Troy Brewer Ministries is actively working with orphans and vulnerable children in Mexico, India,
Colombia, Belize, Uganda and Southeast Asia. Troy and Leanna have traveled the globe
establishing villages in some of the most remote, dark corners of the world. Through SPARK
Worldwide, the ministry Leanna founded to Serve Protect And Raise Kids at their SPARK
orphanages, Troy and his partners bring hope and the Gospel of Jesus by helping Leanna build
schools, churches, medical clinics, water wells and orphanages for the poorest of the poor.
A modern-day abolitionist, Troy has a holy hatred for slavery and many of the children Leanna
cares for are in danger of being trafficked as sex slaves. In an effort to redeem as many girls
and boys as he can from the horrors of sex trafficking, Troy founded Troy Brewer Ministries to
rescue and pay off the debts of sex slaves across the globe, setting them free in every way.
How did you get started rescuing girls from sexual slavery?
Troy: On a mission trip in Central America several years ago, we were feeding people in a trash
dump when a nice looking little old lady and two skinny little girls came up to me. My friend who
speaks Spanish told me, “This lady is a madam and she wants to know if you want these little
girls for sex.” I was shocked. They were just tiny and starving. I took them to one of our
orphanages and told them, “Nobody’s ever going to hurt you again.” The cost to set them free
was $90. They are now all grown up and doing great.
What motivates you to do this?
Troy: Redemption and transformation. That’s what the Gospel of Jesus is all about. We
demonstrate the goodness of God – we demonstrate redemption be setting people free
because the Bible says, “It is for freedom’s sake that we have been set free.” My partners and I
take that very seriously.
In your opinion, what is the root problem behind sexual slavery?
Troy: The No. 1 problem is a “me-first, survival of the fittest” worldview. No other religion or
secular worldview sees people as intrinsically valuable. Only Christians say, “You are a child of
God and are worthy to be treated with all kindness, respect and dignity.” Only Christians value
life and freedom because Jesus does.
Number 2 is an addiction to porn. American and European men traveling the globe as sexual
tourists that causes much of the market, but porn is prolific in most cultures. So many people
say, “I’m not hurting anyone by looking and this,” but they’re fooling themselves. Our thoughts
lead to actions, like molestation and rape. That’s why God wiped out the world with a flood in
Noah’s time. “The thoughts of man were continually evil.” He didn’t have to judge them by their
actions because he knew their thoughts. Porn doesn’t lead to anything positive. It only leads to
slavery for all involved.
What age range are the girls and boys you rescue?
Troy: Mostly 9 to 27-years-old though we have rescued many kids much younger. Our youngest
rescue was 38 hours old. He was being sold for sex at a slave market in Southeast Asia. One of
our undercover operatives paid $500 to free that little boy and we set him up with heart surgery
and a forever family that loves him.
We think of sexual trafficking as girls being kidnapped or stolen but in India and other
non-Christian nations, the problem is much more socially acceptable. How so?
Troy: The practice of being a bondservant is still in play in many nations. Only the rich in these
nations have access to banks. The husbands or families of these girls take out loans from loan
sharks. These people are uneducated and don’t understand what compound daily interest is so
they are easy prey for some really bad people. When they default on their loan, the loan sharks take their wives and children as collateral and put them to work in brothels. It’s demonic. We
pay off their debts and set them free.
Once their debt is paid, what is next for these girls?
Troy: We have no cookie cutter plan. We do everything relationally depending on each girl’s
situation. We give them Jesus, medicine, food, housing, education, job training, micro loans for
small business – we find out what fits each girl’s needs and situation and that’s what we do.
King Jesus is very personal with us, so we help them each in a very personal way.
You have very successful sewing schools in India and Belize. Tell us how that is making
a difference?
Troy: These girls can be independent if they learn a trade. There are only a few patterns they
need to learn to make Indian clothing. We give them the treadle sewing machine, tons of fabric,
and all they need to set up their own seamstress business to support their children.
These girls don’t come to you alone. Many of them have children, is that right?
Troy: The thousands of girls we’ve rescued, almost all of them have children. One of our 17-
year-old girls has five children. She was literally pregnant at 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. We also help
their kids by giving them medicine, food, shelter and education they need to be free in every
way. Once we rescue them, we’re responsible for them until they can help themselves–and
we’re OK with that. We know it may take a long, long time, but why wouldn’t we help people
when we can?
Why is Nepal such a hotbed of human trafficking?
Troy: The problem there is girls being raped or smuggled across the border into India to slave
markets because there is almost zero chance a trafficker, once caught, will be prosecuted. In
Nepal, the victim must pay $1,000 for prosecution of their perpetrator goes free. The word is out
and the girls of Nepal are literally being stolen from that nation.
