted somewhere, somehow, for some reason. And it's just it's it's so broken right now. It's it's pretty disheartening. You know, I said something earlier, you know, about being in the church. There recently was a um a uh uh uh a poll taken. 54 percent um of licensed pastors viewed a porn site in the last two weeks. I'm not saying they're addicted, but they went to a porn site in the last two weeks. That's 54% who admitted that they went to a porn site in the last two weeks. So again, I you know, wherever I go at concerts, I say, men, we have to do not a much better job. We've got to, we've got to really work on one of those fruits of the spirit called self-control. You know, I'm a man, I'm very visual, I get that. My wife and I have talked about it. It's okay, I think, to be walking down the street. You see a beautiful person, they're a beautiful person. But now what do you do with that thought? Do you lust? Do you fantasize? Do you daydream? Do you wish? Do you covet? You know? Um, and those are the things is a man who's trying to um follow the lead of the Holy Spirit, to a man who's trying to be the best husband and father he can be, um, that's where we got to raise the bar and say, I'm better than that. You know, I can't have self-control. And I'm gonna, our kids are watching us. Gosh, I'm chasing a rabbit. Men, our kids are watching us. When you go to that sporting event with your kids and your wife's not there, the way you look at other women, they see, because I saw. I saw, I saw adult men who I really respected not have self-control. And it was really, it broke my heart with people who I really respected thinking, what's that all about? So again, I you know, there's so much going on with this.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

We had a revival in our community, and one of the things that we were praying was for men to get back into a place where they were leading and they were strong leaders, and they were repentant of the sin, you know, and asking for the Lord's help to become stronger in their faith and ask for the guidance. But the flip side of all of that happening is that at those sporting events, women are very detailed, they see a lot, you know, they're taking everything in. And because they're so detailed, they're picking up on the fact that that man is looking at another woman. And for the wife at home, or you know, the woman at home, it could be even a daughter. There's a betrayal that happens within that woman, and that betrayal starts to stem other things for that woman, feeling unworthy, you know, feeling unworthy, and then the train of thoughts that rippling effect that that has on her and her self-worth. And then because you know, if there is a man or if there is an enemy a man in her life, they're now searching for that. And for a lot of women, for a lot of women, they lose the sight of our father in heaven because they're in this earthly body and they're looking for the earthly thing to satisfy.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

Yeah, that's that's a that's a good point. That's a good point. It's um, you know, I I I shared this stat the other night. I was I was at a Ben Fuller concert of Birmingham, Alabama. There's 13,000 animal shelters in the country, and I'm not against animals, but there's 13,000 animal shelters, and yet there's only 800 rooms where if a woman or child is rescued from trafficking today, they can go in to and sleep tonight knowing the doorknob is not gonna turn because someone's looking for something. You know, we have to do better. And I think, you know, even today, this podcast, people are being educated. You you you've got to understand this is everywhere. It's happening right down the street. It's happening in the rich suburbs, it's happening in the inner city. It's happening to the rich, and it's happening to the poor, it's happening to the white, the black, and the brown. It's happening everywhere.

Safe Houses, Prevention, And Taking Action

SPEAKER_00 43:40

And so you need to learn, you need to understand where it's happening, how it's happening. And then my question to you as a Christfaller, what's your role knowing what you know now? What's your role in the healing process? What's your role? Are you to become an activist to talk to your local elected leaders? Why are we letting that massage parlor stay open when we all know that yesterday I stood outside and there are 84 men came in, 84 men came out, not one lady went for a massage. Hello? It's not a real massage parlor. It's something different. Well, what about that strip joint? What about more, you know, in Texas? I'm not going to name the city because I'm going to blow someone in, but a major city in Texas, one of our partners, they talked to a local elected leader, and he just said, you know, we get so much money from those people when we run our campaigns, it'd be hard for us to draw a line in the sand because we're biting the hand that helps feeding us, duh, right? So when are we going to say enough's enough? You know, and that's why A.D. Zope started the Safe House Ministry. You know, five years ago I said, enough's enough. We've got to, we've got to be part of the solution. We're going to educate. We're going to do our best to try to prevent. But for those who've been rescued, where can they get the emotional, physical, and spiritual help they need? And so now here we are, five years later, facilities in South Dakota, Texas, Indiana, New York, Tennessee, Mississippi, you know, from coast to coast. Next in two weeks, we'll be in Florida. We'll be back in Memphis, Tennessee. Uh, we've worked with Tim Tebow in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Uh, we've worked with Frank Reich, an NFL coach in Indianapolis, Indiana. Uh, we built the largest campus in the world for teenage girls in Ohio. It's been full since the day we opened it up. So we're going to continue to do what we've been called to do. But what is what is your role? You can't just learn what you just learned the last 35 minutes and act like you didn't hear what you heard. Here's what you can do: you can pray. Pray for organizations. Go to our website, eightdaysope.com, and and learn how you can become a prayer warrior with a facility that's nearby. Volunteer. Come hang out with us. Maybe you've been gifted with your hands. Come build a facility for women and child and do it for the kingdom. Uh, and I also tell people donate. You know, we have partners that cover off our fixed cost. And if you donate at adealope.com or and I'll tell you at the end another way you can donate, but 100% of your dollars will be will be sent to build another facility for women and children rescue for trafficking. So you can't listen to this podcast and do nothing. I mean, you can, but then you're not part of the solution. I don't know. But as for me and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord. And if I see a broken heart, I'm gonna do all I can to use the gifts God's given me to help heal that heart to the best of my ability.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Yes, amen to that. I mean, praying for salvation of the lost is huge because everything that we're talking about is just that right there in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

