She's Fighting Human Trafficking One Girl at a Time | Becky Murray | One By One

What happens when a 50p pair of flip flops changes the entire trajectory of your life?

In this episode of the Dear Christian Girl Podcast, I sit down with Becky Murray, founder and CEO of One By One, author, and the longest-serving female presenter on TBN UK.

Becky shares the moment that changed everything: a missions trip to Sierra Leone in 2006, a 9-year-old orphan named Felicity, and a pair of pink flip flops that cost 50p. What happened next broke Becky's heart and set the course for the rest of her life.

From a 13-year waiting season to a global movement reaching over 50,000 girls across five continents, this is a story about obedience, faithfulness, and what God does when you trust the journey.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The Sierra Leone moment that changed Becky's life
• How period poverty creates a pathway to human trafficking
• The Dignity Project and its global reach
• Trusting God through 13 years of waiting
• How you can support the fight against human trafficking

CONNECT WITH BECKY & ONE BY ONE: 

🌍 www.onebyone.org 

Instagram: @onebyoneintl 

Becky's personal instagram: @becky1by1

This podcast is hosted by Mo! 

TAKE THE QUIZ:

What Type of PK are you? https://moyosoresomide.com/470-2/

Are you living a double life as a Christian?  Take this Quiz to find out?: https://moyosoresomide.com/quiz-2/

Connect with Mo on Instagram ,  YouTube and Substack or through her website: moyosoresomide.com 

Support the show by leaving a five star rating and review.

Thank you 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

So off little Deborah goes, age ten, to go get water. When on the journey, she bumps into a family friend. So this man was not a stranger to her. He'd been in her home even before. And he said to her, Oh, why don't you come with me? I want to get a gift for your big sister. And so here's a man who's not a stranger. She'd learnt about stranger danger at school. She's a very wise little girl. But he wasn't a stranger. And he was claiming he wanted to do something lovely for her big sister. And so Deborah, forgetting all about the water, goes off with this man thinking she's gonna help choose a gift for her sister. Sadly, this man had very different intentions. He took her to an isolated field. It was actually a sugar plantation, where firstly he raped her. That's often what traffickers do in order to induct, as they would call it. He raped her, and then he began to sell her to other passers-by, and he would obviously take the profits from that. And at the end of the day, Deborah just laid motionless on the floor. And so, in order to make sure he was covering his tracks, he then strangled her and put her little 10-year-old body into a sugar sack and tied it, thinking she was dead, and off he ran with all the profits from everyone who paid to use her little body that day. Well, mercifully, someone walked past the sugar plantation and saw the sugar sack moving, and they actually thought it was an animal that had got trapped in this bag. They undid it and to their shock that it was a 10-year-old little girl.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Good morning, everyone. So I have a cold today, so my voice is a little muffled, so please bear with me. My guest today is someone you definitely want to hear from because her story is very, very inspiring. Becky Murray is the founder of One by One, a Christian non-for-profit dedicated to ending human trafficking. Now, her journey began after meeting a young girl on the streets of Syria alone who thought Becky had bought her shoes in exchange for sex, and this was an encounter that compelled Becky to abandon her plans to become a lawyer and dedicate her life to fighting exploitation. Now, today, one by one walks across Kenya, Pakistan, Uganda, the UK, and the USA, and they bring freedom to many lives. Now, Becky has been invited to speak at the House of Parliament, the White House, you know, on topics of human trafficking, and she's the longest-serving female presenter on TBN UK. She's also the author of Embrace the Journey. Thank you so much, Becky, for joining me today. Your story is so inspiring. As I was, you know, reading your bio, reading up about you, I was like, wow, wow, wow. I just kept getting uh wowed. So thank you so much for you know giving me your time and being here on the on the show today.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Absolute pleasure. Delighted to meet you and be with um all your followers today.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Thank you. So we'll just jump right into it because I feel like we have a lot to um a lot to talk about and a lot to unpack today. Um, so can you please just tell us a little bit about your yourself, your upbringing? Um, did you grow up in a Christian home? I feel like a lot of people would like to understand the background, you know, before we get to where we are today.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Of course. Yes, so uh I'm a wife and a mom. I have a 14-year-old boy, which basically means I am going through that wonderful transition of the boy who is still my baby in my head, thinking he's now an adult, um, and all that that entails when you're raising a teenager. Um, but yes, in terms of my upbringing, I was brought up in a Christian family. So basically, I mean, my mum and dad were so active in church. I felt like I lived in church growing up, like every night of the week, I felt like there was a prayer meeting or a Bible study or a youth meeting. Um, and I would love to say I absolutely loved that through my teen years, but uh that would be a lie. Um however, my mum and dad, I got to see what they were like in public in the church life and what they were like behind the scenes, and they were just incredible role models. I am entirely grateful to my parents. My dad passionately loved Jesus. You could commonly find him crying into the Bible. We joked that my dad had a soggy Bible because he would read a scripture that he'd read a thousand times before, but all of a sudden the Holy Spirit just enlightened something in a fresh way, and it would make him weep into it. And it just, yeah, I'm I'm forever grateful for my parents and everything that they put into me as a very little girl.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

That's fantastic to hear because I've interviewed a couple of people who didn't necessarily have great role models. So in church or in public, you know, their parents were something else, and at home or in the background, it was something different, and that um affected their faith in a way because they're like, I cannot reconcile who you are in church or who you are in public to who you are at home. So I'm glad to hear, you know, that your parents were wonderful role models, and it was the same thing they were, you know, um doing in church. But were they preachers? Sorry, are they are they preachers?

