Picture this: a young military police officer, serving in South Korea, witnesses the horrors of human trafficking. Later on in life he meets someone that opens his eyes and heart to help fight this grave injustice. This is the real-life story of our guest, Dr. Christian Nanry, a special agent who spent years with the US Marshals and as a military police officer. His compelling journey, shaped by faith and experience, paints a vivid picture of a global issue that is often hidden in plain sight.
In our conversation, we peel back the layers of legal prostitution in South Korea, an industry shrouded in darkness and marred by exploitation. The shocking truth of young girls being recruited from various parts of Asia and Europe, often trapped in a cycle of debt bondage, is a story that needs to be told. But it doesn't end there - we also discuss the power of education in law enforcement and how skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, humility, and empathy can make a significant difference in this fight against trafficking.
Join us in this conversation. Are you ready to open your eyes, ears, and heart in order to be a part of the change?
Picture this: a young military police officer, serving in South Korea, witnesses the horrors of human trafficking. Later on in life he meets someone that opens his eyes and heart to help fight this grave injustice. This is the real-life story of our guest, Dr. Christian Nanry, a special agent who spent years with the US Marshals and as a military police officer. His compelling journey, shaped by faith and experience, paints a vivid picture of a global issue that is often hidden in plain sight.
In our conversation, we peel back the layers of legal prostitution in South Korea, an industry shrouded in darkness and marred by exploitation. The shocking truth of young girls being recruited from various parts of Asia and Europe, often trapped in a cycle of debt bondage, is a story that needs to be told. But it doesn't end there - we also discuss the power of education in law enforcement and how skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, humility, and empathy can make a significant difference in this fight against trafficking.
Join us in this conversation. Are you ready to open your eyes, ears, and heart in order to be a part of the change?
You know the why human trafficking work is needed To fight for the freedom of modern day slaves. But love, passion, commitment isn't all you need to be an effective and successful anti-trafficking advocate. Learn the how. I'm Dr Celia Williamson, director of the Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute at the University of Toledo. Welcome to the Emancipation Nation podcast, where I'll provide you with the latest and best methods, policy and practice discussed by experienced experts in the field, so that you can cut through the noise, save time and be about the work of saving lives. Welcome to the Emancipation Nation. I'm Dr Celia Williamson, and this is Episode 198. Today I have with me Dr Christian Nantry.
Speaker 1:And wow, let me paint the picture. This guy is currently special agent with criminal investigations in the Army. They call it CID. You've probably seen it on your cop shows, that you've watched, you've heard the word CID. Previous to that, he was at the US Marshals Service for 21 years and before that he was military police in Virginia, at Fort Hood in South Korea. I mean, this guy is military criminal justice, right. Seize things black, white, good, bad, serve the people, find the criminals, have them prosecuted, they go to jail, move to the next case, right?
Speaker 1:How does a guy like that ultra-conservative family start to see human trafficking Not only see human trafficking, but start to understand, listen become so engrossed. He reads a bunch of books about it, he talks to a lot of people, he receives mentorship and guidance and guess what? His heart becomes very passionate about this. He says God places this on him and he can't stop now. He is so ingrained in helping the people, whether it's a part of his job or not a part of his job. He's very passionate about what he does. So I want to introduce him to you and have him talk about how he came to this place and what he actually does today. So welcome, dr Nantri, or Christian. I'm so happy that you had the time to share with us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you, and thank you very much for having me on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So tell us okay, how did you first even get involved in the military and criminal justice and what are some of the things that you investigated and things that you did?
Speaker 2:Well, to answer the first part of that question, I got into the military. I was a military dependent, or we like to call military brats. So I already spent my life with my father as he deployed or moved from unit to unit and place to place and different parts of the United States. I was born overseas and I just decided that for me it was important to serve my country, so I put that at the foremost of my decisions to join the military and I stuck with the army because you know, that's what I know my father was also in the army. So I joined into the military police corps and through that I had a lot of wonderful opportunities to receive training and actually apply what I learned as a basic patrolman. So I was dealing with things like traffic stops, domestic disturbances, other types of incidents like that, and I became a military working dog handler and took that job over with me to the Republic of South Korea and it was the best opportunity. Out of all the military assignments that I had, Republic of South Korea was my favorite and through there because I was a certified patrol and narcotics dog handler and there was a shortage of those I got to travel to multiple parts of Korea. So I got to explore the entire country of Korea, immerse myself in their culture, definitely fell in love with my time there, saw some action, as a lot of law enforcement officers would say, but at the same time I really got to connect with the people on the ground, came back to the United States, to Fort Hood, or it's now called Fort Kvasos, and then I just decided at that point that God had another calling for me.
