Jo Lembo, Author at Shared Hope International

April 10, 2023 by Jo Lembo

Redemption & Restoration Bring Justice

When we talk about restoring a victim of trafficking considerations must include if they have something to be restored to. Do they have anywhere or anything to which they want to return? (as in the definition above by the American Heritage Dictionary: “an original or normal condition; placed in a former position or location”) Perhaps that 26-year-old barely remembers her early childhood because of the trauma induced by violence or abuse. Maybe they don’t ever remember being safe, loved, or cared for. What if there isn’t a family looking for them, or anyone who cares if they are alive or not? What if this child has run multiple times from the home they are returned to because the abuse isn’t known or recognized…and the child votes with their feet?

If this is the case, as it often may be, speaking about restoration to them will ring hollow. The last thing they want is to be placed in a former position or location.

Instead our goal for transition homes must be to become a place of true redemption for the survivor. A place where they are brought back from the horror of trafficking, and given ownership again of their body, soul and spirit. A place where they find freedom from shame and abuse because they are now in a secured environment that allows them a safe place to learn who they are, and to become that person at their own pace. A place where they are given gifts of peace, self worth, recognition, and value as a child of God.

In this month of Easter remembrance Christians are very familiar with the price that was paid to buy us back from the authority of satan. The devil rightfully held a claim against us when our rights were forfeited to him through man’s disobedience to God. There was a debt of sin that had to be paid to bring us each into right standing again with a perfect God. And God was willing to let His only Son be born as a man on this earth, in order to become the sacrificial lamb to give His life for ours to redeem us back to our Father. I love that John 3:16 doesn’t say that God sent His Son, but that God gave His Son. His was the most precious gift He had, and He gave it freely for each of us to know Him.

“For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.”
(1 Peter 1:18-19 NLT)

What a gift it is to a survivor of trafficking when they are offered not only a safe bed, provision, and protection that will restore them, but also the gift of redemption to know that they no longer belong to that former identity, but are free to become whomever a loving God designed them to be. They have been bought back (redeemed) from destruction and death.

“Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God.”
(1 Peter 1:23b NLT)

We are grateful that Jesus paid the price for each one of us to give us new life as His free gift. Let’s freely share the Gift with others.

Pastor Jo Lembo, Director of Faith Initiatives, Shared Hope International

January 24, 2022 by Jo Lembo

Built-In Guardrails For When You Aren’t There

Part of the role of parents to effectively protect their kids is to know what is being taught in your school, and what your child is exposed to. That begins with your involvement in your child’s classroom however you are able.

Ask your child’s teacher how you can volunteer in the classroom. (Hint: Gramma or Grampa may be willing to fill this role as a volunteer.)
Attend PTA or PTO meetings regularly and take notes.
Always meet with your child’s teacher on Parent-Teacher Night.
Ask to be on a textbook review committee.
Be aware of what sex education curriculum is being taught. Some titles sound great…but aren’t appropriate for school-aged children.
Find out what social media protocols and guidelines look like.

Example: Ask if smartphones are allowed to be used in a bathroom at school, and what porn filters on public computers are in place throughout classrooms and the library.

Through the school year, your child’s teacher becomes very familiar with each child. Be sure they have materials with the signs of trafficking to watch for: https://sharedhope.org/takeaction/report-trafficking/

Other ways you can help:

Teach children there is safety in numbers! That maxim is true not only in person but also on social media.
Teach students to only accept conversations online with those that they know personally (have they met them in person). Tell kids, before they talk to someone, they should ask themselves: “Do you know where they live, and where they go to school?”
Do not trust friends of friends!

Predators troll the Internet looking for telltale signs a youth may be vulnerable:

I hate my parents, I want to run away.
My curfew is stupid. They treat me like a baby.
Nobody understands me. I hate school.
My boy/girlfriend just broke up with me. I wish somebody loved me.
I wish someone would take care of me. Life sucks.
Nobody’s ever around. No one listens to me.
I wish I was popular.
I want to have sex.
I wish I could ask someone about these things.

As parents or guardians, we want our children to talk to us. But the reality is they may be more comfortable discussing their feelings with a trusted teacher, a friend’s parents, or another adult they trust. Give your child permission to speak to someone other than yourself when they don’t feel comfortable discussing something with you.

Show them a copy of How to Identify a Safe Adult and agree on who they can trust and why. Connect with that person and your child to lay a foundation of communication.

Be aware of after-school activities and oversight

Who is providing oversight and protection?
Know details about the specific activities in the community (after school sports, outings, field trips, extra-curricular clubs).
Who’s providing supervision for the participants and what protocols are in place?
Keep in mind the outline of what a safe adult looks/acts like, and what a predator looks/talks like. Help children understand they can walk away and ask for help if they feel uncomfortable or threatened.
Most predators become familiar and build trust. They take their time to breach boundaries, all the while being a friend to the child. Be sure your child knows “how to be rude to nice people.”

