00:00:00 - Johnny Sanders

Do you enjoy listening to podcasts and think, man, I would like to make my own podcast? This is where I found myself last year, and I have learned a lot about what to do and a lot about what not to do. I'm offering consulting services to help you launch your podcast, especially if you're looking to make a more Christian or conservative podcast. To find out more information at faithfullyengaged.com I have a link down in the description below if you would like help on getting your podcast. Well, welcome back, everyone, to another episode of Faithfully Engaged. I'm really excited to have my guest on today, Kenny Sacht. And we're going to talk a little bit about human trafficking and some of the experiences that he has been involved with. And I know that's such a big topic that many of you have probably been concerned about it, but don't really know what to do or don't know what it's all about. So really excited to talk with Kenny about this. So, Kenny, why don't you introduce yourself? Just tell us a little bit about yourself and your organization.

00:01:16 - Kenny Sacht

Yeah, thanks, Johnny. Well, I started, I was a pastor, went to seminary, did pastor and things, and then ended up teaching in a Christian high school here in Boise, Idaho. And we took it. We took mission trips with our basketball teams and volleyball teams. And in short, I saw the sex trade in the Philippines. And as a father of five lovely daughters, my heart broke and I thought that I would. Teaching in a Christian high school was really my thing. I love coaching, and I thought that I'd probably do that. Until I was, you know, dead. And I. I just told the Lord, I'll just do anything. I'll do anything. I saw the sex trade. I couldn't believe it. Like, how can this be? How can, how can beautiful, lovely girls like my daughters be sold? And I just told God, I just want to. I just want to, if I could just be responsible for helping one girl in my lifetime, what a joy that would be. And so I'm a very simple guy. And so we just started, we just like, you know, I mean, how do you start rescuing girls in a sex trade? You know, first of all, we took, it was on a volleyball trip in 2011, and we were doing the volleyball trip, and I told the girls on our team going, I said, do you want to go look for the sex trade while we're there? High school kids? And they all went, yes, let's go find it. Let's make a difference. In the name of Jesus, let's do this. And their parents were great with it, and so we went, we found it, and that's the beginning of the rest of the story right there. I just. I had to do something.

00:03:17 - Johnny Sanders

It's always interesting for me to hear kind of the origin stories here and be able to see that up close and personal, especially with you having daughters. I. My life has certainly changed since I've had kids. I've got two younger boys, but I have an older daughter as well. And that hits you differently when you can see your own child involved there. So that origin story is interesting to me, but I also get much more interested in not just kind of that initial thing, but then the after-effects. So you have this moment. What kind of all led into? All right, this wasn't a one-off. This turns into something more, something sustainable. How did you get to that point?

00:04:06 - Kenny Sacht

Yeah, well, first off, years prior to that, I just kept asking God, would you give me more of your heart for the things that break yours? Then I even broke it down, Johnny. I started saying, God, give me your eyes. I can see what you see. Give me your ears. I mean, this is a literal, genuine cry out to God. I want to hear the things you heard. I even would say, I want to smell the things you smell. I want to taste the things you taste. Feel the things you feel. I want to walk where your feet walk. So that's just part of that whole intro aspect. I had no idea what I was doing. Now what do I do? I met this lady over there. Her name was Becky Angelus, and she was at a place where they ministered to girls who were trapped in the sex trade. And I just started asking her questions, like, how can I help? What could we do? So we started with, okay, let's get a house. We got a house. We hired her. We had no money, but God just kept providing money. I mean, we're poor, Christian high school teachers, and so we. You talk about sustainability. How do you even do this and sustain it? Right? We had no idea. I mean, how do you find a girl in the sex trade? Get her out of that and into a house, get her into a safe house, into a home with a loving environment. And then what? Then what? Well, in the Philippines, you can't. Can't work at McDonald's or a Starbucks or any kind of a fast food thing without a college degree. You have to have a college degree. So these girls are tricked and trafficked because of their poverty, exploitation of vulnerability. They're vulnerable because they're poor. So traffickers come through and they say, there are jobs in this city come, and then they give them money, they show up and they're trapped. And you talk about sustainability. If I were in my, I'm in my home office right now. If I were in my office office in Boise, I'd grab a jar and I'd say, see this jar? One day some kids in my class took this jar and they said, mister Sacht, do you have a picture that we can put on? Here I go, what for? They said, for your girls when we just started. And I'm telling you, Johnny, every day, every month, just enough money comes in. We're talking, we're talking just on the Philippines side, you know, then we have an American office here, but it costs us $25 to $35,000 a month. And then you add money on this side. It's a lot of money, and it just comes in. It's. It's just supernatural. We don't have any big donors, we don't have big corporations, we don't have grants every month. Just people say, I'm going to send some money to wipe every tear. And now. So we started with four girls, and that was for a year. And then we got one girl after another after another after another. And it doesn't sound like a lot, but if it was your daughter, that one would make a big difference. So we have, again, we're a small organization doing big things, you know? And so we have over 60 college graduates now, and we're talking about, they encounter Jesus. They go from extreme poverty to great prosperity, and they get jobs. Some are business owners working in all sorts of industries, some are teachers. And that's kind of a picture of what we do and how we sustain it. It's just total reliance on the Lord.

