Courage Worldwide|11.16.25|Jesus Over Everything pt.7
Good morning, everybody.
(...)
My name is Joel Midtune, and my wife Stephanie is, she'll be back, she's hanging out with the children right now. But we're very excited to be here and glad to be with you this morning.(...) We've known Kathy, that's Pastor Drew's mom,(...) Kathy Williams, we've known her, and Mark, who was her late husband. We met them 40 years ago.(...) I know we don't look that old, but it was a long time, it was in the 80s in Los Angeles at Bible school. So we've known them a long time, and we're actually God parents to Pastor Drew and also Joel here, from one Joel to another.
(...)
I grew up, as Drew and Joel did, as a missionary kid. I grew up in a place called Madagascar.
(...)
Maybe you've seen the movies, that's not really anything like it, but I went from a tropical island by the ocean(...) to the frozen tundra of Minnesota. When I was in sixth grade, about 12 years old, I did high school in Minneapolis, and then a bunch of friends, we drove out to a place called Lutheran Bible Institute in Anaheim, California. It doesn't really exist anymore, but it was a great place to study the Bible and go to the beach,(...) I think in that order.
(...)
And I met my wife Stephanie there. From there, we lived in California for 30 years. My wife and I, we planted a church in the Sacramento area called Living Water,(...) which was a Lutheran church in 1999.
(...)
And we were there 18 years, we raised three sons, and then God began to speak to us about moving in our 50s to the foreign country of Tanzania, Africa. And so that's where we've been,
(...)
with an organization called Courage Worldwide. Courage Worldwide is a nonprofit, it's an NGO,(...) and we have safe houses for minor girls under the age of 18 who are rescued from human trafficking.
(...)
We have long-term care with proven results over 10 years in multiple locations in the US and in Africa.
(...)
What I wanna share with you, just a little bit about Courage this morning, and also I know you've been going through the book of Philippians. And so I wanna talk about this section from chapter four that Pastor Drew read. It's really talking about God's peace. God's peace gives us everything, and that word peace or shalom, it gives us wholeness. And that's what we see with our girls at Courage House. They come in very, very broken, very full of shame,
(...)
very fearful, and after a year or two or three, they're completely different.(...) They're joyful, they're happy. You heard them on the video they were singing at the very beginning, acapella. They have a choir, they love playing soccer, and all those kinds of things that normal teenage girls love.(...) And they rediscover joy in life.
(...)
So we've seen God's peace brings wholeness. (Audience Member Laughs)
(...)
The first part of this verse is talk about unity,(...) and guess what, there were two church people that didn't get along.(...) I know it's hard to believe,
(...)
but you can hear the Apostle Paul's kind of heart saying, can we just all get along? Because why? Why? Because the mission is so important,(...) and that's what brings us together. The mission of the gospel is what unites us. What we agree on is much more important than what we disagree on. And Jesus summarized the gospel and what his ministry was to be about.
(...)
In Luke chapter four, he was given the opportunity to preach his first sermon. I think it was a short sermon, and if you don't realize, he was chased out of town right after that sermon.(...) But he could have picked any scripture, and what he chose was Isaiah 61, which was for Jesus his Bible.
(...)
And this is what he quoted to describe his ministry. "The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me "because the Lord has anointed me "to proclaim good news to the poor. "He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, "to proclaim freedom for the captives(...) "and release of darkness for the prisoners."
(...)
And that scripture has always jumped out at us when we thought about courage, when we thought about this issue of human trafficking,
(...)
that Jesus came to set the captive free.
(...)
Now, he sets all of us free, praise the Lord.(...) Spiritually, he sets us free from sin, death, and the devil. The girls that we work with, they are freed in many different ways, in four different ways. First of all, Jesus frees them physically.(...) They're brought into a courage house campus, which is a safe house. It's a safe place that they can heal.(...) It's a safe place where they receive all the medical care they need.
(...)
Jesus frees them emotionally.(...) Many times for these girls, the very first time they've ever experienced love,(...) and especially unconditional love.