Speaker 2:So I joined the US Marshals Service in 2001. And when I was in the Marshals Service I started in DC, went to Brooklyn, New York, I met my wife. Then I moved over to a specialized division, came back to Texas and for some reason I felt kind of restless the Marshals Service. I had done so many critical missions that are needed by the people of the US, but I just felt I had another calling and I went back to the Army, but this time I went into CID and right now I am investigating financial crimes. So my entire career not only have I been in different agencies, but I've done different jobs within the generalization of law enforcement, Like I said, being a patrolman. I was even on a SWAT team for a little while, military working. Then I was a criminal investigator for the Marshals Service fugitive apprehensions, threatened, breach investigations and then now I'm in CID doing financial crimes.
Speaker 2:So, I've got a broad spectrum of a lot of things.
Speaker 1:And so how did you come about learning about human trafficking, let alone devoting some of your time and your passion in this area? How did you even get started in that?
Speaker 2:So it's funny how people learn and as a lifelong learner, I'm always eager to learn new things but sometimes when you're given pieces of information or shared relevant knowledge, you don't really understand at the time because your mind is just not ready to grasp what it really means. So, as you stated before, I was very black and white, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. It just means that you receive the complaint. This is the individual that you're interviewing. You gather the evidence, you're following all the laws and proper procedures. This individual goes to court, they get convicted, they go to jail and a lot of times, especially in the old world, a little bit more of the old world law enforcement. It's like done case over. That's it.
Speaker 2:However, when I was in the Republic of South Korea, prostitution is legal over there. So it's a little bit different of a culture shock. They actually give you sensitivity training when you go into Korea. It's a two week course that you're required to take Everybody has to do it and they tell you about the different customs and how things might shock you as an American if you've never been overseas, and this is something that, again, looking at it, very black and white I just said oh well, it's the laws of this country and therefore, as long as you don't obviously break their laws, this is just going to happen. There's nothing you can do about it.
Speaker 2:And, as I would, go out on town because soldiers need to let off some steam and you go off base because you're away from home. This is a hardship tour, so a lot of people can't bring their families with them. They're gone for a year. So you go out and you hang out with your squad mates or for me it was my kennel mates, because I was a dog handler and over time, I guess, because I wasn't participating in what was going on, I just was sitting around talking to people. I was actually approached by what we call the Juicy Girl, and the reason why we call them Juicy Girls is because they would approach you and say would you like to buy me a drink? So when you hand the girl money, she would go over to the counter, grab you a little shot of whiskey or whatever you asked for, and then she would come out with a little vial it looks like orange juice and she would scarf that down while you're drinking and you would keep purchasing the drinks. Okay yeah.
Speaker 2:And then one thing would lead to another and it's all legal but it's all cash. And what was important about this and it might shock many of our listeners who are unaware most of the people that ran those clubs and generaled those ladies were women. They were not men. So that also prevented, I think, really encumbered based on my upbringing and my own religious beliefs on how men and women were that I did not really get it. So this young girl sat down and talked to me for about 20 to 30 minutes and she just told me how the entire process worked and things that I was told was Mama's son would send out headhunters they're like talent acquisition recruiters and they would go out and they would find somebody, a young girl, that was attractive, and they would find that this family were having difficulties financially, they're about to lose their farm, something that bad was about to happen and they would interject and say, hey, if we employ your daughter, we will go ahead and take care of this bill for you. We'll let her work it off. And it was a legally binding agreement. This is not.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it still goes on today, but it wasn't uncommon back then and the girl would fly with the recruiter back to Mama's son and then the terms and conditions were really revealed to the young girl. And they were from the Philippines, they're from Indonesia, parts of Korea, other parts of Asia, russian girls, even Albanians. So you would see girls from different ethnicities there and they would work for Mama's son. So they would work in these strip clubs and they're required to maintain weight. There was sexual exchanges with soldiers while they were over there. It did happen and this is how the girls paid off that debt. But she didn't get into how really the money was dispersed. But it would take a period of time before that debt was paid off and then the girl was free to go. There were instances where I knew of one in particular where he used his signing bonus from the military to pay off that girl's debt. I think he got engaged or I don't know what happened to them after that.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:But there are situations where that does happen. They talk about that in the sensitivity training and you would have to be careful, because those Russian and Albanian girls were from the former Soviet Union, so we were particularly warned about engaging yourself with those particular young ladies. So that is the first time it really smacked me in the face. I had been around girls that were arrested for prostitution or potential human trafficking, but it was in the middle of the arrest, the middle of investigation, so you don't really dive deeply into what really psychopathy or really what's going on.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm so curious what is it about the Russian and Albanian women that you're particularly warned about?