00:08:12 - Johnny Sanders

I love hearing that, and especially on the faith aspect, that, yeah, we can take our wisdom and try to run things in a smooth and efficient way, but the end of the day, we're relying on God for everything. I mean, literally for the. The breaths you and I are taking right this second.

00:08:33 - Kenny Sacht

Yes. Every breath I take, every heart. Every heart that beats. Without Jesus, without God, how in the world we would not even.

00:08:45 - Johnny Sanders

We. We take that for granted all the time. Um, those, those little things, because, yeah, of course, my heart beats. It's no big deal. Um, and then, you know, somebody that has a heart attack or I. A loved one dies or whatever may happen, you realize, oh, no, this is a very big deal. And I think that's really important there on that financial side that we are reliant on God, with our own finances, as you know, having a house or whatever, also in these ministries that we're reliant on God. And as you said to the. You hear numbers. Oh, it starts with four girls. Oh, what? What does that really matter? Do you think your daughter doesn't matter? Do you think my daughter doesn't matter? Like, of course, every single one matters. And I would love for you to walk us through, especially those who are listening. They're like, hey, I know sex trafficking is bad, but it doesn't make sense to me. I've long said this, being a parent, that while I don't agree with a parent that, like, loses it on a kid and maybe physically abuses them, I can understand where somebody would snap. They don't have sleep and they just snap bad. Yes, but can understand where someone might get there. Sex trafficking doesn't make any sense to me. That doesn't, like, compute in my head. How can you do that to somebody? So for people that are listening, they just don't have to get it? I know you talked a little bit about this, but tell us a little bit of just, like, how these girls get wrapped up in this situation.

00:10:29 - Kenny Sacht

That is one of the most often asked questions, like, how in the world does this happen? So it's in America and it's all over the world, but when you go to a place like the Philippines or Thailand or someplace, there will be a street that is full, like 240 bars, and in our case, 12,000 girls. And so they've got a demand. They have men. In fact, people come to Angela City, Philippines, for sex vacations. They get together with their friends, and their guys in the office, and they go off for a few days or a week or two or a month, and they literally have sex vacations. And they buy these women while they're there. They can buy them for a night, two nights, five nights. They can buy them for 30 days, and then she is his for that duration. So how? Well, you just imagine, think of the Philippines as an impoverished nation. Third world. Third world, developing country. And so you go into those out far areas, they call it the province, we would say the countryside here. We have nothing like that in America quite like that. But you go into the province where it's deep poverty, traffickers will come through and they will say, hey, we're looking for workers in Angeles City to come and to work in hotels, to work in restaurants, to do all those jobs, etcetera, related to the hotel restaurant industry and the tourism industry. And they'll go to these girls. They'll gather these girls. And the girls response is, I've heard this many times from the girls. They will say, I told them I don't have a college degree. And the trafficker. And you say, the trafficker? Who's a trafficker? It's just someone associated with that bar that goes through and just recruits girls. So he or she says, oh, you don't need a college degree to work in the bars or to work in the hotels and restaurants because there's such a demand. Well, now the girl's response is, what? I could go to work, and I could. I could. I could help my family. Remember, we're talking deep poverty. We're talking poverty. And they say, yes, indeed. They give the girl money. She shows up a few days later, and I'm going to give you an exact story of one of our girls. We'll call her name Georgia. Not her real name. And Georgia said to me, as she's crying, she goes, they call me Lolo, grandpa, in Filipino, or Tagalog. Lolo. She was Lolo. She explained the story that I just explained to you, and then she said, so I arrived. It took her 72 hours to get there by boat, by jeep, by tricycle. That's a motorized tricycle, by a motorbike, and by bus. Three days to get there. She was deep into the province, in the countryside. She showed up very tired. They gave her a day of rest. The next day, they gave her this address, and said, show up here. And so when she went, she goes, it's a bar. And it's all these bars. This is supposed to be a hotel. And so she said, I'm confused as to why are we meeting here? And then they say this. I've heard this time and time again, Johnny. Ah, you know, you showed up too late. All those jobs are taken, so you need to pay us back. And she's, I can't pay you back. And then she said this while she's crying, she says, lolo, grandpa. They said, grab those. Grab one of those bikinis in that box over there and be out here at 06:00 person gets up, walks out. When she's telling me, she's just sobbing, just sobbing. And she goes, by the way, she was a worship leader. We think it's just like, how do Christians get tried? Evil is not a. Evil is an equal opportunity employer. Evil goes to everyone here. She was a believer in love, Jesus. And she's crying, saying, lolo, I was trapped. What could I do? That's how I got here. And so I never ceased to lose the emotion of a human life, of a girl, just like my girls. Isn't that terrible?

