Our mission is to use hospitality to create awareness and prevent child sex trafficking
We have been working on solidifying our mission.
In the last year, beLydia has gone through some big changes! We spent all of last year working on laying our foundation, creating structure, and learning how to best work together as a team.
It was hard work! It's challenging to bring together a diverse group of women, who are all incredibly passionate, and all have different strengths and weaknesses.
Because of that need to lay a strong foundation, we didn't speak publically that often. It's almost as if God set us aside to get ourselves all on the same page.
A ton of time was spent getting organized, learning how to set goals, and most importantly, communicate with each other.
We are followers of Jesus so we also spent more time in prayer, more time worshipping, more time trying to discern what He wants us to do. We spent more time getting to know one another too, which was by far a highlight of 2019.
Our time was well spent. We are so much stronger as a team. We finally feel like we have found our footing and are working together to be obedient to what God has called us all to do.
If there was any doubt of that, the Lord has made it clear in the last two months. January and February have been the two busiest months beLydia has ever seen!
We have spoken with more youth and adults than ever before in these first two months of 2020. The amazing thing? We have not had to work to make it happen! Every engagement has been by invitation and all we had to do was show up and spread awareness.
That is one hundred percent, God!
Our mission is to use hospitality to create awareness and prevent child sex trafficking.
This basically means we do three things:
1) Speak to youth (any age).
In December, we were trained in a new program that is specifically aimed at speaking to youth in schools. As a result of this new training, we have been able to share new information not only on trafficking but on the dangers of pornography, which is considered to be the "jet fuel" to sex trafficking.
Our goal when speaking to a child of any age is to inform them of the threats that exist and how they can avoid becoming exploited.
Our content is always age-appropriate to ensure effectiveness.
2) Speak to adults.
When speaking to adults, our objective is to share statistics, threats, and preventative measures they can take to protect kids and keep them safe. It has been a surprise that we encounter someone who had no clue this was happening in our city at every single event! For this reason, it is so important for us to get in front of adults as frequently as possible.
One of the best things about speaking to adults and children is that we are able to initiate a conversation between parents and youth. Obviously, these are tough subjects for parents to address so our education opens the door for communication.
3) Use our love for entertaining to host events!
Finally, we love to throw events! Why? We spread our message while using hospitality (which we all love). We try our very best to make the events beautiful, memorable, and informative.
Why beautiful? The information and content that we share is so dark.
IT IS HORRIBLE.
We want you to be informed but we do not want you to walk away feeling hopeless.
You should be educated but you should leave with hope!
Hope that you can do something, hope that God will use you, and hope that we can end this evil atrocity!
So now, we make the plea for you to join us in this mission! Come to our events, volunteer for our programs, and invite us to speak to your group of ten or more people.
Reach out to us at hello@belydia.org for more information.
Blessings,
