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“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause” (Isaiah 1:17). I recently had the opportunity to interview Scott Stoutenburg, the director of student engagement for Destiny Rescue, and his life story embodies this verse in an incredible way. Scott’s journey into rescuing children from human trafficking didn’t start until his mid-50s—a powerful reminder that it’s never too late to answer God’s call.
What is Destiny Rescue?
Destiny Rescue is a Christian nonprofit dedicated to rescuing children from sexual exploitation and human trafficking around the globe. With over 18,000 rescues since its inception, the organization doesn’t just free children; it equips them to rebuild their lives through aftercare programs that include counseling, education, and vocational training. Scott also spoke about the role of faith in Destiny Rescue’s mission. In one unforgettable moment, he witnessed 16 girls give their lives to Christ during an aftercare session.
Scott’s passion for saving children shines through in the way he speaks about Destiny Rescue’s mission. He shared some sobering statistics:
- Human trafficking is the third-largest criminal enterprise in the world, generating $150 billion annually.
- An estimated 99 billion of that comes from sex trafficking.
- The average age of trafficked children is just 12–14 years old.
Scott’s team runs Rescue Op 120, a student initiative where $20 donations can directly contribute to saving lives.
His story demonstrates that we can all be the hands and feet of Christ. Whether as a volunteer, financial supporter, or even a rescue agent, there are many ways to help. Rescue agents—often ordinary people like plumbers and electricians—risk their lives to save children in dangerous environments. And as Scott shared: “God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called.”
Through aftercare programs, children are given a chance to heal and thrive. Many choose to learn trades like seamstress work or cosmetology, which empowers them to support themselves and avoid falling back into exploitation.
How You Can Help
Want to join the fight? Here’s how:
- Donate: Every dollar goes directly toward rescuing and supporting children. Visit Destiny Rescue to contribute.
- Host a Rescue Sunday: Churches can dedicate a special day to raise awareness and support.
- Engage Students: Schools and youth groups can participate in Rescue Op 120, empowering kids to make a difference.
READ TRANSCRIPT
Aaron Smith (01:05):
Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Marriage After God podcast. In this episode, I have a conversation with Scott Stenberg. He works for an organization that is near and dear to my wife and i’s heart. We’ve been supporting them for years and the organization is called Destiny Rescue. And this conversation is all about what Scott does for the organization and what the organization does in saving children worldwide from sex trafficking. And this is not an organization that just raises awareness about it. They actually have people on the ground going into these places and actually rescuing actual children. And not only do they rescue them, but they also have aftercare and share the gospel and they take care of them as a whole human being. And I just wanted to share this organization with you, my listeners, and I hope that it blesses you and I hope it opens your eyes to the immense need that there is in this world, that there’s so much corruption and children being taken advantage of. And the fact is we can do something about it. So please enjoy my conversation with Mr. Scott Stoneberg from dustin rescue.org. Hey, I’m
Jennifer Smith (02:10):
Aaron. And I’m Jennifer.
Aaron Smith (02:11):
And we’re the host of the Marriage After God Podcast. Our desire is to help you cultivate a marriage that chases boldly after God’s will for your life together.
Jennifer Smith (02:18):
We want to invite you to subscribe to our show wherever you watch or listen.
Aaron Smith (02:21):
We are so glad you’re here and we pray that our discussion truly blesses you in your marriage.
Jennifer Smith (02:26):
Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast,
Aaron Smith (02:34):
Mr. Scott Stenberg. Welcome to the me of the God Podcast.
Scott Stoutenburg (02:38):
Hey, it’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Aaron Smith (02:40):
So you work for an organization that we’re going to be talking a lot about today and I reached out to you guys wanting to do an interview with someone I don’t know who, and you were the name that popped up. And I’m excited to talk to you about not just your life, but also the organization and what you guys do. And I hope that our listeners just get turned on to the ministry you guys have in this world and how powerful it is and how amazing it’s, so why don’t we start off with who you are and kind of the journey that led you up to working for this organization, destiny Rescue.
Scott Stoutenburg (03:13):
Sure. So excuse me. So my name is Scott St. Outenberg and I’m the director of Student Engagement for Destiny Rescue. And we are a Christian nonprofit that rescues children from human trafficking and sexual exploitation in multiple countries around the world. If you would’ve asked me 14 years ago what I thought about human trafficking or anything like that, I would’ve told you, I thought that ended in the Civil War.
(03:46)
But I took a trip to Southeast Asia, a mission trip with my church, fell in love with the people and the culture, and we spent a lot of time doing things like VBS type activities, day camps, things like that. And I really fell in love with the children in Southeast Asia and came back to the US and heard about Destiny Rescue, heard about human trafficking and found out that they do a lot of rescues in Southeast Asia. So I reached out to them and said, Hey, I’m out here in Oregon. I was living in Oregon at the time and said, Hey, I would love to help. What can I do to help? And that was in 2014 and here we are and almost 2025. And so I volunteered for five years and then I came on board January 1st, 2019 as their director of student engagement.