SPEAKER_01 5:48

My dad, uh so my dad's now with Jesus, um, but he was a lay preacher, so he was an elder in our home church, and then he was a lay preacher, so he would go around lots of other local churches in our region uh preaching. He was a great Bible teacher and just genuinely lived what he preached as well. That's that's great to hear.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

What about your mum as well?

SPEAKER_01 6:11

My mom, again, just a beautiful mummy. My mom is still with us, thankfully. So I got to take her out yesterday, go for a cafe together. And um, yeah, just a beautiful woman. They both lived very simple lives. So my dad was a postman when he went lived on the earth. I don't know if you call it the same thing in the US as we do in the UK. Uh, but yeah, he would deliver mail basically around different housing estates. And then my mum was a cleaner and still is to this day, still a cleaner, so very humble, what we would call in the UK, a working class upbringing. Um, so I was entitled to like free school meals, and like we did not come from a wealthy family at all, but they were incredibly loving and loved Jesus, and that was first and foremost in our household as I was growing up as a little girl.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

That's good to hear, and I liked or I chuckled a little when you said you would spend almost all nights, you know, in in church, and I had the same experience as well growing up, and in in that moment, you don't necessarily like it because you're like, oh, I just want to do something else or be somewhere else. But when you get older, you realize that was forming, you know, a solid foundation, and you know, you realize how much uh how much training, you know, that that um that has given you, and that is, you know, that has helped with respect to your um your Christian and spiritual life today. So I'm I'm glad to hear that.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Absolutely. I think it puts a foundation in you that's just with you for life, then in the good times and the bad times, that you've got a foundation there that's not dictated to by your circumstances, but it's a real depth to who you are in Christ. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

So when I was reading your bio, I found that line, there's a line I found very interesting. I wanted to talk about it. So um, about you had bought shoes for a young girl on the streets of Syria alone, and you know, it seemed like that sort of set you on a path to fighting human trafficking. So that's a very sensitive and and um heavy and very important topic today, and it's so great to see, you know, you as a Christian um lady in that space because God, you know, has called you into that space and God is using you mightily in that space. So I just wanted to talk about go back to the beginning, if you could just you know tell us about that story.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Absolutely. So I went on a short-term missions trip with my local church. Basically, the pastor's son of the church I attended, he got saved. And within weeks to months, I could see there was something on his life, like he was not gonna be a church attender, like he was so hungry for God and the presence of God, and he was just born to be an evangelist, and so he went and started doing like gospel campaigns around different parts of the world from you don't have been saved maybe a year, two years, and already was doing this big gospel campaigns, and that was amazing, but it was for him. Um, however, I always had a burden in terms of I don't believe you can say to a hungry man living on the streets that God loves you and then walk on by and leave him hungry. The Jesus I read about in the gospel was very practical in showing that love as well as then ministering to their souls, and so he invited me to go along to Sierra Leone with him to do a big feeding program, as he was going to do in big this big gospel campaign. And so I agreed to go. And this particular day I encountered a nine-year-old who lived on the streets, she was a total orphan, so her mum and dad had both passed, and she would just beg on the streets from day to day in order just to survive. And when I met her, I noticed she simply had no shoes. Now I do a lot of work now in rural parts of Africa and see that that's actually quite common. But back then, back in 2006, this was literally only my second ever time in on the African continent, and I was just so moved to see a little girl who didn't even have a pair of shoes to her name. And so at that time, I was actually a student, and so I'd saved up all of my money just to get on the short-terms missions trip. So by the time I'm there, I've barely got anything left. But what I did have was the English equivalent of 50 pence. So that would be what 60, 70 cents at most. And with my very feeble gift of this 50 pence, I bought her a pink pair of flip-flops to match the pink t-shirt that she was wearing. And then I'd said to her, okay, come back this evening. The friend that I'm working with is holding a big gospel campaign. Come and hear all about this Jesus that I've been telling you about. And so it came to the evening, and myself and the whole team were stood outside the hotel waiting for the cars to go on to the big gospel campaign that was being held in this big stadium in the city centre. And I'll never forget it. I remember looking up the street and seeing this little nine-year-old running towards us. She got this huge smile on her face because for the first time in her life, she's wearing shoes. And she'd asked locals, okay, where are the English team staying? And so the locals had said, Oh, I think they're in such and such hotel. And so she came to the hotel to find us, and she said to me, Becky, should I wait in the hotel? And I was like, No, we're literally we're waiting outside the hotel, we're just about to get in the cars. I'm sure there's space in one of the vehicles for you to come with us to the big stadium, come and hear all about Jesus. And again, she said, Yes, but shouldn't I wait in your bedroom? I think if this nine-year-old girl had asked one of the men on the team that question, I would have immediately understood what she was asking. Yeah, but coming from a Christian background, I was in my early 20s at the time. I literally couldn't comprehend what the question even was. And so I asked her a third time, and sure enough, she thought that I'd spent 50 pence on her so that I could have her body, uh, that I could have sex with her. And in that moment, I was so broken and so angry. I think it was anger that I felt, not at the little girl, obviously, but at the fact that this nine-year-old had been so abused living on the streets by both men and women, that she presumed I was trying to buy her body for the sake of 50 pence. And in that moment, she put a face to a global problem. The reality is there's over 50 million people today modern-day slavery. But I think sometimes, Moya, when we hear a stat like 50 million, it's so big, it's so big of a statistic that it, you know, it's easy to dehumanize it. Whereas this little nine-year-old put a face to a global problem, and she became what I call my non-negotiable moment of I have to give my life to this. This is not no longer an option, this is not something I get to pick or choose at. But for the fact that a nine-year-old could think it over a pair of flip-flops really scarred me in order to do something about it.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Well, I'm having a response right now. The story breaks my it breaks my heart. And did you ever feel a calling before that day um, you know, towards issues like this, or was that the first time like you felt a burden in your heart about these issues?

