Podcast appearances and mentions of mark mabry

Join Taylor and Tyler in this re-released series from the Book of Mormon Study from 4 years ago (in 2020). Finding Answers to Gospel Questions: https://rb.gy/2nk6ik Check out Mark Mabry's video: Another Testament of Christ Slideshow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yioom_iTXug Scripture Central Resource Guide for Come Follow Me: https://bookofmormoncentral.org/come-follow-me/new-testament-2023 This program is intended to be used as supplementary material to the Come, Follow Me Program by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. ____________________ Book of Mormon Insights is a Scripture Central Production. Hosts: Taylor Halverson and Tyler Griffin. Executive Producer: Benjamin Tyler Griffin. Associate Producer and Video Editor: CharLee Lisonbee Timestamps: Dino Collins Special thanks to Taylor Halverson and Tyler Griffin for volunteering countless hours for this series. Very special thanks to Kiplin Griffin for content editing and review. Thanks to the generous donors of Scripture Central. Nearer My God to Thee arranged and orchestrated by Benjamin Griffin and can be accessed on all major music streaming platforms or the official video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzusb9FNIe4 ____________________ *Download the Gospel Learning app to begin learning through paths created specifically for you! Explore thousands of Gospel topics with the BEST videos available at your fingertips. *Apple App store download: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gospel-learning/id1621522439 *Google Play Store download: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gospellearning.mobile&pli=1 *The Gospel Learning website: https://gospellearning.org/ *Access the learning tracks online: https://gospellearning.org/learning _____________________ *Download our free scripture study tool: https://www.scriptureplus.org/ *Sign up for our weekly emails to receive notifications and more Come, Follow Me resources: https://forms.aweber.com/form/58/2127539758.htm _____________________ *Check out our “Seeking Jesus” course taught by John Hilton III, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDeilIzGYu4&list=PLhfh21X9suLdrz8WcjuDhusIEEd0Knp9v _____________________ *Check out this amazing map resource for the bible: https://scriptures.byu.edu/mapscrip/ _____________________ *This channel may make use of copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. *This Channel may also make use of artwork, voices, video, and effects that are generated by AI (Artificial Intelligence). We do our best to disclose when necessary our use of AI, but know that we make regular usage of AI materials in our content. We do not use AI to deceive or mislead. #ScriptureCentral #ComeFollowMe #ChurchOfJesusChristOfLatterdaySaints

The only thing we can control is the thought in our head right now.  Really it's the only thing.  So will you be intentionally about it?  Or will you let the other voices in your head run your life?  Thought Design is the deliberate choosing of your thoughts based on experience, research, and instinct.  If your thoughts really do determine your destiny, shouldn't you be a little interested in them?  Yes.  On Thought Design with Mark Mabry, we'll speak with high acheivers about their thought processes. We'll hear their dominant thoughts.  And you'll be inspired to choose thoughts of your own.  This is Thought Design with Mark Mabry.  Thank you 

What's it like to be the only Latter-Day Saint (Mormon) in a Southern Divinity School? Mark Mabry is a practicing Latter-Day Saint, formerly known as The Mormons, who moved to the bible belt where he entered The Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee. Paul and Mark discuss his faith and his Vanderbilt classroom made up of a diversity of students from various Christian denominations. Students earn a Master of Theological Studies while others are in the Masters of Divinity Program. Most will go on to become Pastors or Chaplains. Because some Christian churches don't believe Latter-Days Saints are Christian, Mark and Paul explore LDS theology and Mark's Christianity. They also talk briefly about Mark's work as an American photographer, cinematographer, and activist, best known for his photographic depictions of Jesus. In 2008 and 2009 Mark published two Reflections of Christ photo books recreating scenes from the life of Jesus.  View Mark's Reflection of Christ serieshttps://reflectionsofchrist.org/ Learn about Vanderbilt's Theological Studies Degreeshttps://www.vanderbilt.edu/gdr/degrees/theology.php Learn more about Latter-Day Saintshttps://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist ABOUT THE HOST PAUL CARDALLOfficial Website - http://www.paulcardall.comFacebook - http://www.facebook.com/paulcardallmusicYotube - http://www.youtube.com/cardallInstagram - http://www.instagram.com/paulcardall LISTEN TO HIS MUSICAPPLE MUSIC - https://music.apple.com/us/artist/paul-cardall/4312819SPOTIFY - https://open.spotify.com/artist/7FQRbf8gbKw8KZQZAJWxH2AMAZON - Ask Alexa to play Peaceful Piano by Paul Cardall Paul Cardall is an artist who has given a new meaning to the phrase, a change of heart and how he used this radical change to take his music to an unexpected place.  Despite being born with a potentially life-threatening heart defect Paul Cardall has become a world recognized pianist. He is even endorsed by Steinway & Sons as one of the finest pianist of our time. A Dove award winner for his Christmas album, Paul's recordings have debuted on 11 No. 1 Billboard charts along with 46 other chart debuts. His music has 25 million monthly listeners with more than 3 billion lifetime streams and is often categorized as Classical, Christian, and Holiday. Although most of albums are instrumental, Paul has songs that feature Grammy winning gospel legend CeCe Winans, Matt Hammitt (Sanctus Real), Kristin Chenoweth, Country duo Thompson Square, David Archuleta, Tyler Glenn (Neon Trees), Audrey Assad, Steven Sharp Nelson (The Piano Guys), and more.    Paul has performed for audiences worldwide including the White House. Forbes, American Songwriter, Jesus Calling, Lifestyles Television, Mix Magazine, and countless other media outlets have share his remarkable journey of receiving a life changing heart transplant and using music as a tool to help God heal spiritual, mental, and emotional hearts.  

On the forty-ninth episode of All Heart with Paul Cardall, Paul is joined by producer, composer and keyboardist for Michael W. Smith, Jim Daneker. Guest hosting with Paul is Mark Mabry. They discuss Jim's gift of music that led him to Nashville to work with the biggest names in contemporary christian music, Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant. We discuss his album “Ad Alta” and the Dove Award winning album Jim produced for Paul simply called “Christmas.” They also discuss Jim's mom and the recent passing of his father, a pastor from Allentown, Pennsylvania.Jim Daneker is an award-winning and Billboard-charting composer/producer who specializes in the bold, evocative, and memorable.In addition to 25 years as keyboardist, musical director, and producer for CCM icon Michael W. Smith, Jim has enjoyed a diverse musical career. He has produced albums, arranged and written music for film (including trailers for Hollywood blockbusters such as the Fast and The Furious franchise, Transformers 2, Chronicles of Narnia, and several Disney projects), and most recently, created a virtual instrument series under the banner Backstage Pass.After 2 decades of serving other artists, Jim took 2 years to pursue his dream of scoring a cinematic instrumental album, called AD ALTA (released June 2017). This project fuses soaring melodies reminiscent of classic film scores with creative synth textures, ethnic instruments, massive percussion and driving pop/rock grooves, all wrapped in lush orchestration supported by top session players from around the world.In 2018, Jim produced another Billboard #1 album, this time for quadruple #1 artist Paul Cardall - an album that had the unprecedented distinction of debuting on 9 charts simultaneously and won a Dove Award for Instrumental Album of the Year.In 2020, Jim started pursuing several passion projects, including music for licensing via STEREO PHOENIX, continued work on the BackStage Pass series, and several other projects to be announced when the time is right.Whether an epic film score, album production, orchestral arrangements or synth programming, no detail is overlooked; Jim's pursuit of excellence is passionate and relentless. When music is your message, every note counts.For more about Jim DanekerWebsite:: https://jimdaneker.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jimdaneker All Heart with Paul Cardall is sponsored by J.D. Netto's novel, The Broken Miracle, a 2-part fictional series with characters and real events inspired by the life of Paul Cardall, a world-renowned pianist born with only half a heart. Learn more: http://www.thebrokenmiracle.comFor more information on Paul Cardall, please visit:Website - www.paulcardall.com/podcastFacebook - @paulcardallmusicIG - @paulcardallIG - @allheartwithpaulcardallTwitter - @paulcardallYoutube - @cardall

On the forty-eighth episode of All Heart with Paul Cardall, Paul is joined by Chad Karger, a former pastor turned counselor specializing in Behavioral Health Therapy. Chad is part of Porter's Call, a place where some of the music industry's most successful recording artists and touring musicians can find counsel, support, and encouragement, specifically attuned to their unique profession. Paul and Chad are joined by Mark Mabry, a photographer turned artist. Chad discusses how his clients find redemption before and after an artist hits rock bottom. They talk about the struggles touring musicians have separating the illusions of fame and the reality of life. Chad offers advice for new artists and veterans. The discussion applies to anyone who has a busy schedule and how to navigate life so it's more joyful and in the moment. Learn more about Porter's Call. https://www.porterscall.com/All Heart with Paul Cardall is sponsored by J.D. Netto's novel, The Broken Miracle, a 2-part fictional series with characters and real events inspired by the life of Paul Cardall, a world-renowned pianist born with only half a heart. Learn more: http://www.thebrokenmiracle.comFor more information on Paul Cardall, please visit:Website - www.paulcardall.com/podcastFacebook - @paulcardallmusicIG - @paulcardallIG - @allheartwithpaulcardallTwitter - @paulcardallYoutube - @cardall ABOUT CHAD KARGERAfter serving as a pastor and church planter for more than 20 years, Chad now serves as a Porter at Porter's Call (www.porterscall.com) in Franklin, Tennessee. He is the founder and advises the work of BetterDays (www.herecomebetterdays.org). He holds a Masters in Counseling and has used his passion and skills to connect people to truth, grace, and to facilitate transformation through spiritual direction and counseling. He is the author of Go Outside (Lucid Books) and To Become One (Relevant) among other projects. He has been married for more than 25 years, lives in Franklin, Tennessee, and has a daughter and two sons

Ava Liv Mabry's faith and confidence will bring joy to your soul and love to your heart!   Ava Liv is a 15-year-old singer/songwriter bent on loving the people that listen to her music.  Her influences range from gospel to R&B to country.  Her music fearlessly celebrates family, heartbreak, change, and God.    Ava Liv is not afraid to fail and being a superstar gospel and pop singer/songwriter she has a soft spot for just about any human. Mark Mabry is a photographer, author, songwriter, and Ava's dad. Together they live with Ava's mom, Tara, and her three brothers near Nashville, Tennessee.  They are all beautiful examples of believing in your dreams and doing what it takes to make them happen.     Ava Liv is going to make your day!  Ava lives in Franklin, TN with her parents and brothers. She records in Nashville and attends Berklee College of Music online.  Ava Liv frequently practices live and gets to know her audience.       … #fatih #example #confident #brave #singer #songwriter #mentalhealth #mindset #mindsetmatters #God #music #performer #believe #beliefcast #toddinspires #tsinspires    .... You can connect with Ava here: @avalivsmusic on Instagram, and tiktok     .......... Special thanks to our sponsors: Thread Wallets @thread_wallets Siegfried & Jensen @siegfriedandjensen Wasatch Recovery @wasatchrecovery Mountain West Spine & Orthopedics  Living Recovery Interventions @living_recovery_interventions Music by Paul Cardall

The Lord promised “I will not leave you comfortless” (John 14:18) Sometimes we are just so focused on our pain that we don't see how much we are being carried. It's so hard to contain my emotion when I see this picture - "Healing in His wings" Art - by Mark Mabry in the Reflections of Christ Collection. Joseph Smith's Sacred Grove Account - Joseph Smith History 1:16 “The Wound is the Place Where the Light Enters You” - Rumi

Mark Mabry is the photographer and creator behind the beautiful photos portraying Jesus Christ in the art collection called Reflections of Christ, which has been so transformative and a huge piece of not just art in our home, but a piece of my testimony that’s so powerful to me and my family. Mark also has an Instagram account, @reflectionsofchrist, where he shares thoughts about the Savior, insights, and inspiration behind the shots he created.  I was so curious to know more of the back-story behind what made him want to pursue this work. Today, Mark shares with me some incredibly inspiring stories about change, being willing to listen to God's direction, and little miracles that have happened as he's created Reflections of Christ. Mark wants to leave everyone today with this inspiring message that all of us have this glimmer of hope because hope is what keeps us alive. There's this little tiny light inside of us. Sometimes, it may feel like it's not even there. But when you dig down deeper, you can find hope that’s planted in us by God's loving son. Through the power of Christ, everything can be just, and bad things can turn good really fast once we acknowledge that the source of our hope is in Jesus. In this episode, you will hear: Mark originally created the Reflections of Christ exhibit as a part of an Easter pageant in their town. It sort of opened the floodgates for him because it became a massive hit. But shortly after, his past popped up – a sexy ad with him as the photographer got released. A lot of times, we feel like everyone's eyes are on our mistakes or character defects when they're really not paying attention because they’re also worried about their own character defects and whatever's going on in their life. There are so many great resources out there for people who struggle with addiction, but if we didn't need a Savior, then we could just go pay for some other resource to fix our problems.  Jesus is the only one who can wholly, perfectly, and completely heal people. He finds broken people who weren't even looking for him. He saves us, loves us, and makes us whole. Self-forgiveness is so hard. We think we can never rise above it. But you can rise above it, and you can be stronger than you were before you had the addiction.  Mark gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the Reflections of Christ. He wasn't worried about the technical aspect of it, but focused on the actor portraying Jesus Christ. He was intentional about having the presence of the Holy Spirit there.  When he called the actor to ask him to do the part of the new Jesus, he listed all the stuff he had done in his life that would not qualify him to play Jesus. It was the same man who was moved by Mark’s exhibit 18 years ago and decided to change his life. Mark realized that everybody showed this other element of Jesus, not just the actors who portrayed Jesus. Mark did depictions of Christ that are black. But he chose the actor not because he's a person of color, but because he was the right person to tell the story of Jesus getting up out of the grave.     Supporting Resources: Marks Website and art can be found at https://reflectionsofchrist.org/   Instagram: @reflectionsofchrist https://www.instagram.com/reflectionsofchrist/?hl=en   Mark’s personal Instagram: @itsmabry https://www.instagram.com/itsmabry/?hl=en  Subscribe and Review Have you subscribed to our podcast? We’d love for you to subscribe if you haven’t yet. We’d love it even more if you could drop a review or 5-star rating over on Apple Podcasts. Simply select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” then a quick line with your favorite part of the episode. It only takes a second and it helps spread the word about the podcast. Episode Credits Produced by Emerald City Productions

This woman.   How was she so magnetic that she STOPPED JESUS IN HIS TRACKS?   Background. Just two days ago,  Jesus road in Triumphantly, like a conquering hero, turned over the money-changer tables, and told them that Caeser’s currency wasn’t God’s currency. He stayed there at the temple, surrounded by enemies, teaching and calmly answering venom with truth. Jerusalem was about to erupt.   Somehow, late in the day, HIS VERY LAST PUBLIC DAY, something caught His attention.   If this was a fairy tale, and Jesus was a knight, then this might be end of act two. Where he gets to the castle see’s the unknowing bride-to-be in the tower… and remembers why he traveled this far.   IT WAS HER. The pauper widow.   Jesus couldn’t have seen her, BUT HE SENSED SHE WAS THERE. So Jesus left the arguing men and walked up the steps alone, where He could see into “The Court of the Women”.    He sat down.   The courtyard was exposed. There was a long, obvious walk to the trumpet shaped donation boxes. Some people liked carrying their large donations through the courtyard for all to see. But she didn’t. In fact, her gift was only two mites. The minimum legal donation.   He called His disciples to Himself…   “… this poor widow has given more than all those who have given to the treasury.”   She was carrying THE RIGHT CURRENCY, and so much of it that it bought the attention of God Himself…   My goodness, what was she carrying besides two mites?   A broken heart.   She was carrying a broken heart.   And why is a broken heart the currency of the God’s?   Because it’s the physical, mental, and spiritual sign of us HANDING OVER OUR WILL to him.   The loss of her husband didn’t break This Woman’s heart. It set her up. She could easily have been the bitter widow. Her poverty didn’t break her heart either, it let her double down.   A fallen world gave her painful chances to choose faith, it gave her precious perspective.   Anger distracts us from exploring what God can do.   Is there a prayer more powerful than this,   ‘God, here are the pieces of my heart. I don’t know how to put them back together. But I think you do. I’m resisting anger, pride, and hopelessness. I’m turning to you.’   Amen.           Sidenote   This is a pretty bold take, even for me.   I had to ask myself, Mark, are you saying that nobody can break someone else’s heart?   What about getting dumped…?  yeah, it stung. But did you let your heartbreak to Jesus and change,  or did you choose jealousy and sarcasm to guard your heart.   What about when so and so gossiped?  Did you fire back? If so, your currency was revenge.   Or Did you let the gossip die with a private conversation and frank forgiveness? That’s the currency of a broken heart.   What about this and that failure or injustice as an adult? Did you keep fighting long after righteous anger had expired?   I’m not arguing against grit. Jesus’ was more tenacious than anyone… ever. But look at His tenacity. It came after expressing His broken heart to His Father… again and again.   “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors… THY kingdom come, THY will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.   “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour? But for this purpose I came to this hour…   “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will , but Yours be done.”   That was how Jesus prayed. He was just handing over His broken heart over and over again.   That is what a broken heart sounds like.   The world will provide the weaponry that bloodies us to the point of heartbreak.   Let me rephrase that, the world will use weapons like depression, anxiety, injustice, dishonesty, racism, abuse, untimely death, and abandonment…  to force our hand.   Either Will we choose to protect and  delay the heartbreak with anger, jadedness, hardness, cruelty, jiltedness, jealousy, callousness, cynicism, or pride…   Or will we allow those same weapons to help us get to the sacred state of heartbreak.   Will we let our Savior turn evil into good, like He did for Joseph in Egypt, the woman at the well, Mary magdalen, the woman taken in adultery, and Saul of Tarsus.   We don’t alway knows when Jesus has pressed pause to climb the stairs and watch us…   the pauper widow never noticed Jesus watching, and he was close  enough to see how little money she had in her hand.   Think she knows now?   I’m Mark Mabry.                  

We're late. But it's about time. Time to start putting our brothers and sisters above our political ideology. But how? How can we righteously fight for our beliefs about how a society should operate AND maintain civility and love... especially among believers. A few weeks ago I read "A Gentle Answer" by Pastor Scott Sauls. His Christ first approach to how we interact caused me not only to question how I was communicating, but what I was actually fighting for. Time to heal, and no politician is going to lead the charge because it's not in their best interest. Healing is in our best interest as a family in Christ. So let's lead out. You can also download this as a podcast on any platform. It's the Gifted and Lifted Podcast. Here are a few of my favorite notes from the show. Please tell me yours. “Jesus sees us in whatever condition we are and is ready to meet us where we are...” “before Paul… starts telling us what to do and how to live, we are told who we are and reminded whose we are.” “that’s just who He (Jesus) is. He establishes relationship before anything else.” “posture not politics” “righteous anger attacks problems, unrighteous anger attacks people” A beautiful approach to political discourse “I’ve never met a person who got scolded on social media for their politics and then a lightbulb went on for them and they said ‘oh, you’ve completely persuaded me, I’ve changed my mind. Thank you for showing me the light.’ I’ve never witnessed that.” “part of what kindness means…” we make ourselves liars when we adopt a narrative that lumps an entire group together “…it’s not about us and the other people anymore, it’s about us and Jesus” Speaks about how and why to be angry… “that’s an important grid to run things through… Righteous anger is getting angry at things that are precious to God… Unrighteous anger is when we get angry about things that are precious to us, but not to God.” Our pet peeves can refine us “I don’t think politicians have much hope for making the world a lot better… unless your coming from the resources that Christ provides…” "America and the church are not the same thing and they never have been”  mark’s take on masks     “to put Jesus in front of our politics inside the church, so we can go out in the world and hopefully do the same”

Imagine it’s Christmas 2020. We all wake up in matching jammies and do stockings, breakfast, anticipation…  and then mom and dad  (you now) walk into family room to verify that Santa came. But the room is empty.   The kids are around the corner bouncing, waiting for you to give the signal.   You stand there stunned, staring at each other.   Unable to wait any longer, the kids fly around the corner squealing.   They see the room and the squealing stops. Thinking it must be a game. They start searching around. They run to the back window, no trampoline. To the garage, there’s no new bike. Hmmm.   Eventually the kids walk back in and notice the real concern on mom and dads’ faces.   You’re speechless. For 10 years as a parent, you’ve been able to muscle this miracle into existence in a household of “believers”, some years it took help.   Overcome by confusion you sit on the floor and cry, “But, I, I swear… didn’t we…?” For lots of reasons, you can’t finish the sentence.   Every year on the fist night of Passover, Jews gather in families to retell the story of Moses parting the Red Sea to save Israel. It’s a beautiful meal. They leave the door open and a place at the table for Elijah, just in case he comes to announce the Savior.   For me, the tragedy of Christmas is that while billions of Christians celebrate the birth of that very Savior, our Jewish sisters and brothers suffer ridicule, persecution, and even holocausts while waiting for Him.   Christ was born quietly in Bethlehem, but they were so hung up on how things were “supposed” to go, that they not only missed it, they raged.   Back to you, in a puddle on the floor. Your sweet kids huddle on top of you, crying too, but not for Santa. You’re taking this turn of events way harder than they are…   Suddenly your 6 year-old squeals with excitement and runs to the glass door in the back… where a homely little stray mutt noses the window, begging to come it. They all run to the window!   He’s not what you expected from Santa, but he’s perfect.   Forget the Christmas list… open your eyes. This is Christmas. The thrill of hope.   A reminder keep our eyes innocent and unjaded by the times.   Because we don’t know what salvation is going to look like.     Sidenote…   I considered making this story a little longer. I thought about letting mom and dad rage a little bit, letting them be on the phone with cops or maybe even arguing with each other about who forgot to do what… finally late in the day to watch their babies in the yard building a house for the dog, naming him, and feeding him leftovers…   But it would have been overkill to make my bigger point.   We all will eventually open our eyes and see the gift.   When the prophet Zechariah knew the attitudes of the Jews and knew that they would likely miss the gift. Indeed they would for a time… but God comforted him in a vision. Yes, he saw thousands of years of blindness and pain, healed in this moment… Someday, the Jews will finally know their Savior…   “And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.   “And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.”   Somehow, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess… that the babe of Bethlehem was the Savior all along.   I’m thankful that God has opened my eyes enough, during my short life, to believe that Jesus is His Son…   My prayers lately have been different. I’m trying to cut through the wants and the “Christmas lists” that have burdened my faith since I was a little boy.   “Please do this… save me from that… fix her… punish him…”   I just want to know that when the God I pray to “doesn’t do this, doesn’t save me from that… refuses to change someone else… and blesses my enemy…” I want to know that He loves me. I want to lay my worries on Him with real faith.   In other words, I just want my eyes to be open. I just want to see His Hand in this whole thing as much as He’ll let me, right now.   He can do that y’know.   I’m Mark Mabry   Merry Christmas                      