Aaron Smith (04:42):
How long have you and your wife been married?
Scott Stoutenburg (04:44):
We have been married for 39 years.
Aaron Smith (04:47):
And you guys have any kids?
Scott Stoutenburg (04:50):
We have four kids, yes.
Aaron Smith (04:51):
Amazing. I’m assuming they’re a lot of older and grown up and out of the house.
Scott Stoutenburg (04:55):
Oh yes, we are way past the age of having young ones in the house.
Aaron Smith (05:00):
Are any of your kids involved in Destiny Rescue or similar things?
Scott Stoutenburg (05:04):
No, they’re not.
Aaron Smith (05:05):
Okay. Alright. What does your wife think about it? Did she go with you to Southeast Asia on that trip or was it just you?
Scott Stoutenburg (05:13):
My wife, she loves the fact that what I do for a living, she loves the fact that I get to rescue kids and that I get to play a role in rescuing kids and that I get to speak to students. But no, she does not travel with me. I have been trying to get her to go to Southeast Asia for 10 years and she says, Nope, you go as often as you want. Have a great time. I’m staying here, but she has to travel once a month for her job. So that
Aaron Smith (05:47):
Makes sense enough travel sounds like she totally supports this. And to be honest, my wife and I, so I found out about Destiny Rescue. Oh my gosh, years ago. I can’t even tell you. Over 10 years ago to five, eight years ago, I don’t know. But I was working for an organization called Sevenly and we did a campaign to raise support for Destiny Rescue, and that’s how I found out about you guys. And my wife and I have been supporting you ever since because we love children. We have six of our own, but we hate knowing what’s going on in the world and we can’t go do the footwork like you guys do, but we’ve been honored to support you guys. Our business supports you guys, and that’s why I wanted to do an interview with you guys to let our audience know what you guys do. So what did you do before? What was your career before you got onto Destin
Scott Stoutenburg (06:41):
Rescue? I was a landscaper.
Aaron Smith (06:43):
Landscaper,
Scott Stoutenburg (06:43):
Worked for an incredible landscape company just outside of McMinnville, Oregon, called c and d Landscaping and worked for them for 20 years.
Aaron Smith (06:55):
Wow.
Scott Stoutenburg (06:56):
So
Aaron Smith (06:57):
Can I ask how old you were when you transitioned to Destiny Rescue?
Scott Stoutenburg (07:01):
I was 56.
Aaron Smith (07:04):
56. I am just asking that because I think it’s amazing that we can, I just turned 40 this year and I feel like I’m starting to get old, but I still feel really young and I know I’m not old, but it’s interesting how you can have a life, a whole lifetime of doing something and then still step into something else later and just have a total different life and have a different pursuit. And I think that’s incredible. I’m bringing that up for all of my listeners to be recognizing that God can call us at any time to something else and we never even know it. I was just talking to another person on another episode and they were saying how they had this whole life, they had this career and success and they never expected the new thing that they were in, but God just called them. They’re like, oh, and then it just switches and it’s like, wow.
Scott Stoutenburg (07:55):
Oh, absolutely. If you would’ve asked me before I started working with Destiny Rescue and before I started volunteering, if you would’ve asked me, Hey, can you see yourself in the future living in South Dakota working for this organization? I would’ve said, no. My plan and my goal was to stay living in Oregon where we were and to retire from landscaping and just hang out with my grandkids and coach basketball. That was my goal,
Aaron Smith (08:28):
And that would’ve been good. That sounds great,
Scott Stoutenburg (08:31):
And it would’ve been fine, but God’s plans are always better.
Aaron Smith (08:37):
I love that. Again, the conversation I was having about this with another person, they were saying, if we get so married to where we’re at, like no, this is my life. This is what I want. It’s very possible we can miss out on what the Lord wants if we’re not willing to listen and have our eyes open. Not that we need to be constantly moving, but at least just being aware and listening sensitive to the Holy Spirit and what he’s guiding in, because you never know what he has in the next season of your life. Absolutely. You’re in another season of your life and it’s been, what, 10 years now you’ve been with Destiny Rescue?
Scott Stoutenburg (09:09):
Yeah, I volunteered for five and going on my sixth year of being employed.
Aaron Smith (09:17):
I love that. So just a quick question on the balance of what you do for work because it’s a pretty heavy thing and your personal and family life. How do you balance that? Is there a way that you navigate dealing with such sensitive hard topics and issues in real life and then come home and still have a family and your grandkids and your wife and home? How do you balance that?
Scott Stoutenburg (09:42):
Well, sometimes balancing things can be difficult, but my wife and I are pretty good at being here when we’re here, if that makes sense. We both have to travel quite a bit for our jobs, so we make sure that when we are home that we spend good quality time together. One example is Saturday mornings you will see us both in our recliners with the TV on watching college football
Aaron Smith (10:22):
Together.