Be aware of why DMST flourishes in sheltered environments such as private schools, church/parochial schools, homeschooled audiences, and rural communities:

Familiarity breeds a false sense of security When everyone knows everyone, trust is often assumed. Adults feel other adults and older teens are just like them and would ‘never’ think of a child in that way.

Be aware of the rise in pornographic exposure to younger and younger children, psychologists are warning about child-on-child sexual assaults. Unfortunately, this is often a child acting out what they’ve seen in pornography. Defending Young Minds is one of our favorite resources for protecting children.

We’ve all read the news stories where some horrific thing happened, and the neighbors all said, “They were so nice all the time. We never would have suspected this!”

Without causing fear, educate your children about body boundaries. What is and isn’t okay. How to tell a person “NO” firmly, then run away, and tell their safe adult.

Remember the swimsuit rule? It needs to be modified because it’s no longer enough to tell a child that no one should touch the parts of your body that a swimsuit covers. Why?

Because predators are often known to the child, they have access to them (offering to tutor them, give music lessons, take them on outings, or babysit) They may begin by stroking their hair, holding their hand, holding them on their lap or rubbing their back. When the child becomes accustomed to that attention, the predator will try to separate them from others and give them special attention by buying them special gifts offering them special outings. And then the child becomes accustomed to being alone with them and something happens…

Train your child that we don’t keep secrets.

We keep happy surprises (like what we bought Daddy for Christmas) but we share those at just the right time, and everyone likes it.

ALWAYS tell me if someone tells you not to tell. Or if they tell you “this is a secret for just you and me.”

They may be threatened.
No one will believe you. You wanted me to do that. This is your fault.

Understand that when survivors of human sex trafficking are asked; “What is one thing that could have helped you from falling into this trap?” The answer often includes that they were “just looking for someone that would listen to them.”
That is the gap the predators are taking advantage of and how they manipulate and lure our children in. And they are masterful at the deceptive tactics they use. They discover the child’s hopes and dreams, hurts and needs. Then they devise a personality that meets those needs. Their initial encounters are to build trust and are generally not sexually overt in nature. Over time, they erode boundaries, build dependency, and erode the normal safety net of family and friends.

Understanding what to look for, and where to go for help, will keep your child safer!

January 3, 2022 by Jo Lembo

January 2022 – Human Trafficking Awareness Month: Prevention

By Jo Lembo, Director of Faith Initiatives & National Outreach

You are the key to Shared Hope’s success in fighting child and youth sex trafficking.

Shared Hope pursues a strong Prevention program to help you educate others.

The more people who know the signs of trafficking, and who know how to effectively respond, the smaller the world is for those who would buy and sell our children.

Through the years we have heard our audiences ask, “But what can I do?” and that question is the basis of our strategies. Faith Initiatives, the Ambassadors, and the Defenders all walk alongside you with practical training, toolkits, and resources to shine the light into the darkness. Building on your skills, interests and influence, we create materials that help you build a foundation of understanding that leads to taking action, and that results in a safer community.

Awareness begins in the home, in schools, communities, and churches. Shared Hope supports you with the basic building blocks to be proactive in educating those around you so they know,

what trafficking looks like,
what makes kids vulnerable,
what are the tactics of predators or pimps, and
how to respond effectively.

Growth Strategies reaches out to inform you through informational newsletters and podcasts to strengthen your resolve to continue to fight side-by-side with us. We help you understand the important part each of you has in protecting children. Your friendship and partnership with Shared Hope is vital to the work we do.

Through training webinars and conferences, Shared Hope offers programming with firsthand conversations with trained professionals, who share their experience along with powerful stories, that equip audiences to understand how to stop trafficking through prevention education. We draw speakers from not only licensed professionals, but also individuals with learned experience, and those who are providing direct services to survivors so they can thrive.

It’s simple: the more you know, the safer kids are.

Our policy team at the Institute for Justice and Advocacy is a strong influence in state and federal legislation that insures provision and protection measures for victims and survivors of trafficking. Working parallel to our awareness programs, we understand the importance of educating professionals such as law enforcement, judges and prosecutors, social workers, and many others who all come into contact with the victims of trafficking. This is why we’ve added an entire section to our Report Cards on Child & Youth Sex Trafficking designed to encourage mandated trainings for key stakeholders and students. Those laws with an educated public, form a strong safety net to ensure the kind of care that gives hope to survivors that they can find a bright future.

Together, we will prevent commercial sex trafficking…one life at a time.