SPEAKER_01 14:23

So I'd always been passionate about justice and tackling injustice, which is why as a young girl, I thought I would go into law. Like the fact that it came with a beautiful wage packet was great as well, obviously. Um, but I thought I would tackle injustice by becoming a lawyer and fighting for justice through the law. But when I met this little girl, I had already had kind of a promise in my heart from God before that about working with vulnerable children. But again, I had no idea what that would look like. There was no kind of clear writing on the wall about you know running some sort of vulnerable center, but I just knew I would work with vulnerable children in some capacity to do with justice. And then when I met this nine-year-old in Sierra Leone, she literally put a face to that. And once once you see a pair of eyes looking at you, thinking that you want to exploit them, it it makes it personal. It wasn't just some problem on the other side of the world to me. All of a sudden, this was personal, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt, that this was the call on my life in terms of what I'm supposed to do, my passion and my purpose colliding right there in that moment.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

I love it. Um, so take us back. How did one by one start? So, when you, you know, went back home, did you immediately register the NGO and start running? Or did it take a while before that idea came came to life?

SPEAKER_01 16:02

It it took a while, to be honest. I was determined to wait for what I believed to be my Isaac. I'd met so many people who felt like they had this promise from God and then they tried to help God, especially as females, there's something in us girls where we try to help God out. Like we forget that we were the stars into the sky and literally formed our bodies in our mother's wombs. But because we're female, we still try to help him, like he needs our input. Um, and so I had this promise about working with vulnerable kids, but I was determined to wait for my Isaac and not create an Ishmael in my life by trying to help God out. And so I went through a 13-year waiting period between feeling like I had this promise from God when I was 18, to then I met Felicity a few years after that, that was the nine-year-old, and then finally, um in 2012, I finally opened the doors to our first center, and we actually called the organization one by one, because the reality is, I think if someone, if some prophet had come into my life as a young teenage girl, or even in my early 20s, and said, Okay, you will work with thousands of kids across the world, I would have said, You've got the wrong girl. Like, I'm a nobody, like I'm quite shy by nature, I'm a behind the scenes kind of girl. I come from a working class background where my parents didn't have much money. We we don't come from influence, like I'm a nobody. So, no, go and ask somebody else. Like, I think of Moses all the time in terms of when God comes to Moses at the burning bush and says, Will you go and set my people free? And Moses is so honest, he's like, No, five times Moses tries to put God off because it feels too big and too scary. But God, in his wisdom, didn't tell me that we would now be working with thousands of kids across the world, he put one little girl across my path, and the promise was can you help that one neighbor? Will you help that one person? Be that good Samaritan to the neighbor who comes across you today. And it starts off very simple and very small, but when we say yes to God, even in the small details of our life, it enables him to begin to open the doors to the next step and the next step. When now we do have the absolute honor of working with thousands of kids globally, but it started with that one child in Sierra Leone, and I will be forever grateful for that because I would have shrunk back and said, No, God, like ask someone else, ask someone who's more confident or more bold than I am. Like, I can't work with thousands of kids, but one kid, okay, I can help buy one kid a pair of shoes, and then that next one child, I can help them in a feeling program, or that first one residential center in Kenya. Okay, yeah, I can do one residential center, and Jesus in his wisdom gave me one piece of the jigsaw puzzle at a time, and I am delighted he did because I honestly think I would have shrunk back otherwise and said it's too big, it's too hard. Ask someone else, God.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Well, you said a lot of things, and I love the idea behind the name one by one, and I like how you tie it into obedience, like when he gives one simple instruction, you just obey. Because sometimes I know sometimes I feel like God, I want to see the the big picture, I want to see everything, but if God shows you everything, can you really handle can you really handle it? So, you know, I like that you touch on just obeying God, just following the puzzle, just little by little, and just watch him lead you, you know, into what he he has planned for you, and just doing it one by one. I I love the name because I was gonna ask, like, how did you come up, you know, with the name of one by one? Because it's such a unique name. I've never heard anything like that before. So, are you still in touch with that little girl from Syria Loone?