Scott Stoutenburg (10:23):
That is our typical Saturday morning. I have the best wife on earth. A few years ago she looked at me and she said, football season’s coming up and I think we need a bigger tv. So that’s what we do. We make sure that we spend time together and we spend a lot of time with our grandkids.
Aaron Smith (10:48):
Oh, that’s really good. Just that principle of, because you are separate quite a bit and there’s a lot of managers that deal with the exact same thing. They have husbands or the wives travel for work and they’re gone for periods of time. We have friends that have that exact same situation and that intentional and fully present mentality when you are home is so important.
Scott Stoutenburg (11:13):
Tonight there’s a new Netflix series out the Lincoln Lawyer. The new season starts tonight. So our plan, and we talked about this last night as we were at a football game, our plan tonight is to go get a pizza and then we are going to sit down and we’re going to watch a few episodes of the Lincoln Mo together.
Aaron Smith (11:34):
Love that. I’ve never seen the show, but I just love that you guys love to spend time together and you have similar interests.
Scott Stoutenburg (11:41):
She, she’s still my favorite person.
Aaron Smith (11:43):
That’s so cool. Well, I think I would love to dig into your passion and the ministry’s passion for saving children. So why don’t you dig into what Destiny Rescue’s mission is all about and then what your specific role is. And I would love to just dig into what Destiny Rescue does.
Scott Stoutenburg (12:05):
Sure. Well, if you go on our website, it’ll say this, that Destiny Rescue exists to rescue kids from sexual exploitation and human trafficking and to equip them to stay free. We have rescued, I think we are closing in on 18,000 rescues, and this year alone, we are right about 2,600. So our goal is to end child sex trafficking. That is why we exist. We exist to help kids, and that in and of itself is just amazing. That’s incredible. And so what I get to do is I get to take this amazing opportunity and I get to go around the country and present it to students. My actual job title is director of Student student engagement, and I have been involved with students for over 30 years and in either coaching as a youth pastor, whatever, I’m well past that age of getting out and playing games with them.
(13:20)
So I don’t do any of that. But what I do is I get to go and I get to stand in front of students and I get to share with them the reality that is happening around the world to kids. And then I get to tell them how they can play a role in changing the world. We have a student initiative, it’s called Rescue Op one 20, and the idea is very simple. We believe that this generation of students has the ability to change the world, and the one 20 stands for if every student in the US gave a one-time donation of $20, we could rescue a million kids. And what is so impressive about it is that kids can do everything on their telephones.
Aaron Smith (14:10):
Wow.
Scott Stoutenburg (14:12):
Yeah, it’s amazing. And when I stand in front of students and I share that with them, their eyes light up because this generation of kids wants to make a difference in the world, and they just don’t know what to do or how to get involved, where to start. So when you give them a launching point, they get so excited about the idea that they can change the life of a child or several children.
Aaron Smith (14:39):
Is this primarily like high school age kids?
Scott Stoutenburg (14:44):
I’ve spoken to fourth graders all the way up through college.
Aaron Smith (14:50):
Oh, wow. Okay. Does Destiny Rescue offer because they have you that goes to schools and campuses to talk to the kids about getting involved and what’s going on in the world and the reality of these things? I think a lot of times we just in general, the royal, we don’t know, we’re like, yeah, I’m sure that happens, but probably not as much as I think, but there’s a reality to it. Do you guys have resources for parents to be able to present this to their children in a appropriate
Scott Stoutenburg (15:23):
Way? We don’t specifically have resources for parents on our website. We oftentimes, and when I speak, I will share things that parents can use, but oftentimes we are limited to time. I will show up and they’ll say, okay, you’re at a school chapel, you have 20 minutes or whatever. But a lot of times I will share, I’ll share stories or red flags, things that parents, youth, pastors, teachers can look for.
Aaron Smith (16:05):
Okay. Would you be able to share some of that, like you would share with them?
Scott Stoutenburg (16:10):
Sure. Some of the warning signs, traffickers all over the world are like I liken them to predators. Like you see on a National Geographic special, they look for the marginalized and the weak. And so one of the things that people can do is understand what kids are in their life or what kids are in their kids’ life or as a student, students know those kids who are on the outside looking in. So what traffickers will look for is a kid that’s marginalized a kid that maybe kids in the foster care system are very vulnerable kids who have low self-esteem. And so what a trafficker will do is they will find that kid and they will tell them everything that they want to hear. And you take a kid with low self-esteem and all of a sudden somebody is there building them up
(17:18)
And they believe what they’re being told. So we are not experts at what happens here in the us. I mean, we really are focused, laser focused on what our mission is to rescue. But I do know this when we speak to students, we have had several times when because of our talk with students, kids were either rescued or police were able to intervene. And I’ll give you a specific example. I was speaking in Pennsylvania and there was speaking to my friend’s youth group, and there was a 14-year-old autistic girl, and she was a high functioning autistic girl, but she was still autistic. And she started an online relationship with somebody. And as that relationship progressed, she said all of these things that she had heard when I came to speak to her youth group, all of these things that she had heard came to mind. And so she finally went and told her parents. The parents went to the local police. The local police found out who he really was, raided his apartment, found all kinds of pornography, things like that, and found evidence that he was going to traffic her.