There was no room in the Inn, so Joseph made a spot for Mary to labor in a cave where the animals were sheltered. It was all the Inn Keeper could offer. Soon, Jesus was born. Maybe that night, Mary found the strength to take her baby outside to look at the sky. “Look buddy… see the stars?” Woah, she might have thought-looking up- I’ve never noticed THAT one before.  That’s called light, Jesus. See the Light? “Jesus”  she may have whispered again, finally putting that special name to a tiny face lifting Him to nurse for the first time. “Take… eat… little guy. This will give you life,” Because Who better than Jesus’ Mom to teach her Son to sucker those that stand in need of sucker. Watching him eat she might have reached her hand under the blanket, counting 10 little toes, and 5 fingers on the little hand that rested on her chest. Then looking back at her baby… “You’re perfect.”  Then looking back at the little cave… maybe she saw a strong, but worried, husband trying to keep a cow and three sheep away from the little feed box… the one where they would lay The Baby as soon as he was fed. Did she see him gather fresh straw and use his outer robe for a baby bed. Joseph, she might have said to herself, feeling a surge of love for the humble man would raise the Son of God. After eating, did the Baby roll his eyes around… and look back up at Mary, before falling asleep in her arms? “Joseph”, she might have whispered with the hint of a smile. “He’s asleep.” Joseph would quickly walk over to help Mary over to put her baby in the manger.   But when he approached, she may have said, “hold him, Joseph.” Like a first time dad, Joseph’s unsure eyes would meet Mary’s. “He loves you,” she might have said as he apprehensively picked up the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes.   Together they might have laid him in that manger, maybe even a little grateful at this point to be outside, not in the crowded Inn.   After all that’s been said, perhaps the old inn keeper had an inkling that this couple needed to see the heavens tonight.   And just maybe, the heavens needed to see them too.     Sidenote,   Although he passed away ten years ago, I can still hear my Grandpa’s voice every Christmas Eve reading from the King James… “And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Ceaser Augustus, that all the world should be taxed…”   This year more than ever before different parts of the story are sticking out to me.   Like that the Son of God wasn’t born at home in Nazareth, with family, safety, and a midwife…  because of taxes and a census.  That’s weird. Cause I’ve requested extensions for much less than childbirth. But the Roman’s were oppressing the Jews, yeah, there was no getting out of paying that money on time.   God’s people spend a lot of their time oppressed… and where the Bible stops our history books fill in the gaps.   Right now though, to me though, there’s mysterious hero.   The Inn Keeper. More specifically, the last Inn Keeper, because surely Joseph didn’t just knock one door and settle for the little cave where the animals were fed.   Looking backwards it might be easy to criticize that Inn Keeper who sent the expectant Mother Of Our Savior and her husband Joseph down the road to sleep with the animals.  But for all we know, He was doing exactly what God knew He would do in that spot.   Often what we see as an obstacle to the plan, IS THE PLAN.   (For more on that thought, read some of Marcus Aurelius, who IRONICALLY was a Roman)   I’ll repeat the idea though, because it’s the thought today.   The obstacle to the way, is the way.   Our Father in Heaven, wasn’t opposed to announcing His Son. He told the Shepherds, Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, Wisemen in the East, and prophets for 4000 years in the Old Testament. The prophecies were memorized by those very Jews in Bethlehem!    However, God does seem opposed to telling us exactly how everything is going to go down.   That job loss, the injury, the girl or boy that steals your heart right after you swear off love to focus on your career…  or the one breaks it just as you were licking envelopes for the wedding invites. What about the early baby? The bankruptcy. The disease. The divorce. The Unexpected death.   God’s plan doesn’t look like ours in other words, “My ways are not Thy Ways”.   So let’s replay this…  you be the Inn Keeper.   You’re sitting in your room and an angel comes. “Greetings Friend’ says the angel, ‘I just wanted to drop by and let you know that The Son of God is currently in His Mother’s tummy riding on top of a donkey with her husband. She’s going to have the baby any day now. They’ll be knocking at your door in about 30 minutes. Also, please, don’t put anyone out sir. The stable will be a  fine birthplace for the Redeemer of Israel.”   So why didn’t He tell the Inn Keeper? Because, like us, he would’ve cleared the place out and scrubbed it top to bottom… and rolled out the red carpet. Like us, he might’ve thought to correct God with our good intentions.   God’s plan wasn’t to make the birth safe, sterile, or comfy, His plan was to let His Son descend below everything from the get go. And for two of His most loved children Joseph and Mary to become more like Jesus in the process.     God is in the details of our lives. Orchestrating.   Thanks for listening.   I’m Mark Mabry                        

Hi, welcome to the podcast. I’m mark mabry.   Today i’d like to read and elaborate a little bit on a recent instagram post where I introduced a new piece of art  that depicts the raising of a 12 year old girl from the dead.   We’ll pick up with Jesus preaching in Capernaum.   Jesus was getting huge in Capernaum.   One day a packed crowd was waiting for Jesus to speak, when an ‘important’ man interrupted the moment. The man was ‘a ruler of the synagogue’.   The interruption was Nothing new. (Jumping ahead of the crowd is the timeless privilege of people with status)   Pharisees and scribes always did this…   and it was fun to watch how Jesus dispatched them by exploiting their pride.   Anyway, The well dressed man came forward. His name was Jarius.   Jarius walked closer to Jesus, and in An Unexpected twist…   FELL AT Jesus FEET AND WEPT.   He cried, ’My daughter is dying. Please Master, come and save her.’   Jesus was never moved by status, but always moved by humility, so He went with Jarius.   The curious crowd followed.   Jarius made way for Jesus through the streets. With each step, The pace of his Jarius’s walk seemed to say  ’Hold on sweetie, dad’s coming,’   But Jesus took His time along the way to heal a woman who touched His robe. Then he paused even longer to hear her voice look into her eyes. “Your faith has made you whole.”   Jarius’ daughter’s clock was ticking. Then the bomb dropped.   A servant found Jarius, he said “Thy daughter is dead, trouble not the Master.”   What? It can’t end like this… Jarius had brought Jesus his lowest…. most broken self…   He had nothing left to give.   Jesus, touched him,  “fear not, believe only, and she shall be made whole.”   Believe. Only.  As if to say,  ‘Son, this next part is too heavy for you. I got it from here. You’ve shown me enough… just believe.”   At home, Jarius’ friends and neighbors laughed at Jesus when he said ‘the maiden is sleeping’. So Jesus excused them all.   Believers only beyond this point.   Jarius was wrung out. I see him kneeling by a little bed with his wife… maybe some brothers and sisters.   Jesus raised her.   But was that the only miracle?   Jesus THE GREATEST AMONG US descended BELOW EVERYONE… to lift us up from The Cross. To draw all of us to Him.   Excluding Jesus, is there anyone more powerful among us than the popular person who willingly breaks before the Lord? Who loves Jesus and all that goes with it. The charity. The kindness. The selflessness.   She who falls on her face in front of a crowd and brings Jesus home to skeptical friends… like Jarius.   That kind of condescension is Christlike.   That is the person who see’s miracle after miracle.         I felt like Jarius’ status in the community was important in this story…  because status is a set up.   We have seem to have less sympathy for rich people, good looking people, gifted people, or successful people.   I mean, it’s definitely a little funnier when sunglasses-guy backs his new Beemer into the light pole at Costco, than when a struggling mom with 3 little kids in a used mini van does it.   The Jarius story challenges those among us who are prone to judge popular or rich people… more harshly.   Think it was easy for Jarius to fall at Jesus’ feet and basically beg in front of that huge multitude of people that knew him as the powerful guy in the Synagogue?   The scribes and pharisees and hypocrites… those are Jarius’s people. What will they say when they find out Jarius was bowing to Jesus of Nazareth? Could it cost him his ruler of the synagogue gig? What about that house that was big enough to have a bunch of people at it in a few verses?    Think it was easy for Jarius to patiently wait as Jesus took his time walking through town healing someone else’s, non emergency blood issue, while his own daughter was critical…   Jarius was used to people jumping when he said jump. How about keeping it together when he finds out that she had died while he was stuck in the crowd…?   Yeah, status is a set up, a set up for Jarius… Because status Is a trojan horse full of pride.       Status ads degrees of difficulty to a humble Christian approach to life.   (That’s my best line and a big part of my point, so let me repeat it)   Status ads degrees of difficulty to a humble Christian approach to life.   Let’s look at Jesus Himself.   How did Jesus win the hearts of women and men starting with Adam and Eve all the way down to you and me.    Hint. It wasn’t because God gave Him Authority or a title, which He most certainly did… it’s all we read about in the Old Testament and the first few chapters of each of the Gospels. It’s  God saying, “This is my Son” “your savior” -  to Mary, then Joseph, to Simeon and Anna, to the Shepherds, to the Wisemen, To John the Baptist and the people who watched him baptize Jesus and heard the voice and saw the dove. But so what?   Imagine if God had said all that and Jesus didn’t end up being, well… perfect.   A title by itself only gathers brown-nosers, not sincere followers.  Authority and power are not the same thing at all.   Jesus has power because he won our hearts. JESUS won OUR HEARTS BECAUSE HE DESCENDED waaaaayyyyy BELOW his birthright as a god… GIVING EVERYTHING HE HAD TO CLAIM OUR OUTCLASSED, less popular, LESS BEAUTIFUL, GUILTY SOULS FROM HELL.   HE WENT LOW- TO UNBREAK OUR GREEDY, LUSTFUL, JEALOUS HEARTS… EVEN THOUGH HIS HEART IS PERFECT.   HE HUNG ON THE CROSS BRUISED AND NAKED AND BLOODY TO save ME AND YOU-   WHO IN TURN DO ALL WE CAN TO PRETEND LIKE WE’RE NOT BRUISED AND NAKED AND BLOODY TOO.   THAT’S WHY JESUS IS THE MOST POWERFUL BEING EVER…   We love him, BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US.   I LOVE HIM.   BECAUSE HE gets low TO LOVE ME FIRST… AND ASKS QUESTIONS LATER.     Back to status for a moment.   When someone throws off the glory of the world at risk of losing it all, like Jarius… Jesus seems to notice.   Sometimes there are actual real life consequences… watch how the world tolerates acceptance speeches that vaguely say, “I’d like to thank God”   but notice how awkward it gets when someone famous says, “I follow Jesus Christ”. Just ask the actor Chris Pratt, or  boxing champs Manny Pacheo or Tyson Fury, or Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow or drew breeze.   I have a front row seat to see what happens to Lifestyle, Fashion, and Fitness influencers on Instagram when they ‘come out’ as practicing Christians… Often they do it on the same day they are sharing a piece of my art that hangs in their home.   Almost Immediately their follower count drops, then the comments start. “Stay in your lane” “I used to respect you…” “How can you be so intolerant?” “Ignorant” “Naive”. Other Christians will even dig back into their feeds and criticize them for previous posts that, in their minds, don’t live up to a “Christian” standard.   Are you serious?   I’m not famous, but You don’t have to dig to deep to realize that I mark mabry, am a christian hypocrite many times over… especially when you consider that I write about Jesus every day. Just ask my wife and kids. That’s my set up!   So I’m inspired by the humility and faith of popular people who, like Jarius, fall at Jesus feet in front of the crowd. Because, on the flip side, supporters that stick by them end up loving them more than before. The connection is deeper… and frankly, it gives God another opportunity to bless their enterprise.   People with status don’t have an obligation to be public about their faith any more than our mailman does.   And that’s what makes it so powerful when they do it.   AIt’s proactive humility. They’re not compelled to be humble.   And so it is with you and me in our own successes…   the more we can redirect the glory of the world toward our God and be the servant of all, the more we can identify with Jesus….    Because that’s what Jesus did.     I’m Mark Mabry   Thank you          

Father-daughter singing duo Mark and Ava Mabry perform their original song Eating Alone, and discuss sexual exploitation, harassment, and victimization.

This week my son left home, but first I wanted to get his take on the last 19 years. What were his big takeaways? Where did I fail/succeed as a dad? How was his relationship with his siblings?  I struggled with whether to publish this or just transcribe and keep it in my journal. It's a bunch of personal stories, but I also feel like there may be some useful moments.  So enjoy!    mark

Chad welcomes Mark Mabry, Recruiting and Retention Manager at Four Star Transportation in Michigan, to talk about his experience in the industry and his company’s efforts to boost driver retention. Mark was kind enough to talk at the tactical level to suggest actionable steps companies can take to improve drivers’ experience at transportation companies, recruitment tools to try, and how to differentiate your company during the recruitment process to appeal to prospective drivers. What you’ll learn about in this episode: Mark’s take on how they’ve created a healthy family culture, and why sometimes a “family culture” can resemble a dysfunctional family. The importance of dispatchers and the ratio of dispatchers to drivers The small things a company can do to boost retention and help drivers have a good experience Recruitment tools to try to reach prospective drivers How to differentiate your company from other carriers when recruiting a candidate Paying drivers as a percentage of load  Best practices for getting driver feedback The battle against high turnover in the industry How to connect with Mark: www.fourstartrans.com Phone: 313-283-9172

I loved every second of talking to Sam and Bridger. At first, I was a little scared for this episode. I figured there are a lot of med student podcasts and let alone med students in the world today. So what made these two so special? I found out during the interview, It is not what they do that makes them special, It is who they are. These two are people who recognize the smallest and largest miracles in life such as Birth or Heart Surgery. Bridger was inspired to do this at a very young age Watching his younger brother get glass removed from his back. Sam was inspired because of personal loss. These two are both smart, kind, creative, and special Individuals. These guys taught me that even the most accomplished put in the work when nobody is watching.  People listening at home, I am just glad I got to talk to both of them. PS If you noticed I asked a few questions twice, That is because my battery died halfway through.   Editing done by Brianna Ansaldo  Mark Mabry with support  And funfinity for helping out 

Something funny happens if you google my dad, Mark Mabry. You get a bunch of pictures of Jesus. It would have been really funny to do that to him... but he did this one to himself. About 10 years ago, when I was 4, my Dad created an art exhibit called "Reflections of Christ". It's a collection of pictures depicting Jesus that ended up being pretty popular. I was so young when it came out that I didn't really notice it, but now I'm interested.   Interviewing my Daddy was a treat for every second of it. I want to thank you Dad for everything you do for me and the other 3 kids. I could never do what you have done for me, I am so happy I got to record one of our very finest conversation. Love you Daddy  

Can applied faith help us outperform ourselves? Yes. In Gifted and Lifted, host Mark Mabry interviews world class performers about their relationship with God. You'll hear tactics and strategies for how to perform at a new level through faith. 

The night went horribly the whole time, But then this happened. Life felt differently for me, Even though it was not the biggest deal. (It did not have to anything with girls) I got support from friends, and family. I found out who my true friends are. I found out who loved me, and who I loved. Telling my mom with tears in my eye. My little sister, who I would die for, Witnessed the whole thing.                                                                                                                    My Dad Breaks down the whole thing, so people could hear. I love what he says about life. I learned so much in this, even as a guest. In the words of another relative of mine "Bo- If you get 2 strikes and Hit a Homer, No one remembers the strikes."-(Clyde Bawden). "My Biggest nightmare is not going to school naked, Its going to school dressed like everyone else"-Me (Bo Mabry) If there is something on your chest, Let it off. Holding it in gets more painful by the second. Share, Somebody Out there cares.  

Slave Stealer cohost, Mark Mabry, admits none of his kids (ages 16 down to 7) have seen the documentary "The Abolitionist". Mark talks about the difficulty of explaining something as sensitive as sex trafficking even after going on numerous operations with Tim.  So Tim takes the challenge of explaining trafficking to Mark's twelve-year-old son, Bo. Bo is no stranger to the microphone. He hosts a podcast of his own, you can check it out on iTunes or at Dumbitdownpodcast.com If you have ever struggled to find the words to explain this great plague to young ears, this conversation with Bo and Tim could give you some ideas.   