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Oh my oh, I wish that is that's the question I get asked the most, and it's probably my most painful question because the reality is back in 2006, I was just a student. Like I was a girl with all these dreams and passions, but there was no non-profit, there was no residential center, there was no place to signpost this little girl. Now, what we did have the honor of is taking her to the gospel campaign, and actually, a man who used to beg on the same street as her, he was either deaf or blind. It was like one of the big miracles, and he received his healing that night, and she saw that first hand, and she knew this is the man I've begged on the same street as. Like, I guess in her eyes, he was her competition in terms of like money from people, yeah, and suddenly he's healed, and so she saw that this Jesus we've been talking about really is real, and so she gave her heart to Christ that night, which was beautiful, and I really do believe that one day in eternity, yeah, I will finally get to meet her and tell her that because of her impact on my life, thousands of children have now been reached and helped and rescued around the world. But the reality is on this side of eternity, we've gone back to Sierra Leone. Twice since meeting her and attempted to find her, and sadly not been able to. So if that little girl is alive today, she'll now be in her 20s. Is that right? Or maybe in 2006, she was nine, so I'm terrible at maths, whatever the mark is on that. She's an adult now, if she's still alive. But the reality is, I don't even know if this vulnerable little girl is even dead or alive today. What I do know is that every time we are seeking for that next one child, that next one family's trapped in slavery today, it's like I'm rescuing Felicity again and again and again. And so she drives me on to keep going, to not sit back and rest that okay, we've managed to help thousands of kids so far. So now I can sit back and just wait for heaven. She's actually my inspiration to keep pushing to keep going for that next one life.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Wow. And I strongly believe that you gave Felicity the greatest gift of all, which was introducing her to Christ, you know, that night to give her heart to Christ. That's the biggest miracle, you know, that can ever happen. And also witnessing another miracle, like that that's a test, a huge testimony. And then this big organization that has gone on to do wondrous, you know, and tremendous things, you know, was also born out of that meeting with her. So many, many testimonies for sure. So now I want us to just talk about the work that one by one does. So I you know went on the website, I learned about the dignity project, you know, it's reached over 50,000 girls. Can you just walk us through, you know, the work that one by one does? I'm also interested in learning. Did you start your first um office or outreach in the UK? Or like where where did the first one start from?

SPEAKER_01 23:56

So I registered in the UK first because obviously that's where I'm from, and I'm an English girl. So I registered as a charity because as soon as you register the organization, you could just be a ministry and that's fine. But there's there's a a check that comes with charities where you are governed by the charity commission so that they can see that you are spending money wisely, and that's that's monitored and managed. And so it just shows good credibility to register as a charity, as they would call it in the UK. And so, literally within a little while after registering in the UK, I also registered then as a nonprofit in the US as well, for the same reason, just to show credibility that we're wise with finances, like you want to be above reproach, and so you want people to be able to go online and and check your 990 as it is in the US or in the UK, the charity commission, just to see that you are credible, you're authentic, you're real. Um, and then I was given a piece of land in Kenya. So our first center started out there, and we opened the doors to our first center for vulnerable kids on the 12th of the 12th of the 12th, which is an anniversary date that even I can remember. I joke that I have a goldfish memory because I often forget like my own birthday or my wedding anniversary, but the 12th of the 12th of the 12th is a date that is ingrained in my heart and my soul. Um, but after working in Kenya for a couple of years, I had two mums approach me and they began to approach me and ask for prayer because their kids had gone missing. And so when the first mum came, she told me her story, there was issues in the family, and so I did what she asked, which was to pray for her that her child would be found. But if I'm honest, Moyo, in my head, I rationalised away the problem. And in my mind, I thought, well, because there's tensions in the family, maybe the estranged husband has come and taken the child in the middle of the night in order to punish the mom or something like that. But then two days later, I had a second mom approach me and say, Becky, will you pray? My little girl's been missing for five months and no one knows where she is. And so I began to ask her the same questions that I'd had this ask this mom just two days prior, except this time there was no breakdown in the family, the little girl was doing well in school, she didn't have a boyfriend, so it was unlikely to be kind of a teen pregnancy and no running away. And I couldn't rationalise away how her daughter had just gone missing for five months. And so again, I prayed with the second mum, but this time when I walked away, the problem stayed with me. I began to do some local research with all the schools in our vicinity and found out, long story short, human trafficking was happening in our part of Kenya. And so when you find out it's happening on your doorstep, until that point, human trafficking was somebody else's problem. Like I'm I'm dealing with the promise that God's put on my heart, which is to help these vulnerable kids. I'm running this site in Kenya helping vulnerable children. Like I've done what you've asked me to do, God. Yeah, human trafficking, well, that's somebody else's problem. And then when you find out it's happening on your doorstep, it very much quickly becomes your problem too. And so I started to ask all the local schools to see is there a pattern to this? Is there a trend? Like, is it a certain time of year that kids are going missing? Is it a certain age group? Is it a certain gender? And as I went around lots of the school, the one common denominator that arose again and again and again from lots of schools was period poverty. So, in other words, in rural regions where girls start their cycles, they don't have the products in order to enable them to still go to school that week of the month. And so many girls would try and use, you know, grass or old rags, but that would lead to infections and they're missing even more school. Or for that week of the month, they would just stay at home and kind of ride it out. Yeah. And that was the one common denominator across all the schools that I interviewed. That was the one thing where these girls were doing so well in education, and then as soon as they start their cycles, their attendance drops, their success rates drops in all the tests, and then many of them fully drop out of education. And this is still in primary school, so elementary, as you would say, in elementary schools, not even getting on to high school. And so I thought, well, what if we can get to the girls before the traffickers? What if we go into elementary schools, given reusable sanitary products so that she can stay in school every week of the month and maintain her dignity, maintain her health, but still get the same education as the boys in her class, and then combine that with um training all around human trafficking. What does it look like? What are the tactics that traffickers use to try and entice children away? Because Hollywood would show movies where girls are kidnapped off the street in trafficking, and that can happen and does happen, but it's far more rare. Actually, the vast majority of trafficking victims go willingly with the traffickers because they've been deceived. And again, Moyo, I thought it was just for the little village we were based in in Kenya. There were no grand schemes to take this globally. We thought it was just for our village. And so I remember we put on the first dignity event in September 2015, it was. So we firstly got invited to other parts of Kenya to go do it, then other nations, then other continents. And now we've taken it across more than 13 countries, covering five continents, uh, reaching more than 50,000 girls so far. But again, it started just because of two moms asking me for prayer. And again, it's the goodness of God in terms of if God had came to me through some prophet and said, right, start this prevention program to reach five continents, I'd have been like, uh, wrong girl, powerful and influential and rich or whatever. But again, God in his wisdom, just like the little girl in Sierra Leone, he came with two moms in Kenya just asking for prayer. And I always believe if we will say yes to God and be faithful in that very small beginning, he's the one that then opens up doors, whether that's doors to different governments and nations and continents, in order to reach people with his love. And the beautiful part of the dignity project is we're able to explain to these precious girls that no price can be put on your life because the highest price has already been paid for you through Jesus Christ, and because the dignity project is so practical dealing with trafficking and period poverty, because it's so practical, doors are open to that that would not necessarily ordinarily be open to the gospel of Jesus, but we're able to go straight in with his love in a very real and practical way.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Wow, you're doing a fantastic job, Becky. Like you're doing a fantastic job, and I'm listening to how you continue to take it back, you know, to felicity, and then the two ladies, like you know, that was just not a random moment, that was a God moment where God was God sent them your way because of a bigger project that He wanted to use you, you know, to handle. And um, the dignity project, you know, I again went on the website, read, read a lot about it. Is it I see that I think you took it to the um house of parliaments, like there was a uh launch in the house of parliament. I'm interested in learning because poverty, period poverty, right? That's very popular in you know, rural parts of Kenya and some parts of Africa. Like, is that also a thing, like in the UK and in the US? Like, can you tell me more about that?