Aaron Smith (18:53):
Oh my gosh. Well thank God for that. Oh, geez. So she heard what you were saying and the pieces fell together where, wow, that sounds exactly like what
Scott Stoutenburg (19:04):
This
Aaron Smith (19:05):
Person has been saying and how he’s been treating me. Well, praise God for that man. And so even though Destiny Rescue doesn’t focus in the us, there are plenty of organizations that are focused in the us but you guys focus overseas, which is also just as necessary if not more, but by you communicating and coming and sharing what you guys do, the results of that are permeating here also, which is amazing. Hey, mayor, after God, friends, thank you for your continued faithfulness in listening each and every week. Jennifer and I have often shared with you about how important prayer is in the life of a believer. It’s so important in fact that we’re told this in one Thessalonians, rejoice, always pray without ceasing, give thanks In all circumstances for this is the will of God and Christ Jesus for you. It is God’s will for us to pray, and we want to inspire you to begin praying for your spouse and marriage every day.
(19:55)
This world hates marriage and so does our enemy because he knows the power that your marriage is meant to have in this world. He knows that if you and your spouse are praying and chasing boldly after God together, that the impact Christ will have in and through you will be powerful. So we need to be praying more than ever before. Our heart is to encourage you along with everyone who listens to this show, to be praying for your spouses and your marriages to be strengthened, renewed, healed, prepared, and empowered to do the ministry that God has for you to do in this world together. So Jennifer and I would love to invite you to join the thousands of other couples in taking our 31 day marriage prayer challenge. This is a completely free and fun way to build a habit of prayer in your marriage. All you have to do to join is visit marriage prayer challenge.com and fill out the registration form. Once you do that, you’ll begin to receive an email every day from us during the 31 days to not only remind you to pray for your spouse, but we’ll also give you various topics and prompts to help you know what to pray for. We dare your marriage to start praying like never before. Start the challenge today@marriageprayerchallenge.com.
Scott Stoutenburg (20:54):
Yeah, and like you said, we rescue overseas, but we have a program called ossec Online Sexual Exploitation of Children. And our ossec team has developed a software program, and it’s the same type of software that governments use to keep track of terrorists. And so they were able to develop this software, and what they do is the only job at Destiny Rescue would want to have, they spend their day searching the web and the dark web to find children that are being abused. And what they do then is they start to build it when they find a child, they start, they want to locate where she is or he is, and they start to build a case. And then once they build that case, we work with local police and governments in the country where that child is, and then we go and rescue the child. Now, what happens when that child is rescued? All of the traffickers, computers and electronics are then seized. And so, and the police are able to get all of that information, get all of the IP addresses of every person who has ever paid to watch that child be abused. So then we are able to take that and hand it to law enforcement. So we don’t actively rescue in the us, but we do work cases with the FBI. So we are literally a global organization.
Aaron Smith (22:33):
One of the biggest reasons, I love what Destiny Rescue does, it’s not just about, you guys aren’t just an organization of raising awareness. There’s a lot of those organizations that are not downplaying awareness. You guys actually do something. So when we give to you guys give to the organization, it actually rescues children. It does. It actually stops traffickers. It actually prosecutes. And you guys have, so I would like you to share, you guys actually, when you say rescue children, you guys actually have teams of actual people that go in. Can you explain what kind of people are these? And then you don’t have to go into details, I don’t think, or as much as you want to what they do, but overseas, what happens? So I just want to point out, so one of the things you can do with you guys is you can go and say, I want to help rescue so many children. You’ve equated dollars to children rescued almost directly. I know there’s some convolution there, but essentially I can say, I want to help 20 girls or 50 girls or 200 girls, and my money goes directly to doing exactly that. What happens? I give some money. What happens then?
Scott Stoutenburg (23:56):
So let me make sure, I think there was a lot of questions in there. Sorry. Let me, you’re getting
Aaron Smith (24:03):
Excited about what you guys do.
