Human Trafficking Awareness Month

At Jesus on Colfax, we show up and love people.

But January, Human Trafficking Awareness Month, tested those words in ways we couldn’t have imagined.

For the past several months, we’ve been partnering with Safe Places for Women in late night outreach praying with women working the streets, some on their own, many controlled by a pimp. Praying for one to choose to leave the life.

Last week, that prayer was answered.

Safe Places shared a phone number. A woman texted. When she said she was looking for a way out, we didn’t just pray, we did what we do. We SHOWED UP. 

She climbed into our car and took a deep breath.
A breath of escape.
A breath after being controlled for so long.
A breath after being run over when he discovered she was trying to leave.

We drove straight to the hospital and stayed. Hour after hour. Advocating, listening, showing up by her side. When a doctor suggested she wasn’t being trafficked because she had once chosen sex work, we kept showing up and loving her.

She told us she needed to leave the state. There were too many connections here, too many people who knew her. So we called our friends across the country who we have learned from and who we know would provide excellent care. 

Then the weather shut everything down.

So we stayed late, making call after call. We were hoping to find an older lady with an extra room. We would have loved a quiet guest room and grandma to make homemade meals. That wasn’t in the cards, but thankfully another organization helped cover a hotel room for the weekend and her flight.

We kept showing up and loving her. Bowling. Eating. Listening. Letting her tell pieces of her story and talk out loud about what she hoped her future might look like. Driving through the snow and sacrificing weekend time with our families. 

We didn’t do this alone.

Our partner, The Hills Church, helped cover necessities and showed up with hours of presence. And presence, we continue learning, is the most powerful thing.

On the morning she left, Taylor, one of our staff, was at the hotel at 5 a.m. reassuring her and helping with final packing. Then arriving at the airport and getting through the arduous task of getting through security without an ID. How would she ever have made it without a persistent advocate? 

They waited out the ice in one final hotel. Then she arrived at a new program, choosing the hard work of facing trauma because it offers something better: rescue, renewal, and hope.

We have prayed for years for the first woman to say yes. She did.

Here’s what we didn’t know.

We didn’t know how much it would cost to show up and love her. How much emotional energy it would cost, how many hours it would cost, and honestly, how much money it would cost. 

Over just a few days, the tangible costs added up:

Food for the survivor, staff, and volunteers for the weekend: $400
Bowling (because healing sometimes looks like laughter): $70
A last-minute flight for a staff advocate: $750
Clothes and basic necessities: $300
A rental car: $250
A hotel in the partner city: $250

And that is probably the easy part.

What we really need are people.

We need volunteers willing to step into late night outreach.
We need people to help answer the hotline when the texts and calls come in.     We need grandmas with an extra room.

Showing up and loving people is costly.
But this is the work. 

Here’s something else we’ve learned along the way.

For many women, the thing that has stopped them from leaving in the past isn’t a lack of desire, it’s that they want to stay here in Denver. This is home. These are the streets they know. And more than that, they trust us. The idea of being sent somewhere unfamiliar can feel like one more loss piled on top of everything else.

And now, for the really GOOD NEWS!

We just signed an LOI to lease an entire motel.

Most of it will be used for RISE, our residential job-skills and stabilization program. But we’ve intentionally set aside one or two rooms specifically for survivors of exploitation, behind a locked gate, on a sober campus. A place where women can land safely in those first critical days when leaving is hardest and going back feels easiest.

For the first time, when it is safe to stay in Denver, we can say,
“Yes. We have a place for you.”

And we will keep doing it again and again.

We just can’t do it without you.

Because love doesn’t look away. It doesn’t offer hope and then neglect to follow through. It doesn’t have business hours.
Love shows up.

Ready to show up with us? Here is the volunteer training as we open more volunteer opportunities to serve survivors of sexually exploitation.