SPEAKER_01 33:31

Yeah, sadly, it is. So, obviously, the dignity project has two main focuses: one is the period poverty and one is the trafficking element. So, in terms of period poverty, you will no matter where in the world, so including in America and in the UK, you will come across families who maybe either the parents are struggling financially and just simply can't afford, or it commonly happens where it's families where maybe one of the parents is has a dependency on a substance, alcohol or drugs, and therefore finances are prioritized towards that as opposed to the very practical needs that exist, and so it's not period poverty is not limited to parts of Africa or Asia, it's absolutely across the North of America and across Europe, across what we would consider to be financial, financially capable countries. So you've got that side of things, but then also the trafficking side of things again, trafficking is not limited to Africa or poor nations. Trafficking happens in every single nation, including yours and including mine. Ironically, the town I was born in in England is called Rotherham, and Rotherham is on the map in England for human trafficking, where gangs come in and groom girls from vulnerable families or groom anyone that they can really, in order to get whether that's for sexual exploitation, or it's it's in the West, it's mainly been for sexual exploitation, but trafficking can take on many forms, whether that's for domestic servitude, forced labor, you know, um forced marriage, all that kind of stuff, all comes under and uh the slavery, modern-day slavery. And sadly, trafficking happens in every single nation, not just it's not limited to Africa and Asia or poorer places that we would think of. It happens on every single person's doorstep. And that was my wake-up call, really, because after discovering it was happening right there in Kenya, I then looked a lot closer to home at my hometown and realized, oh my goodness, it's it's rampant in my hometown, not just Kenya. And so the Dingy project really is needed everywhere because period poverty and human trafficking are everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Wow. Um, speaking about human trafficking, I'm interested in learning like how do you help these ladies? Do you provide like legal services for them, or you know, is it just I guess um helping financially? Like I, you know, also saw that there was the the Mercy Center as well, but I know that's in Uganda. I know there are different projects, and I'm you know, just asking about many different things, but uh interested in just learning more about that.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