00:15:22 - Johnny Sanders

Yes. I mean, it's. I think it's important for us here now and really just the church in general, to hear the. The despair, the emotion. Like, you're saying that, okay, that's cross the world from here. That doesn't happen here, even though we know that that does. But that's not gonna happen to my family, so whatever. No, like, we. We need to experience that. We need to know that. Just like with our own lives, we need to know the depths of our own sin. And in order to have this salvation, to know that we need saving, we need to know how broken we are similar in this way. We need to understand the depths of this. This is bad. This is happening right this second. Um, that being said, I think what happens sometimes when we hear these stories, we get brokenhearted, and then we're just, well, now what? Like, now I just feel bad. Um, so this brings into an organization like yours, um, for, like, for this. In this case, Georgia. Like, we named her. Um, what do we do? Like, how do we get them to help get these girls out of this mess?

00:16:39 - Kenny Sacht

I asked that years ago because I first saw it, actually, on my computer. I told you about a trip that we took with the girls. That was in 2011. I actually saw it in 2008. I was on my computer. I had taken two trips to the Philippines. And it's Christmas time, and teachers love Christmas because you're off, you know, it's like there is a God, you know, and you're breathing, and I'm up late when late. I mean, they know, past 10:00 or something. And my kids, my wife were all in bed, and I was just on my computer working, and a little thing popped up, and it said sex trafficking. And I clicked on it, and I saw it, and I clicked. I clicked some more, and I. And this was on the good side of sex trafficking ministries that were working with, you know, helping rescue these girls and whatnot. I found myself crying. There were literally tears. My keyboard was on my laptop. There were tears on my laptop. And I told God, then, like, God, what do I do? How do I do this? What can I do? God? Well, and I'm one of the odd ones that actually got in an airplane with a bunch of high school girls and said, let's go find it and do something about it. But the 99.9% of the people are not going to be doing it. They can say, how can I help? What can I do? Number one. And I really mean this. Write down, Wipe Every Tear. Go look, go find us on Facebook or go on the web. We've got a really nice website. Find us on Instagram, follow us. And then I'm going to say this here. Pray and write us down. Somewhere up on your. I had a woman, a mom, when I was in high school, and she said, I took your card. I had a little business card. She was still working, still at the school, you know, and she goes, I have it in there. It's in. It's right next to my toothpaste. She goes, every time I'm in there every morning, I pray for you. I pray for Kenny Sacht to wipe every tear and that God would rescue and restore these precious girls. Her name is Susan Presnell. I am just absolutely so grateful for that woman. That is huge. Secondly, of course, it takes funds. It takes money to feed these girls and to give them an education and whatnot and so forth. But it's very cheap. Gosh, it's so inexpensive, you know, and so they can. They can financially support us and help us. And then thirdly, there might be somebody listening. There might be people listening to say, what else can we do? And we do this. We take a lot of risks. God told me in the early days, to take lots of risks and invite foreigners, mostly Americans. We get bills from all over the world, actually, but mostly Americans to come, to come and be in the houses, be with the girls, eat with them, laugh with them, enjoy life with them, and then with the girls, go to the bars. We'll get in a bus, we'll go to a different location, and we'll go to those bars, and we'll go to those bars night after night after night, inviting them. It's a mission trip. It's a Wipe Every Tear mission trip. And in fact, Johnny, Filipinos can't even get into the bars without foreigners. The bars do not allow Filipinos into the bars. I mean, it's crazy. They only allow foreigners. And so we actually rely, and we must have foreigners come on mission trips. And so they come, they get involved. We take them on this girl's getaway. We do. We hold a big banquet. We take them on a three-night, four-day island getaway. It's all part of, you know, everything. Everybody pays goes into the kitty, you know, on a mission trip. And then we have these girls by themselves. Somehow they get out to be with us. They're amazing stories. And out of that process, girls say they trust us and they go, I want out. How can I get out? And that's a little bit of the process. There are lots of little details in there, but that's just a little bit of the story of how people can be involved and come. We have hundreds of people come, and we would love to host a church, businesses, and individuals. We have open trips where people come from all over the country and the world, and then we have trips where churches. We have an Atlanta church that comes every year. And so that's how it works. It's very simple. Into a very complicated industry.