Scott Stoutenburg (24:04):
Yeah, yeah, I could tell. No, that’s great. We love it. So I’ll just walk. First of all, we have rescue agents. And these rescue agents are incredible. They literally go out undercover and they risk their lives to find kids that are being abused. And then once they find a child, they figure out, okay, what is the best way to rescue them? We’ve got several different ways that kids get rescued. We have operations where, say if you and I were rescue agents in Southeast Asia, what we would do is we would walk into places looking for kids that are underage, and then we try to figure out who they are, where they’re from. We get some information, some background, and then we try to build a relationship with them. So if you and I walked into a place and we were rescue agents and we looked and we met a 14-year-old, so a girl has to say yes to rescue,
(25:21)
We can’t just walk in and say, okay, you’re under 18. You have to come with us. So what we do is we build a relationship with them when that relationship is solid, then we tell her, this is who we really are, and we can get you out of here. Sometimes it’s as simple as standing up and walking out the front door. Other times our guys have to get really, really creative. And then we also do raids in conjunction with local police departments. And the way a raid works, and this is how I explain it to students, if you ever watch an American crime drama like Chicago pd,
Aaron Smith (26:02):
Yeah, I’ve never watched that one, but yes,
Scott Stoutenburg (26:05):
Okay. You’ve watched crime dramas in the past. A lot of what they do when they do a raid on a place as they are raiding a drug dealer, it is the same type of idea, but just replace people with drugs. And so our rescue agents will build cases, and when they believe that they’ve got enough to interest the police, they will then take all the information to the police, and then they work in conjunction with the local law enforcement to take down traffickers. We love raids because an average raid, 13 people get rescued and two traffickers get arrested.
Aaron Smith (26:51):
Praise God. Gosh,
Scott Stoutenburg (26:53):
Yes. And I believe you asked what type of people rescue agents are. Yeah, what type, here’s a perfect example. One of our raids was actually filmed, and it was in conjunction with the Filipino national police and 100 Filipino Special Forces, and they rescued 78 people, and they took down what they termed a trafficking cartel. On the way there, our filmmaker is sitting in a van with our rescue team. And so he asks our founder, he says, so you guys probably have a lot of police swat, special forces backgrounds, correct? Excuse me. Our founder kind of chuckles and looks at him and says, yeah, I’m an electrician. He’s a plumber. So we have people from all walks of life, chiropractors, we have got plumbers, electricians. I’ve got a friend who was a Special forces helicopter pilot, and you don’t have to be a Navy SEAL to be a rescue agent and to change the world,
Aaron Smith (28:17):
But there are some of those right
Scott Stoutenburg (28:21):
Now, I’m not sure if we have any Navy Seals. I know in the past, I know we’ve had Army Rangers, I believe, green Berets, that type of thing. But in general, you just, if God is calling you to be a rescue agent and you reach out, our guys will train you how to rescue.
Aaron Smith (28:45):
I would imagine there’s so many men out there that they have this built in desire to be a hero, and this is one of the truest forms of that is actually rescuing a child. Yeah. And taking him out of,
Scott Stoutenburg (29:00):
But I’ll tell you what excites me is when I go and talk to students and I tell them about Ossec and who’s getting really excited about Ossec gamers?
Aaron Smith (29:17):
Oh, yeah. Because their world.
Scott Stoutenburg (29:20):
Exactly. Exactly. A lot of these kids, they can’t see themselves as somebody that is going to go kick a door in, but they can see themselves sitting behind a computer, sitting on a computer screen using their skills to help change the world. I love that. And so when I talk to students and I mention Ossec, I can almost look out in the audience and tell you which one of those kids is a gamer. And the wheels start turning and they get excited about it.
Aaron Smith (29:57):
Probably also makes them much more aware because one of the fears that I have with my kids with gaming is that they’re all online now, and there’s chats and conversations and you can talk, and they’re private and they’re encrypted, and they probably become more aware of those tactics because I would imagine they’re happening right there in the gaming console. They’re happening right there in the middle of that game, in the headphones. You don’t hear what’s going on grooming or that drawing in trying to capture with their attention and then make plans. And so it makes them much more aware for themselves while they’re doing that. So parents listening to this keep these things in mind that anywhere our kids are accessible, there’s going to be people trying to access them.
Scott Stoutenburg (30:51):
And
Aaron Smith (30:51):
That’s our responsibility.
Scott Stoutenburg (30:51):
That’s true to, it’s a sad state of the world that we live in.
Aaron Smith (30:59):
There’s some other questions we have about pornography and stuff like that I want to get to in a little bit, but I don’t want to stop at just, I don’t want to say just, but you guys, destiny Rescue doesn’t just work with local law enforcement and get information and help capture criminals here in the us. And you don’t just rescue girls and boys, any children from the traffickers overseas, but you also don’t just take ’em out, you do something else. What’s the next step after they’ve been rescued? And this is again, another reason why Destiny Rescue is so incredible as an organization,
Scott Stoutenburg (31:37):
Right? That’s my favorite thing to talk about is what happens after a rescue. Let’s talk about it. Our goal is to create a freedom plan for every child that we rescue. Now, there are multiple countries that we rescue in, and their governments take control of the kids after we rescue them. But depending on where they’re at, what country they’re in, and sometimes even what region of a country they’re in, our goal is to create a freedom plan with a child. That Freedom Plan can include, first of all, maybe reuniting them with their family and during, we’ll tell them once we agree to this freedom plan, we are together for about six months to a year. During that six months to a year, we want them to be fed. We want them to be able to either continue their education or learn a trade. And most children entering into a freedom plan, they want to learn a trade because the reality of human trafficking is this.