And I wanted to ask too I mean, we have a a term called Stockholm Syndrome, where people that have been abused or have been put in these circumstances, they go back to that because they're too afraid of the danger of leaving. And I, you know, I have a dear friend right now who is in Belgium and she's working in a cafe to help transition people out of trafficking. And one of the things that she had shared with me is that a lot of women are afraid to leave because they have a child. So when they have that brief moment, that window where they can exit, they don't because they go back because of you know, that there's a child or or someone else pulling it.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Yeah, so there's a lot of challenges. One, their ID is taken from them, so they don't have identification, their credit has been messed up by the trafficker. So, you know, chances are they've hooked them on some type of a drug. So when you have no ID, when you have no credit, when um you you have no money, and when they say, Oh, and if you leave, we know where your sister lives, and just know that next time she goes to the mall, she might not come home. So it's all this stuff that's going on. And that's why the facilities we built, they offer all the care for free. You know, we built a 12-apartment building in Sioux Falls, South Dakota for a ministry called Call to Freedom. Women who are rescued from trafficking go through about 12 months, 18 months of healing. They're reunited with their children, and they can live there in this apartment complex with a full-time counselor 24-7 downstairs. So when they have a challenge and they have a temptation to go back to the drug they remembered a year ago, maybe not thinking about the trafficker, but thinking about that drug because that's how I'm gonna handle the stress. They have a way they can go and talk to somebody, connect with, and be prayed with and encouraged and counseled and coached not to fall on that track. That facility that was full seven days after we left. It's been full for the last three and a half years, it's been open. And so we're gonna continue to build these facilities, but we all need to know that there's no quick fix here. You know, sometimes these women, adult women, um, you know, they've been hooked on drugs. They, again, uh they're they're they'll be blackmailed in a minute, or or or they're they're again, like I said a second ago, we know where your family lives. You know, um, you know, we showed a video at the concert you were at, and this happens too. There are girls that are being trafficked that actually live at home. And I know that's confusing to some people. It's about six, seven percent, but six percent of people trafficked, they've been groomed by somebody and manipulated through their mind that they um are loved and they go out and they do these these acts to bring money back to their trafficker, and then they go home at night like nothing ever happened. It's a small group, but it so it looks so many different ways and it happens so many different ways, but yet it's all around us. And so it's not one way. It's at the strip droid, it's the massage bar, it's the kid who's been groomed, it's been it's been the one that was taken. It was the one who thought they were in love with her boyfriend from the next town over to find out he's a 38-year-old man, and she sends them new pictures, and so he's gonna use that to blackmail her if she doesn't do this for him. So it looks a lot of different ways, but um, no matter which way it looks, it's it's unacceptable, and we've got to do something about it.

SPEAKER_01 50:39

Yeah, and personally, I mean, the Lord put this on you, and you're doing a phenomenal job facilitating everything that you're sharing, you know, with the audience. So that's amazing.

The Doorknob Story And A Call To Serve

SPEAKER_01 50:51

And and we know we can't do this by ourselves, right? Like it is the Lord that does that, but I wonder what challenges you personally with all of this responsibility, because I mean, at some at some part of all of this, there's probably a a little bit of a burden sitting on your heart, you know, like I have to do this and do as much as I can.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

