wfn.org | ABCUSA: AB Women's Ministries Announces Recipients Of Break The Chains Funding

["Jayne, Andy" <Andy.Jayne@abc-usa.org>]

VALLEY FORGE, PA (ABNS 05/29/08) - American Baptist Women's Ministries
(ABWM) has selected four American Baptist-related ministries to receive
grants from Break the Chains: Slavery in the 21 st Century, a two-year
national mission project launched by ABWM in July 2007 and dedicated to
ending sex trafficking. The selections were announced today by Virginia
Holmstrom, executive director of ABWM.

A new ministry in Ghana will receive Break the Chains funding in 2009 to
help provide safe care and job skill training to women and children
rescued from sex slavery in a culture where families will give daughters
to priests of traditional religions to "atone" for misfortunes
experienced by the family. Patricia Neil, an American Baptist
International Ministries-endorsed missionary candidate, will be working
with the Ghana Baptist Convention in this ministry.

Woman to Woman, a new ministry to be implemented by International
Ministries missionary Debbie Kelsey in northern Italy, will receive
funding in 2009. The ministry will build relationships between churches
and immigrant women through language tutoring, employment training, and
outreach ministries. According to Kelsey, it's not unusual for
immigrants in Italy to work in prostitution out of economic desperation.

In Lebanon, a grant from Break the Chains will provide funding for the
Maids in Lebanon project begun by International Ministries missionary
Sarah Chetti, who already visits imprisoned "illegals" brought into
Lebanon to work as domestic maids; these women's human rights are
largely ignored when they are exploited and abused. The Maids in Lebanon
project will minister to the foreign maids who are in prison and will
seek to get them back safely to their homes and families.

A Break the Chains grant will also fund The Good Samaritan Project, a
new ministry of the Pleasant Green Development Association in Kansas
City, Missouri, and directed by the Rev. Janice K. Blackmon. The project
will engage the urban community in education about human trafficking,
prevention efforts, and outreach ministries to persons at high risk of
being targeted by traffickers in this high-profiled transit area of our
nation.

AB Women's Ministries hopes to fund two more U.S.-based projects from
second year donations to Break the Chains, and will solicit and consider
proposals from emerging ministries in the United States that seek to end
sex trafficking and/or reach out to at-risk women and children.

"We've set a national goal to raise $250,000 over two years' time to
invest in new projects that minister to victims of sexual exploitation
or that work to prevent situations in which it happens," said Holmstrom.
"Based on the enthusiasm and commitment of American Baptist women toward
Break the Chains, I anticipate we'll exceed the half-way funding mark
before the end of June." She noted that many of the AB Women's
Ministries regions set ambitious goals last year and will conclude their
project year this spring or summer. A number of them are adopting the
project again for the second year.

ABWM President Terri Simpkins emphasized that the project is not all
about raising funds for ministry. "Beyond the funding aspect of this
national mission project, I see American Baptist women who are seeking
out information and education about human trafficking because Break the
Chains has introduced them to a real need. They're becoming enlightened
women, and they're making commitments to do ministry because their
hearts have been moved to action." One example is a team of American
Baptist women in Massachusetts who became passionate about learning
about human trafficking and are now sought-after speakers at AB women's
events in surrounding regions.

Projects chosen last year to receive in 2008 funding raised during the
first year of Break the Chains, are: resources on human trafficking and
ministry outreach being developed by Rev. Susan Omanson of Sioux Falls,
South Dakota; Night Light USA, a ministry to workers in the sex industry
in Los Angeles, California; a jewelry-making cooperative for Mexican
immigrant women at Peoria Friendship House of Christian Service, Peoria,
Illinois; education and rehabilitation for trafficked girls and women at
New Life Center, Chiang Mai, Thailand; the Convention of Philippine
Baptist Church's new ministry to women working as prostitutes in the
beach areas of Iloilo; and a community outreach and family life center
ministry of The Mansion of Light Baptist Church in La Guacima, Costa
Rica.

During each of the two years of Break the Chains fundraising, a portion
of the donations is being set aside for new ministries begun by American
Baptists in 2009 and beyond.

Information about the project, its progress, and ways to get involved
can be viewed at AB Women's Ministries Break the Chains website at
www.abwmbreakthechains.org.

Andrew C. Jayne American Baptist Churches USA Mission Resource Development http://www.abc-usa.org/