(...)
And they're given, we have full-time counselors there, they're given trauma therapy, and they work through the things in their life emotionally.
(...)
They are freed mentally.
(...)
Many of them, because of the trauma, it's very hard for them to even focus on school, and it takes some time, but eventually they all want to go to school. Some of them,(...) even at 10, 12 years old, they don't even know how to write their own,
(...)
read and write their own language of Swahili. So we have teachers on site, we have a school, and each girl is attended to at their level, and we do the best we can to get them to whatever level they can get in school. Some get to high school, some graduate and go to college, some go on to university.(...) Those who don't learn a skill or a vocational training(...) and a way to get a job.
(...)
The girls are also given freedom spiritually. They learn to pray, they go to church, we have a full-time chaplain.
(...)
Most of them get baptized.
(...)
You know, Tanzania is about 50% Christian, about 40% Muslim, and 10% tribal beliefs. And so our girls come from all over Tanzania,
(...)
and they learn about good people, and when they know that there's good people, they become open to learning about a good God.
(...)
And when they meet that good God,
(...)
they inevitably fall in love with them, and they want to follow him. So we've baptized many of the girls in Moshe, where Kilimanjaro is. We also have a safe house in Dar-Salam, which is on the coast. So I've been able to baptize many of the girls in the Indian Ocean. So, but God is doing work in their life, and that's exciting.
(...)
The next section says, from verse four, "Rejoice in the Lord always,(...) I will say it again, rejoice."(...) And then those words we all know, "Do not be anxious about anything." (Audience Member Cheers)(...) That sounds good, but it's hard to do. There are so many things to worry and to be anxious about. Then it says,(...) "But in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God."
(...)
And what stood out to me there is, the Lord is near.
(...)
What is anxiety? It's unease about something with an uncertain outcome.
(...)
It means to choke. It can choke our life off. It can stop us from doing what God wants us to do. And me personally, I am not a risk taker.
(...)
I am a good Norwegian Lutheran, Midwestern,
(...)
let's just do it the safe way.
(...)
And I've spent my life wrestling with God. I wrestled with God about becoming a pastor. I worked at a bank for a year, believe it or not. I wrestled with God about planting a church.(...) I was like, "Well, why me? I'm not a typical church planter, pastor." I wrestled with God about moving to Africa.
(...)
I had a nice church, a nice house in California. I had a Weber grill and all the things you can imagine
(...)
and God was calling me to leave. I wrestled with God about starting Courage Cafe. The vision of our founder is wherever we have a safe house, our Courage House, we would start a business like Courage Cafe that would help support
(...)
the needs of the girls.(...) And because we do have safe houses, we can't bring people to those safe houses all the time. And the cafe is where people can learn about courage, they can learn about trafficking.
(...)
And we spent plenty of time at Courage Cafe having cappuccinos. But when God called us to open this place,
(...)
he was calling us to start a business. We've never run a business.
(...)
And he was calling us to do that in Africa. We've never done it in America.(...) And he was calling us to start this during a world pandemic called COVID, if you've heard of it.
(...)
And I thought, that's a really bad business plan.
(...)
I've watched Shark Tank enough times.
(...)
This is not gonna work.(...) But what do I know? If God is in it, it's gonna work, right?
(...)
And what we've learned and where I get my peace is knowing God is near. And sometimes we sing that song, it says, "Let us become more aware of your presence."(...) Because God is present with us all the time. He never leaves us, he never forsakes us. Sometimes we just forget he's there.
(...)
But he's always there. And so sometimes the prayer is,(...) "Open my eyes to see what you are already doing, God.
(...)
"Open my eyes to see you're already here with me. "And if you're here with me, "if I know God is in it, I'll do it.
(...)
If I don't think God is in it, I won't do it. I won't even try."
(...)
But if I, you know, there were many days Stephanie and I looked at each other and said, "Well,(...) is this God or is this Stephanie's idea?"