Speaker 2:Well, because they work from the former Soviet Union, they could be spies. So what they would do is they would sleep with men and then would gather information. That's actually happened several times in the news media on several different military officers that do get caught up in those things, and that's why they told you, even if you're an E1, e2, e3, private or a specialist like low rank, there's still information that they can obtain from you that can be very damaging to the military. So that's why they would warn not to do that. And what I was about to say is just to interject.
Speaker 2:Dan Nash and his coworker, allison do a great job in what I just described, because a lot of times in law enforcement we would get so caught up in what we're doing A equals B equals C and it goes to D. A lot of times you would get stuck in. What do I do now? You just had this apprehension and you have these people in front of you and you don't know what to do. So I think, and they've been traveling around the United States teaching law enforcement organizations about human trafficking, treating the trafficked victims or the trafficked individuals differently instead of just automatically arresting them on the spot as prostitutes. So I just wanted to throw in there. I think there's been a lot of wonderful changes and advances on law enforcement. Like you know as a researcher, sociological changes can take a long time before they're implemented properly Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And so you're sitting in the bar, she's explaining this entire process to you, and what are you thinking? What do you do with that information at that point?
Speaker 2:You don't think you could do anything because and I was young, and that's not an excuse but you're young and you're indoctrinated into the military mindset and I'm not saying that to be a bad thing but there are certain policies and procedures that you will adhere to and you understand that this is just what goes on. It's generally accepted, it is legally okay, so you just don't do anything with it. You just kind of put it in your head and you just go. Huh, it didn't really resonate with me all the way deeply, potentially like it should have.
Speaker 1:So this is your first sort of in your kind of spiritual awakening. This is your first kind of tap on the shoulder like, hey, okay, so you took that information into your head, not necessarily into your heart. It's legal. This is the way I've been told this could happen. And then what's the next sort of tap on the shoulder to you about human trafficking?
Speaker 2:I would say that I ran across an individual's interview online and I was listening to her about her experiences at the hands of traffickers, and what really got it for me was the lack of power that she had. She couldn't fight back. This was completely against her will, and it was something that I just happened to stumble upon and from there I just said you know what? I think I need to read a little bit more on this, but at this point of my life I was much older. I had been going through various levels of education, so my mind was expanding, I was more open to learning than I was before and, more importantly, it wasn't just learning about the black and white letters on the page, as what do they mean? How does this impact the human soul? So from there I reached out to a friend and his name is Chris Seigl. He's down here in New Brunffville. He's the chaplain of the police department, and I started talking to him about this and he goes. You know, I think you should get in contact with a woman by the name of Dottie Laster. And I said who? And he goes yeah, let me get you in contact with her and Dottie. You know I always like to make the jokes on a little bit of a Star Wars nerd that she's the master Jedi and I'm still a padawan. I haven't learned my lesson yet, but she's been doing this for about 19 to 20 years. She's done a lot of this on her own, off of her own dime, her own ingenuity, her own grit and determination. She has written grants for large scale human trafficking operations. So she does have that experience.
Speaker 2:The dealings that was going on in Long Island where they're fighting the bodies of the women along the Long Island sound. Dottie was actually the private investigator that was turning over a lot of the information to the police department that she said this isn't what you think it is. This is a trafficking organization. Here's all the evidence. So she was and she was also responsible for one of the largest bus. I think it was over 150 trafficked victims that were pulled at one time at the time. She was and this is not a woman that was ever in law enforcement. She was never in the government. She doesn't have an S on her chest and she doesn't have a cape. You know not to criticize. You would probably look at Dottie and say she's kind of like a soccer mom. She doesn't really look like what you think she should look like and that is a part actually, I think is an arsenal in her tool belt, because they don't see it coming.
Speaker 1:And you, kristen, I mean now, you're at this point in your life where you're starting to question and you're starting to seek out information, becoming quite a secret, so that you can learn more. You find a mentor, a guide, as they say. You know, when the student is ready, right, the teacher appears and you find this guide, you find this mentor that might be scratching your head like what 19,? Why are you doing this? How are you doing this? How is this happening? And so quite impressive. And then what happens from there?
