The Sound of Freedom

The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed,
    a stronghold in times of trouble. Psalm 9:9

Roy and I decided to go to see The Sound of Freedom at the movie theater Tuesday. If you haven’t see the trailer, I encourage you to watch it here.

The movie portrays the true story of Tim Ballard, a government agent who is tasked with tracking down pedophiles. Although he and his co-workers successfully take a large number of offenders off the street, Ballard becomes frustrated that the children are not being freed. He knows there are thousands of children being held against their will and forced to perform sex acts with the men he is arresting.

Ballard cooks up a ruse to see if he can free at least one child. By pretending to be a pedophile himself, he manages to arrange a meeting with a young boy. As the boy is transported across the border into the United States, Ballard takes the transporter into custody and successfully reunites the young boy with his father.

But the young boy asks Ballard to find and free his sister.

While many people might be satisfied that they were able to free one child, Ballard becomes obsessed with helping others, specifically with freeing the young boy’s sister. He embarks upon a mission in Colombia to find and free Rocio, the young girl who was taken from her home and forced into sex slavery.

After connecting with some others who have a passion similar to his, Ballard and his cohorts create a scheme to lure some of the primary traffickers to a resort where they will be paid $100,000 for providing children for a select group of wealthy pedophiles. When the children arrive, the Colombian police storm the resort, arresting the traffickers and freeing the children.

Unfortunately, Rocio is not amongst the children.

I don’t want to ruin the movie for you. Instead, I want to share the heart behind the movie with you.

If you ever watched Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, you know Jim Caviezel who played Jesus himself. Caviezel plays the part of Tim Ballard. If you know anything about Caviezel, you also know he is passionate about his faith. The entire focus of the movie is around Ballard’s calling to free these children. It is not about his bravery, his fears. It is about a calling to care for the oppressed, a calling echoed throughout scripture.

This movie was actually filmed five years ago, but no one wanted to release it. I truly believe it was a spiritual battle to release the movie because of the number of roadblocks that the team encountered. From what I have read, Caviezel lost his agent and his attorney over his appearance in this movie. It seems our world wants to turn a blind eye to the truth of the sex industry. Did you know there are more people in slavery today than at any other point in the history of the world? Even more than when slavery was legal?

Honestly, when we left the theater, Roy and I were mostly silent. As we began to talk about it, Roy said he wasn’t sure if he liked the movie. His emotions were all over the place, but they finally landed on angry. He was angry at the individuals trafficking these children. He was angry that so many want to turn a blind eye to the truth. He was angry that he is unable to do more, to help free these children himself. I, on the other hand, was struggling with what can I do? How can I help?

It was not a feel good movie. It was not a movie that left you smiling. It was a movie that made you want to take action!

What action can we take?

See the movie. Don’t let this movie be a failure at the box office! We must band together to make it a success to get the message out. We need the world to join together, to walk away with the same righteous anger we had. We need to bring truth to light and stop turning a blind eye to what is going on in this world.

Pay it forward. Angel, the studio releasing the movie, wants to reach over 2 million people representing the 2 million children trapped in slavery. They have launched a campaign where we can buy tickets for someone to see the movie free. You can purchase tickets for others here.

Educate yourself. I was blissfully unaware of what children around the world are enduring. If I’m honest, I had heard a few stories, but there’s something different about actually seeing it depicted in such a moving way. These are God’s children, and they deserve to be treated with respect. They have been robbed of their childhoods, of their lives. Even if they somehow manage to escape, they will be spend the rest of their lives dealing with the trauma they have experienced.

Get involved. Tim Ballard has started an organization called O.U.R. (Operation Underground Railroad) that works to find and free children. Here’s a link to their page. Christine Caine founded the A21 ministry to help free children. Click here for more information. Find a way to part her with an organization that is already doing the work.

Ask God for direction. God has a plan for you! Does it involve helping free children? Does He want you to donate to an organization? Volunteer to help? Does he want you to get involved? Ask Him! Ask how you can do more! Ask what your part is in changing the world!

Powerful! That’s the only world I know to describe this movie. Don’t let it pass you by. Consider it more than entertainment; consider it an opportunity to understand the heart of God toward His children.