Take Action –

Now that you have read about the importance of prevention work in the fight against human trafficking, here are a few take action steps:

Send the Report Cards on Child & Youth Sex Trafficking to your elected officials
Become a Grassroots Hero to receive updates on legislative initiatives, campaigns and urgent calls-to-action.
Check out our Advocacy Action Center
Sign up for our Weekend Warrior newsletter for 15 minutes of action each week.
Follow us on Social Media on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Join us as a trained volunteer, equipped to educate your community as an Ambassador of Hope or Defender.
View some of our Prevention focused webinars like:
Take our Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking 101 e-learning course

December 20, 2021 by Jo Lembo

Finding Truth in the Midst of Reality

Our world is rocked. Our security feels threatened. Our emotions may be ravaged. We’ve never lived through the craziness of a pandemic before. The ground beneath our beliefs is roiling, and we seek something solid on which to stand.

If you will, please allow me to share my journey. When things reel out of control for me: The death of my father, my rock, when I was young and in a doomed marriage; the divorce that followed the next year; life as a single mom, a blended family challenge, and recently the death of my beloved mother. Those were the times when my heart and mind searched for the absolute truth that has been my guide since childhood. What does God have to say? And I find comfort in His words:

Psalms 27:5 “In His shelter in the day of trouble, that’s where you’ll find me; for He hides me there in His holiness; He has smuggled me into His secret place, where I’m kept safe and secure – out of reach from all my enemies.”

Psalms 68:20 “Our God is a mighty God who saves us over and over! For the Lord, Yahweh, rescues us from the ways of death many times”

But what does that mean when we feel threatened by very real things like COVID-19? If the God who penned the words above feels distantly removed, then what are the words of the One who lived in this world with us and experienced pain as a human being?

John 16:33 “Everything I have taught you is so that the peace which is in me will be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in me. For in this world you will experience trouble and sorrows, but you must be courageous, for I have conquered the world!”

Indeed, we live in a real world with very real pain.

To know the strength and confidence Jesus is promising, we need only look at the circumstance wrapped around those words of great hope that He offered. The stage was set in this passage:

John 13 “Jesus knew that the night before Passover would be his last night on earth before leaving this world to return to His Father’s side…and He longed to show them the full measure of His love. So before their evening meal had begun…”

The context of Jesus’s promise of peace and confidence was just hours before He knew He was to be brutally crucified. He knew that he would be publicly humiliated and beaten, endure hours without food or sleep, experience the denial of His own followers, and die on a cross between two common criminals. All of that was in His conscious mind, as His fate approached. And yet His concern was to comfort His followers, even the one who would betray Him later that night.

But He had peace. And He promised we could have that same peace.

In that moment of realization, of who He is, and how He willingly came to this earth to give Himself for me, and that He did it all so I could be confident and have peace in this world of troubles; that is when my soul finds comfort. That is when my mind rests. That is when I don’t need to know what tomorrow holds. For surely He is with me and He knows trouble and pain, and He’s already paid the price for me.

And in that moment when I cannot trust my feelings, I can stand still on the Solid Rock, knowing He will be with me through whatever comes tomorrow.

Jo Lembo, Director of Faith Initiatives | Shared Hope International

(All scriptures listed are The Passion Translation Bible)

October 27, 2021 by Jo Lembo

How to be a Successful Ambassador of Hope: Event Reporting & Staying Connected

Ambassadors are an important influence in their communities to keep children safe, when they use Shared Hope presentations and resources.

We make it easy to report each time you present prevention education, have a meeting with key influencers, or host a resource table. Log your event reports at https://sharedhope.org/event-tracking/. Our donors want to know how much reach we have, and your event reports tell us that. Let’s inspire them to keep giving to the awareness programs by sending in your reports.

HOW TO STAY CONNECTED AS AN AMBASSADOR:

Become part of the Ambassadors Only Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/SharedHopeAoH/ and be connected with more than 600 members sharing ideas and networking.
Watch your inbox for the monthly newsletter where Ambassadors hear the news first! Informational articles may be cut, pasted, and shared to educate your social networks. Be sure to include the email address from savelives@sharedhope.org in your accepted emails, or it may go to the junk file.
Occasionally there’s breaking news we want to send to all Ambassadors immediately, and you’ll receive a targeted email from us! Sometimes we send emails to you based on your location (state advocacy), or based on your interests (are you a researcher, a blogger, or a social media influencer?). Keep an eye on your inbox!
Note: If you hit “unsubscribe” on any email, you will be removed from ALL Shared Hope emails. Rather, scroll to the bottom and manage your preferences to select which SHI emails you’d like to receive! We don’t want you to lose receiving the monthly newsletter because you unsubscribed from all emails.

If you forward your email to share with other Ambassadors, be sure to delete the preference link in the bottom section with your name in it, or anyone with a copy can unsubscribe you as well.
Remember to also follow Shared Hope’s main Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/sharedhopeinternational/ for breaking news, legislative action items, and headlines from across the nation.

When we work together, we make a national impact to keep children safe!