Tim gives the emotional back story of Gardy, the currently missing son of a friend, in Haiti. He talks about recent efforts to rescue him and a little about how Gardy helped start Operation Underground Railroad.   Interview w/ Tim Ballard Mark Mabry January 20, 2015   Tim:          Welcome to Slave Stealer Podcast. Tim Ballard here with Mark Mabry, and we're going to talk today about the story that really started Operation Underground Railroad. It's the story of a man named Guesno Mardy who is a Haitian man whose son was kidnapped, trafficked, from Port-au-Prince. He was the pastor of his congregation, and this boy was taken from church, passed on to traffickers, and vanished. What's horrible about this story is that while he's looking for his boy - he's only two or three weeks into the search - and that's when Haiti has that earthquake that kills 300 and some thousand people. Included amongst those people were Guesno's mother, Guesno's sister, and almost his wife. She was the only person who survived in this building that collapsed and only because her body fell into, like, a crevasse of cement jungle and somehow walked out without a scratch. And that's when she said...she basically cursed the land and said, "I'm leaving. My son's been kidnapped." She had four other children at the time and she says, "I'm outta here. I'm going to Florida. I cannot live in this cursed land." And Guesno says, "I can't leave without Gardy." So they're still married and everything, but he lives in Haiti because he will not leave until he finds his son. Mark:      And she lives in Florida. Tim:           She lives in Florida. Mark:       That was a lot to take in for an opening paragraph. Tim:          Yeah. How'd you like that one? Mark:       That was big. Tim:           Yeah. Mark:       Let's just start here, then. Let's start into the narrative, because you gave us a good context. Take me to the first time you ever spoke to Guesno. What was your situation at the time? And what was his response? Tim:        I was a government agent when I heard about the case - and the reason I heard about the case was because this little boy Gardy actually was born in the United States. His parents were on a fundraising mission. They have an orphanage, beautiful orphanage, that we visit often, and it has 150 kids in it. They're on a fundraising mission, and that's when Guesno's wife, Marjorie, was pregnant with Gardy, had Gardy - he's a U.S. citizen. He's the only of the of the five kids, the (now) five kids, that's a citizen, so I...naturally, I heard about the case. There was some press on it, and I was reading about it - not very much press, but a little bit. And I thought, "I wonder what's happening with this little U.S. citizen who's been taken?" So I started digging into it, found out that the case had been given over to the Haitian national police. There were some federal agents who went down in the wake of the kidnapping and then the earthquake happened and all hell broke loose and they just had no leads. At that point, though, very few were looking for Gardy, relatively speaking, at the time, and then when the earthquake hits, there's no infrastructure. Prisons broke, people were running out of jail... I mean, there was no resources to do anything like a proactive investigation for a missing person. Mark:       How many displaced children were there in the wake of the earthquake? Do you know? Tim:           Oh, it's hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Mark:       So one missing already, it's a... Nobody cares. Tim:          Oh...later on, we went and talked to the Haitian police about the Gardy case, and they said, "Look, we care about this case, but the problem is, we get a missing person or missing kid report every week, several a week. Dozens." Mark:       I want to know about the first phone call. Tell me about the first time you connected with Guesno. Tim:           I was trying to work this case from the government. I actually opened a case on it, but because there were no leads and it would have required a trip down there to even find leads, that's not enough to get anyone to sign off on a plane ticket. So what I decided to do was reach out to him. I found a connection between him and me, someone who knew both of us, and they reached out to him and we got him up here with private funding. We got him up... We flew him from Haiti to up into Salt Lake City. Mark:       Him alone, or him and his wife? Tim:           Just him. Mark:       Ok. Tim:           And we met at Thanksgiving Point, which is an area that has restaurants and dining. And I foolishly invited him to the nicest restaurant at Thanksgiving Point. I thought I was doing something kind, and he walks in... He totally feels out of place, he sits down. We order this food, and he's looking at it - this is my first impressions of him. He comes in, we're just kind of talking, small talk. And we order this food, and they bring it out, and then he's just like, "This could feed ten of my kids for a week..." Mark:       I hate people like that. Debbie Downer. Here you are at this... Tim:           Oh, yeah. Mark:       I'm just kidding, I don't hate Guesno. Tim:           No, but he was completely just honest and genuine. He just took, like, a little bit of the food for himself - like, a tiny bit - and then asked for it... He was leaving the next morning, so he's like, "This food won't perish. I'll be able to take it back to my kids." Mark:       His kids meaning...the kids at the orphanage... Tim:           The kids at the orphanage. Mark: Wow. Tim: So that made me feel like, oh. Well, I mean, I was grateful that, I guess, some of the food got to go back.. I think he had to smuggle it through customs, to be honest with you; I don't think you are supposed to take food, but he probably figured out a way.         So we sat there, and we started talking about it. And it was a punch to the stomach when he said to me... It was one of the first... He kind of led out with this. I said, "What are you doing right now to find your son? Like, what's the plan?" And he said, "The plan is... All I have right now is zero leads..." Except, he did have a target location. He knew of a place that he believed Gardy had gone through this illicit orphanage. He had tried to get in, he couldn't get in... He said, "You're not going to be able to get in. No one can get in there." He rented... he used to rent, like, a motel or a room in a building across the street. He'd get up on the roof with binoculars and tried to look into this place. It's like a fortress kind of thing. And these kids... It's just on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. He says he's tried to get in several times and no one will let him in. It's all walled off, gated off, because you can't get in. Mark:       Pause button. This may be a cultural thing or personality thing: if you thought your son was behind those walls, what would you do? Would you not, guns blazing, go in.? Tim:           The police told him, "If you can find a kid in there that you can tell us you've seen your son - you can show us some pictures of it - we will raid the place." Short of that he... You know, I think part may be a cultural thing, partly he doesn't understand, like... I don't know. I mean, I would have been more aggressive, sure. I would've just gone in... Mark:       Yeah. Tim:           ...and made a ruse or excuse for going in or whatever. But, in fact, that's what we end up doing. Mark:       But, but they knew him, as Will disclosed. so there was no ruse. Tim:           They knew him. Yeah, they knew him, they knew him and so it was even more difficult for him to get in. And Haiti's also a culture of, you know, people don't want to... It's a very violent culture, right? I mean, everyone's seen someone murdered. And so people are very careful about stepping out into anything. They don't want to get involved. They don't want to get wrapped into it. There's traffickers and thugs involved with kidnapping this boy, and so no one wants to step in, so Guesno was just alone. Even he has to be careful how far he goes; he might create a situation where he's off'd. Mark:       If someone will kidnap, they will murder. Tim:           Absolutely. Mark:       I think, in general. It's a blatant disregard for life. Tim:           Especially in Haiti. Mark:        Yeah. Tim:           Yeah. So he's just... He told me that's what he does. Aside from that piece of intelligence... And he says there's no way of getting in there and he wasn't even 100% that he was still there - he was certain that Gardy, at least at one point, had been trafficked through this place. But he still held out for the possibility that he could be anywhere in Port-au-Prince or anywhere in Haiti or anywhere in the world, for that matter. But he told me that he arbitrarily picked a neighborhood in the city, in Port-au-Prince, and he would just walk. He would just walk with a flashlight, hoping. And I remember, we were sitting there having this dinner, and he says...and this is what really, really hit me. He said, "I just walk the streets hoping to hear Gardy's cry." And I said, "How do you pick the area?" He said, "I just pray and I just pick an area." The scarier the area, the better. Mark:      Wow. Tim:          ...he said. And he just walks and hopes to hear Gardy's cry. I said, "Guesno, that's not a good enough plan. You gotta come up with a better plan." And he says, "I know, you need to help me." And then he starts telling me...he starts tearing up, and he says, "Do you have kids?" And I said, "Yeah, I have kids." He said, "Can you imagine laying down and falling asleep in your home, on any given night, knowing that you have a small child whose bed is empty? And he's somewhere outside, you have no idea where. Could you just lay down, knowing that the bed is empty?" I said, "No. There's no way." " Well, I haven't slept for years." Mark:       Asking you, as a man of faith: knowing Guesno's faith - and that'll show up further on down the story - how do you reconcile that much prayer? And that much... I'm talking thousands of prayers - not only his, but those of his wife and kids, those of now tens of thousands of people that have heard...millions of people that have heard of Guesno and prayed... For Gardy not to be found yet, it hurts. Like, it doesn't destroy my faith, but it certainly goes, "Oh, come on. This one's worthy." How do we reconcile that gap? Tim:           Well, I've had these talks with Guesno, and he says...he believes there is a higher purpose for this. He believes that Gardy's alive. He believes that Gardy will be rescued, but there's a reason why he hasn't been rescued yet. As I continue to tell you the story about how Operation Underground Railroad got involved with the search for Gardy, it's almost a prophecy fulfilled, what happens. Mark:       Real quick, to be clear, first Tim Ballard got involved in searching for Gardy. And during that search, Operation Underground Railroad was born. Tim:           Yes. Because of that search, it was born. I tried to, first, investigate this case as a government agent, but like I said, there just wasn't any leads. I mean... There really wasn't any leads except for this one orphanage that I couldn't get a hold of the case file. You don't just call Haiti and say, "Hey, can you send the case file?" There is no federal agencies, law enforcement agencies, like Homeland Security or FBI; they didn't exist in Haiti. Trying to get the case file would have been... I tried to, but no one could get it for me. The way Haiti works is you gotta just show up at places and be persistent until you get to the boss, and then you ask the boss, and then he can make a decision. So, I needed to get boots on the ground to even verify the validity of whatever lead we had, particularly this illegal place, that according to Guesno, held children, and that Gardy had been trafficked through that place. So, I tried to get down there and I just couldn't. I knew I wasn't going to be able to, there just wasn't enough information...the crime, even though it was a U.S. Citizen, had occurred in Haiti under Haiti jurisdiction... The-the-the-the-um Federal agents had gone down in the wake of that, like I said, but they found nothing and came home, and they just turned the case over to the Haitian police. And that was it. That was it. So, because I'd made the promise to Guesno that night, I told him, "I will do everything I can do to... and I will never stop looking, until we find your son". And I had made that promise, and then here I am completely unable to fulfill that promise. Because I opened the case on it, I couldn't go down on my own dime and my own time... It would've been a major conflict, and against policies, and... I wouldn't have been able to use any government contacts I had...and so, because it wasn't an authorized investigation, an authorized trip, to go down there. So I knew the only way that I was going to be able to fulfill the promise to Guesno was to leave the government altogether and go down as private organization, as a private investigator. Mark:     And so, I'm assuming you tapped big reserves of cash and that you had sitting there. Tim:        Oh yeah, I had a... The government pays me quite a bit with my bonuses, and...no. [scoffs] Mark:     And your stock options... Tim:        And stock options and, you know, Uncle Sam provides. So...so yeah, we had no money. Mark:     What I'd like to do here... And I love this, how it's building... You make a promise, and in order to fulfill his promise, you've got to give up everything. In searching for this little boy, everything comes back in droves, and you're still searching. It's a...yeah. Talk about the birth, a little bit, of Operation Underground Railroad, because it fits. Those that watch The Abolitionists, the movie that's coming out May 16th, you've got to understand that there's more to the Gardy story, like the birth of Operation Underground Railroad. Tim:        Right. That's right. Mark:     So, go with, kind of the... Let's go long-form here. Just give me how it was born, in context of Gardy. Tim:        Well, I'll say this... We've talked a little bit up about Colombia, there were... It really was two cases that birthed the Underground Railroad. It was Gardy, and then also a promise I had made to Colombia, to the Colombian authorities, as a government agent that we would come and execute this plan that we had designed to rescue kids in Cartagena. So, both of those were weighing on me. Mark:     So, personally, your personal integrity was being compromised by constraints in your current position. Tim:        Yeah, and it was naïve and foolish of me to make the promises, frankly. Mark:   Or inspired. Tim:        Or inspired. One or the other. Often, those are one in the same, right? So, um...uh... Yeah, we've talked about Colombia, but this... Both of those together birthed Operation Underground Railroad. Mark:     Colombia fail op, actually, right? That was your first op, we talked about before? Tim:        Yeah, that was the very first operation in Colombia... That was a plan that had actually been planned a year earlier, or maybe more than a year earlier, when I was as a government agent in Colombia, training federal police down there on how to do trafficking cases, and we have decided that we would, instead of just doing the training, that we would actually do a case. And I promised we'd be back to execute, and then I couldn't get back. So, it was it was a similar situation in both these cases, and are happening at about the same time. I can't go to Haiti and help Guesno, and I can't go to Colombia to help the Colombian federal agents. Mark:     And when you got to Colombia, you weren't allowed to... The case got stymied, right? It got shut off? It was a technical failure? Tim:        Yeah... Mark:     And you're taking us to Haiti, here in the second, where, in terms of objectives... We didn't come home with Gardy, and it's interesting... Two kicks in the teeth, right off the bat... Tim:        Yeah. Mark:     Yet, you plow through. Tim:        Yeah. Mark:     It's cool. So keep going with Gardy. Tim:        So, we go to Port-au-Prince, because of the police station, we open the case file. Sure enough, there's plenty of leads. Guesno's right. This orphanage is illicit, if you can call it an orphanage... This place where children are being kept is most certainly a [pause, stutters] prime suspect. Mark:     Why? Tim:        Several reasons. One had to do with the fact that when Gardy went missing, the-the-the-the, um leader of the organization, this orphanage started showing up, and they knew each other. There was an acquaintance there, which is usually how kidnappings happen. Mark:     She went to Guesno's church. Tim:        Yes. She went to Guesno's church. Mark:     She was one of the members of his flock. Tim:        That's right. And that's usually how these things happen, unfortunately. It's usually someone who knows... They know, they have an inside angle. So she starts showing up randomly, like, after, like, snooping around, like, showing up with the family when they're meeting with the police, and they're just like, "Why are you here? We don't know you that well..." Like, why? And then the police turned on, started investigating her, and she just disappeared... Stopped coming to church. At the same time, they made an arrest in the case of another flock member, who actually worked for Guesno at the orphanage, and was fired for embezzling money. Interestingly enough, he ends up being the one who, dead to rights, was the one who actually did the physical kidnapping of Gardy, and then gave him to a bunch of thugs. His thought was that they were just going to ransom the kid off, and they knew from phone records that it was clearly him who was making the calls back to Guesno for ransom. He thought they're going to ransom the kid off, get him back, and he would have got his revenge on Guesno. But what happened was the thugs did ransom him off, took the money, and then kept the kid to sell him to make more money, and then threw this flock member, Carlos, to Guesno... Oh, I'm sorry, to the police, and they ended up arresting him. He still in jail. And while he's going to jail, he's... From jail, he's calling who? He's calling Yvrose, who is the director of this illegal orphanage. Mark:     The woman that is snooping around... Tim:        Yeah, the woman that's snooping around, and then disappears, and is acting all weird... He starts calling her. She's the point of contact. We don't know what those phone conversations were, but those phone conversations were very active in the wake of the kidnapping. All roads lead to this woman, and she's up to no good. Carlos is in jail. The thugs, you don't know who they are exactly, but they have Gardy eventually, but... We have to find out, does this woman... If she and the business of taking kids and selling them in the black market? Because that would make sense, if that's what she's doing. Her orphanage was illicit, she couldn't adopt kids... She didn't have a license to adopt kids. Mark:     And it's not like she was just getting them to take care of them Mother Teresa style. Tim:        Oh, no. Mark:     As we'll get to, that was no sanctuary. Tim:        Oh, no. That was a doghouse. That was a doghouse. So, she lived OK. She had her own little apartment on the premises, and she had another house outside of the orphanage, too, and she was doing just fine. It's the kids who were living in the doghouse. So, so, we goes down, we end up with the blessing and authorization of the Haitian national police... They signed up to work under them... And they send us into the orphanage with hidden cameras to just see what's going on here. We kind of just show up, she's very suspicious at first, but we said, "Look, word on the street is that this is where you can get kids". Mark:     And this is just...this is you and an interpreter, right? Tim:        Yeah. Mark:     Ok. Tim:        And you. You were there. Mark:     I went... You had been there before by now. Tim:        Yeah, that's right. We have been there before. Mark:     So, you went and scouted about... Tim:        Yeah, we went up and just said, "How do you... Word on the street is that you've got kids." So we came in exactly like a trafficker would come in. We didn't come in and say we're going to take these kids and sell them into sex slavery or slave labor, but a trafficker wouldn't do that. He'd just come in and say, "I hear this is... If you want kids, this is where you come get them." And she said, "Yes, that's exactly right."  And then we let her tell us, "Well how does this work?" And she was not shy about it. Adoption wasn't an option. She didn't even lay it out there. In fact, we forced the issue and said, "Well, why don't you do it legally?" She's like, "Aw, you don't want to do that. That's not... It's just real easy, just give me $10,000." And she ended up raising the price the next day to $15,000 dollars. "Just give me cash and pick your kid." These kids weren't documented. There is no evidence that they even existed, because that's how she would get them. There was no legal process by which she got them, she just gathered them. So, we went back to the police and said you won't believe this...she, she... You're right! She is suspect number one, because she is selling kids. The fact that you believe she had Gardy is very credible. This is her M.O. They sent us back in to do the deal, and we went in and picked these... They said, "Pick a kid. Buy him. Look at the evidence, and we'll shut them down and get the kids out there." Mark:     K, so, let's narratively go into this joint... You've got a couple of undercover Haitian police specialist detectives, one woman, and another man that was posing as our tour guide, and another guy that was posing as the van driver. These guys, you know, we talk about government corruption, and it's probably a little more rampant in Haiti, and business is good for traffickers in Haiti. For these guys to stand up and take on trafficking is really bold. Tim:        Yeah, absolutely. Mark:     So, they were there, there are a couple of abolitionists there, there was a former marine there, who was a girl, and this is when I met Tim. I was working at The Blaze as a journalist, and he invited me to come down to verify, say "Hey, I want to show your organization that we're legit. And I was working for The Blaze for Glenn Beck at the time, and he said, "Ok, we're going to send Mark". Boom. I get sent. I'm with Tim, and that's really how we... we'd met before that, but... Tim:        Yeah. Mark:     Our first... Tim:        So, that's... Mark:     That's why we're here. Tim:        So, we-we-we... Mark:     We all walk in. Tim:        We all walk in. Not all those people you named, some of them were just outside security, and, but... Mark:     Yeah. Tim:        So we go in and we make the deal, and we buy these kids. While we're going in, this time, unlike the first time, I picked up one of the kids and I was holding him and I'm walking around, and I'm looking for Gardy. Is Gardy in here? Is there a possibility? So I walked through every nook and cranny of this place, but, the best I can, they were walling me off to see everything... Mark:     We're taking pictures of every child's face. Tim:       Yeah, every child's face. Maybe one of them is Gardy. But, ultimately, we came back, and, and, um, it was a really... This movie is captured in the movie. Or, this scene is captured in the movie, where I go back and tell Guesno, and I'm like... Mark:     Wait, you skipped... Filled in a little bit, first. Tim:        No, I didn't skip. Mark:     You didn't skip? Tim:        No. Mark:     What did you tell... Tim:        I go back, this is before... This is before there's a rescue. Mark:     Oh, before we did anything. Tim:        Yeah. Mark:     Ok. Tim:        I go back to Guesno and I tell him, "We went there... Gardy was not there that we could see, but she sells kids." And Guesno instantly just, falls apart. He just starts crying. And he says, "She sold... She sold my son. She probably sold my son." And I said - again, this is in the movie - I tell him, "Yeah, but, but we can... This is how... This is our lead. We get her in the hot seat, we interrogate her, and make her tell us, 'What did you do with Gardy? Did you traffic Gardy, too?'" And you know, the key is getting her in the hot seat, because she's about to sell kids to us. So, Guesno's very encouraged, he's excited about this, and then he... And this tells you about Guesno, and he instantly turns and he says, "And you've gotta get those kids out. They're suffering. I know they're suffering," he said. Later on, he would tell me, he would say, you know, "If I never find Gardy, but Gardy's kidnapping is what brought you here and rescued these 28 kids who are for sale... That's a burden I'm willing to bear for the rest of my life." And, that tells you a lot about who this... Who this guy is, and like I said, he sees a bigger plan. He still believes we'll find Gardy, and we believe that. We're operating under the belief that we will find him. But in the meantime, all the good that comes from this... And so much good has come from that looking for this little boy, not the least of which is the 28 kids that we were able to pull out of a trafficking situation. Mark:     So, we go in, do the deal, pull the kids out. You can see the whole thing in The Abolitionists, so we'll skip those parts and really go for the parts that aren't there that much. You get Yvrose in the hot seat, which is represented, finally. The Haitian authorities get her in the hot seat, and we're sitting in one room, she's in the next room over... She thinks that we're all arrested, at this point, because we all went down. Yvrose is sitting there getting interrogated... an interesting twist is that her daughter was visiting, who had lived in Brooklyn, correct? Tim:        She lived in, yeah, the United States. Mark:     She lived in the U.S., she was visiting, and when we went in to buy the children, we said, "Hey, you've got to come back to our hotel to do the deal." She goes, "Ok." She tells her daughter what's going on, daughter fully knows mom's selling kids and these Americans have a ton of cash... Tim:        And we approached the daughter, too, to make sure, because, we were kind of like, "Hey, don't come, don't come. Do you know what's going on?" And then she says, "I know exactly what's going on." Mark:     Yeah. Tim:        She's like, and I said to her, "Is this dangerous?" She's like, "Are you kidding me? This is totally illegal. We could go to jail for this." Mark:     Yeah. Tim:       I was like, "Alright, well, you're helping... You want to come, if you want to come on, and you know this... I'm trying to help you, sister, but you're in, so..." Mark:     And we're in the hotel room, this is the crazy thing, right? We're talking to Yvrose, and you ask, "Have you done this before? How... How would we get these kids out of the country?" She goes, "Oh, I did this before, not long ago... About five years ago," which is when... Tim:        Which is when Gardy was taken. Mark:     ...when Gardy was taken. She said, "You're going to get on the boat... Who is this woman? Do you trust her?" She points at the woman who was kind of there as our... Tim:        She was an undercover police officer for Haiti, yeah. Mark:     She was undercover, that she was kind of, just, our helper. Our Haitian friend. Tim:        Yeah, we told Yvrose that this woman was the nanny that we hired to take care of the kids while we smuggle them out of the country. Mark:     And so, she goes, "Ok. Those kids are going to call her Mama." And she's try- Tim:        She knew exactly what she... She had done this before. Mark:     Yeah. So, and the sad thing is, so everyone hops into the van, we drive clear back to Port-au-Prince, up into this big, opulent hotel suite that we got for the occasion, to pull off the ruse, wired with cameras all over the place, and she calls the little kids in and goes, "Hey," um, she calls the kids and goes, "This is Mama.". Tim:        That's her name. Mark:     That's her name. Call her Mama...kids are like, "Mama, Mama..." Tim:        Good, good, good job! Yeah... Mark:     Yeah. And, um, that's how we were going to get them out of the country. She was orchestrating this whole deal soup to nuts... Full service. Tim:        Yeah, and she gave us several other tips and smuggling routes: how to get out, what to say, what to do. And she kept telling us, "Don't worry, I've done this before. But you can't get caught - we'll all go to jail - but here's what you gotta do." Mark:     And she's... So, you're slapping down. And this is something indelible in my head. I'm watching Tim slap down $20,000...thump, thump, thump... $100 at a time. As her eyes are getting bigger and bigger... Tim:        And she has no idea who we are. Mark:     No idea. Tim:        And she knows better. And I actually had a very...very educated person who came to me after seeing an early clip of this operation, and made this comment that just, like, blew my mind. This person said you know, um, "I don't see what the big... I don't really see a big deal. I mean, if I was down there, I might buy a kid just to get him out of hell too..." And I thought, "WHAT?! Are you... What are you talking about?! No, you wouldn't! Because then what are you going to do next? You're going to smuggle this kid into your country? You're going to have an illegal person... child... in your house? You're going to have to hide them their whole lives? They're totally illegal... Are you kidding me?" And, um, and...and, because he was almost trying to defend Yvrose. Like, "She's just trying to get them a better life!" BULLCRAP! She knows exactly... She knows that decent people do not buy children. Mark:     And getting them a better life... Take us, real quick, what happened the next day, when we saw footage from the inside of the orphanage. The stuff that we didn't see before, on the bust. Talk about their quality of life. Tim:        Oh wait, I want to finish what I was saying before you rudely cut me off, though. Mark:     Come on... I always do that. Arg! Tim:        You do that often. Um, [pause] this woman knew that the only people that would come to buy children... There's two million children in the sex... Forced into sex slavery. There is... That number is double or triple, over five million, close to six million or more, who, if you include the slave labor. This is a huge business. She knows what she's doing. People come to buy kids to put them into slavery. Sex slavery or slave labor, and they do not come to buy a kid so they can raise a kid and bring that kid into their family. That's not how it works. Decent people do it the right way, because they actually want to have a family that's legal and lawful and they raise this child in a good place, with laws and with order. The fact that she doesn't ask one question, only encourages us to buy, buy, buy, don't even think about adoption, buy, buy, buy... We could have been anybody. And she knew that. We could've been pedophiles, in the child pornography industry. We could have been owners of a plantation somewhere that needed kids to work. Usually it's a combination of both, frankly, if you buy someone you're going to use them for sexual exploitation and labor, and that's the bottom line. The evil runs deep here. And she knew it. There's no way that she didn't know it. Mark:     And... Where do you want to go? Tim:        So, so we end up, we end up busting them, thank goodness. They go to jail and the kids get liberated. The next day after the operation, we go back into the orphanage with the police and now we can really see everything, and this is what you see, is the kids had a steady diet of flour and water. That's all there was in the place. Mark:     With maggots. Tim:        With maggots... It was the most disgusting thing... The little children that we bought in the operation, the little siblings, the boy in the girl, Colé and Coline, they thought they were two and three years old. Turns out they were more like five and six years old, but they didn't know that until they got 'em into a place where they actually fed them food. It's amazing what food does. You know. It makes a big difference, in, in, in your...in your growth. In your general health. I mean, to think that kids could be identified as two years younger than they are simply because they don't eat...so, uh, so we were able to, uh, to get them out, and then during that operation, as you see in the movie, we go back, we get her in the hot seat and she's admitted that she stole the kids finally, to the police. Mark:     After like, two hours...she breaks down. Tim:        Yeah, after, after...she finally breaks and says yes. And again, we didn't need her confession... It helps the case, but we didn't need it, because it was all on video. It was very clear that she was selling the kids. She's lying, lying, lying for an hour or two, and then she finally admits it. And now, she's in such trouble, and that's when we come in with, "Ok, now where's Gardy?" And we know she knew who Gardy was, but she acted like she didn't know him. She was like, "I don't even know what you're talking about... I don't know that boy". And again, we know she's lying, because we know she knows that boy. Mark:     She went to church with that boy. Tim:        She went to church with him. She knew that boy. It was a big deal, she was snooping around during the investigation, but she's like, "I don't even know what you're talking about... I don't know that boy." At that point, she... We tried and tried and tried and tried, and she was done. She was already in such big trouble that she was not about to confess to one more crime. But we were trying to... The police were trying to leverage the daughter, saying, "We can make a deal with you... You want your daughter to get a light sentence, here? Do you want us to go easy on your daughter? Or do you wanna tell us where Gardy is?" And she just went cold. Just, wasn't about to do anything to harm herself any further, and so she shut her mouth and said "I'm done talking." Mark:     She sold her daughter down the river. Tim:        That's right. That's right. Mark:     Man... In... To... What's going on in the other side of this is you've got Guesno not knowing exactly what happened, except for... What's happening on the other side is Guesno is at home waiting and praying that [edit out background noise from Tim's mic here?]...[Tim clears throat] that Tim's going to come back with a confession about what happened to Gardy, and Yvros goes icy cold. It was one of the emotional lows of this story, is we go back to the hotel, Guesno comes to meet us, and Tim has to tell him... has to tell Guesno that we have nothing. We go back to the restaurant, Guesno's on his way, you get to break to him the news that she gave us nothing. Tim:        Um-hmm. Mark:     So, we're sitting at this dinner table, everybody's dejected. Tim:        I wouldn't say we're dejected, we just rescued 28 kids. Mark:     We did, but there was... Tim:        It's bittersweet. Mark:     It's bittersweet. Thank you. That's a better word. Now take us to the conversation. Tim:        So Guesno comes in and he's hopeful that we're going to say, "We have a lead, we know where he is." And he's sitting there... But, again, back to Guesno, first and foremost, he was concerned about those kids. "Are they safe? Are they... What's going on? Is she selling them?" "Yes, yes, yes." He can't believe it. Even then, he can't believe it, even though he's the one who led us to that place. He's like, "Really? She actually... she actually admitted that she was selling kids?" It's like, "Yes, she did." And then I had to tell him, when we got to Gardy, she denied knowledge that he even existed. And instantly, and you see this in the movie, instantly, he just... His complete person just shuts down. Just, you just see a little... One more piece of his soul dies, yet again. And he just sinks. I just try to speak words of encouragement to him, you know, I'm like "We're still closer, we're still going to go back to the orphanage, we're going to look around, maybe some of the older kids recognize him... We'll show pictures of him..." And he's just...he is dejected at that point. Mark:     And, um, Guesno leaves. And this is a behind-the-scenes memory that I've got on one of my little cameras. For those that listened to the podcast, there are people, by now, by episode wherever-this-is, you understand that it's a God-fearing organization with faith. Not necessarily a religious organization, but one where faith plays a role. I remember, probably a 75-second speech that you gave that night, because it was bittersweet, and we were all sitting around the table and it's... The operators... Man, we've got Navy Seals we've got former CIA guys, we've got filmmakers, and you say... You say at that point, the gist of your speech was "If you have an impure soul, I don't want you here." Tim:        Ha! That's right. Mark:     Do you remember that? Tim:        I do remember that. Mark:     You said, "We've got to be pure, and stand with some confidence before God if we're ever going to bring this child home." Do you remember that speech? Tim:        I do. Mark:     It was incredibly telling about your approach to abolition of this great evil and probably reinforcement of the mission of this...what was now Operation Underground Railroad, at that point. Tim:        Yeah. Mark:     Um, and just kind of a cool sidelight that happened on that trip. So, take us from there. Continue on the Gardy-finding journey. Tim:        So, things kind of... We find no leads. No one's talking, no one claims to recognize Gardy, but no one talks. That's what I've learned about this. No one in Haiti talks. We went back to the church and interviewed every single person that was there that Sunday that Gardy was taken, and no one would talk. Guesno said that, like, a year later, even his closest congregation members finally came to him and said, "We did see Gardy taken by a motorcycle driver." Mark:     And that would be Carlos, possibly. Tim:        Yeah, Carlos was part of that. He-he- brought... He led Gardy over to the motorcycle. Gardy knew Carlos, and so he trusted him, and then handed him to the trafficker. A woman saw it happen... It took a year for her to admit, because they don't talk. They're scared of getting involved, because when you get involved in things like this, you get killed. So no one talks. Mark: And leads is shut down, completely shut down. The irony is, like, so bright... The sad irony. Here's Guesno saying, "If I lose my child to save these children, it's worth it." Which, for me as a dad, probably for you as a dad, I would give my life before I'd give my child's life. And I'm sure Guesno's even the same way. So for somebody, out of fear, to not report...to not risk their life to report this little boy getting stolen... Doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And it's a super sad... Tim:        It's sad, because Guesno's willing to risk his life, not just for Gardy, but for those 28 kids, and all kids. Mark:     And risk his son's life. Tim:        Yes. Mark:     It's incredible. Tim:        There's actually some analogy here to New Testament doctrine. Mark:     Yeah, I think we're writing... I think this is like C.S. Lewis stuff, at this point... Tim:        Yeah, this is like Abraham, Isaac... Kind of... Mark:     Yeah. Tim:        Atonement of Christ, kind of... Mark:     It's amazing. What a test for this man. So, let's go on to the narrative, onto finding Gardy. Tim:        So, we get, we actually, through prayer and just seeking a miracle, we get one. Someone finally comes forward. More than one person, frankly, comes forward, and says we've seen Gardy. We've seen Gardy, he's in a slave labor camp, or slave labor area, and this is where we've seen him. We were able... There's a lot of things we can do, and we're trained operators, we know how to corroborate intel, even without finding Gardy in this area, if they told us enough things about the area, we can prove if they were there. We can prove that they saw something. They saw enough that we corroborated to know that this is a very trustworthy source of information. That's where we're at now. Mark:     And this is about six months later. That's the time that has passed. In the meantime, with the steam you built finding Gardy, because the 28 kids actually got some press. And with that press, came funding of more operations, and in that six month period, Operation Underground Railroad grows. You've busted dozens of more traffickers, saved dozens of more children in different countries, and increased awareness of the cause, just because you're looking for Gardy. Tim:        That's right. And...and-and this is ...back to Guesno. I'm willing to... "I'm willing to give up my son to rescue children." And he has rescued children, by doing what he did, by losing his son, and by encouraging the growth of Operation Underground Railroad. He has rescued many others. He is part of that. Mark:     Absolutely. So, intel... We head back to Haiti. Tim:        We go back to Haiti, and what happens is... we're in the middle of this right now, so it's all about infiltrating this certain region where... And what are we finding? More than 28 kids who are slave labor, and we're able to document them, where they are, what they're doing, how they're being treated. We're sending intel reports to our embassies on both sides of the border of Dominican Republic, which shares the island with Haiti. We're in the process of gathering a whole bunch of intelligence, and we're doing anything we need to do to legally infiltrate working with the Haitian national police. Mark:     And, a while back, we reported on a story, Operation Underground Railroad reported on a story about a mission to a small village in Haiti that for me was pretty freaky, I don't know about for you... Tell us... And this is when we went down, identified this place, you corroborated the information, we came up with a plan, we were going to go to this village that was seriously so remote that you could disappear and nobody would find us. Tim:        Absolutely. Mark:     Um. Tell us... Just give us a... Take us into some of that mission. Tim:        So, what we did was, we needed to find a reason to be there, legitimately, so we got some doctors, we actually partnered with a legitimate non-profit organization in Haiti that does medical clinics... They knew what we were doing, the Haitian police knew what we were doing... And we brought a clinic into this village. I don't believe Gardy is actually in this village, but this was a village that we could gather intel, because at this point, we're not just looking for Gardy. At this point, because of the intel we got, we're looking for kids who are being trafficked, because they're being trafficked all over the place, for sex, for labor, so we're just gathering intel. So what we did was set up a medical lab, real doctors, over 500 people show up and get treated. The doctors told us that they actually saved lives. These people... And some of them, they're not all bad, I mean, most of them are good family people, and families who have never seen a doctor, and so we're treating them, which in and of itself made the whole mission worth it, just to help these people out, medically, but the real reason for going was to get intel. Again, not just about Gardy, but all the kids, so we have all these kids start showing up and we start talking to them afterwards, as kind of their post-checkup interview, and we actually brought Guesno out... He didn't know that we had the intel, because I'm so tired of hurting this man, putting him on this roller-coaster, so we don't even want to tell him that we're looking for Gardy, that we have intel on Gardy unless we have to tell him. So his job is to do the post-interview stuff, because we're thinking, man, there's hundreds of kids coming through this clinic, if one of them is Gardy, he'll recognize him and we won't... In the meantime, we're talking to these kids and, "Who are your parents?" Like, "I don't have parents." "How were you brought here?" "I dunno, I was just always here." Well, yeah, because they were kidnapped just like Gardy was. "What do you do?" "Well, a truck picks us up, takes us over to the Dominican, and we cut sugar, or we pick avocados, and they bring us back." "Well, do they pay you?" I mean, these kids are 10 years old. Mark:    Yeah. Tim:        "Nope." "Uhhh... How do you eat?" "Well, we just get passed around from village to village, or from house to house, hut to hut, and hopefully they give us some food." Well, because the adults are on the take. They're the ones making the money, so they just round up ten kids, and they get paid whatever they get paid, whether it's in product or some kind of fee per head, and that's called slavery. Mark:     And, if I can paint a picture for just a sec, because I was there to photograph... We drove into the village at the crack of dawn. The sun was rising as we were getting to the overlook of this village, and when it finally rose, what we saw was South Carolina circa 1840. I mean, little shacks with naked children bathing in steel tubs outside, people hoeing in tiered gardens, digging up carrots and whatever... The occasional stray mule. But it was plantation-style. Tim:        Yeah, and the reason, even more to your point to this analogy of sl-... It's culturally accepted. These kids are called restaveks, and it's the same justifications that were used in the 19th century to tolerate slavery, are being used here. Oh, it's a better life for them. Yeah, we own 'em, yeah, but at least we're feeding 'em...you know, it's better than they could expect anywhere else... Mark:     And it's a class, right? Tim:        What do you mean? Mark:     There's two classes of kids that we saw. Tim:        Oh, absolutely. You walk into a village, you know which ones are the slave kids. Which ones are the restavek kids, and which ones are, you know...they're totally... You're dressed differently, they're sad, their countenances are different, and we have... We're getting intel all the time, right now, and I can't... There's other tactics we're using that I can't reveal right now because I think we're getting closer to Gardy and other rescues in this area... Mark:     Thousands of rescues in this area. Tim:        Thousands... And we need the Haitians on board, though, before, before we can, um, do anything. It's a very sensitive situation, because we're fighting a culture. Even though it's against the law in Haiti to enslave people, it's still a cultural situation that's very, very difficult. They've never had the resources to do anything about it anyway, so they never...they don't think about doing anything about it. But here we are, coming in and putting the ideas in their head, "How are we going to do this? How are we gonna...How are we..." Again, Gardy becomes the hook, right?... Gardy keeps us there, because we want to find him, but we can't help but help these other kids when we find them, too. It's going to take some time. Right now, all we can do is gather the intelligence, give it to our embassies, give it to our government partners, and slowly devise a plan. There is no question about it, this is... slavery is alive and well in Haiti, and it involves children...it involves you know, we see the kids, the girls are taken into Dominican or other places and forced into sex trafficking; the boys, some of them get pushed into sex trafficking, a lot of them, most of them, become slave labor victims. That's what we're up against, and we're in it. That's where we are right now. There's a, um...At one point during that medical clinic, we recognized that we needed to tell Guesno, because he needed really to be looking for Gardy, and it was a hard decision, and it's probably the most emotional scene... It's in one of the episodes. The Abolitionists crew actually caught it. We took him into our car, and said, "Guesno..." because he kept asking me, I thought you guys were a rescue organization, I didn't know you were a medical group... Mark:     But he was totally there helping kids get healthy. Tim:        He was only there to help. Mark:     Was not thinking about Gardy. Tim:        Mm-mmm. Wasn't even thinking about it. And he kept saying, he kept telling me, "Why are you guys doing this?" I'm like, "Ah, you know, we like to help any way we can." He's like, "Oh." Well, I finally get him in the car, and say "Guesno, I've got to come clean with you. We're here because we have intelligence." And I gave it to him... It's off the camera, because we can't reveal our sources, but, and I said, "We have helicopters on standby, over on the Dominican side... These cops are here, there's undercover cops here that are carrying guns... We are all here because we think Gardy's here and we're here to rescue him." And the spirit that filled that car...and-and-and-and-and-and-and instantly, Guesno, just... just a flood of tears. But they weren't, they were, there actually, it was, it was emotional, not bad, I mean, it was actually...he said, "I have never felt so much hope, since Gardy's been taken. I've never felt so much hope that I feel right now." And he told me that, before that had happened, he had a spiritual manifestation he didn't tell us about. He believed he saw this little boy that was Gardy's age... It wasn't Gardy, but seeing that boy... He said something whispered to him, "Gardy's here. Gardy's here." And so when he heard me say that, it was like full corroboration about why we were actually there, and it was a flood of emotion. When that episode comes out someday, people will see this scene. And then, as we drove out, you remember, you were there, you actually took a Pulitzer-Prize-winning photo... Mark:     One of the best photos of my career... Tim:        Of Guesno... A tear-filled Guesno, as he's turning around talking to the police officer, who's pledging life and limb to never rest until we'll go back to that place and pull Gardy out. Find him, and pull him out. Mark:     Ok, now, why were we leaving the village, and under what circumstances were we leaving the village? Tim:        We left the village because... After we had serviced, medically, most of the people, the traffickers, who also were getting medical attention, they decided that now is the time to take advantage of us. They got what they needed out of us, now, let's steal their car. Let's kill a couple of them. And this mob mentality started to evolve, and we were surrounded by this group with machetes. Mark:     3-400 people... Tim:        At least... a lot of them with machetes, shotguns, and they were not going to let this go. And the village Elders kind of had a council, as you recall, and they came back and they said, "Look, we think you're great. We think you're innocent, but we can't control this mob, so good luck." And we just prayed our way through that one. I mean, we just prayed, and prayed, and prayed until finally, five gunmen turned to three, turned to two... blocking the road, and then we just went for it, and luckily they... Luckily they didn't fire, because... And we just got out of there, and... We've since been back, with different faces, under a different situation. So, we're back, we're there, they just don't know it's us. Mark:     So, as we are leaving, Jean-Paul, who is the cop, who is just a wild, ferocious cop gets famous in Port-au-Prince for taking down big criminals and being so aggressive, but he ends up being this tender-hearted guy who puts his hand on Guesno's shoulder, and just... We could all understand him even though we don't speak Creole. Tim:        That's right. Mark:     And, you know, Guesno was a little bit dejected because he's just got driven out by gunpoint from the place where he believed his son was. He now sees the babysitters of his children, and he was a little dejected. We all were a little dejected, and that's when Jean-Paul does what you're saying, hand on shoulder... Guesno turns around, like, tears in his eyes, Jean-Paul's just yelling, "We will find your son! We will find your son!". And, uh...Incredible. Tim:        And Guesno says at that point, once again, he says, "I have never been so full of hope." Mark:     And, it was Haitian? Tim:        It was the best day of his life, he told me, "This is one of the best days of my life, because Gardy's here. He's alive. We're going to find him." Mark:     And he was being told by a Haitian that he would find his son... Tim:        Right, and he didn't hear that very often. Mark:     And once again, you've started a fire in a country where the people are now taking over. Do you want to pause? 55:27 Tim:        Yeah, I gotta go. 55:28 Mark:     Oh, crap, we're leaving? All right. 55:29 Tim:        I gotta go. 55:30 Mark:     Part 2, coming up, next time on Slave Stealer. [move this to end, or delete?]   0:02 Mark:       Alright. Um, Tim was just literally dragged out of the room by um, by our team, and I, uh, know that we are leaving you here with possibly the worst podcast ending of all time...as we're driving out of the village, and, um, emptyhanded, without Gardy. As it stands, there are searches going on, intel being gathered in the area that is unprecedented, and our guys are discovering things and getting access that has never been gotten before. And so, um, we're going to leave Gardy and this story right here at the cliffhanger moment, and I think it's sufficient to say that the search for Gardy has indirectly, and in some cases directly, yielded over, um, 500 children pulled out of slavery over the last two years. 200 traffickers around the world, put behind bars... Um, and that continues. And I can speak for Tim, that he will not rest... He's already given so much to that promise to find Gardy that... That it'll continue and grow exponentially. And so, for Tim, who's now on his way to downtown Boston for an important meeting, I'm Marc Mabry, this is the Slave Stealer Podcast.