(33:01)
Most kids fall prey to human traffickers in the countries that we work in because of poverty. Most Americans aren’t really familiar with poverty on a scale that exists in Africa and in Asia, but poverty makes for horrible decision making. So oftentimes kids will go to town and look for a job, and then they get tricked by a trafficker. So when they get rescued, they want to learn a trade and learn how to learn how to be a seamstress or learn how to be a beautician or to run a coffee shop or dream their dream. So what we do is, and this is one of the things I just love about Desi Rescue. We partner with all kinds of businesses, and we have one that is so unique in one of our African countries, and I would’ve never thought of this in a million years, but they partnered with a chemical company, and this company will take kids, and I believe they take ’em in for a week, and they teach them how to make laundry detergent and how to make wax.
(34:17)
Because a lot of countries, especially in countries where it’s really, really warm, they will have vinyl flooring and linoleum, definitely no carpet. So they will give them, they teach them how to mix these chemicals together and how to create things that people use every single day. When they graduate from that Destiny, rescue provides them with the startup, and they can leave there and they can start their own business. We met one girl while we were in Africa, and when she was rescued, she was, her and her grandmother, they had no food. They had a place to live, but their water had been shut off because they couldn’t afford to pay the bill, and they hadn’t showered, I believe, in two weeks. And so we went to visit this little girl, and you should have seen the smile on her face because now she has an income, she has a steady flow of customers, and they know that when they come and to her, they’re going to get a good product at a good price.
(35:31)
And she’s just as little, I think she was 16, a business owner who is providing for herself and her grandmother. That’s what I love about Destiny Rescue, is that we get an opportunity not just to rescue kids, but we get an opportunity to partner with other groups and businesses. And together we get to help a child stand on their own two feet. And that’s the goal that every child that we rescue can stand on their own two feet. Right now, we have, for every child that is entered into our Freedom Plans, we have almost an 83% success rate after two years. And what we mean by success rate,
Aaron Smith (36:22):
That’s an incredible success rate.
Scott Stoutenburg (36:24):
The way that’s 83% are still free after the day of rescue.
Aaron Smith (36:29):
That’s an amazing, amazing statistic.
Scott Stoutenburg (36:32):
And there is nothing like going to a place and meeting kids who have been rescued and playing games with them and talking with them and just smiling with them.
Aaron Smith (36:46):
So you’re not just combating trafficking, you’re not just rescuing children, you’re also combating poverty, and you’re combating all of these things that are against people and hurting people and lifting people up. Is there a gospel component to the aftercare?
Scott Stoutenburg (37:09):
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I’ll tell you a great story. In our aftercare, the kids get an opportunity to go through a trauma-based counseling, and it’s called Empower and Grow. And it was developed by a psychologist in the UK who is actually on our board of directors. And while we were sitting in this room with maybe 30 to 35 girls, and they’re being taught this counseling program, we had an opportunity to listen to a girl not only teach, but share the gospel. And she may have been 20 to 22 years old, and she taught the gospel. She did the best gospel presentation of I think any pastor I’ve ever heard.
(38:11)
And she tied everything back to Jesus. And it was beautiful. I wish I could remember word for word what she said, but I was so awestruck that I just sat there with my jaw open and listened to her. And then she said, how many of you would like to come to know this Jesus that I’m talking about? And I believe it was 16 girls that raised their hand. Oh man. So 16 girls gave their life to Christ right in front of us. We had a lot of those times in Africa where those allergies just started affecting.
Aaron Smith (38:54):
Yeah,
Scott Stoutenburg (38:54):
Yeah.
Aaron Smith (38:55):
It’s dusty in the air. Well, praise God for you guys, the ministry that you guys do is gospel focused. It’s Christ centric. It’s you’re rescuing children because they’re made in the image of God, and God hates the destroying of children. He hates it. He does. And we need more. We need more of that. We need more people like you. We need more people willing to volunteer, willing to give to do this. Because there’s a direct correlation to the work. There’s a direct, it’s not, I give some money or give some time, and maybe there’ll be an effect in the future. This is a direct correlation organization. Every dollar is tied to an actual result, which I don’t think a lot of organizations can actually say, unfortunately.
Scott Stoutenburg (39:47):
And when Jesus invades a community, those communities change.
Aaron Smith (39:52):
Yes, they do. Amen. That’s what we want. This stuff has been going on for generations, but I’ve heard statistics that there’s more slavery, more sexual exploitation today than there ever has been in history. Would that be a true assessment?
