00:00 Chris Grainger
Welcome to the Lion Within Us, a podcast serving Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders God intends you to be. I’m your host, Chris Granger. Let’s jump in. All right guys. It’s your meet episode of the week. But before we get too far, let’s dive right into our scripture. Okay, so the scripture this week is in Micah.

So it said, Micah chapter six, verse eight, just one verse. Okay. It says, he has shown you on mortal what is good and what does the Lord require of you to act justly, to love, mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Guys, go back to that spiritual kickoff. We actually unpack that big time to show you how you can, can do just that, and which is gonna be interesting.

Dan brings this verse up today, our guest, where we’re gonna be talking about how steps you can take in action. Okay? Now we’re gonna be unpacking a very, very difficult topic, okay? Human sex, traffic, and trafficking. Okay. Big deal. I know this is not one that gets a lot of attention, particularly from the pulpit, the guys that should, this is an area of, of impact that is all around us and to have us walk through this conversation I brought in Dan Emer, Dan is the founder of Worthwhile Wear.

They tell he’s, he’s doing incredible work. They’re out of Pennsylvania. Once you hear his story and how he changed his entire life, guys his entire life for this calling and how it’s making such an impact, not just on, on him and his family and the local community, this is a worldwide impact. And, and again, you may be thinking, you know what, that’s great.

You know, this is, I can’t make any impact. And he’s gonna give you a very practical way that I guarantee each and every one of you guys listening will be able to take action. It’s actually called act to make an impact and to do human trafficking. Cuz guys, this is a big deal. Such a big deal. He tells a heartbreaking story out of India.

This is going, it, it. It takes your breath away to hear this, the numbers, but more importantly, the stories themselves of how they impact people. So this is, this is one you want to take some notes, definitely towards the end. We give a lot of resources. Definitely go check out the show notes. Guys, we, we, this is gonna be packed with some links that will help you get started, particularly with this act challenge, uh, that, that we are gonna be talking about.

So hopefully enjoy this conversation. You’ll, you’ll learn a lot. I promise you. Don’t let this be one that you just skip over. Take the time to listen to this soak can because you may have opportunities in your local church or in your local community to start moving forward and making a true impact in this big, big issue that we have human trafficking.

So I hope you enjoy this conversation with Dan Emmer.

All right, so Dan, welcome to the line within us. How you doing today? I’m doing well. Thanks for having me. Oh man. I’m excited to have you here cuz this is a topic that we have not really covered on the line within innocent shame on me for not covering it yet, just haven’t had the, the opportunity. So I’m looking forward to unpacking it with you.

But before we get into the deep waters, man, let’s, let’s start a little bit sh on the shallow end of the pool. So give us a little fun, something about you and and your family or maybe just a, a fun fact about you that not many people know.

03:15 Dan Emr
I have a lot of those, I think fun facts. Well, I think it’s important to know, you know, behind the man It, you know, is, is the family and all those that are, are part of this journey.

And, and I said behind, I mean alongside with, uh, so let me correct that there. But my, my, my family is a big part of this. So my, my wife and I have been married for coming up on 17 years. Um, I have a, a son who just turned 16. So we’re having that fun discussion of what car, you know, he’s looking at all the, the high end, uh, turbos, twin turbos.

I’m like, no, no. And then my daughter is 12 and she is, uh, all about art and music so she could care less about cars. And then fun fact for me, I tell people I am a, um, I do, I do work. I’m, I’m like, you know, sending emails, speaking, engaging with things like that. But I’m also a closet redneck. So for me, my recharge is I go out and I dirt bike, um, I hit the trails, I hit the track.

Um, so for me, that’s just like a, a full on like, you know, get a, get in a new space and not have to worry about, um, you know, thinking about work because when you’re riding you just kind of just enjoy the nature and being out there. So that’s, that’s my little, not a lot of people know about me thing.

04:22 Chris Grainger
That’s really cool. I love the closet redneck man. That’s pretty, that’s pretty great. It’s okay, you can come out, man. It’s

04:27 Dan Emr
all good coming out on your show.

04:30 Chris Grainger
Yeah. You’re, you’re a safe space here at the Lion with Dennis, man, so, uh, yeah, we’re, you’re good to go there. But dirt bikes, man. That’s really cool. I ride motorcycles.

I’ve never really been into the dirt bike stuff, but I’m sure it’s a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah.

04:41 Dan Emr
I used to ride street and then at, when we had our, you know, our, our son at first, I, I. Got rid of that. And then when he got older, gave me excuse to introduce him to it, which obviously as a good dad, I need to ride with him.

So. That’s right. That’s, I played my cards right.

04:56 Chris Grainger
Yeah. We just had our son back in November. I told my wife, I was like, well, he needs a full wheel and a boat. And she’s like, he’s, he’s like, listen, he’s a couple months old. And I’m like, I’m just telling you. Yeah, start

05:05 Dan Emr
prepping. You’re thinking ahead. I love it.

05:09 Chris Grainger
Well man, let’s get into it. I know this is a topic again, like I mentioned, there’s something we haven’t talked about a lot and, and, and, but I’m excited to be able to do it, not just that’s the topic is, is fun to talk about, but it’s important to talk about and around, you know, human trafficking. And I know this is a very big area of passion for you.

So why don’t you just get us started to may maybe explain to the guys there after listener who may not even be familiar with when you say human trafficking, what that even is.

05:32 Dan Emr
Yeah, yeah. And I, and I wanna point out too, I mean, you, you kind of led in with like, you, you should have brought this up sooner or, but I, the reality is a lot of people aren’t aware of it and I don’t fault anyone for it because.

Really to be aware of it means you’re, you’re probably walking in that, in that light or in that darkness, I should say, really. And so, um, it’s to no fault if people aren’t aware of it, but my role is to, to share about it so people are aware of it and then also share what we’re doing in response to that.

So yeah, for, for me, it was something I also wasn’t aware of. Um, back in 2010, I was, um, had nothing of this on my radar or even in my mind, but I was, I was sitting in, in church actually. Um, and a young couple came in, a missionary couple from, uh, Cambodia, their Americans had gone to Cambodia and they were sharing their story about how they were serving survivors of human trafficking.

And I sat there just kind of like dumbfounded and I, and I went up to them right after church ended and I said like, like, is this like slavery? And they said, yeah, this is like modern day slavery. Like people being exploited and used against their will. And, and a lot of cases often trafficked for, for sexual purposes, for the gain of someone else.

And so, um, I I, I just, my heart broke, like immediately broke. And, and so for me it was, it was something where I, I started to dig deeper and like, what does this issue look like? And so, um, I think for, for your listeners and those that maybe aren’t aware, I mean, this is a global issue. There’s about 40 million people that are enslaved right now in this world.

40 million people that are, that are trafficked. There’s about 800,000 that are, you know, being, uh, documented in the sense that they’re being found, uh, trafficked across borders. 800,000 people treated like they’re, they’re, they’re cattle. Uh, as a livestock moved from, from one location to another to be sold.

Um, you know, a lot of trafficking happens within country though, so there’s a lot of that happening that’s not even counted for. Um, things like that. I was learning, you know, the, the industry itself has grown. It’s now 150 billion industry that’s billing with a b. And that, so it, for, for a long time it was always, um, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, then human trafficking.

And now human trafficking has swapped places. There’s now second in that because of the fact of, you know, the type of crime it is, so criminals, as much as we hate to think about it, are in a sense like business people. So they need to find the, the least path, the path of least resistance. And so what that means is if you, you know, sell a weapon or sell a drug, you have to restock.

But what if you can essentially manipulate or exploit a commodity that you can not only just sell once, but sell over and over and over again. And so that’s where we’ve seen this, this issue growing exponentially is because the, these criminals, these traffickers are saying, Hey, I can switch from drug trafficking, weapons trafficking.