  Mark Mabry talks to Mark Stott, an O.U.R. veteran, about the miraculous meetings that made the production of "The Abolitionists" possible. Because of the financial contributions of two very important donors, O.U.R. created and promoted the film without dipping into any of its regular donations reserved for funding rescue missions. They also discuss the importance of talking about trafficking and other sexual abuse in our society, as well as with children at an appropriate age.     Mark M.:    Hello, and welcome to the Slave Stealer Podcast; I'm Mark Mabry. Tim Ballard is standing by, and with me right now we have Mark Stott who was with O.U.R. from the very beginning, served as a board member, served as an advisor, a sounding board to Tim, getting it going, and now, is working as an executive with "The Abolitionists" to get that movie out there.   There were so many interesting...we'll call them miracle stories. We're not scared of miracles on Slave Stealer Podcast because ending this is what it's going to take, is a miracle. But we've got awesome stories in bringing about this movie, "The Abolitionists," - even more awesome stories bringing about O.U.R. in general - but I want to talk about him because there needs to be a bit of recognition and a feeling of the inertia and momentum. And so, Mark, if you would start us out, with addressing the problem. The problem was we had an idea to push this thing further via a movie - or Tim was approached with that - but we didn't have any money. So, take it from there. Mark S.:      Yeah. Yeah. Back in 2013, the summer of 2013, we met Gerry… We were introduced to Gerry Molen, and uh... Mark M.:    Gerry Molen. Mark S.:      ...the producer of Schindler's List and Jurassic Park. And he sat down with us and said, "You guys can go save kids one by one, but if you really want to make a movement, you need to make a movie. And if you'll do that, it will motivate and change the hearts and minds of people across America. To get really behind this." Any great anti-slavery movement had the people behind them. And so, with that in mind, we always knew we should create a movie. That has had, along the way, some really interesting side effects that we didn't know would happen.                             The first initial problem was we had no money. Funding a movie is not cheap. You have to fund the individuals to video it, take the time to edit the movie... So, once O.U.R. was funded, we thought, "Ok, what do we need to do?" One night, Tim got a phone call from an individual he had not met, and said, "I'd like to meet you. I heard about you on the radio, and I heard you want to do a movie. I'd be interested in possibly funding it." So Tim called me up and said, "Mark, let's go," and it was 10:00 at night, and we needed to meet this individual at a hotel, which seemed rather suspicious and strange, frankly… Mark M.:    But not the most suspicious or strange meeting you've ever had in this business. Mark S.:      You're right. Mark S.:      Multiple times, we've met people in hotel rooms. So, we went with Chet and Fletch, myself and Tim, and met this individual. It was a rather strange moment: there's five guys sharing the story of what we plan to do and the challenge of saving millions of children. We're crying. Five guys crying in a room. And once we shared this story, this terrific individual decided to fund the movie. And it was a significant amount of money. Mark M.:    We're talking in the millions. Mark S.:      Yeah. Yeah. And so, we - Chet and Fletch and I - walk down the hall; Tim continued to speak with him. We were standing in the elevator... And Chet and Fletch have tried to raise funds for movies before, and I looked at them and said, "Has it ever happened that way before?" They started laughing and said, "Never." In the meantime, Tim is hugging the funder and he comes walking down the hall - and coming from the government, he had no experience in raising money like this - and he came and asked the same question, said, "Does this ever happen?" And we said, "Never." That was the first…one of the first significant moments we knew this was important - that frankly, God had placed this individual in our path and he offered to make this movie possible. The significant... There were other miracles as we keep going here. What we didn't realize - even though it was part of the plan - but we didn't realize how significant the footage would be in saving these children. Mark M.:    Yes, why? Mark S.:      Well, most of the time, when children like this are saved by police authorities, they are asked to testify and they - particularly in foreign countries - often the predators will go and begin to threaten their families. And the kids will never go take the stand. One is it's too embarrassing, but particularly if they get threats, they won't do it, and these people get off for free. And so what's happened is when all of this video is taken and these films are taken, it's taken from the beginning of the deal to the closing of the deal. All of that is used as evidence and turned over to the authorities. When a jury sees these videos, they don't need the children to testify. So, the over 500 children that have now been saved... Not one of them have had to stand to testify against their abusers. Mark M.:    Because of the work of "The Abolitionists." Mark S.:      Because of the work of "The Abolitionists" movie. Mark M.:    So it's so much more than a film because it…as you were saying, it was the thing that got these kids off the hook from having to testify. It was the thing that locked shut tight all these cases. Mark S.:      Yeah, it's used as significant evidence. It's absolutely, 100%, solid evidence. Mark M.:    And it's going to be... And we've seen it turned the tide of battle and change minds and hearts and introduce this horrific problem in a way that's just about palatable. Mark S.:      Yes. That's one of the great things that, what I also think the genius of the directors. They've been involved in this, they have been there. They are as close to all these people, as close as the team from O.U.R. is, because they have cameras and they're up close and personal. But because of that experience, I believe they did such a great job on the movie because... I've had some mothers say, "You're talking about a terrible topic, but you've done it in such a respectful way, particularly of the children, that rather than leaving feeling dark and ugly about the topic, I felt motivated to help." So, my hat's off to the directors who put this together; they did it in such a way that we didn't have to get into the real, real ugly, because that's easily imagined. We don't need to see it. Mark M.:    Disclaimer, though. It's definitely not a Disney flick. Mark S.:      It's definitely not a Disney flick. Mark M.:    Don't bring your kids right off the bat. See it first. Mark S.:             Right. Right. Right.  I've had my 10-year-old son see it, my 13-year-old daughter see it. Mark M.:    Wow. Mark S.:           They liked the show. They like it. We had a couple kids the other night that the mothers said, "I want my sons to grow up with a purpose in life, and I want them to be the kind of people that these men are." And so she had them watch it. Mark M.:    Wow. Mark S.:      We asked them how they liked it, and there's enough cops and exciting things going on that the boys liked it. So, it was interesting, but certainly, parental guidance is suggested. You need to have your... Mark M.:    Strong. Mark S.:      Yeah. Mark M.:    Parental preview, even, maybe. Mark S.:      There you go. Yeah. Mark M.:    I agree. Because I've been wondering: do I take my 11-year-old, turning 12, son? You may have just helped me with the decision. There was another miracle: so, movie made, evidence secured, and it's expensive - I mean, there's tons of equipment, like little hidden spy gear. There is finding filmmakers gutsy enough to get arrested in third-world countries over and over and over... Mark S.:      That's right. Mark M.:    And a lot of travel. Tons of editing, I mean... You're shooting these things from 12 different angles... Mark S.:      Sometimes up to 25 cameras in one room, yeah. Mark M.:    Yes! It's insane! And so, someone has to sift through this footage, and that's not cheap. So that's... A film budget can be gobbled up very quickly. Mark S.:      Yeah. Mark M.:    As this was. And I think, man...talk about holy dollars in terms of the film world, because it was evidence. Mark S.:           That's right. Mark M.:           But we ran out of money and how do you promote the film? Enter guy number two, miracle number two... Mark S.:   That's right. Yeah, Tim called me about five months ago and said, "Mark, you know, Gerry Molen had this vision of what this would do... The movie is now shot; it's done, it's been edited, it's ready to go, but we're down to nothing." And again, this was privately funded so it didn't take from donor dollars because we felt it was very sacred if people donated to... Mark M.: Very important point. Mark S.:   ...if people needed to donate to O.U.R., that money was set aside to make sure we're saving children. So the movie was privately funded so it was very clear that it was for the movie. So we sat here and Tim called me up and said, "Mark, we need some funds to promote this and get this across the world, and across the United States particularly." So we, again... The second miracle, financially, is we were on a plane - and we have a friend of ours that does pretty well. We told him of the problem, and he basically said, "If you'll gather a team of individuals to promote this and present a plan to me, I feel it's important enough that, frankly, if I don't get my money back, if we can show the world what's going on, I'll give you the money." And again, it was over...it was a seven figure number to promote the movie, and he handed them over full well knowing he may or may not ever get that back. Mark M.: And the promotion of this film... To make the film was one thing. Promoting it is so important because that was the point of the thing, is to get the word out in a way that people could understand it. Mark S.:   Yeah. Mark M.: And wrap their hearts around it. Mark S.:   Yeah. And we've seen significant... As we've shown previews, as we've done pre-screenings and had audiences come in... One is the motivation to get involved, and all of a sudden there's people that are a little nervous to come, particularly mothers, and we've seen that with the audience. And after we've encouraged them to come - because, again, it's a heavy topic - but we've seen people come in the door and once they're done, we always ask them at the end, "Are you now an abolitionist? Are you willing to join this fight with us?" Audiences of hundreds of people now have raised their hand and are joining the fight because of this movie. They now see the problem. They realize there is a solution. They realize that when people join together that we can solve these significant problems. People are raising their hand, they're getting involved, they are doing different actions, they are donating, they're gathering their friends and families to come to this movie. And it's really amazing to see what's happening to people. They feel like they have a purpose. Mark M.: And of course the end goal is "save kids": save two million kids. Mark S.:   That's right. Mark M.: And our highest and holiest is that people walk away and say, what can I do? Well, at the very least, and probably the very most important, is to become an abolitionist in the donation sense. And I can plug the donation thing easily without Tim on the mic. If you go to Operation Underground Railroad's website, ourrescue.org, it says, "Become an Abolitionist." There are high school and junior high kids that donate five bucks a month. There are adults - five bucks a month. There are amazing people that send $1000 a month. Whatever. Mark S.:   Yeah. Mark M.: But there's a price tag on every single kid's head. There are economics to the rescue, and it's... Depending on how many kids you get, or how many bad guys you get, it always takes money. Mark S.:   That's right. Mark M.: Because you've got to find the best law enforcement people to come on board full time, leave their comfy job, often being paid less when they come here - most of the time being paid less with worse benefits - but the benefit is that they are kicking butt in a really fast way. Mark S.:   And making a difference. Mark M.: And making a difference.   Mark S.:   The amazing thing... As this movie is going out, we're getting more and more demand for O.U.R.'s help. We've had multiple countries now opening their doors and inviting us, whereas before we were asking to go in. They are now pulling us in. We have, probably, over five to ten countries now that have basically said, "Come and do what you need to do." We have state attorneys, district attorneys, asking us to come into their districts, and that takes resources. But the team is very effective in their training. It's really quite amazing. The other...and I'll mention one more thing that's been miraculous, is that, as people come and watch the movie, multiple times we've had individuals that have never shared their story of abuse and they share it with us. It's interesting because this movie has made it an acceptable thing to talk about and has given courage to people that have been abused, and now we've started, actually, several investigations as well of people that have seen this, realized they weren't the only ones, and they said, "I'm no longer hiding what happened to me in the past, and I want people to be held accountable for what he did to me or to somebody that I love." And that's a fantastic thing happening that people no longer... This is not acceptable behavior any longer. This is not something we need to hide. It's something we need to stand up and fight against. Mark M.: Fantastic. Mark Stott, thank you very much. I'm Mark Mabry for Slave Stealer - I'll see you next time.

