Church Plant Partners with LOVE 146 for Good Reason

A Colorado Springs church is joining forces with an international organization to bring attention to the problem of child sex trafficking.  The partnership was announced Sunday at the City Auditorium. 

"These children are being sold and they're being beaten, and they're being raped and they're locked in rooms for years without seeing the light of the sun," said Clayton Ross, Pastor of Grass Roots Church. 
 

The statistics are surprising.

"One in three people between the ages of 10 to 13 are going to get sold to sex slavery once they've run away from home or they get kicked out of their house," said Marcus Reid, who attended Thursday's gathering. 

Now, Grass Roots Church is joining forces with an organization called Love 146, to raise awareness and prevent child sex trafficking.  "So it was kind of awesome to see two organizations come together and just talk about how we can work together," said Reid.
 

Love 146 is an organization with one goal:  to end child sex trafficking.  The group has established safe houses all over the world for children who have been rescued from prostitution. 

Grass Roots Church is also supporting the cause with monetary donations. "As a church body we're giving ten percent of everything that comes through our doors for them," said Pastor Ross.  "And beyond that, we just want to raise awareness. If it was our son or daughter, we would raise the banner and put up fliers, and would go all out.  We would get on the news. We would make things happen.  We would make sure that every person knew that our child is missing."

To get the word out, the unified group will participate in the Parade of Lights on December 5, 2009.  They are also working on organizing some concerts that will take place at the City Auditorium next year.

By Laurie Cipriano
l.cipriano@krdo.com

CLICK HERE for KRDO's newscast of this effort.