(...)
And there is a difference.
(...)
But usually they're on the same page.
(...)
We also get peace by learning to pray. And it's not necessarily long prayers, but to release outcomes to God. That just means to say that we do what we can do for these girls.
(...)
God does his part, we do our part, and then the girl has to do their part. They have to choose to work hard. We call it courage house.
(...)
Because it takes courage to come to courage house, they have to leave everything they've ever known. And try to change their life and change their future, which can change then their whole destiny and it can even change their family and their children.
(...)
Greatfuls, we've learned to be grateful.
(...)
The girls at Courage House have a tradition, and at least every week they will do their greatfuls. And they get a chance to just say, "What are you grateful for?"
(...)
And these are girls that come from the most dark and terrible backgrounds that you can imagine.(...) But they're so grateful and they will say things like, "I have every reason to thank God."
(...)
It could be for forgiveness,
(...)
could be for being alive,
(...)
for having enough food,
(...)
for being in a safe place,
(...)
to have an education.
(...)
The last section says,(...) finally brothers and sisters,
(...)
whatever's true, noble, right, pure,(...) lovely, excellent, praiseworthy, focus on those things. Think about those things. What does that tell us? If you go to the next slide there, it says, "We get to choose what to focus on."
(...)
We can choose what to focus on. There's a lot of bad news in the world, there's a lot of bad news on the news, there's a lot of bad news on social media, you see the bad things because there's a saying, if it bleeds, it leads.
(...)
We never hear the good news.
(...)
But you know what the Bible is called?
(...)
The good news. You know what the gospel is? It's the good news, not the bad news. And we get to decide what to focus on.
(...)
Do you know that the more time you spend on social media, the less happy you'll be?
(...)
I know,(...) I know.
(...)
Do you know that we can focus on the good, the beautiful, the praiseworthy?
(...)
And what we focus on can change our brain. It can change the chemistry in our brain.
(...)
And that's an amazing fact.
(...)
Something we work with the girls on is called forward thinking.
(...)
They think about their past, they process it. We have professional counselors, trauma therapy and all that. But we work with them and it's called forward thinking.(...) And we ask them this question,(...) what is your dream?
(...)
What is your dream? What did you always wanna be when you were a child or a little kid?(...) And they come to Curz and say, I never knew I could even have a chance to dream about my future.
(...)
Our founder,(...) when God called her to start this nonprofit, God was telling her, asking her, do you have the courage to be you?
(...)
The courage to be you, the you that God created.
(...)
Uniquely you, you're the only you on this whole planet.
(...)
And God has a unique purpose for you.
(...)
Do you have the courage to be you? Do you have the courage to follow Jesus and do the next thing he shows you?
(...)
When we get overwhelmed and think about so many victims and so much darkness and so much hate and so much violence,
(...)
what God shows us is just love the one I put in front of you. Just bring in one girl at a time.
(...)
Just see her life changed.
(...)
And that's what we do.
(...)
God brings them one at a time.
(...)
The end of these verses in Philippians says, whatever I've told you, put it into practice.
(...)
It's so important to take action in our faith.
(...)
And Dallas Willard says it this way, don't get overwhelmed with everything. Just do the next right thing.
(...)
What I found, what we found in our life, God doesn't show you all the steps, but if you do the one step of faith, he shows you the next one.
(...)
When you take the next one, then he shows you the next one. He doesn't show you the whole plan.(...) If he did, we'd probably be running for the hills. But he's always with us and it's always good.
(...)
Lastly, I wanna share from Isaiah 61,(...) verse three.
(...)
And this is a picture of what Jesus does with our girls. To bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
(...)
the oil of joy instead of mourning,
(...)
and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
(...)
They will be called Oaks of Righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor. And what we get to experience with these girls(...) as God changes them, they really do display God's splendor.
(...)
I wanna invite my wife, Stephanie, she's gonna share a little bit more about courage, about the issue of trafficking and some stories with you.
(...)