I can instead trafficking human and, and, and sell my product many times and, and I don’t even have to buy it. So that’s why this is such a growing issue, and I think it’s important, and I’m so grateful that the line within is willing to kind of bring this to light and then, you know, we want to talk more about, you know, how do we get involved in, you know, how I got involved even.

Yeah,

08:40 Chris Grainger
absolutely. I, I hadn’t even thought about that scalability part of really from a business standpoint. I mean, the drugs and the guns, that’s all product, right? I mean, but this there, if you’re, if you’re trafficking people, like I said, it’s, it, you can really just over and over and over, man. I can totally see.

And you said it’s a number two now, 150 billion. Yeah, that’s correct. That, that, that’s a staggering stat, man. So, I mean, hopefully thank you for sharing those, those numbers. I know a lot of our listeners are, are number, number of guys and girls out there, so you know the guy. This is a big deal, obviously, for sure.

So maybe you walk us through a little bit of your story. Okay. So you, you heard that story there in church and then at some point you’ve decided to take some action and I’d love to, to hear your, hear what you did.

09:24 Dan Emr
Yeah. Well, I, I, I think I have to preface it, which I have a, um, an inclination to kind of make, um, what I would call dumb decisions.

Um, but sometimes, sometimes they’re, they’re, you know, things that, um, caused us, you know, we have to make a step, right? And so for me, this, um, decision I made was from a, from the world’s standpoint, from a career standpoint, a dumb decision. But it’s a decision I made that I, I never looked back on. And, and I feel like from an eternal perspective was the right decision.

And so for me, I, um, yeah, I, I heard about this and I started, my first step was, and what I always encouraged people on is first get educated. So that was my first thing. And so for about two years, I really did a deep dive, and I tried to work with this couple, um, and help them develop, um, a, you know, um, some, um, uh, actually they were, they were providing employment to women in their, in their program through the making of t-shirts.

And so I. I employed the help of my brother, said that, Hey, let’s get them a huge order to support them. And so I, uh, worked on getting an order for 2,500 shirts and, um, we kind of worked through that. And then it kind of, the ninth hour when they were gonna go into production, that whole ministry sadly kind of folded.

Um, it was run by, you know, a, a small organization overseas there in Cambodia, and that’s where this couple was mission, um, serving. And when it folded and, and this order, you know, dissolved this need for, it dissolved. I kind of was left with like, well, now what do I do? Um, so for me, I, I was in a, I was pursuing the American dream, right?

I, I, you know, I was a believer, but, you know, I kind of drank the juice because in America it’s, it’s kind of like, Hey, get a really good job. Make lots of money, buy lots of stuff, and then you’ll be happy. Um, that’s not the reality. I think that’s a un unfortunately, a misunderstanding of what our forefathers talked about was like the pursuit of happiness.

And we, we. Have misconstrued that to be the pursuit of, of self, the pursuit of pleasure. And, um, which is in part why trafficking has grown so much is, is that mentality of fill whatever desire I have. So for me though, I, I started going this path where my, my wife stayed home and raised our two kids, which we wanted.

We loved that. Um, we had a house in Florida. Um, we had a house in Pennsylvania where I live. Um, you know, I worked for an engineering firm. I was a, a sales and marketing rep. I did like the US us market was my, you know, it was my territory. Um, and so afforded us a lot of nice things. But when I was working with this couple and, and then everything fell through with them, I was just struck with like the question of like, what do I do?

Right? And what really came back to me, what really started kind of to haunt me was a question. I remember when I was in 10th grade, um, when I was in 10th grade, I, I was in history class and the, the teacher asked a question, you know, students, if you were live when slavery was in America, Would you have done something?

Would you have intervened? And as a 10th grader, not thinking a whole lot of it, but I, I raised my hand and I, and, and I raised my hand and I said, I, I believe that everybody deserves to be free. Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and, and be treated as if they have worth and value. And so flash forward these many years later, I was that same, that same stinking question.

It, it popped up in my head and I’m like, I said Yes, then what does that mean now? And so ultimately what it boiled down to was, was walking away from that job. So when I say stupid decisions from a, the world’s perspective, I stepped away from, from a career job, you know, that, that afforded me a lot of luxuries and niceties to something that paid absolutely nothing.

And then beyond that, it wasn’t just that it paid nothing is I had to invest everything I had, meaning I sold our homes. And I used our, our, all of our savings to get worthwhile we’re off and running. And, and that was, you know, for me was, was a scary thing. And I dunno how much time we have, man. I can share the story of how that actually went down the details, but there’s just a lot going on.

So you tell me. I mean, I I

13:26 Chris Grainger
I love to hear it cuz this is, this is big time particularly cuz I mean, we talk about all time chasing the American dream. We actually had one episode called the, the On American Dream, and it’s talking more about this, you know, of, of pursuing what, what God calls you to. So, yeah, as much as you wanna unpack this is, this is your time.

13:42 Dan Emr
Well I, I think because, you know, this is, this is a, you know, a a, a podcast, a message, I think to encourage, hopefully others. Um, you know, I think for us, we, we talk about faith and I, and I’ve been part of bible studies, the men’s bible studies I’ve been part of for 15, 16 years. And I, and I know when we talk about faith, a lot of times there’s kind of a question mark, well, what, what is faith really?

Right? I believe there’s a God. And I’m like, well, no, I challenge you in that faith is stepping and not knowing where your foot’s going to land when you feel the Lord call you. Um, not just going out there and just trying to take, but prayerfully saying, God, show me the way. And if he’s giving some direction, he also doesn’t say, I’m going to give you utmost clarity in this because he relies on us to live out our faith.

And so what I’ve seen now, I’ve been doing this for 11 years, I’ve seen time and time again when we step in faith that we see God provide. And so I was, um, really trying to contemplate making this decision to leave that career job. I, I was talking to a friend of mine and I said, you know, I, I feel like I, I’m being called to this work.

And I, and I need to make a decision. And I, I started talking to him about this. I said, you know, in part, like, it’s gonna be a big thing for our family. But the other part is like, I really, I really, you know, appreciate this company I work for and the people that are there that I’ve built friendships for six years working with them.

And, um, I said, you know, maybe I’ll go in and try, try and share what, what’s on my heart and share what I, I think I need to do. And, and, um, and maybe I’ll give him like a six month time period and, and, and that way it’ll help phase out. I’ll train up the new person, all that stuff. So I was trying to be mindful of those things.

And so, um, I said that to him, not knowing how I was gonna bring this up at my job. Well, that was on a Saturday. On Monday I go into work and my direct boss that I reported to, um, comes in, he’s like, Hey, we’re gonna do your annual review. We’re gonna meet with the owner of the company. And the owner of the company is, is, was a known atheist.

And she just, she just, you know, would support animal causes, not human causes. And, and was, it was plain, you know, she made that known. And anyways, I go in and we have this meeting. We start talking about, you know, I was the, the US rep and I got paid a salary that was really healthy and then bonuses on top of that.

And that’s why we could afford the things we had. But they said, you know, we wanna change the pay structure. We’re just gonna do, um, just straight salary. And it was still real, still good pay, it was healthy and all that. But I, you know, salespeople kind of like, they like commissions too. And so we talked about that for a little while, and then at the end they, they kind of sense I, I was a little off, right?

And so they like, they came back to me like, well, don’t, like, you know, are you thinking of leaving? And I’m like, and I, I didn’t give ’em a clear answer. So they’re like, alright, how about this? Don’t leave. Or if you’re thinking of leaving, at least give us six months to figure this out. And I sat back in my seat and I just started to smile.

And they go, why are you smiling? I said, listen, I’m gonna tell you why I’m smiling because I, two days ago was trying to figure out how to, how to bring up this topic that I, I need, I’m feeling called to serve survivors of human trafficking and those that are in modern day slavery. And I wanted to tell you that I, I wanted to step away from this job.

