Vineyard Spotlight: Barb Boswell and Blue Route Vineyard
VAST is thrilled to pick up on our ongoing “Vineyard Spotlight” series of interviewing Vineyard pastors and leaders who are responding to human trafficking within their own communities and on a global level. Below, Kathy Maskell interviews Barb Boswell of the Blue Route Vineyard in Media, PA. We know you’ll be inspired by hearing Barb’s heart as well as all the intentional and prayerful ways her church as responded in particular to sex trafficking, including sending out two leaders to Southeast Asia. Check out the local event they’re planning for February 14, “Saving Someone’s Sweet Heart“:KM: When did you get involved with the Blue Route Vineyard?
BB:We started at BRV near Christmas 2006. Our daughter led us there! She started attending because of kids she knew in their youth group, and I was feeling like God was moving us on from the church we were at…so we visited BRV and loved it!
KM: How did you personally first get involved and come to know about human trafficking?
BB: God first moved my heart toward the issue in 2006 during my first class at Biblical Seminary, when Dr. Diane Langberg showed a short indie film, Fields of Mudan, to our class. I wept and wept and couldn’t understand it. At BRV, I’d heard of Love146 because Kate Liles was involved, but didn’t know a ton about it. Then, while I was at Vineyard East conference in July 2010, I heard you speak… and Abby Lazur and I both knew God was calling us to this.
KM: I know that you’re a professional counselor. How does your work intersect with human trafficking?
BB: As a counselor working with sexual abuse survivors and other traumatized persons, I’ve become very aware of the dynamics of this kind of oppression. I work with a lot of teens and tweens who have been sexually abused. Although there are some who’ve been assaulted one time (which is a somewhat different dynamic), many of them were groomed and “chosen” by their perpetrator (whom they typically know). With that goes very mixed emotions: I love him because he ________________ (fill in the blank–“is my father”, “told me I’m pretty”, “treated me special”, etc), and I hate him because he abused me. For the ones who’ve been more violently perpetrated or threatened, I see more Stockholm Syndrome-like responses: “He could have killed me, but he didn’t. He really must have cared.”
One example for me from several years ago is one that I didn’t label “trafficking” at the time because I wasn’t yet aware. Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone else was at the time either. She was 14 and was taken into foster care because of unstable living conditions. Her mother was living in a motel with her and selling the girl for drug money. This girl had been sexually abused in grade school by men who would give mom rent money to have sex with the girl. This girl not only had huge issues with self-image, sexuality (she was in a same-sex relationship when I met her), and depression, but she had an unbelievable trauma bond with her mother…the one who pimped her out. She couldn’t wait for the time her mother would visit her in the foster group home. I think at the time I was not prepared for that.
KM: Can you tell me how you lead your local anti-trafficking task force, BRVHeart, and church into this kind of justice ministry?
BB: We have monthly task force meetings and fundraising/awareness events. We are having a 24 hour prayer vigil next month. During our church’s services, at least once a quarter, our prayer slide is focused on human trafficking issues. Also, our youth group has chosen to fundraise for Love146 with different events.
KM: Did you have any initial concerns in presenting this kind of ministry opportunities to your church?
BB: No! The leadership was already in tune with it.
KM: What was the church’s initial response?
BB: Robust! Our task force has been 12-20 people from the start.
KM: Were there particular challenges?
BB: Not that I can think of.
KM: How did you engage them and lead them through what is at-times a scary topic and ministry opportunity?
BB: Much prayer and sensitivity to survivors in the midst of our task force and church.
KM: Can you give some examples of what you mean by being “sensitive”? Like exactly how would you do this, i.e. what kinds of things would you actually say?
BB: One thing that crosses my mind is when we pray for the issue in church, we are careful to say “human trafficking” and not more inflammatory things like “sex slavery” or “prostitution.” On a smaller level, in our group meetings we talk about the statistics of sexual abuse (anywhere from 1 in 3 to 1 in 5) and that there are people in our group and church who will be triggered. There is one task force member who I’ve met with individually about her own story and how she gets triggered sometimes. Normalizing the reaction and giving some ways to deal with it can be helpful, I think.
KM: Has your church been more involved globally or locally in anti-trafficking justice ministry?
BB: Both. We support Love146’s ministry, IJM, and home-grown missionaries, a couple who are in SE Asia.KM: Can you share a little about what they are doing there?
BB: They are in Southeast Asia doing a few different things: working with a local NGO in doing a mapping project of where the trafficking activity is happening. Also they are working with women who are coming out of the sex trade (or want to) and is organizing a healing prayer class for them. Locally we are building relationships with coalitions and hope to be part of a new Delaware County Anti-Trafficking Coalition.
What kinds of events and/or things has your group organized? We spent our early months educating the task force and making connections in the anti-trafficking movement. Four of us attended the Love146 Collective Shout Conference in 2010. We organized ‘Call 4 Justice’ in Sept 2011, at which we showed the film Call + Response, sold locally made crafts, and held an art auction. We raised $5,000 and a LOT of awareness!
We are planning a fundraising/awareness event for Feb 2012 called ‘Saving Someone’s Sweet Heart’ as a part of Love146’s Broken Hearts campaign. We have a Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/281203441945827/
Our long-term goal is to start a safe house.
KM: Can you provide a bit of info on work you may have already done to assess the need for a safehome in your area?
BB: This is in the VERY early stages of research. Some of it is anecdotal because of my work with survivors. For instance, the girl I referenced earlier was in a group foster home, but had to be brought from NJ to DE, where I did trauma-based therapy with her. That was the only therapeutic element to her recovery. Additionally, we believe we are to focus on a home for sexually abused and exploited males because of the dearth of resources for them. For instance, I tried to find residential treatment for a male teen client of mine (who was not adjudicated) and found nothing in this area. A friend of mine has started a non-profit in the area that focuses on foster children and particularly the ones aging out of foster care; she tells me that there are very few resources for this very at-risk populaton. We are looking to be more than a shelter; we hope to be a therapeutic community for survivors.
KM: Let’s talk about the importance of networking. What kinds of relationships to you have with local anti-trafficking organizations?
BB: I think we’ve been good at networking with like-minded people in the field, both faith-based and otherwise. We’ve been in touch with our Assistant District Attorney (ADA)that prosecutes sex crimes, and who in fact just successfully prosecuted the FIRST trafficking case in our entire state! (for more on the case, click HERE. Pearl Kim is the ADA). Five people from my task force recently attended a training at the Philadelphia Anti-Trafficking Coalition.