So, our main angle is prevention and protection. So, prevention, we do that obviously through the Digness Project, as I've just explained, but we also go into medical centres, for example, and make them aware of the red flags to look out for that this patient could also well be a victim of modern-day slavery and therefore what to do in terms of reporting. We also do a work across different churches called Churches Against Trafficking, because churches look out for the very people in society that traffickers are often trying to target. In other words, marginalized, vulnerable people who are on the edge of community or society for whatever reason, the very people churches are trying to reach out to can sometimes be the people that traffickers are targeting. So, again, if we can make churches aware of what to be aware of in their own community, what to look out for and how to help those people, then we can equip the church to be the eyes and ears within every community around the world. And so we do lots of prevention work in that sense. And then in terms of protection, we have different types of residential centres. So the center in Kenya. We also have a safe house in Pakistan for children that are rescued out of brick factories. So they were born into bonded labor, working from the age of three to make bricks, often working 14 hours a day alongside their parents to make bricks for a wealthy brickmaster. So we have a safe house there for children being rescued out of the brick kilns. And then, as you said, the Mercy Center is our newest. We opened that in May 25, and that's for little girls, so 17 and under, being rescued out of trafficking. And they come to our center for anything from three up to six months, where we do lots of trauma counseling and therapy, as well as medical care, education catch-up classes, and then we get them back into family-centered care, whether that's with their own biological family or with foster families, if their families were involved in the trafficking. And to see what God's done in these little girls across the Mercy Center as has just been incredible. I was there a couple of months ago, and we had a little girl who we'll call her Deborah, just in order to save her um her real identity. But Deborah was 10 when her mum simply sent her out to go get water, which, if anyone's ever gone across to Africa, you'll see kids go into the well to get water all the time, all day, every day. Pretty normal. Exactly, very normal. And so off little Deborah goes, age 10, to go get water. When on the journey, she bumps into a family friend. So this man was not a stranger to her, he'd been in her home even before. And he said to her, Oh, why don't you come with me? I want to get a gift for your big sister. And so here's a man who's not a stranger. She'd learnt about stranger danger at school. She's a very wise little girl, but he wasn't a stranger, and he was claiming he wanted to do something lovely for her big sister. And so Deborah, forgetting all about the water, goes off with this man thinking she's gonna help choose a gift for her sister. Sadly, this man had very different intentions. He took her to an isolated field, it was actually a sugar plantation, where firstly he raped her. That's often what traffickers do in order to induct, as they would call it. He raped her, and then he began to sell her to other passers-by, and he would obviously take the profits from that. And at the end of the day, Deborah just laid motionless on the floor, and so, in order to make sure he was covering his tracks, he then strangled her and put her little 10-year-old body into a sugar sack and tied it, thinking she was dead, and off he ran with all the profits from everyone who'd paid to use her little body that day. Well, mercifully, someone walked past the sugar plantation and saw this sugar sack moving, and they actually thought it was an animal that had got trapped in this bag. They undid it, and to their shock, it was a 10-year-old little girl. But she was taken firstly to the police station, then to the hospital, and then straight from there, the police brought her to our centre. She was brought to us in July of 2025. She stayed in the Mercy Center till December 2025. And I went out and I met her. If I'd have not read her case file and everything she would have gone through, I would have had no idea. Because I meet this little 10-year-old who's full of joy, who wants to show me this dance that she's choreographed with her friends that she made in the Mercy Center. Start every day with a morning devotion where we share the words from God's word before we even have breakfast together. And then she's gone through all the counseling and the trauma therapy where we do cognitive behavioral therapy, but we also do art therapy and play therapy because for the younger children, they can't even always verbalize the trauma of what they've gone through. And so we do different forms of therapy and then teach the girls coping mechanisms so that when they're back in the village, they if they get triggered by, for example, with Deborah, I'm sure every time she sees a sugar sack, she's probably going to be triggered. And so we want to give the girls coping mechanisms to cope long term with their trauma and to see them fully healed. And I had the joy of being there in December 2025 of taking Deborah back home to her village. And in my head, I'd already kind of imagined what it would be like of seeing her and her mum reunited. But what I'd not realized is she had several little brothers and sisters who hadn't seen her for months. And so as soon as we pulled up in her village, they literally bombarded the vehicle, just hugging her and holding her. It was just beautiful to see this family reunited. And it's the joy of watching God in action in terms of we have the opportunity to be there for these incredibly vulnerable girls who have gone through severe trauma through the trafficking and the slavery that they've endured. And we have the honor of walking them through their trauma, of equipping them with coping mechanisms and seeing them healed physically, mentally, and spiritually, and then seeing them reunited back into family centered care. And to see that is honestly the biggest honor of my life. And to see countless girls now coming through that, being made healed and whole through the love of Jesus Christ is just so moving. And so powerful. And so, yes, all that to say, we do a lot of detention and a lot of protection work. We've done a little bit in the prosecution work, but that's more difficult in terms of you're also at the mercy of the local court system, and therefore it depends on how well their justice systems work, for example.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Well, God bless you, Becky, for all that you're doing. You're doing so much. And just in case there's someone listening, you know, who is saying, How can I help? How can I donate? Even myself, like I want to give to this cause because it's you're doing so much. You have, you know, so many residential centers. I'm sure you're traveling, you know, and you're there's a lot of finance, fight, you know, money needed to do all of these things. So, how can people donate, you know, to one by one?

SPEAKER_01 44:58

So all the information is on the website, so onebyone.org. Uh so that and that's one by one is in the spelling of the number, so o-ne-b-y-o-n-e.org. Um, so on there they can see how they can pray for the work we're doing around the world. They can give to it whether they want to do a one-time gift or they can sign up to become a freedom builder, which is our monthly program where they can give whatever it is God puts on their heart, whether it's $5 a month, $10 a month, $20, whatever, just whatever God stirs your heart to do to stand with us monthly. And then we even take teams around the world with us, delivering the dignity project in different parts. So if people want to get hands-on involved, they can sign up to come on a missions trip with us. And then if any pastors or church leaders are listening to this podcast, again, we love to get churches really involved. So they can even invite, whether it's myself or someone from one by one, to come and speak at their church about what does human trafficking look like and how can they as a church get involved to help their own community too. And so there's lots of ways. We also do a free resource, which is free to download called Churches Against Trafficking, where it's a little a little booklet that helps people to recognize what trafficking victims may look like. What are the indicators? And so, again, we want to help equip the church and equip Christians to be at the front line of standing against the giant of Goliath that is slavery today. So, yeah, check out the website. We would love to have you come join us. We're also on all the usual social media channels, whether that's Instagram, Facebook, we're even now on TikTok. I've never been cool enough to be on TikTok, but thankfully, some younger people are helping one by one to get on TikTok. So, yeah, they can find us through all the usual social media channels as well.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