In this episode of Slave Stealer, Tim Ballard and Mark Mabry talk about the first trip to Colombia that did not go according to plan. Despite this setback, which is portrayed in "The Abolitionists" - coming to theaters Monday May 16th - the team goes back to rescue those kids...and saves even more of them. Tim also explains how the film addresses the misconceptions that people might have about the legality of O.U.R's operations, and he also discredits false claims that others in the anti-trafficking community have made about the organization.     Tim: Welcome, welcome, one and all, to Slave Stealer Podcast. This is Tim Ballard here with Mark Mabry. Mark:         And today is a special day. We are ramping up for the release of "The Abolitionists." "The Abolitionists" is a documentary film executive produced by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Gerald Molen who did things like "Jurassic Park," "Minority Report," "Rainman" and "Schindler's List." He teamed up with FletChet Entertainment, Chet and Fletch, who are brilliant producers who have given themselves to this thing. And they said, "Tim, we heard your story. We want to follow you." He said, "That's great... I can't have a camera crew following me around." They said, "Nobody will notice we're doing it," and that has been the case. So, that movie is coming out May 16th in over 600 theaters across the nation, and we're super pumped because that will exponentially increase the amount of people who give a damn about child trafficking. And that is what we want. Now, what I wanted to ask Tim about today - we'll get more into the movie later - but what I wanted to talk about is the first mission because this thing, it starts out and you're craving this moment of joy right off the bat. And we run into a failed mission and I want to know more about the failed mission, some back story for people that go see the documentary and they're like, "Ok, that was painful." Talk to me about Operation Genesis and why it's relevant to your success today. Tim:           Yeah, it's... You know there's...it's an important story. It's an important story. It's our first operation. It's really the first time we're going in, and there's a lot of pressure on us, right? I mean, people have donated money believing that we can actually rescue kids. Now that's a lot of pressure. Now that we've rescued hundreds and hundreds of kids - possibly thousands if you consider the fact that we have close to 200 people in jail because of our operations - it's easy. We can take a breath and say, "See? We're doing it.  Help us." But in the beginning, right, it's stressful. And we only have enough money as an organization to do a couple of ops. These operations have to be successful or we're done. We're out of business. We're not going to get another chance. So, we go in there, we do everything by the book. We sit down... And this highlights an issue. Our government's ready to rescue kids. Five years ago, Operation Underground Railroad, I don't believe, would even work because the governments that we're working in weren't ready to rescue kids. They didn't have laws in place. And I truly do credit the Trafficking in Persons report for pressuring governments to create legislation to combat this problem. Mark:         That was George W. Bush, correct? Tim:           George W. Bush signed it and Congress created it...and the U.N. and other organizations bringing it to light as well, making it an issue. And countries have just recently - really in the last couple of years - created the proper legislation.                           So here we are in Colombia, testing their laws for the first time. They made the laws, but now it's like, how do you enforce it? So they're nervous. They're nervous and they invited us down. They set the date and here we go. We find the bad guys, we engage the bad guys, they show us the kids, we meet them on the beaches of Cartagena. We've got five, at least five, bad guys. We've got over 20 kids, we've seen their pictures, we've seen them. Everything is ready to go. Everything we're doing is by the book and we're letting the prosecutors, the Justice Department, tell us, "Do this, do that, do this, do that." We're all set up and ready to go. I have one final meet at about noon at a convenience store. This female trafficker brings these two little girls, an 11-year-old and a 10-year-old, and shows them to me, like, "They're going to come to the party and they're going to do X, Y, and Z..." She got real graphic. I'm like, "Perfect." I remember thinking... I remember looking at the little girl and, like, hoping I could send like an ESP-type message to her, you know, like, "I'm a good guy, I'm a good guy. When you see me again, it's going to be over." And I was... It hurt me to have to send her back for just a couple of hours. Mark:         Because who knows what happens... Tim:           Because in a couple of hours, we're going to rescue her. But just those couple of hours were killing me. Like, but just in two hours, it's going to be done. She won't be sold in those two hours, so we'll get her back. A lot of tension, a lot of anxiety, and a lot of excitement: rescue these two little kids. Mark:         And this is... You're a brand new charity at this point. Tim:           Brand new. It's our first operation. Mark:         A lot riding on this one. Tim:        Oh yeah. So we go back to the house, set everything up. The traffickers are delivering the kids, they're on their way. And we get a call from the justice - from the prosecutor's office - saying we're not going to take...we're not going to sign the warrants to sign off on the operation.   And we're just like, "WHAT?!" You see in the movie. There's a scene in the movie that people who know me well know that I'm absolutely...this is me falling apart when the phone call comes in. If you watch carefully, you can see my corroded artery and you can see my breath increase and I get dizzy, and it's not an act. Like, my wife said, "You're not acting - that's you." I'm like, "Oh yeah, I was going through hell in that moment." I'm yelling at this agent, the Colombian agent. I'm saying, "What about these kids?!  You can't turn them in, back into the streets. What are you doing?!"   And they never gave me a reason why they didn't sign off on it, you know, because we did what they told us to do. We didn't come too early, we didn't come too late. We reported every hour, every day, what we were doing. And everything was good, but at the end of the day, they were nervous. Something that they had done, or maybe they had misread something... And they never told us what it was, but they weren't ready for whatever reason. And we had to tell the traffickers... We had to make up a story like, "Hey, listen, the cops came because we were playing the music too loud and now we're scared because they saw us here. We can't possibly bring kids here because what if they're looking at us" or whatever. So we told them, "We'll come back another time - we'll call you."   It was just absolutely devastating. If you watch the film, you see, we fix the problems. We come back a few weeks later, we rescue all those kids and we actually get to rescue more kids because we had more time to dig and stuff. So it ends really really good, and really intense moments that you see in the movie, but what was interesting...and I'm glad they show this failure. It's important because it shows something about us. It took a history professor to tell me. He said, he said he watched the movie, this history professor at Brigham Young University... Mark:          Matt Mason. Great professor. Tim:           ...Matt Mason. And he said, "I loved the movie." And he said, "You know, my favorite part was that failed operation." I was like, "What? That was, like, the worst part." He's like, "No, that was the best part of the operation because what that did was it shows everybody that you guys are a legal organization that works legally." And he made all these analogies back to the original Underground Railroad and the abolition - the case of abolitionism - the different cases and the different attempted rescue operations where they would work outside the law, and that stirred up a lot of controversy. But it shows that we work within the law. Mark:         So, run that through for me. Let's say Colombia says, "No, you can't go get the girls." You go anyway. You make the bust. Tim:           We got a lot of people who told us we should have done that. Mark:          What would've happened? Tim:             Well, you don't know what would have happened. There's been cases where people successfully pulled it off, like one of our informants, Batman, says in that moment: "This is why I operate black," because he used to do that in Mexico. He would go in and buy the girls without working for the police, take them, throw them in a van, kidnap them from the kidnappers, and take them to a shelter. Mark:           Doesn't that just create a vacuum, though? If you can't take out the bad guy, you're just putting five more girls at risk. Tim:             Totally. Totally. Because all that does is that trafficker's going to go pick up another girl, right? And then you don't have the government supporting it. You need that for the rehabilitation and for the prosecution and, frankly, for the credibility. So what it does is they'll find out about it and then we're done working in that country, and we lose credibility as an organization. We need to follow the laws. The whole point of saving these kids is not just to save these kids, but to teach the governments how to save the kids after we're gone. We've got to stay with them, be patient, let them figure it out so when we do it again, it's successful. Mark:            I have been waiting for this moment because, in my three years of working with you now at this point almost, since Operation Voodoo Doll, there's only a couple times where I've seen you completely rattled. But there's one thing that has rattled you more than anything I've ever seen, and it was...over the course of months, this was under your skin. And that was the editorial written in the Huffington Post. They called you a vigilante. They called you all sorts of things. I don't even know if we name her in this thing - you can if you like - but does this part in the film, a little bit, answer that question of whether or not you're a vigilante? Tim:             Oh, absolutely. One hundred percent. Someday we can talk about the trafficking philosophers. Mark:           Well, we can go there for a second right now. Tim:               Those who sit back, those who sit back outside of the trenches and write books and articles with very little understanding of what's going on on the ground. This woman, this scholar - whatever she is - we had emails back and forth between Matt Osbourne and her. And it so clearly revealed how ignorant she was to what is happening on the ground. I mean, just incredible, like...you're the expert people are going to? I hope not too many people are going to you because you don't understand what's going on on the ground. You know, you might understand laws and that's wonderful, but my guys are in the trenches and these kids are being rescued legally, lawfully: people are going to jail. This is an example of how ludicrous her argument was.   And we hear from other people too: "Oh, you can't work in Colombia because they're all corrupt. They're all corrupt there. CTI has been known for corruption. There's been corruption in those agencies so you shouldn't work with them." Wait, wait, wait, what?Name me an agency where there hasn't been corruption: FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, you name it. Every single one of those have had their Aldrich Ames or their different people who've been arrested and imprisoned for corruption. The problem is, they don't seem to focus on the victims. There's victims that are being controlled and sold. We can rescue them, legally, lawfully - put their captors in jail. Mark:             And quickly. And effectively. Tim:               That's right. It's almost like they would rather not... I'm not speaking for them - I can't, I don't know what's in their minds - but it's almost like they'd rather them not be rescued because then they can sit back and continue to philosophize over... Mark:             And get paid to speak about the problem. Tim:               Right, it's like... It reminds me of, in "The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis, where the philosophers didn't want to go to heaven because if they went to heaven and found out the truth, then no one would need them to philosophize about whether there is a heaven or a hell or where you go and what's... And that's the world they seem to live in. When people are actually doing something about the problem, they create arguments that are not true. Everything they said about us was absolutely false. Mark:             Are you able to share some of it? I mean, they published it so... What bothered you the most? What one line in that crappy editorial...? Tim:               Um, I think the way it was ended. It said something like, "The organization, like its founder, is illegal, immoral and arrogant." I was just like... What was interesting was...you know, immoral? How about trying to block a child from being rescued from slavery? That seems pretty immoral. Illegal? I think libel and slander is illegal. I think it's illegal to lie about people, ok? Arrogant? After we read the article, we reached out immediately to the author and said, "Let's get on a phone call so we can talk." She responded - to her credit, at least she responded - and said, "I won't get on a phone call with you." "We will pay you. We will buy your tickets, plane tickets, and you can bring anyone of your choice to our offices, and we'll open up our case files and show you how we operate." She refused that flatly. And they continued with their attacks. Arrogant? Who is arrogant? "I refuse to even look at the truth; I don't want to look at it because I want to be right."   And at the end of the day, there's kids on the other side of this thing. There's kids who are enslaved and their only hope...and there's kids right now - I can think of some right now. There is a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old girl right now (in a country that I'm not going to disclose right now) that my guys intervened. They were selling these kids into the United States to be sold as prostitutes, to be sold as sex slaves. I know this girl's name; I've seen pictures of her; we're going to go rescue her soon. We're going to buy  her, and then liberate her, ok? That little girl's only hope of survival and liberty is Operation Underground Railroad. These people, like this author, would, if they could, turn a switch. They'd turn us off, ok? And based on what? Based on what? That we're a vigilante group that's illegal? How are we illegal when we are signed up as informants or deputized by these agencies that we work for? It's funny, any law enforcement agency...if you talk to the best cops, the best agents, and ask them, "How do you become a great agent?", they'll tell you their top one or two things will be get great informants. Mark:             Yep. Tim:               You have great informants. That's how you make cases. Mark:           And you are an informant. Tim:             We're an informant. What's an informant? An informant is someone who has the ability to access information, access bad guys, access crime in a way the police can't. And so they hire the informant. Operation Underground Railroad: we're just superstar informants. We know how to access the bad guys, whether it's going on the dark net with the software we built, whether it's going physically into these places - onto those beaches, onto those street corners. We know how to get there, we know where to go, we know what to ask. We are your super-informants, and we don't charge you anything. And we don't have criminal records because all my guys have background checks. And I've worked with most of them for over a decade, right? So we are super informants. And yet, instead of calling us informants or deputized operators, legally and lawfully working for and by invitation of these government jurisdictions, you're going to call me a vigilante? At the cost of what? Hurting me and hurting our efforts to rescue these kids? That 10-year-old girl, that 12-year-old girl that are waiting to be rescued? You want to do that? You want to be that trafficking philosopher that does that? Shame on you. Shame on you for someone who claims you're in there for the cause. Now, are there organizations out there that rightfully could be accused of vigilantism? Absolutely. Have these authors, writers, scholars seen those groups? Probably, almost certainly. Well, be careful, because not every group operates that way and this woman knew nothing about us. Nothing at all. And yet she wrote this scathing, scathing report full of lies. And then when she was called on it and we proved her wrong again and again... And someday I might release the emails. I don't know if I will or not, but...because sometimes it's better to just to let sleeping dogs sleep, right? Mark:            And the article had no comments and probably no traffic, but the one eyeball it did get was yours, and it put a burr under your saddle pretty good. Tim:             Yeah, well it... Mark:            As we've heard for the last five minutes. Tim:              It's sick and grotesque is what it is. Mark:            And I think she is going to see the movie - probably, she's gonna write again. What's she going to write? Tim:               I don't know. I don't know how humble she is. Mark:            Yeah. Tim:               If she cares about truth and cares about kids, she would have taken a phone call with us and let us explain it. But instead, every time she took the opposite approach. She even went so far as to accuse us... So, there is a piece in the film that was released by ABC News - Nightline - because they shared footage with "The Abolitionists," but they were there on the ground during this particular operation where the trafficker Marco is selling kids. And she accused us - this is after we engaged her - she emailed us and she said, "I think that's false footage.  I don't think that's a real trafficker." Mark:             Dude was an actor. Tim:             Yeah, well, that was the implication. Because she said, "Because a trafficker would never use the word 'minor'." During the movie, you'll see, he says, "I got nine minors I'm going to sell you," ok? So he must be a false trafficker. He's false, it's false. It's false footage. Mark:             Because she's spoken to a lot of traffickers on the ground... Tim:               Apparently she knows what every one of them will say. Two million kids being controlled by how many millions of traffickers. She knows each and every one of them and how they operate. Well, here's the truth. So we had to go back and say, "Interesting. The footage you're referring to is ABC Nightline... Have you heard of them? They've been around for a while. They were on the ground with us. Are you telling me that they created this footage? Is that what you're suggesting, Madam Scholar?" And second of all, we sent her the date of birth and the criminal record as appears on all open source - like Intelius and these other search engines, you know, that you pay for background checks and so forth - and said, "Look at his photos, look at his mug shots. It's the same dude. Here's his name, here's his criminal record..." Bop, bop, bop, bop, everything. And then we explained to her, the reason he said minor was because before that he would refer to the minor children he was selling as chickens. He uses a code name, a code word. Because her accusation was that a trafficker would never use that word - they would use other words, code words, whatever. They would never say 'minors' and incriminate themselves like that. Well, he was starting to be smart by calling the kids chickens. And the prosecutor said, "Look I don't want the chicken defense where he says chickens are 20-year-olds, right? You gotta get him to say 'kid', 'minor', something." So, if you watch the movie, Batman's talking to the guy, and he said, "How many..." - he took the chance and it paid off - he says, "How many minors do you have?" That was intentional! It was a gamble because he might have been like, "Why are you using that word?" But he caught him in  a moment, and you see, Mark, he was like, "Serious minors? I got *boop* ten" (or whatever he says). Boom! Nailed him! What it shows is how closely we're working with the prosecutors: how much they care about the case, how legal it is, how concerned about rules of evidence, entrapment, that they wanted to make sure that there's no question that in this man's heart he knows he is selling children for sex. Mark:           I was on an op with you recently where the D.A. was hiding in the closet, listening and watching the whole thing go down. She's become an expert witness. Tim:               That's right. Mark:           That's incredible - you're doing it right. Um, I think that that failure... When people see it in the movie, it's going to break their heart, but what it is doing is solidifying your position - Operation Underground Railroad's position - as a force, a legal force, and a template for anyone that wants to go and do this. Tim:             That's right. It lays an example. This is so important that you do this legally and lawfully, that you get yourself signed up as an informant. The other accusation is that, "Oh, we work with corrupt law enforcement." Well, the law enforcement officers we work with, including in the Colombian case and all the other cases we worked with, were agents and prosecutors who were referred to us by the U.S. embassy who has been on the ground. Usually, it's their vetted units: agents who have been vetted, background-checked, polygraphed by U.S. entities. And they say...they've passed them off as trustworthy partners. If you can't work with them to save kids, then there's no hope to save kids. If this author, scholar, whatever her… You know, if she wants to sit back and say, "You shouldn't work with this agency because...", then you're just saying, "Kids, there's no hope. Enjoy your life of being raped for money." That's what you're saying to them. If I can't work with a vetted unit, the best that that country has to offer... I'm going to work with them, and you know what? These agents, the very ones that she accused of being corrupt? We cried together. We wept together. And we called and told them: "Hey, I want you to know, this woman who claims to be a scholar - the world leading expert on trafficking - she just called you all corrupt. You should know that." They were irate. They get paid peanuts to do their job, and they do it because they care about victims. They care about kids. And it's sad. It's so sad because you've got to ask who's in this fight to save kids and who's in it to make a name for themselves. Mark:           You know, one of the rip-your-heart-out parts in this movie, from my perspective, was when you're talking to him on the phone, and he says, "I'm embarrassed for my country." And you really felt it. I think what you said today will give some serious context to that statement. And so, thank you, man. That was your treatise on failure and the value and the beauty and the lesson of the failure in the movie. And so...take us home, man. Tim:           You know, get on board. We're figuring out a formula. Have we made mistakes? Of course we have. Have we learned? Of course. If we haven't, then we're constant failures. Everyone has to fail and get back up. But we've never acted illegally. We've never acted immorally, and we have not acted arrogantly, as the accusation alleges. I think that the movie speaks for itself and teaches that lesson, and so people should have confidence to get on board with what we're doing and find the organizations. There's other ones out there that operate legally as well. Find those, get on board with them, and let's create more of them. Mark:           Awesome. Thank you.