And I, and I wanted to offer you a six month window to transition out. And, and, and I said, I think this is what God’s calling me to. And the owner like, leaned forward. She’s like, so you’re not gonna start and move to another company? I’m like, no, I’m gonna, I’m gonna step out and essentially make no pay.

And, and I said, I think this is where God’s leading me. And I know you don’t believe in God, but I believe that he’s part of this. And, and in fact, this is what led up to this conversation. And she said, you know, Dan, I, I don’t believe in God, but when you hear stuff like this, you kind of have to wonder. And so I left that meeting and then I started for, for the next five months, like working, trying to wrap up and train up my staff.

And then on the last month, I had four weeks left. My boss Carl pulled me in and he had some of the other staff in the room too. And he said, Hey, um, he started, he’s like, you’re gonna take over this saying, Hey Melissa, you’re gonna start handing link Dan’s emails and just started DMing up my chores. I’m like, am I getting the boot a little early?

And he said, no. He said, actually we’re gonna do is we’re gonna take over all your stuff. Keep coming in for the next month. Keep using your office, keep using your phone, your computer, and focus on starting worthwhile wear while you’re on our payroll. And it’s, to me not lost that God used an atheist to fund the launch of his work.

And I, and I think that’s the power of what he took. Someone that says, I don’t even believe you exist. And he is like, okay, well I’ll use your funds and resources to help you, um, start my work. And, and so that’s kind of the, the more, the minutiae. I never get to share that story very much, but that’s one, I just love sharing about how God used that and that when I sat there, I, I wa I had a, a clear conversation with God when I’m like, okay, I need to, I need to trust you.

I’m gonna step in faith and don’t know what this means, but I’m gonna step in faith. And I, and I committed to leaving that job. And, um, that’s six months later as I left. And, and it was, uh, no parachute, no, uh, no safety net. And, uh, went, went full born to trust in God that he’d provide.

18:37 Chris Grainger
Oh my gracious, Dan, that is unbelievable.

Unbelievable. Hey, let’s take a quick break. We’ll be right back guys.

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So Dan, you just shared a story that some of our guys are probably just sitting there and their mouths are probably still open even after that ad. So I mean, God, that was unreal. I can only imagine you being in that meeting and, and just laying that out like that and, and the, it went from pretty much uncomfortable to, you know what, I’m just trusting God and Yeah.

Hat’s off to you, man. Cause I, I know a lot of guys, when we talk about walking outta our faith, man, that is truly taking a step of obedience right there for the calling of guys. And obviously it’s working out well for you. You’re doing some, some amazing things there, but I also wanna unpack, you know, to be able to have the courage to do that.

I think it’s you, you can’t overlook the type of man that you are by your parents. You know, and I know you, you, you, you have a. A very big, uh, foundation of, of your parents and just some stories there that kind of led, probably led, led up to the character that you have right now as a man. So I’d love to give you an opportunity to share about that.

Yeah, I

20:17 Dan Emr
appreciate that opportunity. Cause I, I, I’m a big believer and give credit where credit is due and so, um, a lot of times, you know, it, that transition, right? Let’s be honest, it wasn’t easy on my, my family. Yeah. More so my wife, my kids were really young at the time, but I, I had something kind of my back pocket as, as, uh, you know, what I knew from, from living and growing up, uh, for my parents.

So, so for me, you know, I, I grew up, um, just outside of Philadelphia. Uh, my dad, he worked for Prudential Financial. He also had some startups, had some investment properties. My mom was an I C U nurse and so they, they bought us nice things. I was the youngest of four kids, so I had two older brothers, and then my sister was the oldest.

And, uh, we lived, you know, on 18 acres of land, we had a couple ponds we can go fishing in. Uh, we had, you know, the inground pool, the zip line, the dirt bikes. That’s where my love for dirt bikes comes from, by the way. All that fun stuff. Um, and, and one day my parents called us in, we’re like, we’re gonna have a family meeting.

And, uh, we sat down and they, they said, you know, all this stuff. And they kind of just like, look around. You guys have a good, pretty good life. And I was 12 at the time, and the other siblings are all older than me. And they said, you know, this stuff is all, um, fun, but it’s not what’s really important. And, and, and I kind of looked at ’em like, well, what do you mean?

They said, well, there’s a, there’s a country, um, that’s been under communism and it’s, it’s since been liberated. And this is the back in the, the mid, early nineties, early nineties. Um, and they said, you know, we’re, we’re gonna leave this stuff. We’re gonna sell all this stuff. We’re gonna quit our jobs. We’re gonna move to Ukraine.

And so I, I, as a 12 year old, didn’t really fully grasp what that meant because when they said, we’re moving somewhere every summer, we’d go to Cancun, Mexico for vacation. So I’m like, heck yeah, let’s go, let’s go to the sandy beaches of Ukraine. Little did I know they didn’t exist. And so for me, that example of like absolute faith and trust to move there.

And so, so for me it wasn’t, you know, it wasn’t just me that made this decision. It was my parents made that same decision. And so for me, I saw what that looked like to, to build a ministry, to start, um, seven churches, to start a bible institute in Ukraine that now, today, 30 years later, is still graduating students with the sole purpose of going out.

And, and spreading the gospel and going out and planting churches. And today, now with, with war happening in, in the towns where I, where I grew up, my friends that I grew up with, and in the, the, the same guys I went to the youth group with, they’re families they sent out of country, and they are going in the name of Jesus Christ and in love and going out to the, the towns and cities that are under siege right now and, and, and putting everything on the line to, to deliver food and, and wood burners because they can’t get gas from rush right now.

But more importantly, they’re not only spreading that, they’re spreading that in love. This is done in love with of Christ. And, and so we’re seeing the gospel continue on. So what that means to me is when we go all in and say, God, I’m gonna, I’m gonna let you interrupt my plans, and, and you do, you, do you, I’m gonna trust you when you do that.

He takes that small little seed, right? Small is a mustard seed even, and he grows it into something much bigger. Because it’s not about any of us. In fact, it’s so much not about us that my dad, he actually passed away on the mission field 21 years ago. He served for just nine years on the mission field, and yet that ministry is now 30 years old because it was never about Doug Emmer.

It was never about a missionary. It was about God’s using us in his capable hands to do big things. And so that’s what I, I, I’d love to share, like, my story is not just my story, it’s my parents’ story. It’s my grandparents’ story. Same thing. They, they, they left the US to go to Central America and engineer and a concert violinist, raised six kids on the road all throughout Central America, building radio stations to broadcast the gospel.

Now, 80 years later, still broadcasting the gospel all throughout Costa Rica, El Salvador, Niagua. All those countries. So it’s a legacy that I’m, I’m proud to be part of. But it’s also understandable for, for you those listening, if you step in faith, it has a generational ripple effect. And I would encourage you to step to see God’s, um, you know, power show up in real life when, if you’re wondering where he is, he’s alive and well, man, what a

24:43 Chris Grainger
powerful story.

I mean, absolutely. I I’m just your, your foundation to your family. You’re definitely, you walking out that you’re keeping the tradition going, I guess from actually stepping out on your faith. You know, it didn’t stop with you. And I’m sure it’s gonna make a big impact on your family as you move forward.

And I can only imagine though, your wife too, in that moment where, you know, you, she knew that that six month time, time clock was clicking. I’m sure that time flew by and now you’re okay. You’re, so let’s just go there. Let’s say the six months up, what do you do then?

25:15 Dan Emr
Cry a little bit. Worry. No, but beside, you know, the, the, the, the other thing, you know, was kind of getting started.

So I had that last month to really kind of figure things out. So I quit my job and within weeks was already in, in, in India. So we started, you know, the name worthwhile where a lot of people asked that, they’re like, what the heck is that? Doesn’t sound like a ministry. Doesn’t sound like an organization or nonprofit.