Fantastic. I'll you know put the links to the website and and all the social media channels in the description box so people can, you know, easily find you. So um find the organization and you as well. Um I'm just curious, like how many staff do you have like worldwide wide? Because it's a you guys are you know in different parts of the world. And you know, once you answer that question, I want us to shift the conversation a little into leadership because you're leading a global organization. I'm interested in learning, you know, how um how you're leading that and also the effect that this may have, I guess, on your your family as well, your mom, your wife. Um, you know, you're traveling. You said you were you were um was it Kenya? Kenya and Uganda last year. So you're traveling frequently. Like, how are you able to marry all of these things, you know, into all of your responsibilities? I would like to to hear um about that, and then uh I promise I'll let you go.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

Okay, so globally we have well over a hundred staff. Wow, uh, the vast majority are on the field, as I would say. So we've got over 40 staff in Kenya, so over 30 staff in Pakistan, and 20 staff in Uganda, and then in the UK, we're a very small team in the UK, we're made up of like three people plus a few consultants, and then likewise in the US, I've got one admin girl who's based in Nashville, Tennessee, and then I have a couple of amazing consultants who are based in different states as well. So I try to maximize our staff where the children are, where our protection centers are, and really maximize that so that we're using again the nonprofit funds to the maximum that we can. In terms of leadership, I think the reality is sometimes I've probably got it right, and the reality is sometimes I've got it wrong. So I'm very driven by being on the mission field. I actually thought when I was a young girl, all my heroes who have worked in missions years gone by, have literally packed up their whole lives and gone and lived permanently on that mission field. And if I'm honest, when I was a young girl, that's what I thought my life would look like. Now the joy of hindsight is I see if I'd have moved out to Kenya back in 2012, fair enough, we may have done an amazing work in Kenya, but it may well have been restricted to just that place, possibly. I mean, you never know. God's God, isn't he? We're not. But the joy of being in the West is now we get to impact Kenya, Pakistan, Uganda, and I'm praying for more nations in the future. Yes. Um, 13 nations with the dignity project. Had I not been based in the West, then possibly that would not have happened. And so the joy of serving Jesus is I believe that if we're faithful in the here and now today, he will guide our next steps. So I'm not the kind of girl who's got a 10-year-long strategy for global domination. Like I just don't. Like if you said what nation are you going to be in next, not a clue. Because every single one of the nations has come about very organically through God moving in a certain way. So I believe my style of leadership is very much a servant leadership. I would never ask any of my staff to do something that I haven't already done. Um, and I look at how Jesus, who is the greatest leader, I look at how he served, and he was never too big to get on his knees and wash the disciples' feet. And that for me is the greatest and highest level of leadership. My heart's prayer is that I never get what we would say in the UK, too big for our boots. Do you say the same view?

SPEAKER_00 51:12

No, Canada, no, but I I I understand what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01 51:16

Okay, so never too big for our boots, never may I never think I'm too important that I can't wash somebody's feet. And so my style of leadership is a servant-hearted one, someone who's not got it all figured out. I'm I think the best way you can manage people is to be aware of both your strengths and your weaknesses. So, what I've attempted to do in one by one is be aware of okay, where am I strong? Brilliant, run with that, but where am I weak and employ staff to cover my weaknesses? So I'm a very spirit-led kind of girl, which you know it has got us to this place, but I am aware I'm not the most strategic. And so on my executive team, I bring in consultants who are very strategic in how they think, so that I try and cover for my weaknesses. And I think a good leader, one, follows the example of Christ always, and two, is aware of their weaknesses, and instead of trying to just cover them up like as if they don't have any weaknesses, instead bring on people to your team who can help equip you in those areas.

SPEAKER_00 52:33

I I love that, and so I know that the work that you do can be emotionally heavy, like it's a lot of heavy stuff, you know, what you you said about Deborah. It's not easy, you know, to deal with that kind of stuff every every time. And so I just want to know like, how do you personally cope with the weight, you know, of what you see, what you deal with, the reality of this young girls while continuing to do the work, you know, and lead effectively.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