Scott Stoutenburg (40:12):
Yes.
Aaron Smith (40:14):
Which is
Scott Stoutenburg (40:14):
Unfortunate. Yes. Unfortunately, it is a global epidemic. I know the statistics that we share are this, that right now human trafficking is believed to be the third largest criminal enterprise on planet Earth and makes about 150 billion a year. 99 billion of that 150 billion comes from sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. And the average age globally for a child trafficked for sexual purposes is 12 to 14. We have rescued every year, we rescue several five year olds and six year olds and seven year olds. The youngest boy we’ve ever rescued was 18 months old. Oh my gosh. Which is heart wrenching.
Aaron Smith (41:20):
This truth makes me appreciate scriptures like Jesus. It’d be better for a man to time millstone around his neck and be tossed in the sea than to hinder one of these little ones who love me and believe in me. Yes. And God has such his heart for children. Yeah.
Scott Stoutenburg (41:42):
And I will tell you, every time I share in a church, or almost every time, I will have one man come up and ask about going overseas and just taking care of these guys. We want every trafficker to go to prison, but we also want every trafficker to come to know Jesus.
Aaron Smith (42:13):
Amen.
Scott Stoutenburg (42:13):
And I’m not just saying that as a flippant Christian verbiage, we want people to come to know Jesus. Yes, they should pay for what they’ve done. But we are all sinners. Every single one of us and every single one of us who call ourselves Christians have received the ultimate rescue. And we want everyone to receive that.
Aaron Smith (42:43):
And the truest and only actual solution to this is Jesus is the transformation of the heart. People change.
Scott Stoutenburg (42:52):
We have a statement at Desi rescue. We’ve all been rescued to rescue.
Aaron Smith (42:56):
We’ve all been rescued to rescue. I want to ask you one more question on a topic of pornography. And the reason I want to point this out, we don’t need to get super deep into it, but I think it’s important to highlight the correlation. And even though it’s not always exactly a direct correlation, but there’s a lot of believers, there’s a lot of Christians, unfortunately, who are still struggle and walk in an addiction to pornography.
Aaron Smith (43:28):
And
Aaron Smith (43:28):
That should not be. And I just want to highlight the, I would like for you to share as much as you can on the correlation between pornography and trafficking.
Scott Stoutenburg (43:39):
I share this with, I’m helping with our youth group, junior and senior boys, and we talked about this not long ago, that it is believed that right now, that 77% of males in the United States and believe it’s over the age of 12, either struggle or have struggled with pornography.
(44:03)
And it is a huge, huge issue. The thing is, pornography can be used as a launching point. You may not understand that you have a desire for something until you see it. And it has a devastating effect on men and women. And I tell you what, you ask one of our online sexual exploitation agents, and they will tell you, I mean, they play a role in rescuing people every single day from people who are either addicted or attached to a certain type of pornography, and they see the effects of it every single day. And what people don’t seem to understand is that pornography actually has an effect on your brain. It changes your brain chemistry. And I am not a doctor. I don’t play one on tv. I’m not anything like that. But I can tell you that from what I have read, pornography is, well, it breaks up marriages, it destroys lives, it changes your brain. And it is not just this simple thing that this victimless thing. Absolutely. It’s massive. The best he’s
Aaron Smith (45:47):
Got at least two victims.
Scott Stoutenburg (45:48):
Exactly. Exactly. And the best worship leader I have ever known, ever known, lost his job and lost his family because of his addiction to pornography. It has a devastating effect. And I read a statistic, I don’t remember the exact percentages, but right now, it’s believed that the fastest growing viewers of pornography are women.
Aaron Smith (46:22):
No. And something I want to highlight is that the pornography itself is one of the main drivers of the demand for sex trafficking. So like you said, it’s a starting point. It’s a launching point. People that are getting into pornography progress, often, not everyone, but with enough time. And that’s where that demand for sex, slavery, sex trafficking comes from. And then often also, people don’t realize that much of pornography is direct relation to sex trafficking. That the people that are in these scenes are not necessarily there on their own volition, that they’re forced to be there. And you won’t know that. And that’s something that I want every Christian listening to this to understand is first of all, not just that, like you said, it’s not a victim’s crime. This thing is demonic, pornography is demonic, and it’s poison and it’s directly causing and correlated to these other things that are actually happening to real children and real people. But then on the other hand, it also directly affects us spiritually, mentally, emotionally. Now, biologically, it transforms the way our brains work, but it also absolutely transforms the way our flesh engages with the spirit and the way we engage with God. And it needs to be destroyed. I mean, I think it’s an Ephesians. It says there shouldn’t even be a hint of sexual immorality among, as is proper among the saints
(48:06)
As believers. This should be so seen in light. No, that is not something that we are okay with. And I just wanted to bring this up in this context because I don’t think believers put the two and two together enough to recognize what we’re engaging in when we do that.
