Today is Day for Freedom, an annual event used to highlight the people and organizations who are working hard to bring an end to human trafficking.
Pastor Jeremy Johnson is the senior pastor at Village Church in Surrey, B.C. His church is highly involved with the work that International Justice Mission (IJM) does.
"We connected with them a number of years ago," said Pastor Jeremy. "We did a fundraising event with IJM where we raised almost $500,000 for some of the work they were doing in Southeast Asia, and it was a great event. Since then been able to go into the field, visit their field offices, and see some of the work they do. And since then, I've just become passionate about this."
Pastor Jeremy says about a year ago he did a big push at his church for people to get on board personally and support IJM.
"We saw some amazing results out of that," said Johnson. "So our church is kind of all in with IJM. We see it as a very valuable partnership and what the church should be doing."
Thanks to this partnership, Pastor Jeremy has also had the opportunity to visit IJM's field offices, an experience he says has been life-changing.
"The kind of work that IJM does is very difficult and at times it's very complicated, and that's one of the things I personally love about IJM. They're really trying to do the hardest stuff. I mean, if you're trying to eradicate slavery in the world, that's a pretty big goal. So to be able to go and see the kind of operation that they run is pretty impressive."
Pastor Jeremy says everyone should be involved in the fight against human trafficking.
"Maybe I'm being a little brash, but it's actually pretty simple for me. What should Christians look like? We're supposed to reflect his character and his character is a God of justice."
Today on Connections, he shares how he got involved with IJM and why we should all be involved in the fight against human trafficking.