Jamie Miller, Child trafficking advocate, with The Demand Project.

Welcome to A New Life podcast with.

Pamela Jean, where it's all about empowering women to empower more women. Get ready, friends, to create a new life. And here is your host, Pamela Jean.

Hello, my friends, and welcome to this week's episode of A New Life podcast. I'm your host, Pamela Jean, and I'm so grateful that you're here with me today. I know that your time is. The most valuable commodity that you have in your life is your time. I thank you so much for spending your time with me on the podcast today. This podcast is not going to disappoint. I have an incredible guest with me today. Her name is Jamie Miller. You'll get to meet Jamie in just a moment, but before we get started, if you will please pass this podcast along to all of your friends and family that need something that's uplifting, supportive, encouraging. This is absolutely the place for you and all of your friends to be. So it's New Life podcast with Pamela Jean. You'll find it on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast. You can even hit my website, Pamela Jean a New life. Com. You can find it there as well. Just hit the podcast tab and it'll take you to all of the episodes. So without further ado, I want to bring Jamie Miller onto the podcast. She is an incredible woman with an incredible story and I cannot wait for you to meet her. Jamie, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me, Pamela. I love that our conversation gets to be recorded because we talk a lot.

We do talk a lot. I know, I know. We have never recorded it. So this is, this is new for both of us. What's really funny is we could probably talk non stop for 24 hours straight. I don't think we would have any trouble with that. But to respect our guest time or our audience time, we probably shouldn't do that.

So, Jamie, tell.

Tell the audience, who are you? Where are you from? Where did you grow up? Just give us some backstory on you before we get into the meat of our conversation today.

Yes, who am I? That's such a loaded question. Because when you look back at your whole life story, you're like, I've been a lot of things. I am going to be 40 years old this year and I was having a conversation with a 22 year old and he is just looking at me and all going, what haven't you done? Right? Because my life has just, you know, from childhood to, you know, growing up to college, to go, you know, moving away, I've moved halfway across the country four times. I've had so many jobs, couple degrees, and it's just crazy to think, who am I?

That's a great question. Depends on which day you ask exactly.

And I think so many women, like, we are so many things. And you know, where I grew up, I am a Texas girl living in an oaky world, which I absolutely love. I am. I was born to Moses and Terry back in Dallas, Texas, and that's where I was born and raised. When I graduated high school, I. My mom said, jamie, I want you to go to a Christian college. And I said, well, what's the biggest one? And so if you know me, you know, it's because I just needed a lot of friends. And so I ended up moving away to Virginia at Liberty University for college, transferred to ou, met an Okie boy. And I remember going home, taking them to my friends back in Dallas, and they're like, oh, my gosh, does he have a brother? Cousins? And I'm like, you gotta go up there. The Oklahoma boys are amazing. You know, they're all a little bit country. They're all, you know, every. I call it the pocket knife effect, because you have a group of Okie boys for a pocket knife and they.

All, you know, they all whip one out.

That was wild. But they also will allow you to pick out their clothes and tell you. Tell them what shoes to wear. So I married Jason Miller in 2010 and we have two beautiful daughters, ages 11 and 8. So we are. I used to say we're in it, like in the. In it, but we're not. We're on the other side of that and doing all the activities. You know, I'm a full time working mom. He has a full time job. We also own a business. We have five acres, partridge and a pear tree. Really?

Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Well, and at least your Dallas family, you're not too far from them. It's Tulsa to Dallas is a quick, easy drive. And Dallas is obviously a great place to visit anytime you get a chance to head south.

Shopping happens.

I know. Exactly. That's where the retail damage does take place. I understand. So, Jamie, tell me. You know, people make a big impact in our lives. Who inspired you to become who you are today?

You know, we can't talk about Jamie Miller without talking about the Holy Spirit and what the Lord has done in my life. So when I think about who shepherd, that. That would be my grandmother, Elaine Crawl. She's 84 years old. And also my mother, which is her daughter Terry and my sister Julia. So I am one of the lucky ones that has a lineage of praying women. So if anybody can relate to that, you know that there's so much power, and for a lot of us, it's why we're still standing today.