Scott Stoutenburg (48:27):
Right. And one thing I would say to any of your listeners, whether it’s a man, woman, teenage boy, teenage girl, whatever, if you believe that you or somebody in your family is starting to delve into pornography, there are all kinds of filters. There are all kinds of programs. There’s all kinds of things like ways that you can attach things, ways that you can attach things onto your computers programs where, say you were my accountability partner and I signed up on, the only one that I know about is, I can’t even remember the name, but is it called
Aaron Smith (49:23):
Pure Eyes, I think, or
Scott Stoutenburg (49:25):
What’s that?
Aaron Smith (49:25):
Is it called Pure Eyes or something like that?
Scott Stoutenburg (49:29):
Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, you can look at, there’s stuff online, find a program. And the way these programs work is say, I was addicted to something and you were my accountability partner. So I signed up and I put you down as my accountability partner. And every time I’m online, wherever I go, wherever I look at, however long I’m on there gets sent directly to you. So wives, husbands, parents, if you believe that your spouse, your child is starting to delve in that, find a way to sign up and you may be able to just cut it off before it becomes an issue.
Aaron Smith (50:17):
Amen. That’s a good encouragement. So to close, why don’t you share the various ways that our listeners can get involved with Destiny Rescue, because I would love for every one of my listeners to get involved in some way.
Scott Stoutenburg (50:33):
Absolutely. Well, there’s one simple way. You can go to destin rescue.org and click the donate button simplest way. That’s simple, quick, safe, and effective. We also have what’s called Rescue Partners. And you are a rescue partner. And what a rescue partner is is somebody who gives monthly, say you are a pastor or you are an elder at a church and you want Destiny Rescue to come speak to your church, go on destiny rescue.org, and I believe it’s under Take Action. And you’ll see for churches, click on that. There’s a two or three question thing that you need to fill out, and somebody will contact you about hosting or having Destiny Rescue come for what we call a rescue Sunday. A Rescue Sunday is where your church decides, okay, we want to rescue four kids. And so you set a monetary goal, and then that Sunday you speak about the issue.
(51:43)
You speak about death, sea rescue, what we do, how we do it. And then you take up a special offering and you see how many kids your church can rescue. The thing I love about the Rescue Sundays is it gives people an opportunity to jump in, and it really has an energizing effect on churches. We’ve had multiple pastors who have told us how a Rescue Sunday has changed their church. It helped them start focusing outward instead of just focusing inward. And then the thing that I’m most excited about is our student initiative. You can go to rescue op one two oh.com, and there’s information there. We speak to schools, youth groups, football teams and basketball teams, whoever. And we give kids an opportunity to stand up and fight for those who can’t fight for themselves.
Aaron Smith (52:45):
And
Scott Stoutenburg (52:45):
They love it. They love the idea that they get to rescue. And I’ll tell you a quick story. We were in Africa and I was standing in front of maybe 75 to a hundred kids, and I told them about Rescue Op and how kids in the US were raising funds and how some of them may have been rescued by funds that kids in America raised. And it brought tears to their eyes, and they said, when you get back, please tell American Kids thank you. Wow. So I share that story now every time I speak.
Aaron Smith (53:28):
Mr. Scott, thank you so much for your time. I just pray that all my listeners would have enjoyed this message, first of all, this conversation with you, but that they would get involved, that they would check out Dustin your rescue.org, and that they would somehow, in some way participate in what you guys are doing because it’s actual real feet in the ground work. Children are actually getting rescued. They’re actually getting aftercare. They’re actually hearing the gospel. And like you said, that 83%, I know it’s not a hundred percent, and I would love it if it was, but 83% is an incredible feat that you guys are seeing that level of success, because those numbers are probably very rare in other organizations.
Scott Stoutenburg (54:14):
They are. And what’s crazy is we actually believe that it’s higher, but some of the kids we’ve lost track of because there are kids who will graduate from our program, and then they will move or they will change their phone number. They will say, thank you for what you did for me. This is a chapter of my life that I’m closing. And I they be, and I absolutely get that.
Aaron Smith (54:41):
So do I. That would be me. I’m out of
Scott Stoutenburg (54:44):
Here. Yes, exactly.
Aaron Smith (54:46):
Well, praise God for you, Mr. Scott, and for what you guys are doing at Destin, your Rescue, I thank you so much for giving us your time. And yeah, all I’m going to have all the links to everything you just talked about in our show notes. So everyone listening, go to our show notes and just explore everything that Destiny Rescue is doing and get involved.
Scott Stoutenburg (55:05):
And feel free to put my email address up. Anybody has any questions, just send me an email. Would love to chat with you, and next time I’m in the Bend area, I’ll hit you up, launches on me.
Aaron Smith (55:17):
Awesome. Praise God. Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today.
Scott Stoutenburg (55:22):
Absolutely. Have a great day.
Aaron Smith (55:40):
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(56:27)
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