How does Troy Brewer Ministries work in Nepal differ from what you’re doing in India?
Troy: Our work in Nepal is more about prevention. In Nepal, girls are generally smuggled across
the border bridges into India for immediate sale at slave markets–men literally bid of these girls
on their phones or by internet–and they are put on a plane to the Middle East and never heard
from again. We work with a ministry that has highly trained profilers at those bridges–a bridge
intervention team–that spots possible victims. They blow a whistle and the police come running.
They are questioned and the girls are rescued before they are sold.
What do you do with the traffickers?
Troy: We are all about justice so we pay the $1,000 fee to prosecute them and send them to
prison where they cannot hurt another girl. Then we go to prison and tell them about Jesus.
We’ve paid for the prosecution of over 50 traffickers—both men and women, saving hundreds
from sexual slavery. We have a crack law team that has not lost a case yet. We answer evil with
good.
Can you tell us about the truckload of small children your team in Nepal rescued?
Troy: This is how bad it is in Nepal: Six children, all under the age of six, were literally scooped
up from a poor village and thrown in the back of a truck headed for the border. Our bridge team
immediately said, “What’s this one guy doing with six little bitty kids?” They stepped in and
rescued the children. We are still looking for their parents. Our team has actually asked people,
“Why did you do this?” and they generally get told, “A man’s gotta make a living.” They have no regard for human life because their religion, whether Hindu or Muslim, says you deserve what
you get if you’re poor, abused or assaulted. Christians don’t think that way.
What if you cannot find their parents or the girls have no home to go back to?
Troy: We have started an orphanage and a girls home. We’re setting up a sponsorship program
and looking for partners to help us keep these kids from becoming a sad statistic.
Girls are very vulnerable in Belize, Africa, India and Nepal. How does child marriage play
into this?
Troy: Poverty is the biggest factor. People have kids and they can’t feed them so they marry
their daughters off to much older men and often for a price—even if they know they are
monsters. In Belize, India and Nepal, girls are often married off between 12-18 years old. Some
of these men have other wives, so these girls are often abused and abandoned. The bottom line
is that child marriage is not acceptable. Let’s call it what it is: trafficking, slavery.
How do Hindu beliefs play a key role in making these girls targets for trafficking?
Troy: In my opinion, the caste system is demonic. In the Hindu way of thinking, if you are born
into poverty, you deserve that from a past life. It’s Karma so they are shunned. If someone helps
them, they are shunned too–literally abandoned by their family and village. If a girl is raped,
violated or abandoned by her husband after marriage, she is shunned by her family and village.
How does Belize differ from India and Nepal?
Troy: We’re finding that sexual trafficking is very different from nation to nation depending on the
government. In Belize, over 90 percent of trafficking in that nation happens WITHIN THE
FAMILY. An adult male is molesting the kids or he’s trafficking them out for money–and there
are no legal consequences for abusers. Literally, nobody is helping these kids. We’re teaming
up with ministries already on the ground there to find solutions and rescue some of these girls
and even boys.
What is the role of the church?
Troy: The role of the church is to get off our blessed assurance and help someone. Help people
– even if they will never come to your church. We know God is good. Our job is to spread His
Goodness even as it seems like evil is taking over our world.
You know, so many Christians don’t even believe God is good. They see hurricanes, sickness,
violence, poverty, slavery and say, “If God is good, why?” The answer is God is good and evil is
not. Those problems are OUR problems. Slavery is a human institution and we need to solve
that problem. That’s why Jesus didn’t abolish human slavery or poverty while He was on earth.
He abolished a much worse kind of slavery – eternal slavery to sin, death and satan.
Again, our job as the church is to answer evil with good. I will not be impressed with evil
because a little bit of good can overcome a whole lot of evil.
How can people get Involved?
Troy: Two ways. First, our biggest problem right now is there are many border crossings from
Nepal into India, eight of them major crossings. We only have the funding to man five bridges,
but we want to do eight or more. It’s $3,000 per month to man a border crossing.
Second, monthly partners not only give us the ability to rescue girls and boys, it is the backbone
that funds the ongoing care of these girls and their children. We need more partners to continue
the work as there are literally millions of child slaves.
What do you say to the person who says that is the problem—“there are millions of
slaves and you can’t help them all”?
I would tell them to get over that religious spirit that says it’s God’s will that these people perish.
It is not God’s will that these kids are sex slaves—that they are raped and tortured every day of
their lives. Stop partnering with the Spirit of Gamaliel, the Pharisee from Acts 5:33-39 who said,
“If it’s God’s will it will happen. If it’s not, it won’t.” It’s never God’s will that someone is a slave.
Take responsibility. Get up and help somebody. Even if you can only set one person free, that
act of freedom and redemption is EVERYTHING to that one person. One life at a time. That’s
what we say and we mean it.