Well, we, we understood that in a lot of developing countries, um, trafficking was happening, uh, and born out of an economic need. So it’s kind of like the cultural norm. For, um, these developing countries for families to send their kids out to earn income too, to raise money. So traffickers would prey upon that, knowing that young girls are going out looking for work, they’d promised them work, you can go work in my restaurant, you can work in a hotel, you can work wherever.

And then, and then lie to them and force them into the brothels. And so, um, I first, oh, I’d left, I’d left my work and went right to um, uh, kind of a vision trip to India to see what does this look like? And saw firsthand these, these kids being sold. Right? And so again, my heart broke all over. And, and, and for me, I, I said, this is what we’re gonna do.

So we started by, um, building, um, uh, uh, a clothing, uh, sewing center and providing employment to women at risk or, uh, coming from the slum areas or that had been traffic. Um, and so we wanted to address the, the issue at its root cause, an economic need. And so we said if we can provide actual employment, we can help survivors get out and stay out of that.

We’ll never get involved if they’re in a high risk area. And so we started with making, you know, t-shirts, clothing, um, like the one I’m wearing this shirt saves lives as one of our worthwhile war tees. And so our catchphrase is worthwhile wear the story of freedom. And we tell businesses, you can, you can print whatever you want here.

You can print your company name, you can print the line within on there and, and you can promote what you’re doing or promote your business while promoting freedom at the same time. And so that’s where we started. Um, but the issue isn’t just an over there issue, Chris. Um, it happens here too. I

27:21 Chris Grainger
Okay. Oh, absolutely.

And I’m just curious when you said you saw it firsthand, you know, for, for the guys that there who we, we haven’t witnessed this. Wh what are you seeing him. What, what did, what did that look like?

27:32 Dan Emr
Yeah, I mean, when I, when I got there, I had, um, worked with some individuals that had done, um, uh, an Indian doctor that was here in the US had done studies of trafficking there in India.

So he, he had essentially was my, my conduit to opening doors to connect with pastors and other churches that were, um, working with survivors and women in the, and currently in the brothels. And so what it looked like, we would go into these, these areas that they would call ’em the, like the red light area and um, right.

We would go in with these pastors and, and we’ve had some other women in the group too, just for, for, um, you know, for making sure that we’re, it’s it’s above board and no one’s questioning while we’re there. And I would go into these places where, where the women, um, one in particular that just broke my heart was this one bed, right.

And, and actually it was, it was actually a line of beds, not just one bed, but, um, it was under this one bed though. I saw another set of pillows and, and a blanket. And so the bed was raised a couple feet off the ground. And I asked, I asked them like, can you talk to this woman who’s here selling herself?

And, and what does this look like? Why is the bed set up that way? I couldn’t make sense of it. And she, and she said, well, you know, that’s where my child sleeps underneath my bed. And so essentially she was selling herself or being sold, uh, on top, but she had a kid. And so the top part was where business was done and underneath is where this kid would sleep at night and my heart just broke.

And, and it was one of those things, Chris, I don’t know how else to explain it. When, when we would go into that area and we’d experience and see where they were living and what was happening and seeing other people maybe acro, you know, across the street that were about to start transacting, right? Uh, yeah.

Money for sex. And with, with those that were trafficking them, it, it, you could sense and feel the darkness, right? And that’s where it talks about, and, and John, like the light overcomes the darkness. It felt like we were in. Palpable, you know, tangible, darkness of evil. And so that was like the, the first kind of experience for me.

And this work was starting there in India. And, and I, I’ll be honest, I felt overwhelmed. I, I felt like the first night we came back from doing kind of the exploratory trip and, and, and I, I came back and we had a photographer with me. He was also a believer, came from the US with me. Um, and I told him, I said, Frank, I made a mistake.

I said, I can’t do this. And I, and I sat on the side of my bed there in India, in, in the village, and I just started weeping. And I said, I quit my job. I, I gave up everything for this. And I’m like, I can’t do this. And Frank said something to me that to this day, always sticks with me. He said something that we’ve all heard.

He said, let’s pray about it. And I felt like I wanted to smack him. I’m like, how’s that, how’s that gonna fix anything? Like, I literally just quit everything. And, and I, I’m here and I’m realizing this is too big. I can’t do anything. And we prayed, right? And I, and I woke up the next morning and there’s that, that verse that says that a piece that passes all understanding.

And I woke up with a piece that I did not understand and where it came from was a realization. And when we prayed about it and, and this issue, how big it was, is that number one, we as God’s kids are called to respond. We are not asked to Resco respond. We are required. Uh, Mike is six eight says, what does the Lord require of you but to love mercy, act justly while humbly with your God, right?

It’s a requirement. And so I woke up that morning realizing that not only is this a requirement, but God is the one that does the change, not me. So I had the per perspective the night before is that I can’t do this. And it needed me to get to that point. God needed me to get to that point where I said, I can’t do this.

And he’s like, you’re right. You absolutely cannot. But I can. And so it was from that moment on that I said, okay, God, this is all yours. Everything of this is just yours. Use me however you need to. And now we are 11 years later. You know, not only serving in India, but here in the US and, and in Pennsylvania, we offer the most comprehensive services to survivors of human trafficking in the state where I live now.

And that’s because this issue isn’t just an over there issue. It’s an issue that’s here as well,

31:42 Chris Grainger
man. And we wanna unpack that for sure. Hey, we, we’ll be right back guys.

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32:24 Dan Emr
line

32:25 Chris Grainger
within.us/speaking. There. You can contact us directly or share the link with your church leadership to get started. Again, that’s the lion within us slash speaking and I look forward to helping others unleash the lion within.

So, so, Dan. I can only imagine, brother. I mean, you’re sitting there, you know, and I think that so many times with guys we go through, but I, but I, but I, and it can’t be, we, it’s not our strength. It’s his strength. And it’s, anytime you start, start thinking about salvation and you start throwing eye, I I, you have to caution yourself, man.

It’s like, no, but he cuz but he Jesus, the Holy Spirit. So, you know, thank you for sharing that, that and sharing your heart. What a just what a impactful story. And so many times though, I know there are probably guys thinking that right now, well, yeah, that’s India, you know, but that it’s hard for in America to relate to that.

So bring it back, bring it home. Where, what, how can we recognize signs like that this is happening in America to be able to just be aware of more, more of, if anything. Yeah.

33:31 Dan Emr
Well I think it, it, it goes right back to getting educated right before you do anything. I think we, especially as guys, we tend to be problem solvers, fixers, right?

So see form, fix it. However, if we forego the education or we f forego how, how to best fix something or how, you know, talk to a survivor, what is it you really need? And we instead presuppose how to fix it. We can do more harm than good. So for me, it was getting educated and when I started learning about the issue, uh, I, I said, what does it look like where we live?

Right? Mm-hmm. That’s the first step. And so what it looks like is the average age of a traffic victim here in the US is 13 years old, so they’re, they’re kids, right? The average life expectancy for someone that’s been trafficked is, is only seven years. So from when they enter to when they die, because it’s a dangerous and violent crime world that they are, they’re pulled into.

Um, I started to learn about that and I started to, you know, say, what does this look like near where I live again, near in Philadelphia? And, and so one of the things I, I had looked at in, in a study I found was, was one done by this Dr. Anthony Marcus, who had gone out. And he, and he surveyed women that were being prostituted.

So some people were like, well, well, prostitution is a choice, right? Uh, that’s, it’s a bad choice maybe, but it’s a choice. It’s not trafficking. Well, let me, let me clarify something for you. The study he did is he went out and he surveyed 372 women in, in New York City and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Right.

Two pretty well known places, right? And of the 372 that he surveyed, 262 or minors were kids presently being sold on the streets. And then of that same number of 372 72 had started as minors. So nearly all of them were either presently kids or had started as kids. And then when he asked him like, if you could get out of this, if there were a way to get out, meaning like, is this bad or is this good?

