Make
Way Partners Anti-Trafficking Network
Our co-founders,
Milton and Kimberly Smith, were missionaries in the Iberian
Peninsula when they first discovered human trafficking in
2002.
The discovery changed
their whole lives. They spent the following two years learning
everything they could about human trafficking. Their hands-on
education came from the streets, sewers, desert and jungle
as well as books and governmental reports. Their most transformational
education came from spending time with victims of trafficking
and those most vulnerable to it.
Having their hearts
broken where God's breaks for the oppressed, and never able
to view the world in quite the same way, Milton and Kimberly
committed themselves and Make Way Partners to finding practical
ways to protect those most vulnerable and who had the fewest
resources for help.
Two important components
to understand about the Make Way Partners Anti-Trafficking
Network functions are that we strive to work within an appropriate
cultural context, and we support indigenous leadership rather
than plant long-term missionaries. In this way, we create
a sustainable-life-transformational future for those we serve.
For these reasons,
every member of our network is distinctive, answering the
unique issues they face among their own tribe, culture or
country in an appropriate and effective manner. Just as Christ
transcends all time and culture, so should we, His Body.
In
Romania:
MWP provides 100% funding for House of Treasure
, the only private shelter for victims of human
trafficking in Romania. At House of Treasure,
we provide a safe and loving home with counseling, job training,
discipleship, parenting training (when the women have born
children out of their rapes), and life skills as we help
them to reintegrate into society.
In
Sudan:
Five decades of Islamic invasion, persecution, war and genocide
make the orphans and widows of Sudan the most vulnerable
people group in the world. MWP's response is a Christ-centered
orphan-care network, which employs many of the widows to
care for our orphans.
Through our indigenous
network, we build orphanages and provide complete care for
hundreds of orphans. Here, we protect them from genocide,
slavery and persecution while providing a safe and loving
home, food, discipleship, education, and medical care.
In Darfur and
the northern region of The Republic of Southern Sudan, the
children are most vulnerable to the Janjaweed. The Northern
Sudan government backs the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army)
out of Uganda to flank the country and capture children
from the South. Thus, the first one hundred acres we developed
are on the border of Darfur where we now have three orphan
homes at New Life Ministry, housing nearly
600 children. In the South, at Hope for Sudan
we have 200 acres near the border of Uganda where we are
protecting nearly 100 orphans and are currently constructing
homes for several hundred more.
We also have a
thriving slave repatriation ministry that provides practical
care and discipleship to former sex slaves and their families.
In
Peru: MWP recently added an indigenously
led ministry in Peru that will prevent and combat child
trafficking affecting the extremely isolated villages along
the Amazon River.
In
DR Congo: We are working at developing
an indigenously led program to care for orphans and women
in the area who are at-high risk of enslavement and rape.