00:21:06 - Johnny Sanders

It's really interesting that, that you say there at the end. It's very simple. In my day job, most of you listening to this, know this, that I'm a, I'm a licensed counselor, so speak with clients about all sorts of different issues that they're, they're dealing with. And that's a phrase that I say fairly often. Most of life's problems are not overly complicated, and that's a broad brush. Some things are more complicated than others. But communication, for instance, communication with your spouse, it's not that complicated. It's just, that it's hard. Simple things can be hard sometimes.

00:21:45 - Kenny Sacht

Absolutely. They are. Good insight, man. You're right. You're spot on. In fact, Johnny, excuse me for being empty. We have a t-shirt that says Just Love. And in fact, the Lord. I was, I was sitting on the ground, I was on my knees one morning in my office just worshiping the Lord, just praying and doing what, you know, crazy Christians do, right? And just being with the Lord. And I had this little vision, and I saw these two T-shirts. It said, Just Love. And it said Mercy Wins. And I saw this just love t-shirt. I saw it on a T-shirt. And. And then the Lord spoke to me. He says all I want you to do is just love them. How simple is that? Just love them. And then he went and loved them justly. That's very simple, but it's so complicated. You have to have a house for her, right? You have to have a house. You have to have an educational program for her. You have to be able to enroll her. If she doesn't have high school, she's got to finish high school. If she doesn't have elementary school, which is many, they have to finish elementary school. You know, some of the girls come with a first-grade education, third-grade education. Some have finished one year of high school. We get them through the whole process. And then another t-shirt we have sitting on the floor just behind me. This is a new one. I had another. I had a vision. And the Lord said she's worth it. And I saw it on a T-shirt and I went a T-shirt? And so we put it on there and we stopped for the one because she is worth it. So we do all of this very simple, in a very complex manner to rescue the one and that's what we do. And if, and if she was your daughter, if she was my daughter, you would say, wow, thank you, she is worth it. And that's.

00:23:33 - Johnny Sanders

Absolutely, like I said, she is worth it. And we need to look at every individual that are made in the image of God, that they're worth it. And she's worth it. In this case, again, not because of her own incredible acts or whatever, it's because of who made her. And we need to understand that as Christians, God's image is what it's all about.

00:24:03 - Kenny Sacht

She's created in the image of God. And no matter who you are, in fact, you know what? This is off a little bit. But we, you know, the scripture says, you know, we're commanded to love one another, right? We're commanded to love people. In fact, the scripture says that they will know that you are my disciples. Jesus says, by your love for one another. So I took that to heart. We even love the customers. And you go, like, what, the customers and the bouncers? Yep, we love them. We really do. In fact, we do meal outreach where we do, where we do hundreds of meals. We've had up to like 5600 meals a day that were delivered to the bars because they're very hungry. And we'll deliver these. And then there's the bouncers, and then there's the mama sans, that's the managers, like, or a pimp manager. We call them pimp managers here, pimps. And they're just women who used to be in the trade in deep poverty. And they manage these girls now. They manage girls. And so we love, we love all of them and we just try to be like Jesus, you know, and just love everybody and love them. Well, I don't mean to sound lovey-dovey, but you know what? God's love, he's a lovey-dovey God. I mean, I did seminary, I pastored, you know, I graduated with a theological degree. In fact, Johnny, my theological, one of my theology professors said to me one day, he goes, I was in his office and he goes, Kenny, you are just my practical theologian like none other. I don't say that boastfully. I'm just like, always, like, how does this work? I'm asking all the questions, you know, like, what about feeding the poor? What about doing, you know, I was just asking all those questions, you know, so I'm very simple, very practical. I know that Christ lives in me. If he lives in me. When I walk onto that street, when I walk into a bar, 
the atmosphere changes, Johnny.

00:26:08 - Johnny Sanders

Yeah. And I think that's such a good outlook here that we can understand that things are bad. Sin is at play. When there's an evil trade like sex trafficking and still love the people involved with the prayer they will repent and turn from that. And we can get these women out of here. Um, but it's so important to keep ourselves in check. And I say this to myself all the time, that if I become the. If I become the hero, I'm the good guy in the story. I've missed it. Like, I'm. I'm not the hero. Yes, God is the hero.