90% of ’em said, yeah, I’d leave immediately if you gave me, if I had to way out of here and I could, I could survive. I would get outta here. And so for me that was a really eye-opening thing. Like this is an issue where we live. And the reason it’s happening where we live is again, we have a society, we have this mentality, right, our culture that if I want it, I get it.

And so again, criminals understanding that will go out and get it. And they can almost be safer if they’re, if they’re trafficking an individual because they, through force fraud, coercion, threat will tell these individuals, if you don’t do this, I will kill a loved one. If you don’t do this, I will do, name it whatever harm.

They’re, they’re naming and out of fear and threat. These young women, predominantly young women, there are some young men involved too, but these young women are, are, are being sold and the traffic is just waiting across the street. So if, if something were to come in or a sting were to happen, they can just roll out and leave that person, right?

So it’s almost safer for them. And so this is what it looks like here. And so we said we need to provide a response not only in India, but here in the us. And so we said, what does this look like? And we, we developed a model to serve a survivor wherever she is in her journey. Cause our focus is working with women.

And so we developed kind of a three-part model here in the US over the last 10 years. And that, that first starts with connecting with women in our communities. And that’s through, um, an outreach program that we call, uh, worth It and Worth. It is an opportunity for women to come together in a group like setting.

It’s a, a classroom type setting. They’re among peers where they, they’re, you know, not alone in this and they, they learn, okay, other women have had this happen to them. Which a lot of it, that’s a big time issue where a lot of times individuals that have, uh, experienced significant trauma don’t realize that others also have as well, and they feel very alone.

And, and so that worth it, class brings them together. And then we connecting to service providers and we host these worth, its all over the greater Philadelphia area. Um, and, and we host ’em in churches intentionally. And the reason why is we want women to also build healthy connections. So we, we take time to introduce them to service services in their area.

We, we do a lot of work on trauma and then we help them connect with people in these, these church communities to build healthy relationships so that they have ongoing support when they, they graduate. So that’s, that’s one of our programs. I don’t, I’ll, I’ll pause for a second before I explain the other two, but that’s, that’s one of the things where I, I share with churches and worth it, is actually growing.

Um, we have a, a director of programming who’s sole focused is to work with other, um, area, um, churches or other, um, organizations that work with survivors around the country to run their own worth IT programs so they can connect with survivors in their community and, and support them and, and connect them also to churches.

So churches become the mission field churches. We say, open your doors and welcome these women in and be a mission field and serve these women and let them know that they have value and worth. So is there

38:24 Chris Grainger
like a curriculum or something or a material that the church would take to, you know, once the women come in that like someone would facilitate the discussions or, you know, the, the teachings and things?

38:35 Dan Emr
Yeah, so we, we have a curriculum. Um, there’s also a video curriculum that goes with it. Um, but what, what it’s done also in part is, um, we, we have the church, um, we want the church to play the role of of, of serving the women and being that, that ministry part of it, what we do is we pair the church with another organization in their area that’s working with.

Survivors of trafficking. So that could be like, okay, task force, it could be a housing program, it could be an outreach program, or something along those lines. And we pair them together so that that organization that’s trauma informed, they have experience working with survivors know best how to serve them so that all the onus is not on the church to run it.

This other organization is the one that takes on the program, runs it in conjunction, in partnership with the church. And so, again, what I love is you get to see, you get to see these, um, different children of God, right? Working in different capacities, but working together for the same reason. And I think, yeah, honestly, I’ve seen it time and time again.

I, I think God is, is not only honored by it, he smiles when he sees his kids working together that way.

39:38 Chris Grainger
Yeah, absolutely. So that, so that’s step one you said is, is three parts of the model. Yeah.

39:43 Dan Emr
So the, the other part that we do as well is so women can go through the the Worth It program and when they graduate, they get a certificate.

And I’ll tell you that certificate as little, you know, as, as insignificant as it seems to me, is huge to them. Sure. Some of them hold it up and be like, I earned this. This is the first graduation I’ve ever had. Right. Yeah. So when they graduate though, they have the option then to apply to our second part of our phase, which is our, our housing program, which is called the Well And the Well is Long-Term Care.

That’s where we, um, you know, we talk about like foundation building. We say, you know, there’s a lot of trauma that’s happened in your life that’s regressed you or prevented you from, from growing as an individual. Um, we’ve maybe all heard the term Arrested Development. Well, arrested development means your development is stopped or arrested.

When trauma impacts you. And as I shared earlier, the average age is 13 years old. I, I can attest to that. So many of the women we’ve served that sexual exploitation and that sexual trauma has happened at such an early age that they’ve never grown up beyond in, in some capacities as a child because they never had those childhood experiences.

So we unpack a lot of that, build that foundation, address a lot of medical needs. Um, dental needs. A lot of times they come to us, they don’t have any documentation, so no birth certificate, social security card. Um, in a lot of cases we’ll work with them to get driver’s license. So during that time, they, um, they build foundation.

So they, we want them to, to excel and they have up to two years. So we have a kind of two parts. So we have a beautiful, um, 82 acre property that’s outside of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, um, where we start the program. And that’s where we have a lot of intensive, like case management. We offer a lot of therapies, counseling, things like that.

Once they’ve kind of gone through that first year, then they have the opportunity to move to our independent housing, which is offsite. It’s, um, three apartments, uh, that we renovated, actually opened it up last year. We had volunteers, you know, 50 volunteers from around the country, contractors come in and serve there to, to renovate that building and they can live independently at that second phase.

And it’s, um, where they can practice being on their own. Like what is it like to pay bills? Um, what is it like to register a vehicle? They, they don’t even know what that is. Like, what is, you know, paying taxes. None of us like to do it, but you have to teach ’em how to do those things. So we, we do a lot of the foundation building, um, and we see them start to really become independent.

Um, and, and that program, that housing program, we call it the, well, and we call it the well, and we name it, um, after John four, you know? Yeah. Um, because in John four, Jesus meets that Samaritan woman at the Well, yeah. And, and it’s a common name. We’re not all that creative, but what to me resonates is the story behind that.

And I share that with the women. I said, you know, we’re a faith-based organization. Like the beauty of that story is, is, is really two things that stand out to me is when Jesus meets the woman at the well, he asks that question that almost seems harsh or cruel. He’s like, go bring your husband. And he already knows what’s gonna happen, right?

And she’s like, I can’t. Yep. And he, and he, and he lists out, he said, you’re right. You’ve already had five husbands. Basically names are sins. And we almost could read into that. Like it’s really harsh. So the first thing is that Jesus doesn’t do it that way. He’s simply saying, I already know, like, and we as Christians have this proclivity, this, this, this reason in our mind we can’t figure out, but we try to hide our sins from him.

But he’s saying, is saying to this woman, like, I already know, right? And, and when she realizes that it’s the Messiah and he knows all the bad, but he’s still there and in spite of, that’s still loving on her. She then goes to part two of that story, she goes and brings the city to him, right? Brings the city to salvation.

We share that with the women all the time. You have that same ability to bring hope and salvation to others. And that’s what we hear from the women that have graduated from our program that they’re doing today. And so that’s the, the second part of what we do. They outreach through worth it, the housing through the well, uh, and the two properties that we manage.

43:36 Chris Grainger
That is, that is so powerful. And the third and the third part is go share that with us

43:41 Dan Emr
too. Yeah. So we, we know it’s great that we can offer housing and, and I think it’s, it’s wonderful when programs can offer housing, but if you never help, um, someone understand how they can earn a living and they graduate a housing program on their own are doing them at this a disservice cuz we find it’s really important to provide the employment piece.

So we, um, train them kind of job training through, um, what we have are worth worthwhile thrift stores. So, uh, worth it worthwhile where worth it. Uh, or worthwhile thrift. You can kind of catch onto the trend there we’re trying to convey Yep. Worth and value. So worthwhile thrift is where they can get employment and while they’re employed with us, we pay them, they um, we do budget planning, financial literacy.

