2025 Impact
What if love really is a renewable resource?
In 2025, the Freedom Challenge community chose to live like that’s true—mobilizing through going, prayer, and giving, and believing that every step, every dollar, and every prayer could tip the balance for the one.
We frame our work around three pillars: Prevention (55%), Development (29%), and Rescue & Restoration (16%). Together, they shape a whole‑person, whole‑community journey from vulnerability to flourishing.
Prevention: Interrupting Vulnerability Early
Prevention is our intentional choice to celebrate stories that never have to be told. In the Philippines, the Scholars Program meets deep poverty with practical hope. This year, 70 children attended tutorial classes, 20 scholars advanced through the program, and 37 mothers joined adult literacy courses—well over a hundred lives nudged away from exploitation through education, budgeting, and community support. The curriculum is simple on purpose: literacy, English language support, financial stewardship, and consistent mentoring. One leader’s testimony reminds us why this matters: when food insecurity and honor‑based expectations press in, survival can demand impossible decisions. Early intervention opens other paths—university study, dignified work, and the joy of giving back.
Prevention often looks like a small step—like learning to budget or practicing English. Small does not mean insignificant. As Ruth put it, “you get where you’re going by the steps you take or don’t take.” Each step pushes against scarcity and trains the heart for abundance.
Development: Dignity, Skills, and Community
Development lifts eyes and opens options. In Greece, three projects work like stepping stones toward stability and purpose:
House of Damaris provides phased housing, wraparound community, and spiritual care for women (and their children) leaving exploitation. Choice is built in—women decide which activities they’ll join, rebuilding the “yes/no” muscle.
Threads of Hope offers dignified work that transforms creative skill into income. Quality goods made by survivors become tangible proof: my hands have value.
Eknoia (meaning “anew”) trains and employs women in safe roles—from professional cleaning to running a local used bookstore—while teaching IT, web, and organizational skills.
One young woman, “Nadia,” trafficked as a minor, earned her high school diploma after two years of language learning, healing, and persistent encouragement. When a seasonal job opened on a Greek island, staff vetted the offer, secured safe housing, and welcomed her back into the next phase at House of Damaris. Development isn’t just skills—it’s community, discernment, and the steady presence that keeps progress safe.
Rescue & Restoration: A Long, Courageous Road
Rescue and restoration demand endurance. In Ghana, the safe house began when 12 women were rescued from a brothel and needed shelter. Today, it’s a refuge where girls and women learn marketable skills and, when possible, reintegrate with families and communities freed from the pressures that once made exploitation feel inevitable. Stories vary—early marriage avoided because of training and support; school re‑entry where resources once went only to sons; health setbacks reframed from “curse” to care.
This work exposes a hard truth: sometimes decisions are lose‑lose inside trauma. At one of our challenges, a survivor‑led exercise walked us through choices that weren’t really choices—stay and face abuse, leave and face danger; accept a job you can’t survive on, or relapse to numb the pain when no one is there. The lesson? Choice is a privilege. Prevention tries to keep people from that crossroads; development helps them move safely beyond it; restoration patiently walks the long road home.
Stateside Partnerships: Loving Our Neighbors Here
We also partner where we live. Dream Center NYC serves refugee families and vulnerable women and children with practical care that restores dignity—food, diapers, essentials, and moments of joy (like children crafting bouquets for their moms near Mother’s Day). The I‑5 Freedom Network, a survivor‑led organization, equips communities with education and a life‑design curriculum for survivors; we helped fund translations and collaborated on a Human Trafficking 101 resource to broaden understanding and action.
Scarcity vs. Abundance: Re‑Training Our Imagination
Scarcity says the resources—and the love—are gone. Abundance says God’s love keeps renewing, ideas keep arriving, and community keeps forming around the one in front of us. When a young man in Central Asia saved for furniture rather than taking on debt, he proved how a budgeting lesson becomes a freedom habit. When a woman in Greece prayed over a visitor’s grief during a 12‑step meeting, she showed that mutuality heals both ways.
How You Can Respond
Pray: Aim your prayers at vulnerabilities—language barriers, isolation, poverty, trauma—and at those who exploit them. Pray for workers’ wisdom to know where to say yes and where to say no.
Give: Your generosity multiplies prevention, fuels development, and sustains restoration. As Tracy reminds us, “When you give to the poor, you lend to God.”
Go: Join an upcoming challenge. Experience embodied solidarity—climbing, worshiping, and serving alongside freedom sisters.
Learn & Speak: Share credible resources, host a conversation, and lift awareness in your circles. Small steps matter.
Love is renewable. The stories from 2025 prove it—and we’re just getting started.
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Watch the interview: https://youtu.be/pDSt9jUjCRA
Listen to the Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/842389/episodes/18321840
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Want to learn more?
The Freedom Challenge US: thefreedomchallenge.com
Operation Mobilization USA: omusa.org
Instagram: @freedomchallengeusa / Facebook: @thefcusa