Speaker 2:Well, I go on this journey with Dottie, where we a lot of it is. I want you to read this book. Remember, I'm the PhD here and she's like I want you to read this book. So this is where I was talking about. You have to be humble first, before anything else. Yeah, I want you to read this book. And it was actually a book called Sex at the Margins.
Speaker 2:And I went ahead and read the book and she says, okay, what do you think? She wanted to hear, what I had to think about it, and then we would. We would have very good discourse or dialogue after that. And then it was okay, I'm going to bring you on this book. And then, slowly, over time, she started talking about her cases. Now I wasn't. I wanted to learn more, but I was trying not to push. So she gave it to me in a way that I could start to follow the breadcrumbs, because a lot of the reality that you see around you you realize is artificial and will start to bother you. And she looks at signs, signs such as patterns of behavior, patterns of movement, that's. She's like a blood, you know, like kind of like a bloodhound. She sniffs it out and it's based on what she sees and she hears on her experience. So then Dottie started getting me introduced to individuals that she was working with. So these are abused people and I say people because not all of them are girls. That's a major misconception.
Speaker 2:And in fact I did write that article and I will throw this in really quick that most of the time men are often overlooked men and boys and they're not even categorized correctly, which is one of the biggest problems that we have in Dottie and I and others like Matt Friedman, sylvia Friedman and Dottie kind of got me on the trail to meet all these other people. We talk about the correct categorization, so how are we? So when you see all these numbers all over the internet, the tip report which comes from the department of state, other type of institutions, this is where Dottie said you really need to critically look at that, because how do we know that these people are trafficked? Do they meet the description of the TVPA? And how many people are not being categorized that we don't even know about? So then you have to do self-reflection. Kind of hurts your feelings a little bit, and this is where you got to look at yourself as a law enforcement guy and saying Maybe, although our processes worked in a sense and it's not that they're terrible but we could do a whole lot better. And Um and through Dottie, I met dr Melanie Brooke Excuse me, dr Melanie Baker, I call her my big sister. She's out in Alabama and she I met her, rosie Catilato, who's up in Minnesota. So through Dottie and my journey and Dottie kind of just she wanted to release me, give me a little information, because everybody's gonna fight human trafficking differently. They're gonna have different school sets, different backgrounds, and I and she just kind of released me at some point.
Speaker 2:And one of the one of the stories I always love to share is there is a young girl that I learned about and and uh, she, she was being trafficked by her stepfather, which is very common. Usually it's by people that know you the best that are gonna do this and he was selling or trading off his stepdaughter to his friends and people that he knew. And Dottie took her out of that home and we talked about ways that she could do it. I had to be very careful because I can't give legal advice In my official capacity, nor am I an attorney, but we still talked about how she could safely get this girl and bring her out and, although she has a tremendous amount of experience, she still valued my input, which is important between that student-teacher relationship. So Dottie was able to get her out and one of the biggest problems that she had was this young girl had never finished her high school diploma. So together Dottie had asked me do I have any a Way of getting to the state so that she can go back and register, because they're having a dickens of a time. I actually reached out to a cohort member from my doctoral program and was able to get somebody Directly to the state, so I was able to make a one-on-one phone call to somebody in the state, which is very hard sometimes, and that young lady was able to finish her GED and then went on to a dental hygienics type school. So awesome it wasn't so.
Speaker 2:So a lot of people might not consider that to be a big thing, but it really was, because it removed a roadblock for that young girl that Potentially she could lead her own life. She has that power that I talked about before. She can make her own decisions. She doesn't need to go back, even if she thinks that's the only way to get money. She doesn't have to go back there. But that is significant. But that's an example that I like to give to tell people you don't have to Reinvent the entire wheel, sometimes just by helping someone when you actually can do it, and you don't be afraid Because it's another human being. I think that that's the biggest lesson. And another, another lesson, and it didn't Ultimately end up as nice, but I remember that and this is just to make sure that listeners are aware of how this really happens, because the police officers in this particular and I'll leave the name of the department out Dottie went out to rescue this young girl that came from a marginalized part of the community in South San Antonio.
Speaker 2:They're Hispanic, they don't have a lot of money, not to mention this girl had other certain mental ailments, which is also a flag Mm-hmm traffickers. They will go after handicapped individuals or people with disabilities. They absolutely will. And she was 19 years old and she probably weighed about 90 to 100 pounds, soaking wet. So Dottie was trying, was being contacted by her grandmother and they had no money To help find her granddaughter. So Dottie, not caring about money because she doesn't, I started doing the research and the evaluation eventually found this young girl. So she was able to bring this girl to a police department that I won't name.