Tim: Welcome to Slave Stealer podcast! This is Tim Ballard and Mark Mabry talking about the darkest plague that exists on this earth today and seeking the solution. We have a guest on today that, I think, is part of the solution. I really believe - and I have, for years, believed - that the reason we can't put our arms around this problem and squeeze it to death - this problem of trafficking and human slavery - is because people don't know it's there. They don't believe it's real. Or they see something and they turn their head as fast as they can. And so, at Operation Underground Railroad, we have a unique approach, I think. We're not just waving this banner of darkness. There's a lot of organizations - and God bless all of them for what they're doing. The programs that are about awareness often are just waving a flag of depression and darkness, and you look and you're like, "Eek, oh oh yeah, here's my five dollars - now never contact me again," and off they go.  They don't want to see it. That's not our message. Our message is light. Light. Light in the darkness. Because we provide a solution. We're going in and extracting. We are providing law enforcement with tools: digital tools, computer tools, training, undercover tactics - everything you would need to know to run an investigation.  Mark: You're staring the bad guys in the eyes. Tim: That's right. Mark: And how many organizations actually touch the bad guy? Tim: Yeah, we touch the bad guy, we throw his face in the ground and put him away. That's what we do! And that is light - that's hope. And so, we try to push out that light. And one of the ways we do that is by showing people what we do. There's a team of cameras that follows us around, and we show people what we do. And when those traffickers go away, the world gets a little brighter. And when the next trafficker goes away, the world gets brighter still. And that's the light that we're building. See, Montel Williams - who is our guest today - he understands that. He understands that if you shine a light, people will get on board. If you shine a light, the bad guys hate that light! So they're going to go away. If they don't end up in jail, they're going to be so antagonistic to that light that they're going to crawl up like little bugs and go away. And hide. And Montel gets that. And he's the kind of voice that we need to be loud and proud and share this light. So that's going to be his message. Mark: He's a passionate guy. As you're saying, he blew up Facebook a couple of times this year, and Twitter. And even in our conversation with him, he starts out kind of a low simmer and then just crescendoes. And I think you guys will enjoy... Tim: Yeah, yeah. You don't want to get in his way, man. Mark: No. Tim: When he starts moving, you do not want to get in his... I do not want to be a trafficker in the path of Montel Williams when things get hot. And things get hot with this guy. Mark: He was a Marine, he attended the Naval Academy, he had a career in the military. People don't realize how bad he actually is. Tim: Oh yeah, no no. He's...he's tough as nails. Mark: And he delivers, so it's a great interview. Tim: Yep. Mark: Let's go to it. Tim: Alright, roll it! Mark: Tim started to tell me about how you guys met, but his version was really weak compared to what I think yours probably is (no offense, Tim). Montel: It was literally the morning after the Stadium of Fire. I went up to the breakfast lounge in the place we were staying at, and literally, you know, Tim walked in the door and shut me down. And his speech was just ridiculous the night before. You know, I work on a lot of issues. I’m involved in things that most people don’t even have the slightest idea that I’ve been involved with for years now. Everything from...veteran issues, but I’ve also been deeply involved in trying to help heal some of the wounds that our veterans have faced from war. And those wounds are deep, especially when it comes to traumatic brain injury. And I was blessed to be able to get involved in a process...a study with a medical device that now is going to - over the next year to two years - prove out to be one of the first lines of defense, I think, for many symptoms of traumatic brain injury. We are in the middle of...doing one of the most comprehensive traumatic brain injury studies the world has seen at three centers of excellence. And I only say this because, you know, I’m involved in issues. And why? Because, you know, I got involved... I'm a board member of Fisher House. I was visiting our soldiers 3-4 years ago for...almost every three weeks, I was going down to see every new batch of soldiers that had flown in from Germany or from London, and just going down and visiting troops. So, you know, I’ve been moved by that issue, and then I’ve been involved in things from teen suicide prevention - it’s another issue that I’ve been in for, that I’ve been working on. And then to sit in that room and hear Tim discuss the mission - his emotional, moving story about saving children’s lives. Mark: Anything you remember in particular - like a line that he said, something that stuck? Montel: You know, I mean, I could say, sitting like...as I sit here right now and I think about what Tim had to say...you know, there was a call to action. There was a call to step up to the plate and understand what’s going on. And even though I understood as I was sitting at the table, I’m looking at the reactions of the people in the room around me, and you can look and see that some of these people...even though you hear about it, you see it on the news - it goes right over their head. It wasn’t until, I think, they caught the emotion that is involving what Tim had to say, that I saw the emotion start to well up in them. So again, I walk into this lounge, and I was again blown away. All I felt was that I needed to do whatever I could to help Tim make his mission more complete. So, you know, I think I said immediately - "Whatever you need from me, whatever you want from me, I’m there. And let's go." Tim: I think it was your birthday, wasn’t it, Montel? Montel: Yeah, as a matter of fact, it was on my birthday. As a matter of fact, it was on my birthday. It was the 3rd. That’s right. The night before was the event on the 2nd, and I had brought in four of [inaudible] dinner. One of the other award recipients was Master Sgt. Cedric King, who is a double amputee, a war hero of extraordinary proportion, who was on that stage. So it was very moving the night before to have had him come in and then to meet Tim. And then I wake up - it's the 3rd - and I told, you know, all the guys from the stadium...I said, "Look, I need to have at least that one day off." I was going to chill. Honestly, I think I worked for about an hour on the phone, just coordinating - trying to figure out who I was going to talk to as soon as we got past the holiday to figure out how we were going to come together. Tim: Man, it was an amazing experience for me. I mean, I was starstruck - I'm not going to lie - when you walked into the...you know, because the night before, I knew you were in the audience, and I'm like, ‘I wonder if I'll get to meet Montel.’ And then, the next day, I'm getting hot chocolate with my kids, and there he was! It was a small little kind of kitchen, you know, and there he was, face to face. And it was an emotional moment for both of us, I think.   Montel: Yeah, yeah, really - an extremely emotional moment. And that’s part of the reason why I think I just really need to help and try to be involved. I have people who are of like mind, who think the way I do, who have been in my corner in my entire professional career, and especially the media. And, you know, those people are very vocal, and they want to be heard. And I think if I reach out to them and let them know that we are involved and we are going to now do some things that before today, I think, have not been done. Yeah, we call out some of these pigs - you know, there are so many shows and it comes and it goes. I want to really, really figure out a way so we get the message out there that is a continual message - in the face, bigger than, you know, the campaigns that they are running right now nationally to stop people from smoking. If you are so stupid that you’ll put a cigarette in your mouth right now and wreck your lungs, then I would rather take the money that’s being spent there to put a message out right now that our children are being exploited, raped, and sent around this planet, and you...really... If we can’t get to an understanding and get that in people’s faces, so much so... I hate the commercials that they have been running, you know, where you have the people who are in the hospital on the third lung, and they're showing me all the body parts of people who are ravaged by cancer because they are smoking. I want to show people the ravaging of what’s been happening with our children - get it in your face so hard that you say, "Enough, don’t show me that anymore!" and you do something about it.   Tim: I love hearing this, Montel, because a confusion to me is why are we not seeing that, even in politics and in debates. It should be... I mean, this is the fastest criminal enterprise on the planet. Why aren’t we talking about it? What’s the reason, do you think, that people are shying away? Montel: Why is it growing so fast? Why is it growing so fast? Tim, I bet you, man, you’ve got this, man. Look, it’s growing so fast because of, I think, money. You know, we have the largest disparity of wealth in the world, but we have the largest number of millionaires, uber billionaires, millionaires, hundred... guys, people who have wealth, sitting around, that think that their wealth can hide them and keep them hidden from the truth. It got to be because dude, I mean, you know, the plane tickets cost money. To be able to buy a child, it costs money. You know, to be able to do this and not have anybody catch you: it costs money. And that’s what’s happening. And so why aren’t politicians talking about it? I don’t want to be a pig when I say this, but maybe some of them have friends or relatives or cousins that they know are the people doing this. Because that’s the only reason why this would not be... You know, it’s like all day long - I’m out here, I went snowboarding today, you know. This is the open season and it’s a beautiful day today, but then I realized I had this interview to do with you, and all afternoon I’ve been like...it’s been, you know, my heart’s pounding because I’m just so angry. And it’s just the same reason why, in the last three weeks, why all we keep hearing from our politicians is how quickly they want to send another American child off to die. They really...they want to go put 'boots on the ground, boots on the ground,' - you can’t even pay for the health care for the ones we have that have already put the boots on the ground! Tim: Yeah. Montel: But we want to put them on the ground. And yeah, we may need to, but let’s be a little bit more compassionate in our rally to send them off to battle. Now, if we're willing to do that, and these politicians are jumping up and down in every one of their debates to say those things, why do we not - in the same conversation and debate - talk about how are we going to help heal the delays in the treatment of those who have already served? We can’t say that because we know that we have...their friends are the ones who are part of the problem. So I’m starting to think that maybe that’s what's going on. We've got too many people of wealth who are hiding, just the same way as we have terrorists who are living double lives as Americans. And we’ve got rich people who can afford to do this - living double lives - they're right under the surface and we're letting them get away with it. And I’m open Tim - you know. dude, I’m not afraid. I am NOT afraid. I will take that shot, my friend. Tim: And we need you to take that shot - we want you to. And you know what we do. If these guys want to get into the market cause they want those kids, we meet them there and that’s where we can expose them. We meet them there - we’ve already done it dozens of times, hundreds of kids we’ve pulled out, over a hundred travellers or traffickers in jail... I think you and I were talking about this when we met over the 4th of July. It’s about shining those faces of those guys who are hiding - shine them everywhere, put them on billboards, make everyone know that you CANNOT hide behind your money. We will meet you in the dark place and we will expose you once you are there.     Montel: I'm telling you... Call them out - that’s what we've got to do. So, you know what? You know, it’s going to be holiday season, we're going to take a little break, alright? I want to hit the ground running in January if we can figure out...like I’m working on some projects right now. You know, I'm working on a couple of projects right now that are media projects that... You know, if I do some things for some people, then maybe I can ask them to do some things for us. Let’s figure out a way then we can get something on the air - I mean, you know, ‘America’s Most Wanted,’ you know, whatever.   Tim: Yeah. Montel: I got happy, I got tired. That did a lot of good in some cases because you did cover some of those cases of child abuse, but I really think that we need to have a steady stream - not just the TV show, but I’m telling you, like, I would love to right now in the middle of this live CNN... I’ve got CNN on and the second they go to commercial: bang-bang. I want to jump right to a commercial about a child that has been exploited - this is going on, and this is the guy who worked in Chicago at such and such bank, was a bank president, he lived in this neighborhood, this is his family, and you need to understand that this guy thought he was getting away with it, and he’s been doing it and now he's crying like a stuffed pig because he’s in jail, and he knows that when we let him out in the population that they don’t like little child molesters like that, and while he's crying like a piggy, he's talking about the fact that he’s been doing this for the last 10 years and got away with it right beside you.   Tim: That’s right. Montel: How could you let this person live next to you?! That’s the story that needs to be told, man. Tim: Yes!  Yes it is! Montel: And I want to help you tell them. Tim: And we need your help. We can get into the dark and shine the light, pull them out, but we need people like you to make it loud because we’re still learning how to do that. So we appreciate that.    Montel: Well, just the fact that you're blogging right now, and the fact that people are going to tune in. Maybe they'll listen to me today. They'll say, I want to see what they're going to do. Montel, please, what are you going to do? You know, this could be a regular from us. Let’s come together every couple of weeks and let's talk about the plans that we put in place, the things that we can talk about. I also, you know, it’s like...you know, I think in some ways... I worked in intelligence my entire time I was in the military. I had top secret inside clearance - I can say that right now. I had one of the highest clearances that the military had at the time. I ran a couple programs. I get part of the problem that we are having right now when it [the military] looks at international terrorism. The problem is the fact that we keep giving out all the secrets. We keep telling them every level of encryption that we have the ability to break so they can find a new one that we can’t break. I don’t want to give them too much - I want to show America while you can complain all you want about the Taliban, you know...we're going to fix that problem. You haven’t even blinked at trying to fix the real one. Let’s fix this one, because this is the one that’s going to destroy us from within. We can see the devastation now in children as they grow older and older and now have the revelation of what was done to them. Those are the ones that weren’t even trafficked. Tim: Right. Montel: So, you know, I mean, honestly, America’s got a reckoning. And, you know, we can’t put one... You know, it’s like, you know, do you pick the worst problem and put that first, or do you fix the problems you have? I say we go after both of them at the same time, and I think America has got the stomach for it. It just hasn’t heard the voice loud enough. And I have a voice of couple of people that I think might want to bring this forward as part of their national campaign. Mark: I was going to ask you about that, Montel. I know, from your social feeds, you are a friend of Governor Kasich, and I about came out of my chair with glee the other night watching that debate, and I heard the words ‘human trafficking’. Montel: Yes. Mark: And they came out of his mouth, and those words have not been uttered in a presidential debate, in the last couple of debates. I need to go to do a word cloud or something to find out, but he did it. And so, we have a little segment on our show, called ‘The Big Ask’ with a K. And, I have a big ask for you. I thought...you know, when I heard him say that, I was waiting for somebody to wax poetic and do something lofty on trafficking, but of course they went right back to Donald calling Jeb not powerful, or whatever his word was. So, here’s my big ask for Montel Williams: I want you, because I know you are capable and I’ll be probably in tears by the time you’re done, to picture yourself on the stage, cameras on you - it is Montel Williams’,  'I want your vote for president, and my platform is human trafficking.' Can you give me that lofty speech that will make me hear the music coming in by the end? Montel: You know how they give you the highlights before the debates... Mark: Yeah, get me fired up a little bit. Montel: You know, maybe what I should say is that if right now we are living in a time in America where the entire focus of the nation...in some ways, I understand, because there has been enough fear-mongering to make us believe that the entire focus of everything we do as a government should be focused on terrorism. But, you know, America has to continue to survive, has to continue to grow, has to rely on its most sacred treasure, and that’s America’s children. Now, I don’t care what source you listen to, what side of the fence you're on: Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal. It doesn’t matter. If you are listening to all of your pundits, they will tell you at worst case, worst case in this country today, we have probably, okay...twenty, forty, fifty, let’s say there might have been a hundred terrorists who snuck in - they are under the radar, we need to put money in finding them. I agree. But, excuse me, we have 1.5 million children who are victims in 2012 to human trafficking, and we know that 85% of them have been trafficked for sex. And these are children, American children. So, I say that that’s a million and a half lives that from this point forth will forever be changed, a million and a half a year. In fifteen years, they got 20 million children who have to as they grow to adults, as they’ve been saved, brought back into the society and trying to be contributing numbers to that society. I say we got the Taliban under control. I don’t care if it’s two years, three years - it’s thirty years. This is part of America’s structure, America’s fabric. So, I can stand around and argue about who’s got more money in the bank, who thinks that they are tougher at fighting bad guys who are trying to hurt us ideologically. I want to find out who’s tough enough to turn in their neighbor, who’s tough enough to fight the fight of saving and preserving America’s future beyond the next five years. So, 2.5, 1.5 million...on the other side of ridiculous. The United States alone should be in the position to raise enough money to impact this, and we will send money everywhere else in the world. We will fight everybody else’s problem to try to force something down on someone’s throat that doesn’t want it, and we are willing to protect America’s precious treasure right here. I don’t know... If you want to protect America’s treasure, vote for me, if you want to continue on this normal...pick the other guy.   Tim: You got my vote! Mark: Montel 2020, baby! Woo! Tim: I love it, I love it! And, now the good thing is that we are going to do something about this, and I hope we can have you back on the show many many times as we develop our plan and say the things we can. But let’s do this!  We’re going to do this. Montel: Let’s do it! Now, you got me to say publicly, I make it as a public promise, man.  I’m working with you - we'll get this done. Tim: Awesome! We love you, man! Thanks so much! Montel: Thank you, sir!   Mark: Montel for president, baby! You said, you know, the government is leading, but in terms of being loud about it, how often do you hear nationally-placed officials talking about human trafficking in prime time? Tim: They're not! And that’s where the leadership is lacking. There’s no strong leader in all of our potential leaders. It’s not even on their agenda and I don’t know why it’s not! I don’t think they all have friends...I mean, that’s an interesting point that Montel brings up -  I don't think it's like they all have friends who are engaging in this kind of stuff. I mean, I’m sure some of them do. I think it’s a dark topic that no one wants to talk about. It hurts to talk about it. Mark: It’s weird because governments usually... These guys will go on talk shows and talk about something then not do anything about it, but this is the opposite. It seems that they are legislating and making a little headway, but they're not talking about it - it’s lacking the component that we hate the most, generally speaking, that is, the flapping gums of politicians. Tim: I think the reason... It’s not that they don’t know... Mark: Yeah they know, they just...   Tim: They know it’s an issue. Here’s why they don't talk about it. Look, they're pandering, they are all pandering to voters, right. They need voters to weigh in. So, I really do think this: if they believed that the voters knew what was going on, they would talk about it. But they are saying to themselves, why am I going to introduce a new topic? - relatively new, right. Why am I going to introduce a topic that’s not going to help me get elected because the electorate doesn’t know? And if they don’t know, they don’t care. So let’s talk about things that we know they care about. So our job, more than try to convert or try to influence these candidates or elected leaders to do something... I think our job is to light a fire under the people - the Harriet Beecher Stowe approach, where she lit a fire under the people. They read her book by the millions, and they said, "What is going on?! I didn’t really know - I mean, I heard of slavery, but I’ve never seen it. I’ve never travelled down there, in the South, and saw it," and she lit a fire there. And then they got so loud that folks like Abraham Lincoln and others had to respond. Mark: Yeah. Tim: And the response ended slavery. So I really think a lot of this is exposing this issue, shining a light, letting the people see. When the people care, the candidates will care.   Mark: And, it seems like Montel... He’s one of those populist heroes in the last two decades - had a huge show in the 90’s, he’s got total social clout now, he’s moved kind of into this activist realm, and he’s got tons, his hands on tons of pods, but it’s that type of guy that can talk to big groups. And the talk show people - Oprah, Montel, you know, from the heyday of afternoon talk shows that would make people cry every afternoon...that would be, seemingly, a way to engage people. And he could be that guy. Tim: Yeah. He’s going to be that guy. I mean, he’s that voice we are going to need. And he’s not going to be a ‘one and done interview’ - he is committed. I spent a couple of days with him, over the 4th... Man, I’m telling you he believes this. He believes in it, and he is going to help us. Mark: Yeah. Tim: He's going to be instrumental.  Tim: This show is sponsored by one of my favorite companies on the face of the earth, Hylete. In fact, I’m wearing - let me stand up so you can see - I’m wearing Hylete shorts right now. Mark: Those are really handsome. Tim: I wear Hylete shorts pretty much every day, because here at the headquarters of Operation Underground Railroad is a CrossFit gym that is very fruitful for the foundation. All the money that we make in the CrossFit gym comes back into the foundation. So we’re grateful for the CrossFit gym, and we’re grateful to Hylete who’s been a proud sponsor, who’s been able to not only outfit some of our guys, but make some awesome contributions. They made an OUR shirt, Hylete OUR shirt - their clothes are designed for intense fitness, like CrossFit. They made a Hylete/OUR shirt that all the proceeds came back to us, and we’ve been able to make thousands of dollars, and we continue our partnership in the coming years. So thank you to our partners and friends over at Hylete. Buy their clothes, and go work out!  