Awesome. To have that strength, that power, those powerful women in your life that sound like they've rallied around you your entire life.

And through prayer, you know, we've had relational issues. You know, I wouldn't say, like, I'm actually. My mom just text me before we went live. Like, I mean, we're not perfect, but, you know, it's the praying that made such a difference in my life, and knowing that. That they believed and had the faith that the Lord was going to take care of them and their family. And so I would say those women in that line is what has strengthened me to my core.

And, you know, I think something important to point out sometimes, especially when we're children growing up and teenagers and going into those young adult challenging years, we don't really know how to pray for ourselves very well. We pray for what we want. You know, I want a new car. God, let me get a new car. I mean, we pray for the things that we want. Right? But you have that grandmother who has an intercession prayer. She intercedes for you in the blank spaces, the gaps where you're not praying for yourself. And that grandmother is pouring that intercessional prayer into your life that is so important and so powerful. And I'm. I'm so happy, Jamie, that you had that in your life, that, you know, that your grandmother was praying for you probably. Probably before you were even born. And that's just such a beautiful gift. Oh, it is. It's so cool. So I can't remember exactly, Jamie, how I met you, but I think I met you through your work at the Demand Project. And for the audience members that don't know what the Demand Project is, Jamie, would you mind? I know this. That is a conversation in itself that could take, you know, a week. But if you could share about the Demand Project, how you got involved and what the role of the Demand Project is today in our communities, in our state.

I met you through Kelly Stacy at our 2021 gala, raising hope blue tie gala. You had taken her pictures.

Do you remember? Yes. And I have to tell you, I brought Kelly to the Demand Project.

I know your podcast. It's like I brought your zoom. I know.

It's like I recruited Kelly.

So. So you were involved before I was. And so I know that that was the connection that, that I had gotten to know you and my goodness, Pamela, you are, you're such an inspiration and just such an encourager and oh, you know, kind.

Thank you.

Out people like you. I wouldn't be as strong even in the position that I'm currently in that he's, you know, the Kim, the Kim Spencer's and the Pamela Jeans. You know, I mean, those women that, that have, you know, really championed me on, challenged me, but also more than anything, encouraged me because this work, working with children, surviving sexual exploitation and working in the community, telling a story that is something that people want to ignore because it's almost impossible to digest. It does take a really special person. And I'm not calling myself special, but the Lord knows my strengths. And so when he strategically positioned me at the organization through a series of literally God ordained things that we don't even have time to go into, but he was, he was priming and prepping me for a decade. I was introduced to child trafficking back in 2010 at a time that no one was talking about it. Nobody was, there was hardly any education out there. And I, as a, as a rebel, I do have that rebel in me. I knew that I was onto something important because it was against the grain and it was not popular. And I've always been one to lean into some of those things and be a front runner. I'm a trendsetter in a lot of aspects. And so it, it was 10 years before I even knew about the Demand project, that God was, was positioning me and he was teaching me and showing me things that I needed to know because he was strengthening my shoulders. I was going to be carrying a burden for children that needed to be saved out of this modern day slavery and children that needed to have not just a safe place, but a place of restoration. I also, he also knew that I was going to be encountering parents that needed to tell me their stories and people needing to share what's happened to them. And that's not for everyone. And so my position at the organization that's serving children and adults in the realm of, you know, victim to survivor to thriver, we don't even want them living in the survivor mindset. We want them to be more than what has happened to them. But what my position is, is I, I help fund all of the departments in which we are fighting human trafficking, child sexual abuse, material, online enticement, and the commercial sexual exploitation of children. So what's funny is being the second born of two girls, I Used to stress my sister out by not planning things. Like, I would go on vacation and she would ask me questions and I would have nothing planned. She wasn't even going. But she was so stressed that I didn't have all my ducks in a row.

I'm simply stress, huh?

I'm very, very free spirited. And so when the Lord positioned me here as an event coordinator.