Speaker 2:And in the police department you got to understand when you're meeting a trafficking victim. They don't op. They've been so Programmed they don't understand what's really going on. So, for example, you know Dottie's using her own car and she says alright, if you're gonna go with me, I need to take your cell phone and a grandmother was there, by the way. I need to take your cell phone because that's how traffickers continually talk to their victims and it doesn't have to be a phone call. It could be a simple text with symbols, not lips. They use symbols and those trafficked victims know exactly what that means.
Speaker 2:She threw a temper tantrum in the middle of the police station and Dottie has a daughter that has some medical ailments. But Dottie's daughter was able to step up and say you need to trust my mother, she's trying to help you and I just want to make sure people how profound this event was. But the police officer standing around were kind of like let's just get the, let's be honest, let's get these people out of the station, that this just want them out and and so Dottie was able to eventually get the but the phone and while Dottie was Getting this all arranged to get the girl to move, to be moved, she called me on the phone and she said that the police officers here are just not getting it. The pimp or the boy came into the police station with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye I'm looking for such and such. Do you have her here? Well, I'm really concerned about her.
Speaker 2:And the police officers took debate. They thought he was being sincere and I Communicated with Dottie on. These are some of the things that you can tell them to kind of. At least let's just call this off, brother, she'll come meet you later on. She's gonna go back with the grandmother. Just for right now, let's just kind of separate everybody and let's calm down. And the police officers actually went, went for that and, like you know, that's a good idea. Let's just get everybody to calm down. And Dottie said, all of a sudden that boy Changed everything, started screaming and yelling, costing the police officers that's when, she said, their eyes got huge, they couldn't believe what they're seeing. And they then they told him you need to leave. So Dottie told me when she was looking outside the windows in the police stations she could see him circling the parking lot in the outer parking lot, in his vehicle like a shark?
Speaker 2:He was, yeah, so what I? I suggested to Dottie that the police officers can do within their jurisdiction and there's a thing called a radio and moves faster than any car that you can drive To call the next jurisdiction the next jurisdiction to start Shutting off major roads and and so that way Dottie is driving with no traffic behind her, with this girl in her car and the grandmother, and that way she can create separation and distance, and it did work.
Speaker 1:Well. So you are able to translate, using your expertise, was able to tell her the strategy to use, the words to use to work with this entity so that they would get it. And I mean that's where another example of where you were able to be very helpful. And you know, when we think about just one person or one person at a time, you know that person will go back into their family, their community, their lives, will change their children's lives If they have any, make it better. Their parents may feel relieved, their friends may feel happy.
Speaker 1:This person that is in the world has reclaimed their options, their opportunities, their freedoms, the way you talked about. Now this person has opportunity to choose. So even when we think about one person, you know the ripple effect of that person's trajectory, of their whole life and how it affects other people around them that love them, that care about them. That's, that's huge. That ripple effect cannot, is, isn't even quantifiable. So being able to use your skills in ways that that your mentor can call on you and you can teach your mentor now, and being able to self reflect, being able to be humble, being able to process all of those things, I suspect comes with your ability to open your heart, but also your education. And so what do you think Because we talked a little bit offline about you know, police officers and this conversation going on Well, you don't really need a degree to be a police officer, you just need the training. Is that true? Or do you think education is is important and valuable to police officers?
Speaker 2:Based on, based on my research results of certain studies. I it was ingrained a little bit of one of the main factors to reestablish rapport with the community and law enforcement Education and training and the type of training were significant and that qualitative finding and then in my doctoral dissertation and a quantitative finding finding, we were able to show that you could predict better police behavior based on you know certain variables that is very common to evaluate performance, that that performance was quantitative, uh qualifiable, and actually rose based on the level of education and it didn't matter what degree background that you had. So I would argue, based on my research, the life that I have lived, the changes that I've seen in myself, and it helps to improve performance even day to day, the way you articulate, the way you see the world. Even you know a lot of law enforcement officers don't want to talk about sensitivity to other human beings, but that is a major component that is actually uh criticized of law enforcement, that we need empathic training. We need to learn to have more empathy towards human beings. I don't know if that's necessarily true, but as far as the overall arching, I think police officers should want to have more education, potentially in different fields that can be transferable over to law enforcement.