You know, I have three daughters and I have um three granddaughters, and um those women and children being, you know, those women are being trafficked, they're someone's daughter. And so I have whole high hopes for my kids and my grandkids. But how can I ignore the fact that the average age of a child trafficked in America 88% of the time is an American citizen, by the way, but the average age is 12 and a half. How do I hear that and not do something about it? Now you're right. That's a very interesting question. I've met a girl, teenage girl, Mr. Steve, thank you for building this campus. And I always joke, well, I didn't build it, you know, I'm not very good with my hands. They're like, come on, you're the founder, thank you for building it. And and and I said, Well, what do you like most about it? And here's what you said I go to bed at night in my own bedroom, and I have my own bathroom, and when I shut the door, I know for a fact that doorknob is not gonna turn six or eight times that night. Now think about that. That doorknob is not gonna turn six or eight times that night. This young lady was trafficked for about nine months, and she she doubted that even a God could exist because why would he allow this to happen? But during her healing process, she met Jesus, she understood that trafficking happens because of sin. And um she now is uh doing kingdom work, she's working at a ministry, uh helping women and children who've been rescued from trafficking during the healing process. And so you can't meet those ladies, that young that lady who was a young girl, hear her story and forget it. I'll never forget it. Her eyes swelled with tears. Thank you, Mr. Steve. That doorknob is not gonna turn eight times tonight. I mean, good night. We're talking about the United States of America, I think the greatest country in the world, and yet it's rampant. It's rampant, and yet we all know it's existing. We want to keep looking ahead because if I look over there, it's messy. I'll have to get involved. Oh, that's gonna be tough. I don't know if I can handle that story, but how could I how can I not handle that story when that young lady experienced what she did for those nine months? That's the least I should do. Could do. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:58

And I feel like everyone has a story that you take your pain and turn it into purpose, and you use what the Lord's given you to move forward. And if you do it, as long as you're totally obedient and you're fully surrendered, the Lord is going to use you in a mighty way. And that's exactly what you have outlined, outlined in this podcast today, how God has used you mightily. And I just love all of that. And I think that's why, you know, when I was in the audience, it just brought me to tears. And my friend that I was with, I was her plus one because her boyfriend broke up with her, and she was like, You're coming, and I'm gonna give a baby Jesus to Ben Fuller. And she walked right up to him and handed the baby Jesus to him.

SPEAKER_00 54:48

Of course she did.

SPEAKER_01 54:50

And I was like, that was the most amazing thing ever.

SPEAKER_00 54:54

I love it, I love it, I love it. I remember I remember seeing it on the bus that night.

SPEAKER_01 54:58

Yeah, but honestly, I I went there to support her and had no idea how much of an impact I would have leaving that show and that evening. And I feel so deeply around this issue because of my own personal story. And I feel so deeply about this issue because I know what the Lord can do with each and every one of us in a mighty way. And I understand the generational impact that trauma has on an individual. So this isn't just something that is happening to one person when they're trafficked. It's happening to generations, future generations. So we have to be really aware that helping these people should be first and foremost front and center, because it is it's it's happening to all of us as brothers and sisters in Christ, right? Like we're all interconnected.

SPEAKER_00 55:58

Absolutely. You know, uh what some of the facilities that we worked with or built, they not only counsel the woman or child rescued, but they counsel the family. Because how does a family handle that? When they find out their daughter, who's been missing for three months, has been found in Ohio and she's been trafficked hundreds of times. She's hooked on drugs because that's how they kind of kept control of her. She comes home after all that trauma. She's got multiple diseases and she's broken as a child. How do you as a family, how do you handle that? I mean, living life as hard as it is, right? With the ups and downs of life, right? With the things that we think are bad, like, you know, you know, my I blew my tire today, or or my boss is asking me to work for two more hours. I mean, we're talking about serious trauma here that, you know, my wife and I, you know, we've adopted five children, and and not all of them came at birth. And some of them came with with some trauma. And, you know, when they came, I didn't get a manual with them saying, and when they do this, do this. You know, you spend a lot of time on your knees and you're praying, and you made you make mistakes and you learn and you're just trying to figure out. But to your point, when someone's gone through something that traumatic, it affects everyone around them. And that will affect their future spouse and their kids and the way they raise people and raise kids. And so it's it's that's why they need that healing. They need that that counseling, that medical care, that emotional care, that spiritual care when they come from a situation like that.

SPEAKER_01 57:32

Yeah.

Use Your Gifts For Kingdom Impact

SPEAKER_01 57:33

Steve, I am so appreciative of your time and doing this show. And I always ask every single one of my guests if I were to pick up your earth angel feather off the ground, what would your message to the world be?

SPEAKER_00 57:45

When God created you, he gave you some unique gifts. And those gifts aren't for us, right? When I met Jesus in 1993, he gave me his son as a gift for my salvation. And the gifts he gave me, now my gift back to him is how I use that. And so, you know, we have built 12,000 homes, 21 facilities. That's not my gift. I've never built anything, I've never handled a hammer. But the gifts he gave me, either in leadership or organizational or finances, he puts us, he connects all the dots. And so be ready to use your gifts. But find a way to use your gifts to do a kingdom impact, not just to provide for your family, not just so you can be promoted or feel good about your journey. There's nothing wrong with that. But find ways to use your gifts for the kingdom, and that's your gift back to him.

SPEAKER_01 58:43

Thank you so, so much. I so appreciate everything that you shared. Please have me on again down the road. Bring me back. I definitely will. And for my for my audience, this is Catherine Daniels with Retreat to Peace. And we're just wishing you a wonderful day and live your authentic life in peace. And as always, Retreat to Peace.