Yeah, that's a great question. I think sometimes I sit and ball my eyes out, is the honest truth. Like, we had a little girl in Pakistan who was actually called Mercy, which is why when we got the center in Uganda, we called it the Mercy Center. And this three-year-old in Pakistan had been raped. She was a little girl born into bonded labor, and because she was just a slave, and just a girl in a nation like Pakistan where girls aren't considered as valuable. She was raped and sadly did not survive that attack, and she died as a result. And then she was just left on the floor for people to walk past because, well, she's just a girl and she's just a slave, so she's just like a piece of trash, right? And my team in Pakistan were absolutely heartbroken. And I remember them calling me saying, What can we do? And the reality was we'd just come through COVID, and COVID was really hard on small nonprofits. Um, I had people pulling out who'd been with us for years, but they could no longer find answers because they were being made redundant, and they obviously had to take care of their own family first, and rightly so. But it was a really difficult time, and I remember putting the phone down saying, let me pray about it. But in my heart, my uh, I said, not now, God. It's too difficult. One by one's not in a healthy place, we're struggling financially, like, not now, God. And all of a sudden, God brought to my mind the story of the Good Samaritan, where Jesus, it is just a story, it didn't really happen, it was just a narrative that Jesus told to explain what loving your neighbor looks like. And in the story, Jesus very wisely didn't choose an atheist, someone who didn't believe in God, and he didn't choose an agnostic, someone who didn't really care whether it was a God or not a God. He chose a priest and a Levite. So, in other words, for modern-day translation, a pastor and a worship leader. Two people who really believed they were serving the call of God. But when the need arose, they simply chose to look the other way because it wasn't convenient timing, or they were just too busy, or they were just too important to help this person. And as I'd said in my heart, not now, God, I suddenly realized I was the priest, I was the Levite. And how dare I say no to God when a three-year-old has been raped and killed? It was probably the most painful yes I've ever said to God by far. But in that time, God, as soon as we said yes, it's like it unlocked something spiritually. And God not only brought in all the finance that we needed to double our work in Pakistan, but then he also opened the way for us to start the Mercy Center in Uganda. And I honestly believe every time something's come that's almost crushed my spirit, as I've come to God with all my faults and all my failings and all my brokenness, and just come to him with my hands held open to say, I'm not enough in this situation, but you are at the other side of my yes, he's turned it around. And I believe that in all of our lives, that when we say yes to him, even when it's not convenient, even when it's not comfortable, it unlocks him to pour not just through us, but also into us, and it's in the being in the very moments of brokenness in my own life that God's poured in in such a way that I can then minister better to the broken around me too. And so it sounds crass to say, but I believe there's purpose even in pain, and that genuinely when we submit everything to God, even the challenging moments of our lives, and we all go through challenging and difficult seasons, whether you're working with kids in slavery or you're just living your life trying to do the best for your own family. We all go through sick circumstances and situations of brokenness and pain. But in every season, if we'll submit that to him and let him pour both in us and through us, we'll see him do miracles and signs and wonders that we would never get to see if we say no and we hold back from him.

SPEAKER_00 57:30

Well, Becky, I feel like this podcast was first for me before anyone else, because he's touched on so many, you know, good things, and your life is such a testimony. Like, and I like how you always bring it back to God, like you're not just you know, you're doing all of these things, but then you always tie it back to God, like you know, surrendering your difficult moments to God, and you're also speaking about the reality, like it's not all like sparkles and shiny, like they're difficult moments, right? It's not always easy, but even in those difficult moments, even in those painful moments, just surrendering everything to God and letting allowing God, you know, lead you and just obeying and following through with his instructions and plans and plans for your life. I'm um, you know, I just pray that you know um God will continue to bless one by one and God will continue to use one by one. Um, like this is only the beginning. I you know, I feel like this is only the beginning, and there will be many more blessings through this NGO, and um God will God will, you know, continue to use this NGO and God will bless you as well because you've literally given up your life, literally, for you know, for this cause and you know, helping this families and helping these people, and there's no way you'll do that without receiving God's blessings. So I know God is going to bless you and going to keep keep blessing you. And um, I have one last question um before I let you go. What advice do you have for that Christian lady, that young girl who's listening, you know, who doesn't necessarily know what she wants to do. She feels like, okay, she's called to do this, but she doesn't necessarily know how to how to start, or is just scared, you know, just feels afraid, feels like, oh, this is bigger than me. You know, what advice do you have for that that young lady who's listening?

SPEAKER_01 59:38

I'd say trust the journey. God gave me a promise, and it took 13 years to see even the first fulfillment of that promise with the very first center in Kenya. And God did a work on the inside of me during those years of waiting, because the reality is we don't recreate what we say, we recreate what we are, and so God will spend years working on us, just as he did with David in the Bible. He was given the promise of being a king, but then the very next day he's out back on the field with the sheep. And so Joseph, he gave Joseph these incredible dreams, and yet before Joseph got to the palace, he was first in a pit and then in prison. Like I'm sure he's thinking this is not what the dream looked like, God. So trust the process. If we're faithful in the small things, God will, God is faithful, and his promises are yes and amen. So as long as we remain obedient, he will do the rest. Someone once said to me, big doors open on small hinges, and sometimes a very insignificant act like buying a girl a pair of flip-flops for 50 pence. Little do we know what God will do with that. And so if we're just faithful to him, put him first and foremost always. He is faithful to bring it to pass in our lives. So trust him and don't fear the small beginnings. My small beginning was a 50 pence pair of flip-flops. Little did I know I'd now work with thousands of kids around the world. So be faithful with God in the small hidden moments, and he will take care of the rest.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:23

Amen. Amen. I've never done this before, but I feel if you don't mind, um, I feel like asking you to say a prayer for you know the people listening, listening today.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Father, I just thank you for your goodness. I thank you for every person listening to this, that they're not listening today by chance or by coincidence, but actually, you are the one that's brought them across this very podcast today. And I pray that you would just inspire their hearts and their lives to fully, fully surrender to you, not to just give you a part of our lives, but God, as we surrender every part, every detail, every decision that we make, the big decisions and the little stuff, that as we surrender it to you, that Father, you would not just part into our lives, but you'd also part through our lives, that every single person listening to this podcast would be so filled with your love and your compassion that they would have to be moved with love to make an impact on their neighbor too. That one by one, as we reach out to the broken around our worlds, you would equip us to quite literally be your hands and feet, to truly be your ambassadors in a very broken and hurting world. Father, we love you. We just want to bring you glory and honor through everything that we do. So I pray today for everyone listening that as they surrender even today to you, that you would pour in and through our lives in order to bring you glory and to bring others that may be broken and lost and far from you right now, close to you. In Jesus' name we ask and pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:19

Amen. Amen. Thank you so much, Becky, for joining us today on the Dear Christian Girl Podcast. Thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:29

Thank you.