They start their own savings account. For many of them, it’s the first time. And, and, and I will tell you the first time, you know, they, they get a paycheck. Uh, there’s a lot of pride in that, but they, yeah. So, you know, start with us. And a lot of times it’s either the first job they’ve had or the first time in a very long time.

And if I’m being completely honest, Chris, they’re not always the best employees. And we’re like, Hey, make those mistakes with us. Learn while you’re with us. Um, and we want you to grow. I, I had, I remember one, one story in particular that stands out of this one woman, uh, young lady, come, come into my office, right?

And I happened to have my offices at the location of one of our stores, and she walks in and she starts off by yelling at me saying, you’re stealing from me. And just pointing at my face, you’re stealing from me. How dare you? And I said, all right, let’s pause for one second. Like, let’s, let’s just be clear here.

If you did this anywhere else, you’d be fired. All right. So that’s the reality of the world. Let’s start over. What is it you’re trying to say? She says, I’m sorry. She says, I’m sorry, mi angry. And she goes, and she pulls out her checking and hands it to me. She’s like, look at this money. It’s coming outta here.

You’re stealing from me. I said, okay, those are called taxes. I said, it feels like stealing. Yeah. Quincy, it’s not, it’s not us. So it was a great learning opportunity for her. Yeah. Um, but they, they have an opportunity to save and, and, and build up a, a nest egg. And while they’re with us, we then encourage them to get employment elsewhere.

Because, you know, as someone who I, I personally, we have to hire people. We’re always interviewing and hiring people. We have about 70, 75 staff. Um, and so I, I tell ’em, I said, you know, listen, if you’re unemployed and looking for work, that’s, tech tends to be a bit of a hurdle. You know, to overcome. But if you’re currently employed and say, Hey, I’m just looking for work that pays more, and then you have us as a reference, if you’re a good worker, we’re gonna give you a good reference.

And we have women that are leaving and getting career jobs, working in the medical field. Yeah. Working in manufacturing. Um, because they’ve learned basic skills with us. Like when to call out, when you’re sick, when to, like, how to swap schedules, how to be polite when talking to other people. Um, you know, all those things.

And, and women that have started with us in worth it have graduated worth it, gone through the well housing program, started employment with us, gotten a job elsewhere that has livable wages and benefits, been reunited with their kids. And a majority of the women that graduate from our programs have about $10,000 in savings.

They have three healthy mentors in their life, which is a requirement to help them on that ongoing success. And, and they, they have, um, you know, stable housing. They have their first vehicle. So we, we’ve, as you know, essentially and successfully built that foundation for them to heal. And then move forward and, and, and it’s, you know, a joy to us to see that work.

And that’s how, you know, as I shared earlier, we, we offer the most comprehensive services. That’s how we do it, is through all those avenues that we’re offering survivors. And, um, and it’s, and it’s, it takes a long time. It takes commitment, but it, it’s working. And we see those lives change. Man, this is such

47:15 Chris Grainger
a powerful cause.

I love the three steps you guys are, are making such an impact too. So guys, we’re gonna take our last break, but don’t leave because I want, Dan’s going to give us some insight on what you can do to start taking an a action yourself to make an impact. This for, for, for this major issue.

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So to get your free guide, head over to the line within us slash habits. That’s the line within us slash habits and start creating the habits you need to be the leader God intends you to be.

So Danny, you just cover some very big areas, man. Now speak to the men that are there, are listening and they’re convicted. They want to take action. They’re tired of just being a sideline participant here and, and, and they wanna move forward, unleashed in line within, if you will. What can they do to start, you know, really making an

48:28 Dan Emr
impact.

Yeah, I think, I think the, the, the challenge, and this is a question I get a lot, you know, people are like, well, how do I know when God’s calling me? And I would say that the first thing is always be serving right? Always be involved. And, and, and God has plans for us. And it, and it’s different for everyone, you know, but what’s what’s great is that he can use us all for his purpose.

And it may look different for all of us, but if you’re always serving and being available, um, God can, can use you from there. And I think one of the things I, I, I caution people on is we are very fortunate here in, in America, right? We have a lot of things. We have a lot of things accessible to us. Yeah.

But we, we get comfortable in that and we, we, we get soft, I’ll say, and, and, and what we’re called to do is step in faith. And, and what I see happen a lot of times is, is, um, you know, Satan, Satan can’t stop God’s work. He, he, he can’t. He wishes he could, but he can’t. But what he can do, He is the king of fear.

He’s the king of doubt. And so what he does is he tries to, to, to, to subdue that desire to serve God. He tries to put, insert the, the seed of fear, like what’ll happen if I leave my job and pursue God? And that little seed, we then water and feed with our doubt and fear of like, Hey, I, I don’t know what else is gonna happen next.

And, and we pray for, for, for clarity. And we pray for clarity. And we pray for clarity. And God’s saying no, at some point I need you to be courageous and have courage over clarity and step in faith, because if we water and feed that seat, it, it grows into this impassable, you know, brush that we can’t get through.

We can’t see what God has in store for us. It blocks our vision. And so for us is, is to put aside that doubt that is from Satan, that fear that that uncertainty is from Satan because God has said time and time again, I have your back. Right. And so I challenge men to step in faith and serve in some capacity.

And it may not be with us. That is fine as long as you’re serving because it’s a requirement, as I’ve already shared, and that’s not coming from me, that’s directly from God that we have to serve and act justly. And so that’s the first step is, is, is putting aside that fear and trust in God. And I will, I will be the first to share with you when you step in faith.

God provides, he provides in ways you could never imagine. And I don’t think I have time to share all those, but I have so many of those stories where God has set up time and time again. And so for us, I, I encourage, I love people to get involved because when I came back from Ukraine as a young 18 year old man, I wanted to serve.

And everywhere I went, I heard, um, well, you can write it KK or you can pray for this. Both valid things, both very necessary. I’m not putting those down, but I wanted to get my hands dirty. And so when we started this work, we said, we’re gonna make it so that everyone can get involved. And so we engaged volunteer groups, volunteer people.

We have build projects. I kind of mentioned before we had volunteers from around the country coming to do renovation projects. We have renovation projects every year. Last year we built a store. We put an addition of classrooms on our education counseling center. We renovated a building into three apartments.

Those are all through volunteers. So there’s ways like that you can get involved. Um, and, and, and we have other ways too. I don’t know if I should jump into other ways you can get involved on a national scale that we’re doing now, or Chris, I dunno. You lead the, you lead the way. Hey,

51:52 Chris Grainger
I think right now this is opp the spears leading it, man.

So let’s just go, I mean, the guys, if there, if their opportunities to serve, let’s, let’s share it with them and we’ll make sure we put all the links in the

52:00 Dan Emr
show notes form. Yeah. So, uh, what I wanna share too is we do everything every year we, we launch, um, what we call an act challenge. It’s a national act challenge.

Cause we want people to be active, right? Active in their faith. And, and we kind of play on words because we can be active in our faith. We can also be physically active, right? And we, and sometimes we’re pent up after winter and we wanna get outside and wouldn’t be active. So what we do every year is we, we make a really unique opportunity where we go and do the heavy lifting on the fundraising side and we get sponsors from around the country, businesses, churches, individuals, foundations, and they commit to saying, Hey, I’m gonna donate X amount of dollars.

But they’re not fully on the hook because those dollars get unlocked through our community. So men, if you’re listening to this and you’re around the country, like, Hey, I, I, I have a little too much of a, of a beer belly. I need to work that off. You can use this as an excuse. Go outside. If you’re active and you’re, and you’re willing to, to walk, run, bike, swim, kayak, roller blade, if anyone still does that, and you log those miles on our website, um, it’s called the ACT Challenge.

It’s a national act challenge. It’s raising awareness and it’s also raising funds that go towards housing and community outreach, as I shared that Worth It program is growing into other communities around the country. The ACT challenge, the whole purpose is to also raise those funds to support that while raising awareness.