Ha ha ha.

Right. Because that's a lot of spreadsheets and a lot of planning and a lot of things that I am, I call things. What is your effortless? I like to find out what people's effortless is. Tell you, Pamela, that is not my effortless to plan anything but God, right? But Jesus, he came in and just showed off because he had put an anointing on me to gather people that I can do. And I've always had that gift of I told my mom when I was younger, I said, mom, they're not. She said, don't talk to strangers. I said, they're not strangers. They're just friends I haven't met yet. And Pamela will be the first one to tell you that that is so true for. For Jamie, because I don't have strangers. They're just friends. And so he had given me an anointing to do something. And in his glory, like, he's literally just showing off through me because I am not a planner. And we've been able to fund through events. And when I say we, me and my team, I have a team of volunteers. I have a board, an event board, I have event volunteers. There's about 30 of us that pull off each one of these events. We do four major events every year. And the funding for 20, we haven't gotten the numbers yet for 23, but 2022 is 48% of our incoming.

Wow, that's amazing.

And so, you know, what that meant for me especially coming into 2024, was that I needed. We need to be at $3 million. Our events have to be 1.5 million. So that's what it meant to me. And so, you know, that's a. It's a huge goal. But it's something that I know that the Lord has been solidifying the foundation of what we are as an. I am as a person. And he's just opening those doors. And really the floodgates have just been slowly opening, slowly opening. And we're feeling in 2024 that this is going to be the rain down and into 2025.

That's awesome. So for the audience, just to maybe clarify and fill in a couple of gaps. The Demand Project, and Jamie, correct me here if I don't say it correctly, is eradicating the demand trafficking, human trafficking and sex trafficking. Would that be correct?

That's a great summary. Yeah.

Okay. And Jamie's role is to fundraise for the women and young girls that are taken out of sex trafficking for restoration. Because, you know, we may rescue people slaves from the sex trafficking and human trafficking world, but there's very few places for them to be restored. And just like a drug addict or a alcoholic or someone with an addiction, if you don't restore them from an addiction, from this slavery, chances are they're going to go right back into it because they, they haven't found a new way and a way of restoration to get them out of it forever, to be able to build onto a new life. Would that, how does that sound, Jamie? As far as.

And I want to full circle. Yeah. Lean into that a little bit. So the Demand Project has the largest capacity for a safe house in our entire country. And what that means is. That's insane. Safe houses that are doing the work that we're doing have anywhere from three to eight beds. We have the capacity to house 30 children. And a lot of our setbacks at this moment is hiring and financing. And so simultaneously we are doing that. You know, we have a wait list of children that need to come that we don't have.

The staff can't facilitate them.

Yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh. So what it is, you know, in, in our country, currently 82% of children that are rescued from sex trafficking return almost immediately. And you can liken that to like the first 48 with the murder. Right. Like if you're not solving it within, if you're not solving the solutions for this child or even ad adult in those first 48 hours, the re exploitation level is so high and most of that is due to their vulnerability. But you know, it's more likened, honestly, Pamela, to a war veteran because their brains are similar like these children. So we take girls ages 11 to 17 years old, their brains are likened to a war veteran. So the levels of PTSD that are, that are not just affecting their brain, but their bodies make it to where they can't function in society. So it goes deeper than even just a re regulation of their minds. It's not, it's so deep. And what we have seen in our research and just hands on care that you're looking at about three years of the restorative process before these children are even able to fully understand what's happened to fully what we call unthaw for them to be able to learn, to have the capacity to even learn, memorize things, you know. So when you're looking at the restorative care, 26 states have no beds for children. There are only 661 current available beds, which that's just meaning that they're a program. They may be filled, but there's 661 beds in all 50 states in the United States of America to care for children surviving this crime. And so the reason why there's that low of number is because restoration is expensive. Restoration is relational. Restoration is messy. And it is very it's going back and forth into crisis that most people are either not equipped to help or.

They'Re not willing, because and it takes so much time. I mean, if you're talking three years, that is a lot of times.