Good morning, everyone.(...) We're so happy to be here.(...) Love to be with the Williams family.(...) Before I tell you a couple of stories, I just wanna give you a little bit of the picture of human trafficking.
(...)
This is a global problem. We hear about this word and it's hard to understand what it is, but it's in every city. We worked in California. I did with courage since 2009. And this problem is getting worse than ever. There's 27 million victims worldwide, and they say one in three is children, and often women and girls are disproportionately affected. So we're focusing on the little girls. There is a need for boys. There is a need here in the US, and I'll tell you a little bit about what we do in the US too, but Joel and I are called to Tanzania.
(...)
And this is at Courage House, we welcome specifically child victims of exploitation and sex trafficking.
(...)
And 91% of trafficking victims are women and girls. We have the three safe houses in Tanzania and Moshe, Dar Solom and in a transitional living home. We have capacity now for 116. Right now we have 100 girls and babies at Courage House. It takes a village to work with our girls. We have an amazing Tanzania staff. We have 70 staff between our cafe and three safe houses. And I love that we are giving good employment to good people that need jobs in a country where there's very little jobs and they do so well at loving our girls, our social workers. We have a doctor, counselors, teachers, caregivers,(...) guards, gardeners.(...) When a girl comes to Courage House, she's welcomed with love and hugs. And often she may experience safety and love for the first time in her life.(...) And that's pretty incredible.
(...)
91%(...) of our girls are trafficked or sold by somebody they know and especially a family member. And that's the shocking thing. In Tanzania, a lot of it's for survival with few resources and food. And sometimes unfortunately children are exploited(...) for that reason. So it's hard to know who to trust when our girls come to Courage House. We have girls as young as eight years old to 17 years old.
(...)
We've been getting more and more young girls as time has gone on. And as horrible as that is to think about what's happening to these young girls. When they come in younger, the resiliency is there and she's getting her childhood back. This little girl in the yellow dress is a girl that was rescued and this was her first day. And she had a little cute smile on her face. And we thought she was eight years old and we found out she was six years old. The girls don't often know their birthdays or have birth certificates. So it takes time to do that. I wish I could show you all their beautiful faces but we keep them confidential for their safety and dignity.
(...)
Many of our girls are testifying in court and in dangerous situations.
(...)
We have some at Courage House basically in witness protection.
(...)
We welcome home girls who are parenting,(...) pregnant,(...) 25% of our girls about come to Courage House pregnant. And so we help them become good mamas. The girls can have education. Their children can have an education.(...) This girl in this picture had twins(...) and they were premature. We did not know if the twins would survive. The young mama had HIV and she was not healthy at all. And now three years later, her twins are three year olds, healthy chubby girls running around and her mama is finishing up with her vocational training to be a caregiver.
(...)
The girls can reclaim their childhood, play.
(...)
They love to sing, they have a choir, they love to dance and that's all very healing to children who come out of trauma.
(...)
Like Joel said, we say, what is your dream? And often when you're a child survivor, you are trying to survive one day.
(...)
So for them to think, I can get an education, I could dream of the future, that's a big deal. And they do not even realize they have those possibilities and the one girl here that says social worker,(...) when she first came to Courage House,
(...)
she said, she was about 15 years old, she said, this is the first time I've ever been treated like a human being.
(...)
And she had been on the streets,(...) she's Muslim,
(...)
and she came with her hijab on her head and she's very smart and it took her some time observing Christians, going to Bible study, about a year and a half into it. And I was actually here in the US and I got a text that after church, she met with somebody who led her to Jesus and she's become a strong believer(...) and studying community development. And she just graduated, our first girl ever to graduate with a college degree, top in her class. And we just hired her as a social worker at Courage House.(...) So I love her story.
(...)
And in this picture, two months ago, we had the US ambassador come to our cafe,(...) our girls sang and danced for him. We had a private celebration and our girl, Zee, she spoke before the US ambassador and represented all her young sisters.
(...)