At the same time, we, in fact, we have these little postcards. We mail them all over the country. So if you have listeners that are saying, Hey, I would like this act challenge postcard. It has information because it’s a great conversation starter. We tell it people like. Hey, where do I even start? How do I even get connected to share the, the gospel or the word and move forward?

Well, this is a simple way. If you’re walking and you see your neighbors are walking every day, you hand ’em this card and like, Hey, this is, this is something where you can commit your miles to serving survivors of human trafficking. And people might ask, well, what’s about human trafficking? What’s this organization?

And you start to share, you know, how God has, has utilized individuals across the country to support survivors. And, and it, and it’s a great door opener in that regard too. And so we tell people, if you’re interested, just email us and we’ll, we’ll mail you however many cards you need, a couple dozen, a couple hundred.

Um, but we want people to get involved and put your miles to use. And, um, know that every mile you log between May 1st to July 30th, so about 90 days. Um, okay. They’ll be, they’ll be matched with a dollar. And we end on July 30th, not July 31st. July 30th is World Day. Against trafficking. Okay. And so we ended on that day as, as we work towards that goal.

Um, so visit our links, visit the websites for more information on that.

54:37 Chris Grainger
Okay. And we’ll make sure we have those links in the show notes. And I’m just go ahead and tell you guys the, the members of the line within this community. This is gonna be our challenge. I’m, I’m making a decision now. We’re gonna make that happen in June.

That will be our June challenge. So, uh, so yeah, for sure. This is gonna be awesome. So, man, this is great stuff, Dan. Yeah. So, you know, uh, before we, before we wrap up and, and kind of get to some, some other areas, let’s jump into our lightning round with you, because this has been incredible today to, to hear these things to, to, but now we’re leaving with some action, which gets me pretty excited, man.

But before you go, let’s, let’s have some little bit of fun here as we wrap up. All right. Alright, cool. We call this the feeding time, but in line within us. So just quick fire stuff man. Just to, to, to let our, our listeners know a little bit more about you. You’ve already shared so much, but this is just gonna be a little bit of fun.

So, what’s your favorite hobby outside of dirt

55:23 Dan Emr
biking? I’m gonna have, I’ll make you go outside of dirt bike. Well, that, that was my, that would be my choice. So my other favorite hobby is I love hiking. I just had the chance. I went and hiked, uh, um, uh, Zion National Park and Arches National Park about two weeks ago.

Um, nice. Just logging lots of heavy, you know, 8 18, 15 mile days of hiking. That was great. I love being outside.

55:44 Chris Grainger
That’s it. That’s it. Now you can only have one meal to eat every day. What are you eating? Ah, man.

55:51 Dan Emr
I don’t know if this is wrong to say, but Wings and beer,

55:57 Chris Grainger
man. I hear you buddy. That’s awesome.

56:01 Dan Emr
Good deal. But it’s pretty tasty.

56:05 Chris Grainger
Yeah. But you’re logging the miles to work, you know, to do for it, right? Yeah. So I mean, I’m, I’m gonna probably run a 5K when we finish up today, and then I’ll, you know, make, go get some chicken wings. Now you need to move from chicken wings.

There you go. So, so what’s, uh, a little bit more serious one. What’s your favorite thing about God?

56:22 Dan Emr
I’ll tell you, man, when he shows up, he shows up and, and it’s, it’s one of those things where, um, I’ll tell you ten second story. I, I, I, we committed to this work. Um, I was sitting in, we were, we were in a church parsonage.

I’d sold everything. We had nothing left. And I was sitting there and I was looking at our bank account, and I took a screenshot of our bank account because it was a zero, right? So I was not used to that. And as a, as a dad and as a husband, I was upset. I was, I was pissed off, right? Yeah. Cause I basically was, was having a conversation with God, like, I’ve committed everything to you, and you’re leaving me high and dry.

And I was angry. I took that screenshot and then I, and I, and I actually, I went outside, grabbed the mail just to get my mind off of it. And I came back in and went through the mail and there were some, some bills, some junk mail. And then there was a, a letter with my name on it, opened it, and there was a check with my name on it for $10,000.

And I, I wasn’t aware that my grandmother who had passed away several months prior had a, had a inheritance, a will. And I was part of that. And it, and it’s not lost on me that it came on that moment when I said, God, how dare you, you didn’t show up. And guess what, that’s what I love about God. He shows up time and time again.

57:37 Chris Grainger
Amen to that brother. Amen. To that. I’m gonna flip it 180 on you. What’s your least favorite thing about Satan?

57:44 Dan Emr
He is, uh, well, I already said he is a father of doubt, but he likes to tempt us man. Yeah. He, he’s constantly, uh, he’s constantly trying to pull us down and it’s, um, I see it too. When we see our, our work doing well, um, when we have women coming into the program, we have a lot of growth, um, happening.

Our growth on the horizon, man, Satan attacks and he attacks hard. He’s, he’s hit us, he’s hit us really hard, you know, because he hates it. And so he, he works to break people down. Doubt. Um, you know, we, we’ve, over the course of these 11 years, we’ve had women that have, um, we’ve lost to overdoses and drugs that have been in our outreach programs and, and our housing program hurts, man.

It’s like you invest, you pour into these women that they’re, they’re love that they’re worth it. And, and Satan gets ahold of him and I hate it cuz he, he wants it. I think he wants it more than me sometimes. And I hate that.

58:43 Chris Grainger
Yeah, I know, I know brother. Well, let’s just look as we get to end here. So what’s, what’s something that you spent too much time doing last year?

You look back over the year, we all, you know, we’ve spent, we often waste a lot of time. So what did you spend too much time doing? Yeah, I, I

58:58 Dan Emr
went, I was talking to someone about this last night. I, last year, I, um, I like working with my hands and I went bit too far. So I ended up renovating a, a, a house that was an investment property while also renovating another in-law house for my mother while also building, um, a new store that was 30,000 square feet while also renovating a parsonage into three apartments and then also doing an addition of two classrooms on our education counseling center.

So I, I did too much and I said, I said that was it. I said, burn myself out basically in one year. And I said, my wife, I’m not doing that again. That was stupid. Yeah, so I was working with my hands. I said I like working with my hands. I went way too far with that and was doing construction projects outside of all my regular work.

Um, day and night, uh, morning and night I was doing that. So

59:53 Chris Grainger
yeah, we were talking about this last night in one of our events. In Alliance, sometimes you have to learn how to say no, you know, where it just, you know, it. It’s, it’s nothing wrong. It’s, no, it’s not a four letter word is what one of the God said.

So, uh, nothing wrong with that, but hey man, it sounds like they were all good. Well, well-intended projects and you sound like you got, they were skilled that, that, yeah. So, last two, what’s a new habit that you’ve recently created or that you want to create moving forward?

1:00:16 Dan Emr
Oof. You know, I, I’m a, I’m a avid podcast listener, and I, and I’m trying to get myself to read books, but it’s like, it’s really intentional to like sit and read as hard, um, So I, I don’t know if I’m ready to commit to that, but I think I should.

I think it’s good to like, let your ears rest and, and read, read with your Eyes. Um, so that’s something I’m trying to do. And I think the other is just trying to get back in, into working out and being more in shape. I, I used to, used to do that all the time. I, I’d be, I guess I would have the certification of a gym rat, uh, at one point.

Okay. And then, you know, started ministry and that kind of went to the wayside, not as a, you know, I don’t regret that. Well, I kind of regret it, but that’s something I wanna get back into as well. Those are two things. So I’m using the act challenge as my kickoff. I’m setting a 500 mile goal for myself from, from May 1st to July 30th.

So,

1:01:07 Chris Grainger
okay. Well, you can get it done, man. That’s a lot of miles. But if you mix in Viking and some other stuff like that, I’m sure you can crush that. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. So the last question for you, Dan, what’s one thing that you hope the guys that they’re listening remember from our conversation today?