Speaker 2:You don't need a degree in criminal justice. You can get a degree in social work, psychology, in the humanities. Um, none of my college degrees are in law enforcement at all. Um, my my undergrads and it actually is in history, where I concentrated on the constitution and American history, but then in my master's degree that was human resources, training and development, because you're looking at developing human beings within an organization Um, and then in my doctoral program it was adult education, learning about androgyny and how human, how a human adults learn, because that's primarily focused on adults, where pedagogy is on K through 12. And it doesn't mean wrong, it's just people change. They have different needs and wants in their life. They develop new interests, kind of like this thing with human trafficking. There was a change in my life, but it's important to recognize the change, and then what you do is you try to remove all the barriers. So I would say communities and police officers should want officers with higher education.
Speaker 1:I think it's the difference between a technician and an educated expert, so to speak. Like a technician, can you know? If you're in the classroom? You can. If you're an elementary school teacher, you can go from chapter one to chapter 12 or whatever, like a technician would. Or you can follow the police policy and procedures, and you can do that, um.
Speaker 1:But being able to obtain those mega skills critical thinking, um, being courageous enough to practice humility, like you did, to accept people who are teaching you you have the PhD, right, there's somebody handing you a book to to say, yes, I need to be humble in this moment.
Speaker 1:I need so those mega skills problem solving, self reflection. I'm going to think, I'm going to really listen in here, what this person, this person has some jewels of wisdom and I'm going to open myself up to receive those. That is a lot of the training in higher education, not just your, you know. That's why I suspect you're saying whatever discipline, that's fine, you can take those jewels as well, but it's the mega skills that you're learning as you're in higher education to be able to receive all of the from, all the jewels that you need to receive in order to take your, your next step in life. So is there anything that you would offer the listeners in terms of your journey? You know you've, you've had quite the journey. Um, for somebody who's interested in fighting human trafficking from a criminal justice perspective or from that type of discipline, Well, I would just go over certain mental and heart marks.
Speaker 2:We've talked about it several times as being humble. Understand that you might not know what you think. You know when you think you know. It's not that it's necessarily wrong. It just might need to be readjusted a little bit. Be open to other people's viewpoints.
Speaker 2:I know people use the word perception a lot, but I like to use the word vantage point. I think that's a little bit more concise. So and just understand that even if you don't quite get it at first, give it some time. There's tons of research on the way that the mind learns with your subconscious thinking. So even when you're not aware that you're thinking about, your mind is still processing that information. Everybody learns at different rates. Just realize that, also that everybody has different gifts or skill sets. Just learn how to what, or try to think how do I take what God has given me and how do I apply that to make the process better or improve the process? Just give it yourself.
Speaker 2:So it's not really, not even not really. It's not about money. It should never be about money. And that at sometimes, I think, is where we as a society, especially in the capitalistic society and I think America is a great country it still is but sometimes I think we get caught up in the minutia of how much is this? What is my rate of return? Am I going to get paid a lot of money for this?
Speaker 2:Some of the greatest acts that we've seen over the course of history, for different fields, different agendas, different people have been when individuals give themselves freely and there was no expectation of reward. And, in fact, for your listeners that do follow the Christian faith and I have to remind myself this is the part of that self-reflection and humility that God doesn't want you to do things for people and expect accolades. So just be continually that servant, be a servant leader. So I think that's it's really, it's a grounded approach and I think that's what people need to do If they want to get into human trafficking. Take a quick step back, ground yourself and then say, ok, I'm going to move forward and instead of me controlling the river, just go with it. Just allow yourself to be taken down that that river, and it might not take you the way that you think you should go, but just go with it and just it'll happen.
Speaker 1:That was Dr Kristen Nandri learning, still learning every day, allowing others to teach him and guide him, even though he has a PhD. See, I said it during the podcast when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. What does that mean? Teachers are there all the time through our lives, but we only when the student is ready do they see the teacher. So, christian, who is highly accomplished, meet someone who is able to teach him, guide him, open his eyes up, open his heart up to work in the field of anti-trafficking. What does he teach us? He teaches us that the teacher is there right now.
Speaker 1:In your life you can do great things or small things that, coupled with other people, become great, can help one person and change their life. You can help a lot of people, but often you have to be open to learning, you have to open your eyes, you have to open your heart, you have to open your doors. The teacher is there, so learn. Until next time the fight continues. Let's not just do something, let's do the best thing. If you like this episode of Emancipation Nation, please subscribe and I'll send you the weekly podcast. Until then, the fight continues.