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
Sudan:
Five decades of Islamic invasion, persecution, war
and genocide make the unadoptable 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
over 1,000 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, the
Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile and the northern regions of The
Republic of Southern Sudan, the children are most vulnerable
to genocide and trafficking brought on by slave raiders,
the Janjaweed and the Northern Government of Sudan (GOS).
In the southern-most
region of South Sudan, the GOS backs the LRA (Lord's Resistance
Army) out of Uganda to flank the country and capture children.
Thus, in going
to the most vulnerable and least protected we have set up
an Orphan-Care Network in the hardest pressed regions.
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.
In the Nuba Mountains we are building an indigenously led
orphan-care ministry link, Our
Father's Cleft. Each location receives
life-saving quality medical care through our Faith,
Hope, and Love Medical Mission.
We also have a
thriving slave repatriation ministry that provides practical
care and discipleship to former sex slaves and their families.
In
Peru & Romania: MWP is working
at developing indigenously led partnerships in each of these
countries to care for the most vulnerable orphans and widows
at-high risk or who have been rescued from human trafficking.
Please join us in prayer as we discern where God is leading
us to develop indigenous partnership.