1:01:23 Dan Emr
Yeah. Don’t, don’t let your comfort become a barrier. Don’t let your, what you have, like you may have means don’t let that stop you. You may be without, don’t also let that stop you because sometimes we, we, we are hindered from serving God because of our abundance or because our lack thereof, right? Mm-hmm.

We get an, we let Satan seed of fear and doubt grow. And so an men and challenge them to step in faith. If you feel that the Lord is calling you to serve, to maybe start a Bible study, to maybe encourage, um, a group of men to go out and volunteer. There’s so many volunteer groups where you are that would love to have some handymen show up and say, Hey, what can we do for you?

Right? And I will tell you firsthand that when I, I’ve seen these men step up and volunteer and, and they’re working. And the women in our programs, in our housing program especially said, why are they here? What do they want? And I say, they want nothing other than to share their love and care with you through their service.

And it has profoundly impacted these women to see that men, there are good men out there. And so be a good man, be a good husband, a good father, and, and, and lead by example. As my parents did. They, they stepped in faith and now I stepped in faith and I hope the same for my kids, that they’ll step in faith.

But it takes us being bold and courageous and, and releasing, unleashing that line within because it’s there. It’s just waiting for us to step in

1:02:44 Chris Grainger
faith and be courageous. Amen of that brother. So where do you want ’em to go? We’ll make sure that Act Link is in the show notes, but where else? What should they go to connect with you worthwhile wear all the wonderful things that you’re

1:02:55 Dan Emr
doing.

Yeah. To learn more about our work and what we do, go to worthwhile wear.org. So that’s. Worthwhile. W O R T h W H I L e ware, w e a r.org. Org You’re probably gonna show this on the screen. I don’t even know why I said that, but that’s how you get there for the website. So worthwhile wear, like clothing, um, and yeah, get, get involved that way.

If you’re business and saying, Hey, I want, I wanna, I wanna, um, print shirts for our company. Um, we tell people, you, you go to your screen printer and tell them to contact us, or you can contact us directly. Um, we, we’d love people to promote their thing and also promote freedom as well. All the funds that these shirts generate go into these services that we offer.

And these, these services are expanding, um, beyond Pennsylvania now to new country, our new, uh, new, uh, states. And so by, by getting involved that way, you can do it if you feel led to financially contribute. That’s another way we always pour it back into the ministry. Um, we feel that we’re, we’re, we’ve.

We’ve proven ourselves to, to pour back into the women we serve. Um, but that fuel, that financial fuel helps us reach and serve more, and that’s ultimately our goal. So those are some ways that you can get involved. Uh, yeah, we’d love to, love to connect with your audience more in that way. Absolutely.

1:04:08 Chris Grainger
Are you guys on any social media or anything like

1:04:10 Dan Emr
that?

Yeah, we are on, uh, on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, all, um, through the, at symbol at Worthwhile Ware, no space, no dash. So at Worthwhile Ware. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, um, all those fun things.

1:04:24 Chris Grainger
Okay. Well make sure we try to get those social links in the, in the show notes for you guys as well to connect with Dan and all the wonderful things they’re doing at Worthwhile.

So Dan, this has been incredible. Thank you so much. Anything else you’d like to share with us today on the line with

1:04:36 Dan Emr
Dennis? Uh, no. I just appreciate this opportunity and I, I hope this is, uh, maybe a challenge. Um, Know that when, when we follow God, it’s, it’s oftentimes maybe even an interruption. And God’s trying to, to, to stop your narrative to say, I got something else for you.

Be it, be at tenant. But to that, be listening for that. Um, don’t let those opportunities pass by. Because when you take time, and it may be just investing in one person, right? If you take time for even just that one person in God’s calling, he can do mighty things. In fact, he took one woman and brought a city to Christ through her.

So take that, be encouraged. Go out there and just reach out. Touch one life with the hope and truth that God is here for us alive and well today, and he can change lives if we trust him and step in faith.

1:05:21 Chris Grainger
Amen, bro. Amen. Well, dance has been an absolute treasure, sir. Thank you so much and been the delight to meet you and to hear your story.

And you definitely left us with a charge. And guys, remember when you’re hearing this, it’s time to take action. Click on that link, go sign up, log those miles and make an impact. So Dan, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you.

So guys, I told you that one was gonna be chock full tons of insight there. Lots of ways you can take action. Now, you heard me mention this. It’s gonna be our, our June challenge to take is to be take part of this ACT program. So we’re, we’re gonna ha set up a line within US team. So if you wanna be part of that team, you need to come check out the line within.us, join our community.

You can be part of our team to take action, to be part of that act challenge. If you’re listening to this and you are line within US member, go ahead and get started. You should know about this by now. Cause we’re what, a few days into the month of June. You should know about this right now. Get, start logging those miles and whatever those miles are, biking, running, swimming, uh, walking, it doesn’t matter.

Log to miles and let’s make an impact. Okay? So the question is weak. What does, what is your response to human trafficking? So everybody ha you have an option. Your response can be nothing. That is an op, that’s an option. You could have that as your response, but if you truly want to make a difference, Take some action.

We’ve given you some real practical ways you can do this right now. Now, if you’re in the, the upper part of the country, close to Pennsylvania and you want to, to start doing some volunteer work and things like that, hey, go check out the resources that work while wear, okay? There’s great ways to do that.

No matter where you are, you can take this, this, this Act challenge. This is something you can lean into right now. You can lead your small group or you can lead your men’s group. You can leave your, your church, your Sunday school class, whatever it looks like. You could be the voice that brings this to them, okay?

You could be the voice that brings this to them. Now, I got Dan to send me a bunch of those cards, so if you need one of those cards, send an email to support at the line within us. I will mail them out myself. We’ll mail them to you, whatever you need, and get you a card so that you can share this message with others.

Okay, so guys, there’s no excuses here. I’m trying to take all excuses off the table. So again, support at the line with us. If you need any supporting material on these, on the cards themselves, the, the, the little postcards that you can share that with others. Okay? But let’s have a response. Don’t let no action be your answer.

It needs to be, I’m gonna be, I’m gonna take action. I’m gonna stand firm, I’m gonna stand up, and I’m going to have a voice. Where for some of these women, obviously they’re not able to speak up for themselves. Guys, if this impacted you, I encourage you to share this with others. That’s the biggest thing for sure.

Ratings and reviews, they help. But just share it. Just share the stuff out. That’s the best way you can help a podcast grow. We’re all about word of mouth. We’re not putting money into ads or anything like that. The line within us grows because guys like you and girls like you, who listen. You share it with, with your friends and you talk about it and you take the time that you know what?

Go hit the button. Say, forward this episode and send it to, to send it to a group of buddies. Maybe send it to a group chat that you’ve been part of and just say, Hey, this is a really important topic. Maybe we can talk about this some. What do you guys think about this? What can we do to make an impact on human trafficking?

Cuz it’s hitting closer to home than we like to, than than than you like to think. I guarantee you it’s in your community. You just may not be aware. Okay. So again, just share this stuff out. Uh, that would be huge. Go to the line within us. We have lots of resources there. Join our community. Join a daily spiritual kickoff group.

If, if that was what you prefer, there’s all sorts of ways to connect with us to grow, uh, to be the leader God intend you to be. We have the, the quiz out there or our, how strong of a, of a Christian leader are you. So we have tons of resources to help you grow cuz that’s what we’re all about, helping you be the leader God intends you to be.

So come back on Friday for our Fun Friday episode. We’re gonna have some really good tips. We’ll kind of recap some stuff. I gotta couple a really good dad jokes that I think you’re gonna enjoy. But I hope to see you back on the Fun Friday episode. Keep getting after it. Keep standing strong. Keep standing up for those who can’t stand up for themselves and keep unleashing the lion within.