Interview w/ Tim Ballard & Mark Mabry Tim: The guy’s name was Marble. Mark: Marble the child molester. Tim: His name was Marble, and he looked like a marble. El Centro childporn... Mark: Child Fugitive Caught in Calexico? 'Child Pornography Fugitive Caught in Calexico Port' Tim: No. Mark:  Imperial Valley Press. 'A man suspected of having child pornography was arrested in Calexico, El Centro, indicted in child sex crime'. Tim: Is his name Marble? Mark: Man, Imperial... "An Imperial man was arrested on suspicion of possession of child pornography on Tuesday, after authorities allegedly found child pornography on his computer. Homeland Security investigators, special agents began investigating local internet activity about child pornography."   Intro: You are listening to Slave Stealer. "It is a world that I know I understand better than most people, but you don’t even know how real and how huge it is. There are laws put in place to protect kids, and one of the laws, surprise, surprise, is you can’t sell them. If you guys are traffickers, you’d come in just like this. This is what happens. This is the core of the problem."   Tim: Welcome to Slave Stealer podcast. I am here shouting too loud for... Mark: You broke the mike! Tim: ...with co-host Mark Mabry, but we welcome you, and this is our kind of Throwback Thursday version We’re just going to talk about couple of interesting things that we think you should know about.    Mark: One in particular... People ask, "Do you do domestic work?" "Is everything overseas?" So, I want a domestic Throwback Thursday. Tim: Yeah, we... See, it’s interesting. We... I say about half our, half our case load right now is domestic, but the domestic cases are the ones we cannot readily talk about because they are generally more sensitive, because they require more... They require a different set of tools, they are law enforcement sensitive - a lot of software, a lot of techniques that require us to go online and do things that we can’t reveal to the public because there are countermeasures that the bad guys could utilize if they knew what we were doing. So...  Mark: Like what? Tim: Well, let me...let me just tell you and ruin every case we have pending! So yeah, we do a ton of domestic work, but because of the nature of it, we don’t get to talk too much about it. We let our law enforcement partners talk about it. They come out with a press release, and then we just point our donors to it. And they are usually kind enough to mention us in it, and we leave it at that.   Mark: Yeah. What do you find... Before we jump into that, give me like kind of a glossary of key elements for this story that...a few little background tidbits that will help us understand things that you are going to say in the story. Are there any like technical things we need to understand? Tim: No, I mean, you should just know that things like child pornography and acquiring children, in the United States in particular, are readily available on the internet - mostly in the dark web. These are the places that Google is not going to reach.    Mark: You mean Google does not reach everything? Tim: Google does not reach everything. There are many parts of the internet that are impossible for Google to reach, and these are the places where the pedophiles flock to. They network, they trade in child pornography, they negotiate child sex deals, and we are way behind in terms of our response to this. And so - when I say we,  I mean the nation, law enforcement in general - and so we are working to better the solution to that problem - building software, working with some of the most advanced technology companies on the planet, working with the top U.S. officials in this area. And we are building tools that will allow law enforcement to go into these dark places and root out these bad guys.    Mark: Are there...on the market right now - or not on the market, in the space right now - there are software solutions that are good. What are some of the good guys out there with great software that are busting... Is Thorn? Tim: Oh, absolutely yeah! So Thorn, which is Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore's foundation - they have internet computer gurus/engineers who are constantly in a think tank developing software. They have developed tools, for example - and they have been open about this - tools that allow law enforcement to identify when a child is actually soliciting himself or herself. And the reason... And it has to do with how they are writing the post. Now, the posts look like they are coming from some pimp, but the pimp takes the kid and forces them to write their own advertisement on Backpage or Craigslist, or different social media networks - Facebook. And so it looks like it is coming from an adult.   Mark: Or a kid. Looks like it is coming from an adult, but it’s a kid. Tim: They are trying to make it look like it is coming from an adult, or that a pimp is negotiating the deal, when in fact the child himself or herself is writing it. Mark: Under duress. Tim: Under duress. And so the software actually has...looks for key identifiers that would indicate that it’s a child.   Mark: Voiceprint things. Tim: And then they would...yes, and verbage and different things. And then that would allow law enforcement to go solicit that individual in their current capacity to pull them out and find them. So that’s some software that Thorn is involved in building.    Mark: That’s cool! Way to go Demi and Ashton Kutcher - on the good guy list. Tim: Good guy list. Mark: Ok, that’s... Let’s storm straight into the story that I’d like you to tell today. It happened in Imperial Valley. Talk to me. Tim: So it was, again it was... We identified somebody through means I can’t reveal, but it was somebody who was dealing in the dark net. Mark: Now, we were there doing some training. Can you reveal that? Tim: Yeah. I mean that’s how...that’s how it started. We were training... Mark: Yeah, walk me through the whole story. Tim: We went down to Imperial County and we trained law enforcement - several agencies - on how to go on the dark net and find people who are trading in child pornography. And during the training, we found this manual, this 'how to' manual. And it was multiple pages - I want to say somewhere between 40 and 50 pages long. Mark: How to what? Tim: Well, I am getting to that, ok. It’s 'how to'... Mark: Oh, you are saving that? Tim: I am saving that, yeah, the punchline. Mark: Awesome. Stay tuned. Tim: ...how to court and ultimately rape a child. That’s what the manual was. And it said things like - and this is something that had been traded amongst many pedophiles... Mark: So this manual has a title on it in pretty script that says, 'How to court and rape a child'? Tim: I don’t...I can’t tell you that that is the exact language, but that is what the manual was. And it talks about everything from how do you find a child - "well, find a niece or nephew that has friends and invite them over," like starting there. And then from there, these are the kind of gifts you can give them, here's the kind of things you can say to them so they trust you...and then it takes you down this whole dark horrific path to the point where you are controlling this child completely and abusing them sexually. Mark: So you had... You found this manual in the training on the dark web. Tim: On the dark web, being traded by someone who was in Imperial County. And then following up... And again, I can’t get into details of how we did this, but following up, we were able to - in an undercover capacity - able to ascertain the same person also possessed quite a bit of child pornography: child rape videos and images. Mark: And then what? Tim: And then, after that, we decided that this training should end with the search warrant for this individual’s home being at least mostly written. And that’s what we did. And so we were able to do the training, come back a week or so later after they got the paperwork in place, judge signed the warrant, and we were able to accompany the Imperial County sheriff’s office as they raided the home of this individual and seized his computer and talk to him. Mark: Are you allowed to say his name? Tim: Sure, yeah! He’s been convicted, it’s open, it’s public - his name is, his last name is Marble. Mark: That is such a creepy pedophile name. Tim: Why? Mark: Marble. I don’t know, that’s like a movie character name. Tim: Yeah. Mark: "Mr. Marble, we’d like to have a look around." So, were there any big or little surprises at the house? Tim: So, yeah, a couple funny things... As law enforcement breached the door, he instantly said - we didn’t tell him why we were there - the minute the door was breached, he said, "Other people have been using my computer too!" "Well, we didn’t say we were here for your computer," you know, "I’m not the only one, who uses it!" So it was obvious - he ended up confessing everything. And it was... Some of these cases get depressing, you know. You want to hate these guys completely because of what they are doing and the threat they pose. He actually told one of the sheriff deputies: "It’s a good thing you caught me," because, he said, he was in the process of being a foster parent to a 7-year-old girl. And he said, "If I got that little girl, I was going to rape her. That’s why I was doing it. So it is a good thing you caught me." And a lot of these guys, from my experience, do say that. They admit that they are monsters. And they don’t like that they are in this place. And some are almost relieved to get caught and be put away before they can really hurt somebody. I mean, it’s like they’ve lost control of their lives - they are so addicted to this horrific desire and passion and everything else. And so this guy in the interrogation, the thing that made it kind of sad... And we have video of him, we can probably put at least part of the video up on the website - he started talking about his life and how he was sexually abused as a child. You know, we talk a lot about how people can become addicted to child pornography because they start looking at pornography and that changes their brain - it basically creates brain damage, shrinkage in the brain, because of the overstimulation of the frontal lobes of the brain because that’s what people are going for, right, trying to get this chemical reaction and they overuse it and they overrun it and that ruins their life. It hurts their opportunity to have a normal, healthy, romantic relationship, you know, because their brain is now demented, and porn is the only thing that they recognize as fulfilling that need. It’s really sad. That’s a choice people make, like drugs. And it takes them to a dark place where they end up in jail. And all the guys - everyone who is a pedophile abusing children - are a threat to children and need to go to jail. But this case was a little bit different, and we see this often too. When you are abused as a child and that becomes your first sexual experience... And I’ve talked to so many psychologists to try to understand these guys - these guys that we're investigating, interrogating. And they said it is absolutely true: when your first sexual experience as a child or a teenager, whatever that experience is, that becomes what your brain, as it’s still forming... It’s still, really physically hasn’t formed completely and so it’s still taking ideas and concepts and ingraining them into your person. And so sex becomes, to these kids who are being molested, can become a relationship that is defined by an adult and a child. And that’s what their brain recognizes as sex. So when they get older, and they start developing their sexuality, what they know to be that sexuality is relationships, sexual relationships, between an adult and a child. So they then become the offender.    Mark: Now, to be clear, not every child that was molested grows up to become an offender... Tim: Absolutely. Mark: ...or has that predisposition. Tim: Absolutely. That’s not... Yeah, it’s not every...it’s certainly not every person who is abused, but it happens quite a bit. Mark: It’s a factor in a lot of people we catch. Tim: It’s a factor, and in the case of this man, that’s what he was telling us - that he had been abused. And I mean, you listen to the interrogation and it makes you sad. You know he needs to go to jail because he is a threat. He admits himself he needs to go to jail and he’s a threat. But when you hear his story, you realize how tragic this whole thing is. It’s so cyclical.   Mark: Is there a more... And I love to hear you say that and it breaks my heart too, because there’s...seems like it’s really easy, and we do it frequently. Some of the bad guys, like Fuego and these guys that we bust that are selling kids - they are horrible monsters. And then there are guys like Marble who...there’s a high degree of sympathy where you're like, "Man, I’m just sad for your ruined, shattered life that started out ruined and shattered and you were left to try to pick up the pieces." Like, how do you go about your job sympathetically or empathetically? You know what I am saying?   Tim: You just carry that sadness with you, but you don’t regret for one second putting the guy behind bars. Mark: Yeah. Tim: Because there’s nothing more important than children and their safety and the preservation of their innocence. So they have to go to jail. And you just look at them and you are sympathetic to their plight, and you hope that they can have redemption and they can somehow be healed from their brain damage.   Mark: You know, it’s interesting. Our intro music on the Slave Stealer podcast is - you know the intro sequence where you are talking about, "They look like you, and this guy and that guy" - that actually took place in an interrogation room in Haiti. And you can see it on "The Abolitionists", the documentary that is coming out on April 8th, that you are actually lecturing me. It was our very first op that I accompanied you on and we busted those two ladies who were selling kids, and I said to you, "Man, I’m a little torn up here." Do you remember that?    Tim: Yeah, absolutely! Mark: And you went off and you were like, "Listen, this is hard," and you essentially said the same thing. But I understand it now with a little more time under my belt.   Tim: Yeah. Look, you never... And it’s, it was a shocking thing for me when I started doing these cases - and this is outside even child cases, drug cases, any kind of case. There is an element of human sadness when you are taking someone from their family - even as bad as they are, there are people that love them and can’t believe they made these decisions. And you are the guy taking them away in handcuffs and putting them in jail for a long time. And you can’t help but feel an element of human sympathy, you know. And you don’t know what decisions led, you know, what things happened to this person that led them to make these decisions. But that doesn’t mean for a second that you don’t wish they were in jail. Mark: Yeah. Tim: You know they need to go to jail, but it’s rarely this total victorious, just, "Yeah, we did this!" You know, it’s... There can be some of that, but the whole thing is sad. The whole thing is tragic. It is tragic for everybody involved, especially for the victims, especially for the children, the parents. But also, in some ways, for the bad guys... Mark: Yeah. Tim: But it doesn’t mean you stop doing it. Mark: I think that’s a great little Throwback Thursday moment. Sign us off, man. Tim: Thanks for tuning in, and we will see you next time on Slave Stealer podcast.