00:26:50 - Kenny Sacht

You get it, man. You get it. You're preaching it. You're getting it. You know, does it take someone to say, yes? Absolutely. Did it take a high school teacher and coach to say, yes, Lord? It does take a yes. Right? Here I am, God send me. But let me tell you, I didn't go here. I am, God send me. Like you hear sermons. I went like, God, I was crying. I'll do anything. I'll do anything. What can I do, God? Literally just crying at my computer, seeing the sex trade. I'll do anything. But let me tell you, if it comes, if it's about Johnny and Kenny, we've missed it, man. It is all about the glory of God. He is the one. He's the only reason I exist. We started out that way. We live and breathe. We have our being in God. Every breath, every heartbeat. But we here at wipe every tear. In my own personal life, it has to be about Jesus. Yeah.

00:27:54 - Johnny Sanders

And that. That's absolutely where we have to turn to in all things. And I say that to people all the time. Whether you are running, wipe every tear. If you are a pastor, if you are a stay-at-home mom, if you're a teacher, if you're whoever. It's about God. We are all his messengers. If we are called by him and we're saved by him, it is our job to be under him and to do his purpose and to point things towards him. This is a case here where there's a very specific need and a need that, again, human trafficking hits things in the United States. But it a place like the Philippines, like you're saying, it is a. It's a whole other level. The amount of poverty and everything in some of these countries is something that we don't quite grasp on the day-to-day. And I love that there are organizations like yours that are taking specific aim at these women that desperately need to, one, hear, hear the gospel, and two, to have people that are walking alongside them to get them out of that evil trade.

00:29:06 - Kenny Sacht

Thank you. And, you know, I've never done this, but. But may I? I'm gonna say it. You might cut it out, but we have a staff. And I just want to mention Jarelli, Arlene, Amanda Dietz, and Michelle. I'm telling you, we have a staff. And it's. It's. I mean, I live here in America. I travel back and forth. I'm there for a third of my life. I go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It's because of those ladies. They're on the ground. They're taking care of these women. And so I just want to shout out to them, you know, they are the ones that are doing the work. My Filipina sisters, who I just dearly love, they're like family to me. So thank you, ladies, when. If you see this, ladies, I'm just so grateful for you. Without you, without Christ in you the hope of glory, we could not do what we do.

00:29:56 - Johnny Sanders

I love it. No, that is definitely staying in there. Definitely want to shout them out, for sure.

00:30:02 - Kenny Sacht

Thank you, man. It's genuine from my heart. Oh, my staff. They're the greatest staff. And I have a staff here, and I've got a wonderful board. I tell you, I got Bex McVeigh here in our office, and I've got a board of directors, and I have a director of a financial gal named Molly. Without that, you know, it's just like, it takes. It just takes such a team so the body of Christ to set people free. And you know what it takes? People like you interviewing a crazy guy like Coach Kenny and people seeing it and go like, you know what? I want to go on one of those mission trips. My church will do this. It really takes. It really is the body of Christ. So thank you, man. I'm very genuinely appreciative that you would interview me and what God is doing in this extra.

00:30:57 - Johnny Sanders

Absolutely. And I love that. Again, like you say, in the body of Christ, we all serve in different ways. Um, and it's not that one way is better than the other. They are different, and God made us different for a reason. Now, Kenny, I know we really just scratched the surface. We could probably talk on this subject for hours. Um, but for people that are, that are listening, tuning into this, maybe they're super interested. Um, and wipe every tear and want to know more about it. How can they be in touch with you after the show, and what are some ways that they can be involved?

00:31:30 - Kenny Sacht

Well, thank you, Johnny. I appreciate that so much. Wipe everytier.org dot. And if you actually.com, we bought that website also, or that we bought that URL, so it gets to us. So wipeeverytear.org and then wipe every tear on Facebook. Wipe every tear on Instagram. Follow us. And, you know, here's what we always say is if, when people are on there and if they start seeing our posts, share it with your people. More people get to see it and more people get to hear God's heart for the poor and the broken, you know, and so, and then people say, you shouldn't do this, but I do. And I say you can literally call me. 20886 619 6719-6720-8866-1967 it comes to my phone. It comes to my phone. And I heard the interview on Johnny's show, you know, faithfully engaged. And, and I just want to talk to you about this. So we're just inviting people to be involved and to pray for us.

00:32:31 - Johnny Sanders

Absolutely. Well, thanks so much for sharing with just all the incredible stories and the information for people to get involved and yeah, just for, for everything that you're doing.

00:32:43 - Kenny Sacht

Thank you, man. To God be it all. He's so good.

00:32:48 - Johnny Sanders

Absolutely. And thank you to everybody who was tuning in again. Give Kenny a shout. I'll include some of that information in the show notes below and we will catch you on the next episode.