The second girl, Bee,(...) and she came to Courage House also as a young girl, a lot of anger in her life. In fact, she had so much anger, which is understandable, but our staff were afraid of her. And we saw her grow in her faith and in gentleness. She became a prayer leader at Courage House, but she really struggled in school.(...) And I think she probably has dyslexia. As hard as she'd try, she'd fail. So the shame in her life when you fail education and that's your ticket to success, it just brought more shame to her. But she was in the midst of the failure.(...) When we talked to her about dreams, she's like, I wanna be an entrepreneur.(...) I'm like, okay, well, let's figure that out. So when we opened Courage Cafe, you see me in the little barista kitchen there. She was a wonderful barista for the first couple of years.
(...)
Fantastic. And then she came to me one day and said, I'm gonna resign because I can make more money doing business.(...) And we're like, you go girl. And very rare for somebody to quit a good job, but she did. And she started a chicken business, farming business, a taxi business. She sells 1000 chickens a month to various hotels, including to our cafe. And she's a successful business woman. And she got married and now has two young boys.(...) And she's mentoring our young girls. And so if our girls struggle in school, which some of them do, she is a light for them to appoint them to,(...) you can work hard and you can be successful.
(...)
My last story I'll tell you about(...) is a young girl, Janie, that came to Courage House. A few years ago, she was 13 with a baby.
(...)
And when I heard her story, it broke my heart. She had been exploited, abused, raped, and got pregnant. Her family disowned her. She had a grandmother and a mud hut that was caring for her and her baby.
(...)
And when social welfare heard, this girl was suicidal and homicidal. She had planned to kill her baby. And her brother actually found her trying to hang him. Her six year old brother found her trying to hang herself.
(...)
So the local authorities were called. They called us for Janie to come to Courage House. This day was the first day we welcomed her and her baby.
(...)
And I was so, two things. I found out her birthday was the same day of our founder, Jenny Williamson.
(...)
And that was really profound to me. And then her little baby boy,(...) she named Emmanuel. And you know, Emmanuel means God with us.(...) And it really struck me, like, oh my gosh, the trauma, the rejection, abandonment that this girl has faced. And yet her baby's name is Emmanuel. And I realized even in the darkness of her life,(...) that God was with her and brought her home to a safe place. And at Courage House, her life has had some ups and downs. But she is doing well right here on the other picture of this young man. She just introduced her fiance to our staff.(...) One of our staff is standing in as her family. And in Tanzania, you introduce to the family and you start this process of engagement. So she's engaged to be married in May to a good young man. She's also one of our designers. So what I'm wearing is one of the kimonos some of our girls make. We are able to employ them. They do this tie dye and batik wax stamping. And they make these products. And it supports Courage House. It supports the education of our girls. And so we love that she has employment. Her dream to be designer is coming true. And I'm so excited about what God's doing in her life.
(...)
Lastly, a lot of people are like, we need to support places like Africa that needs more resources and children. And we are doing that. Other people often say, we need to support our own kids. We hear about kids, missing kids being recovered or trafficked. And they need places to go. Courage does that too. For five years, there was a safe house in South Africa. Sacramento,(...) I was involved in. And laws changed.
(...)
So our long-term program didn't fit in the new regulations. But now, our organization is opening home in Reno, Nevada. We're the first safe house for children who have been trafficked in Nevada. And we expect to welcome girls home by Christmas.
(...)
And so Joel and I were just there doing some training with the staff there. So we're excited to have resources for the children in the US, as well as Africa. And as God leads, we'll be expanding to Kenya in the next couple of years. And Joel and I will oversee that. And other places in the US are actually contacting us. And so who knows? Maybe Illinois will have a courage house someday. But it's unfortunately a need. But we focus on the victims and advocating for them, for their needs. And God is doing a good thing. So thank you, church. I'll call it Pastor Drew. And we're blessed to have you. And we'll be at our table in the back. And you could come do some Christmas shopping.
(...)
Can we give them a thank you?
(...)
(Applause)