  Interview w/ Timothy Ballard Mark Mabry January 11, 2016 Final Transcript   Intro: You are listening to Slave Stealer. Tim: Welcome to Slave Stealer podcast, where we take you into the dark world of trafficking so you can help us find the solution. We are talking here with co-host, Mark Mabry. Mark: That’s me. And we did a little change in format. This is part two of our ‘Meet Tim’ series, because he has had a really interesting story. And what I found amazing in getting to know Tim over the last few years, is that sacrifice of peace of mind, sacrifice of kind of this level of innocence that 99.9% of the rest of us enjoy. And, to recap, we talked about Tim’s story a little bit, how he got into child crimes, and how he was invited by HSI to be on that team, and then we talked about his family. He has got young kids, and his son is now 15. And, the birds and the bees talk is awkward enough. What about that talk about what dad does for a living?” Tim: Well, you know, yeah..Let me say this first: I was scared to death some 15 years ago when I was asked to enter this dark world of child crimes. And the thing that scared me the most was the fact that I had kids, and I didn’t know how that would affect me. Would I see an image that reminded me of my kids, would that make me a paranoid father, would that turn me... My wife was scared to death that I would turn into just some cynical, just bitter old dude. And I was scared to death. I mean, you’ve got to wade through the sewer to find the crap. Mark: And what if the pornography took, I mean, worst case scenario, you turn into somebody that is actually into it? Not that that would happen with you knowing you, but... Tim: You know, what I have found that’s..a lot of people think that, and they go there, but... Mark: Those people are stupid. Tim: The people who had that suggestion are really idiotic. No, but it’s a logical conclusion. But what I have found is, frankly, kind of the opposite. Because when you are exposed to children - unless you are a pedophile, right - when you are exposed to that, it makes you want to distance yourself even more from all things pornography. At least that was my experience, and as I watched other agents who I have worked with, who have to be exposed to this. It turns you off so much to the whole industry, even the legal part of it, because it’s so, frankly, similar that it actually, at least for me, it has had the effect of major deterrent, even from any temptation my own part to even look at regular pornography. Does that make sense? Mark: Yeah! Tim: And, for the child stuff, it is just a punch in the stomach every time, and it is worse and worse every time. And you learn how to cope, you learn how to be able to see this stuff and still move on. But, like in the last show, I was talking about how the first thing I want to do when I saw particular images or videos, is just grab my kids and bring them to the safest place I know, which is my home, and just hold them. And so the whole concept, the whole idea to your question of how I bring together these two worlds, of what I do outside versus what I do inside - you have to factor in all these things. But my kids do start asking questions. I was addressing a group that was doing a benefit for Operation Underground Railroad just two nights ago. And they had the kids there and they wanted me to talk about it, and it was so hard, because I’m sitting there, and they say, “Tell us what you do!”, and I’m going, “All right, well I’ll start...”       Mark: How old were the kids? Tim: Oh, the kids were as young as five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Mark: Oh, geez.. Tim: It was like all these neighborhood kids. And their parents wanted them to know that there are kids who are less fortunate and that we need to help them. That was the idea. So, I thought to myself, “I’ll start with the software that we are building.” The software is called ‘Stars’. It’s a pretty name. Until one of the kids says, “What does STARS stand for?” And it stands for Sex Traveler Apprehension Retention System, right? So, I say SEEEE ugh...I can’t say it, I can’t even say the name of the software! Mark: Super Terrific Apprehension... Tim: Yes! So, I couldn’t, and it was so..it’s so difficult. A little kid raises his hand after I’m talking about slavery in general terms, and he said, “Why would someone want to steal a child? Wouldn’t they rather steal an adult because they’d be better at being a slave and a stronger worker?” I just looked at this little kid, I was like, “I know exactly the truth of your question, I know how to answer that, but I cannot answer that.” And so these issues that I was grappling with at this charity event, are the same issues I grapple with every day with my kids. When they see something on the news, and with my small children I just tell them, you know, I help kids, we help kids, we help kids who’ve been kidnapped. That’s all they know, and they seem ok with that. But as they get older, they start asking questions. And it intersects at the same time that I need to start talking to them about the birds and the bees. My wife and I are very open, I mean, I think my job has made me the most desensitized to all things sex, like I can say anything to anyone, because the conversations that I have had with people, with perpetrators especially during interrogations, where we were talking about things, or undercover, where they’re selling me kids. There is nothing that makes me blush, right. So, I can just take my kids and sit down, and say, “Hey”, talk about everything, embarrassing things, everything from pornography to masturbation to dating and all this stuff. It is rare that we talk about that, somehow it leads to the fact that - again these are my more adolescent, teenage kids - it always leads to some kind of an explanation that they are asking me for about, “Why would an adult want to do that to a child?”      Mark: When they say THAT, what ..I mean.. Tim: I mean they kind of..they know, I mean, they figured it out. Mark: Yeah. Tim: They do, because they know what is what we’re talking about. And so, I think, in the world of child pornography and sexual abuse of children, you don’t want to be graphic with the kids at all, even with my teenage kids. I kind of let them just figure it out and let their brain stop them where they should be stopped, because the brain will do that. Mark: Oh, adults don’t even grasp it. Tim: Adults don’t grasp it. I was sitting with my father-in-law - a brilliant man, PhD - we were in his kitchen, this was when I was an agent, and I heard him, he started talking.. What had happened was that I arrested one of his friends - not like a close friend, right, but... Mark: ”So, what did you do today, Tim?” “Well, I busted Larry.” Tim: Right! Mark: I have heard this story. Tim: He knew this guy, he had been to his home. So he knew this guy, and he started saying, “You know...I kind of feel bad for this particular individual, because it’s not really their fault. I mean, these girls dress in a certain way that is provocative, and it is not totally their fault.” And, I’m just dying. I’m like, “Wait, wait, wait, what?! You are telling me that a 5-year old puts on clothes, and now it’s not the pedophile’s fault that they look at the 5-year-old!” And his eyes almost popped out of his head! He says, “Five years old?! Why are you talking about 5-year-olds?!”     Mark: He’s thinking the 17 ½-year-old. Tim: He’s thinking 17, 16 years old, where you can’t really maybe tell the difference between a 17- and an 18-year-old, right. His eyes popped out of his head, and he says, “What?!” I said, “Yeah...Dad, you don’t know this, but what George was looking at was 5- to 7-year-old children, boys and girls, being raped, ok?” Mark: They sent a picture in the tub. Tim: Exactly. Being raped by adults. And he just kind of put his head down, shook it, and he said, “Now, that is weird..” I remember he said, ”That is just weird...”, and he walked out of the kitchen. He couldn’t handle it, and I don’t blame him. Our minds don’t even let us go there. And this is the problem. This is the problem that, frankly, is the obstacle to the solution. And the problem is we don’t want to see, we don’t want to believe it. I remember in the very beginning, in the early 2000s, when we were taking cases, child porn cases, to the judges, federal judges and state judges on pornography cases, on child pornography cases. And they were sentencing them to the most minimal sentences. Like this one guy had this collection that was unbelievable, categorized it by the names - he would name the kids in the videos, and create little files for them. It was unbelievable. He had hundreds of thousands of videos, images and everything else. And when the judge sentenced him, he sentenced him to four or five months in jail, but weekends only.            Mark: What?! Tim: And, I thought, “What is going on?!” The prosecutor I was working with, she said, “You know, the problem, Tim, is they don’t get it.The judges don’t get it!” They don’t get it. And we asked the judges if we could please show..during the sentencing they brought me in, and said, “Agent Ballard wants to show you the images.” He said, “I don’t want to see that junk! I don’t want to see that junk.” He’s embarrassed to even look at it. The human side of him doesn't want to even watch him looking at it, so he says, “I don’t need to see, I don’t need to see it!” So, we didn’t show it to him, and then that sentence came out. I guarantee you, I guarantee you that he doesn’t want to accept it. You know, the reports indicated that the kids were as young as five or four years old. His brain - my theory - wouldn’t let him grasp it, wouldn’t let him grasp it. And so he just gave him this super light sentence. But if I would have just opened that laptop, and say, “You have to watch this, you need to see this.” Now, I’m not advocating for showing child porn to people.    Mark: Exactly. Tim: At all! At all! Mark: But, maybe we emphasize, highly illegal: if you download this, even for altruistic, I’m-going-to-expose-myself, but...   Tim: You will go to jail. Don’t do it! Don’t do it! Mark: Yes! Tim: But what I’m telling you is, be aware that it is there, and we have got to talk about it. It hurts...You mentioned that when you talk about this, and this is why people don’t want to talk about it, you hit the nail in the head: you lose part of your own innocence. Mark: Absolutely. Tim: And every time you talk about it, some more of your innocence, even as adults, it goes away. You have to sacrifice that, but you sacrifice it for the kids. Because if we don’t sacrifice a part of our innocence to know this is happening, they have no hope, because we are the adults, we are the ones who will...if anyone’s going to save them, it is going to be the adults, that have the power and the influence and the ability. But if we don’t know about it, we are not going to save them. But to know about it, you must sacrifice some of your innocence. And so that’s what we ask people to do: sacrifice some of your innocence, listen to this show, go to our website, learn about trafficking. It’s the fastest growing criminal enterprise on earth. Two million children, and more, are being sold for sex, over ten million children sold for labor. Add all the adults, we’re on a 30-40 million range. I mean, wake up! Help them out! But it does require a sacrifice of innocence.     Mark: So, back to the question at hand, did you actually have, have you had a sit-down, “Ok, let me talk to you about this, son”? Like, let me ask it this way: have your kids seen the documentary? Tim: Here’s my policy and my wife’s, I mean, every kid is an individual, right. Every kid you treat differently, because it is not a ‘one size fits all’ solution to raising kids. Mark: You have how many? Tim: I have six kids. Mark: That’s awesome! Tim: So, our kind of general policy, guideline on the documentary, which is ‘The Abolitionists’ documentary, which films my team going into different countries and helping the police infiltrate trafficking rings and so forth... Mark: Catching you soliciting pimps for underaged girls. Tim: Right. Mark: Asking “Hey, will she do this, will she do that?” Tim: Oh, yeah. Mark: Your kids have to hear you saying that. Tim: My kids are hearing that, yeah. So, what we’ve decided is, generally speaking, if this particular video or this particular documentary includes children, who are being sold, who are, say, 12 years old, then I’m going to let my 12-year-old watch it. And that is because I think it’s important for him to see what he has and what someone else doesn’t have. “Someone your age is being trafficked. You get to play football; they are being sold for sex.” And, I think it’s important for kids to recognize what they have, and then it instills in them a sense of responsibility: “How can I help that kid, who doesn’t get to play football? What can I do?” And it makes them aware of the world and aware of what’s happening. So, that is kind of how we deal with it. And then again I let them watch it, I don’t rehash it with them, I don’t bring it up too much, at least graphically.           Mark: Yeah. Tim: I let their mind stop them where it needs to stop. Mark: Smart. I like that principle that you said with adults, with kids, with everyone - they will go to a point that they are ready to go to.   Tim: Right. But here’s the point that I was making too - once you are an adult and you have real influence to help, it changes a bit in my mind, right.     Mark: Especially if you are a judge. Tim: Especially if you are a judge. I don’t want it to stop where your mind wants it to stop. And this is our job at Slave Stealer podcast and other places, other people’s responsibility, who are in the know-how, who have seen it, you’ve got to say “No!” No, I’m not going to let you stop. I am not going to let you shake your head and walk out of the kitchen. I’m going to make you stay until your mind grasps this enough to where you are going to act. And that’s the problem, is people hit that point where their brain wants them to stop, and they shake their head and walk away. We can’t have that. If we do that, these kids will not be liberated.        Mark: If that happens in 1860, you have still got millions of slaves in the South. Tim: Absolutely! Mark: Because we have talked about it. Tim: Absolutely. That’s why, because people shook their head and walked out of the kitchen. Mark: Yeah. You have got to show it to them. There are so many questions - I’m trying to think of a logical order here. You talked about it with your father-in-law, and we are not talking about 17 ½-year-old girls.    Tim: Right. Mark: We are talking about kids that are groomed, And, maybe.. let’s define the term. We kind of need to have like a trafficking glossary on our site. But grooming, and, maybe in the case of Lady, that we talked about - that’s when you explained it to me, you know, when I was going to go be a scoutmaster. I had to go through the whole ‘how to identify a perv’, right, and one of the terms they used was grooming. And they’re like, “Well, when you prepare a child for…” whatever. But you really broke it down for me in the case of this 11-year old virgin, who was sold to you in Columbia. I was there watching, she was a virgin. Tim: Right Mark: However, she knew exactly what was going to go down. Tim: Right.. Mark: What do they do to groom a child and how were you made aware of it? Like, give me how you came to that knowledge. Because this episode is kind of about you and the topic. Tim: So I came to the knowledge the only way I think anyone can, and that is experiencing it firsthand. For me, that was going undercover, pretending to be someone, who is interested in that black market, and getting into that market, becoming a player in that market. So, in the case of this little girl, who they were calling ‘Lady’ - and that surely wasn’t her real name, it was a name the traffickers gave her - in that case, we were pretending to be solicitors of child sex. We were working with the Colombian police pretending to be Americans, who travel to Colombia to engage in sex with children. And what had happened in this case, because we were working in that capacity and because we presented ourselves as wealthy Americans, I hinted to the trafficker that we would be interested in sharing profits and investing in his trafficking business. The reason we did that was because that all of a sudden, if they believe us, that pushes them to open their books and open their business and explain the business plan. And that’s how we learn how they do this. I would say things like, ”Look, I could probably get you a million dollar investment in this, but I need to know how it works; I need to know how you get these kids; I want to know you maintain the kids, how you groom and prepare them,” and so on and so forth. And the guy was more than happy to tell me what he does. Mark: I have a photograph of your hands around this little pattern napkin. It was like a napkin business plan...     Tim: Sure, yeah. Mark: Of a sex hotel for kids. Tim: That’s right. Mark: I have a picture of that. I’ll post it, because it is so disturbing when you realize what those numbers represent, volume and quantity and velocity of children and child rape.    Tim: Yeah, it was the dirtiest, most evil business plan that anyone could ever dream up. Mark: Yeah. Tim: ..on that napkin. That’s right. Mark: I’ll post that. Tim: And that was like our third or fourth discussion about how their business operations work. So, what they explained to me was, “Look, it’s easy to get the kids. You find poor families.” You don’t want to do a hard kidnapping, you know like the movie ‘Taken’. Does that happen? Yes. Is that the likely scenario? No. Why? Because you kidnap a kid, a hard kidnapping - meaning go into their house, like what happened with Elizabeth Smart, go into the house, pull them out. Well, you are going to kick up a lot of dust around you. Why do that if you are a trafficker if you can instead make it a peaceful kidnapping. Not peaceful for the child, right.          Mark: Yeah. Tim: Hell for the child, peaceful for the trafficker. In other words, they can kind of do this without fearing much consequence. So, what they do is they go to poor families, and these guys had actually hired or were working with, contracting with, a beauty queen in Cartagena. She had won a pageant, a beauty pageant. So, kind of people knew who she was; she had been on the news, she showed up in music videos, and so people knew who she was. So, they walk into the house with this beauty queen, and they say, “Look, look at this beautiful woman. She doesn’t have a worry in the world. She is paid, she is wealthy, she is beautiful, she is famous.” And then they point to the 9-year old daughter, and say, “we focus” - they told us “9 years old is where we start”. And they say to the mother and father: “Your 9-year-old daughter is just as beautiful as this girl; we just got to train her. We can train her, and she can become a model and an actress.” And they fill the parents with all sorts of dreams that they never believed were possible for their child. And certainly this is legitimate, because they are looking at the star, who is in their living room saying, “I can do this for you. And we’re going to give you a scholarship. You can come to our school and learn how to be a model for free.” At that point, they bring them into the modeling school, and they teach them some things. And when they get comfortable, they say, “Now you are going to watch this video.” And the video will be pornography. “This is part of being an actress, it’s part of…you need to understand this world.” And when kids are at that age - nine, ten, eleven - their minds are still developing and forming, and if someone tells you this is right, this is right, this is right, eventually your mind develops as a 9- or 10-year old into believing, “Ok, this is right, this is right.” And so they start seeing that. We had evidence that some of them were being drugged, you know, threatened: “If you go back and tell your parents that we are doing these things, you are going to be in big trouble.” And again, kids are very… Elizabeth Smart, when we get her on the show, she can talk about this, where a police officer walked up to her, while she was in captivity, and said “Are you Elizabeth Smart?”. I mean that, it would have been over! Mark: Yeah. Tim: And she said, “I am not. I am not Elizabeth Smart.” Because she was scared to death because they, her captors, had told her, “If you ever reveal who you are, we will kill your sister, and your family.” And as Elizabeth tells it, everything they had told her they are going to do to her, they did it. They told her they are going to rape her, and they did it. They told her they are doing this particular thing - sex acts - and they did it. They told her they’d chain her up, and they did it. So, when they told her that they are going to kill her parents if she reveals who she is, why would a 14-year-old not believe that they are going to do it?                        Mark: They’ve got all power. Tim: All power. And she has received criticism for that, you know, like, “Why didn’t you run away? Did you want to be there?”, you know... People just can’t comprehend how the mind of a child works. And that’s what these kids go through - they are scared into not revealing what is really going on. So, they groom them, and they said it, it will be a year and a half, or more, while they are grooming them, all under the hospices of this modeling school. And of course they are being trained to be models as well, and then eventually they say, “Ok, so this is your test. You are going to this party on this island, and these men are going to come from America, and you are going to do the things that you have seen being done in the pornography videos, and do whatever they want.” In a nutshell, that is how it works. I mean, that is how it works, that is the reality. Mark: And variations of. Tim: And variations of that.   Mark: So, they can do everything up until the point that she is not a virgin to claim... Tim: Right. Mark: “Hey, it is a virgin.” Tim: And they can, and they want to do this because their virgins are premium, right.  Already, a child, in most black markets, a child will go for about a double or more than double of what an adult prostitute will go for. But then, if that child is also a virgin, then it’s quadruple, or more of that price. So, it’s a premium to sell a virgin child. Mark: Wow...Give me, you’ve talked about it - like pulling people’s blinders off, and those moments where people are opened up, and the one with I think your father-in-law, who gets it now - that was pretty dramatic. What about..give me another one. You don’t have to name names, I just like hearing about people’s response. Are there any high profiles that you are allowed to share, that, maybe change the name, change the whatever? Somebody that you have shocked, that should have known?        Tim: Yeah. I was in the office, probably a year or two ago, of a governor of a certain state. We were explaining who we were and what we did, and he was absolutely shocked. And, kudos to him for being honest, saying, “Wait, wait, wait, what?! There is how many kids? There is how many kids being hurt and trafficked in the world? And what does that mean? They do what?!” He didn’t know, he didn’t know anything! And again, I’m not blaming him for not knowing. It is not something you go seek out, right? It is not something that your advisors seek out to tell you. It is hard to talk about. And I don’t know that you know the answer - why aren’t we talking about it more? Why, why, why, why? I really believe because it is that.. it is so dark a topic. It is not even...you know, slavery in the nineteenth century - it was politically divisive. It was a political nightmare to get involved: go back to the Lincoln-Douglas debates and everything. I mean, it was a divisive and a political issue. This is not even a political issue. There is nobody standing on the side of the pedophiles - well there are some: NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association, which deserves its own show someday.         Mark: Do they have a logo? Tim: Well, there are all sorts of different..Look them up: nambla.org. Mark: Is that weird? Tim: You might have cops knocking on your door tonight. Mark: That is what I am saying. Tim: No, no, no, you won’t. You can look them up. Mark: What are the pop-up ads I am getting after that? Tim: Yeah, be careful when you go: nambla.org. I mean, it is a legitimate organization, legitimate in terms of legality, right. And, they are just a group that is pushing for a.. Mark: Oh hell! Tim: What did you find? You got...I told you to be careful when you go to that... Mark: No, it is not...and luckily, I’ve retained that innocence: I have never seen child pornography. It is a cartoon on the front their page - it is an adult asking a little boy, “What can I do to make you happy?” And the little boy says, “I like hugs.” Tim: Boom! And that’s their whole message. If you go into...When I was an agent, I would go all into it and learn about it, what they believe in. And they actually talk about how kids, psychologically and emotionally, need sexual healing and sexual exposure from adults. And why not adults, who know what they are doing? And so they make it sound as though the kid wants to be hugged, the kid wants to be touched. Why is it so bad? And they bring up science, where they show that children are sexual beings based on this story and that. Of course, they are human beings! Their sexuality is attached to everybody; we are born with it. But that doesn’t mean you are ready to bring it out and force it on a child, because that’s what you would be really doing, forcing it on a child. Their brains aren’t developed to the point where they can make those kind of decisions, or comprehend the kind of consequences of that activity. I mean it destroys...I’ve seen kids destroyed over this. And here they are saying they just want to hug, “Just hug me, that is all I want.”      Mark: Oh, here’s the other one, right. They are just headlines and we’re not going to go off on NAMBLA forever, because it does deserve its own show. Maybe we bring one of these idiots in.   Tim: Yeah, bring them in, let them take it. Mark: Or, we bring in some of the people they are attacking. And I thought of this this morning, ok. I’ll read a couple headlines: ‘When Labor Loved Liberty (And Before They Changed Their Minds)’ about the labor unions formally supporting..whatever. ‘Remembering Michael Jackson’, and they’ve got the old black version of Michael, ‘Remembering a Lover of Boys’, ‘Michael Jackson’s Dangerous Liaisons’, ‘The Non-Wisdom of Crowds: Defender of Anonymous Outraged by our Lack of Passivity’. Now, this one’s interesting: ‘Hipster Vigilantism and the New Populist Attack on Free Speech’. That is what they are calling it: speech, right. And then, they say ‘Anonymous Decidedly Illiberal Campaign to Silence Us’. Dude, is Anonymous getting on these guys, because they would be an awesome ally.   Tim: I don’t know, but let’s check, let’s look into it - let’s absolutely look into it. But these guys have conventions; it’s a political movement to legalize this kind of behavior. Mark: They called Oprah a liar, by the way. Tim: And so... Mark: Saying she wasn’t, she wasn’t molested as a child. Ok, I’m off on NAMBLA. Tim: Ok. So, we’ll go back talking more about that, but the point is, that, except for these few total whackjobs, who think that this is a healthy thing for children, it is really just obviously serving their own selfish lust and pleasure and evil. Dark, dark souls...But, for the most part, this is not a political issue, right, it is not a political issue. Everyone will be on the side of solving this. So, what is the obstruction? It is simply, “I don’t want to know; I don’t want to see it.” It’s the ostrich, the ostrich effect, sticking our head in the sand: “I don’t want to see it, I don’t want to...I have kids, grandkids. I can’t think about it.” And that’s where we have to make the change, that’s where we have to convert people to look at it.    Mark: What are the more offensive things that people have said to you? Maybe on purpose or not on purpose. I don’t need the top three, because it’s hard to think in superlatives, but give me five offensive things people have said to Tim Ballard, unknowingly or knowingly.   Tim: Offensive, in terms of just this topic in general? Mark: Yeah, that you’re like, “I used to respect you three minutes ago, before that came out your mouth.” Tim:I think the one time I can remember where I got the most offended...and frankly, you actually just did it to me earlier today, accidentally. I wasn’t so mad. Mark: Oh, when I wondered if you would turn into a perv by looking at... Tim: Yeah, it was so...I felt really bad because... Mark: That wasn’t a personal attack, by the way. Tim: No, no no, it wasn’t. And I want to clear this up. I don’t have a whole lot of examples of people, who say things offensive in terms of why this should or shouldn’t be legal or illegal, right. I mean, I’ve had perpetrators during interrogations defended, you know. A guy named Ernst Luposchainsky, for example - you can look him up, we arrested him in Minnesota... And he was pretty, I mean he was offensive, but I mean, geez, he was just such a joke. You are looking at this guy and you are almost, almost...somewhere in between laughter and vomit. You know, you are just like: “Are you serious? You are saying this?” You know, but he would talk about like the benefits of child pornography and how it helps the poor kids. “These kids get paid, they get paid for their sexual services, and we are helping them, we are helping their families.” He would talk about the tiger and the meat analogy. I remember we talked about, and this is all during his interrogation, where he would say, “Look, you have got to feed the tiger meat. If you don’t feed the tiger meat, he will eventually attack human beings.” So, he is actually saying, “Children are being raped, that’s horrible! Now, a consensual sex with a child, that is a different story. But, children are being raped against their will, I’m against that. Oh, I’m so against that!” You know, he would say...       Mark: Just for the record, you were quoting him on the “consensual sex is a different story”? Tim: Yes. Mark: Ok, just making sure it wasn’t like... Tim: Yes, quoting. Mark: You, parenthetically saying “Hey, consensual sex...” Tim: I’m sure some out there would love to misquote me on that and accuse me. So, the tiger and the meat, right. “You have got to feed the tiger meat, you have got to feed the tiger meat, and then he will never rape the kids.” And the meat is child porngraphy. “Make it legal. Let them look at it, because then they will just look at it, and then they will get satisfied and the kids will be safe.” Mark: Oh, yeah, totally! Tim: Because it doesn’t, it certainly doesn’t fuel your evil passion by looking at it, right? Like for example, a man who watches pornography, he never watches pornography with an int to actually engage in sex with a woman. He just watches it for, you know, for the pleasure in itself. Yeah...baloney! Any dude, who watched porn will tell you, right, “I would like to translate this to my bedroom,” right. It is no different with child pornographers. They are looking at this, and they want to act out. So it is just the opposite - you are fueling the fire, not putting it out. But, I mean, that was offensive. And, by the way, that Ernst Lupochainsky case, we got to do a show sometime on that. That was the hardest case I have ever did. In the middle of that interview, ok, while he was telling me all this stuff, he would not break, he would not break, he would not break. So, what I had to do...because he believed that all men were closet pedophiles, he just believed that story... Mark: I love this story. Tim: He just believed that. It was his way to justify his own feelings, of course. But this puritanical society - that is what he called it - has stopped the natural flow of love between a man and young, little girls. But on this show, I have got to read...he had this postmortem message he put on all his child porn collection. We will prep and I will read his message.      Mark: Oh my gosh. Tim: It’s unbelievable. Unbelievable. But the point I am making here is, I had to go undercover - this is just a teaser - I had to go undercover... Mark: Don’t blow it, because I know the punchline, and it is unreal. Tim: Yeah..as myself. So, I pushed my buddy away, the other agent, who was interviewing the guy. I was still wired up undercover, you know, and I said, “Hey, listen man, listen Ernst, help me out. I mean you are right. Reading your stuff - it makes me trust you. I have got to look at this stuff all day long. What do you think that does to me? It makes me want that. But there is no one I can talk to. Can you talk to me? Can you help me?” Sure enough, his eyes just light up. He believed it! I couldn’t believe he bought into it. I was...I was...It is one thing when I am Brian Black, you know, or I’m some alias in an undercover operative.          Mark: That is a cute name. Did you make that one up? Tim: That was the name that I used to use, yeah...Brian Black. So, here I was, Tim Ballard, U.S. agent/pedophile. So it was a totally different thing. I was myself, and that went on for...and then you know, I reported it to my supervisors; they loved it. And that kept on for at least a month, until we could get all the information out of this guy we possibly could about his contacts and networks. And he opened up to me, thinking he was helping me enter into, you know, induct me into the beautiful world of pedophilia. So, someday we’ll do that story, because that is an amazing story. The guy is still in jail.     Mark: Good. Tim: So, that is kind of somewhat offensive, but the time I blew up...the sweetest lady on earth - she was, she was just...Lived down the street, sweet kind lady, and I was working in child porn cases, kind of mad - you know you’re just mad a lot, thinking about it. And she said to me, “So, how many agents, you know, end up…?” And again, the same thing you just said, but I didn’t blow up at you.    Mark: Good grief! I feel like such a schmuck, especially in context of the story you have just told me. Tim: Yeah, it was the first time... Mark: Because I know you are not susceptible to that. Tim: Right. And, I would honestly argue that unless you are predisposed and you enter the child crimes group so that you could access it, I think it is just the opposite. And, you know, she said, “So, how many end up pedophiles themselves, being exposed to this?” Mark: Legit question! Tim: Yeah...I mean it sounds like a legit question, unless when you are in it, you are like “Wait, whoa, whoa.” Yeah so, by the hundredth time I am watching a child scream in pain, by that time I am like, “I am digging this.” But, I went off, I went crazy. I said, “Do you think it is that?! Or maybe it is, ‘I can’t believe I have to watch this again! I can’t believe I have to subject myself again to this video, and my stomach is punched again and again and again.” It was so bothersome to me, because it is just the opposite of what she was saying. It is like, I have got to endure this. It is like saying this, here is a good analogy: someone who has been doing chemotherapy for a year, right, and every three months they got to go get another dose of chemo. It is like someone saying, “So, how many cancer patients become addicted to chemo? Even after the cancer is done, they still take chemo just because they are addicted to it?” Right?! That is analogous right there. Mark: Yeah... Tim: Ok? And, it is just like, “Wow, wow,” you know, it killed me. I get it, but it was just, it is...What they don’t understand is the potency of this. It is not! What they think is, she was probably still thinking 16-year-olds, 17-year-olds. I was like, are you kidding me?! It is not what we are talking about! If there is a 16-year old in a child porn video, we wouldn’t even prosecute that, unless you absolutely knew it was a 16-year-old, in like specific cases where, you know, uncles taking pictures or something. Mark:Yeah. Tim: But otherwise, you wouldn’t. You would be like “Eh...” If you can’t tell...The majority of the child porn cases we prosecuted: 5 years old, 7 years old, 10 years old, that range, right. I know, it’s just... it is just things the vast majority don’t have to see, and I don’t want them to see it. Mark: Yeah. Tim: I don’t want them to see it. But they need to know it is happening, so that they can be part of the solution. Mark: On that same thought of things that people unintentionally say that are offensive, how about this? And I have got this one before, even with my little bit of involvement: “Well, she looks like she wants it.” Tim: Oh, yeah...I get that quite a bit. In fact, right in our documentary, in “The Abolitionists”. Mark: Yeah! Tim: I have heard a couple of people say that. In an early screening that happened, and my wife who was in the room,  it was a very early screening, we brought some kind of influential people in to watch. Mark: I was there! Tim: Oh, right! You were there. That’s right! Mark: I was sitting by your wife. Tim: You were there. A sweet lady - I think you know her, I think you know who she is - totally innocent, you know, she just...she said, “Can’t you show like a little darker side to this, so that people know? Can’t you show us some kids who are not looking like they want to be here?” And, if you remember my wife, she’s like... Mark: Oh yeah. Tim: “Alright! This is tragic, what is happening to these kids! This isn’t a scripted film, this isn’t - we can’t make this up. This is real, and it is their hell. And just because you can’t see it, because you are not the spirit inside of that body,”... know, my wife just… bless her heart, she went crazy.   Mark: She is not outspoken. Tim: No. Mark: Right? For her to... Tim: For her to do that... it touched a nerve. Mark: Yeah.. Tim: And again, back to the misconceptions. Are you going to find cases of kids chained up and locked in closets? Absolutely, you are going to find that! The vast majority, the vast majority? No, that is not what it looks like. And in the documentary - most people get it, it is not usually a big problem - but in the documentary, I mean, you are watching the filmmakers put the ages of the kids - of course cover their identities - but they put their ages, their numbers like over their blurred faces. And so you are watching this 12-year old-girl, it says twelve, you know, and I remember that little girl, I remember that she actually had fear in her eyes. But if you weren’t looking straight into her eyes, she did walk into the party, and she knew what was going to happen to her.   Mark: And she was dressed like a 21-year-old prostitute. Maybe not her, but some of the others. Tim: Some of them were, that one wasn’t, but some of them absolutely... This little girl was wearing like long basketball shorts and a white t-shirt, and you will see that in the documentary. But others were, the 12-year-olds...    Mark: They are not picking their outfit here. Tim: Right, right. Mark: For the most part. Tim: And they are walking in and people say, “Looks like they want to do that! They want to do it! Look at, they... No one is forcing them to walk in.” And again back to Elizabeth Smart. When you will bring her on the show, we can talk to her about it, and she...If you thought Catherine, my wife, got passionate, wait until Elizabeth answers that question. And she says, because they bring it u, she had plenty of opportunities, in theory, to run. She did. She was in public areas, policeman came up to her, right, but what they don’t understand is trafficking, slavery, so much of slavery is mental. These traffickers enslave these kids mentally, emotionally, not just physically. In fact, they don’t want it; if they can get away with not enslaving them physically, all the better. Remember, they don’t want to kick up a lot of dust around them. So, if they can figure out how to enslave them mentally and emotionally, that is always the first choice, and they do it by the grooming process that we described earlier. They groom them, and then they control them. They control them! And this is why the rehab part is so important, because you have got to undo the damage, and that doesn’t happen overnight. It is a long process. I don’t know, I mean, I have talked to a lot of victims of trafficking, who are adults now and have families of their own, and they have told me, “You know, you don’t ever fully, fully heal.” I mean, there is always something there you have got to battle. And that is what happens, that is why when Elizabeth’s father runs to her, she still denies who she is for a second, and then she opens up. Because it is like a spell, and if you haven’t been through it - and I haven’t, so I can’t fully comprehend it, but I’ve been around it enough to know that you can’t comprehend it, unless it has happened to you. And a child’s mind is not like an adult’s mind. Children don’t think like adults think. Their minds are at different levels of development, they don’t have a lot of experience, they don’t understand the consequences like adults can and do. And so, it is not so difficult for the traffickers to play those mind games, warp them, brainwash them, and make them slaves.      Mark: Well, I think that...we’ll get into, I think, in shows down the road, we’ll have Throwback Thursdays. We’ll go revisit missions and do things, but I feel like that can give our listeners a little bit of insight into your passion, your feeling for what it is you do and how it affects your life. It is not a job you leave at the door, as you are hearing. And so if you have any parting shots along the lines of ‘Here’s Tim’, ‘Get to know Tim’, let’s go and leave our listeners with that.    Tim: You know I...I’d say this that I understand completely. We are talking about awareness, we are talking about people’s ability to see this problem. And I can’t sit back and judge and say, “Come on, open your eyes, open your eyes!” I was the worst of everybody; it was right before me and I was denying. I was denying it. I didn’t want to do it. It took me a long time to say yes, and even after I said yes, I was very apprehensive about how far I would go in this. So, I get it. It is a hard barrier to get around. And even when it is in front of you almost...you know, and then, when it is not in front you, of course, it is sometimes near impossible to get around. So, I get it, I get it, but I also understand that when you see it, when you allow yourself to open up to it, you become converted. And part of that I think is from God. I think God, more than anybody, wants these children liberated. I think he weeps more than anybody for these kids. So, if he can find an adult, who is willing to open their mind enough and not walk out of the room, he will help convert you, and put that passion into you, fill you with his spirit, and call you. He will call anybody, if you are going to help save his kids. And I just want people to go through the same conversion that I went through. I am kind of a missionary for trafficking, right. I mean, I am trying to evangelize here and get people converted to the cause, because that is who I am. I have been converted to the cause. And it hurt!        Mark: The cause of freedom. Tim: The cause of freedom. But it hurts to be converted, because you must leave something at the door, and that is your innocence. You must leave it. And who wants to give that up? But you must do that. You must make that sacrifice. And it hurts, and you cry, and you have moments that are embarrassing - and we’ll get into some of these. There were times, when I was like a child in my wife’s arms weeping and she is holding me, and I am just shaking. Still happens to me... I used to not talk about it, but I just talk about it now. It hurts, it hurts to get into this cause, because the cause of freedom requires you to fight evil, and evil hurts. But what we want to do here on this show is make converts, because I know this: converts to this cause equals liberty to children. And what greater thing can we do than bring liberty to children?   Mark: Thank you. And, because your last words were so good, I’ll sign off for you from OUR headquarters. Good night!