Stephanie Page is a wife to one very supportive man, and a mom to four beautiful girls ages 12,9,6 and 3.
She is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Stories Foundation, a not for profit organization that engages communities to fight human trafficking by using business to bring awareness and fundraising through purposeful purchasing opportunities.
Steph is passionate about intentionally valuing the stories around us, starting with our own. She survives on coffee and Jesus.
You can learn more about Stories Foundation at www.storiesfoundation.org and find her writing at www.stephaniempage.com as well as on Facebook and Instagram.
2:09: Stephanie takes us back to 2012 and shares the story behind Stories Foundation and the Freedom Truck.
Book: Passport Through the Darkness by Kimberly L. Smith
Kimberly L. Smith is the founder of Make Way Partners
“I remember looking out the window and saying to God, ‘This isn’t okay that children are being forced to do these horrific things and they’re being taken advantage of and exploited.’ I remember Him, it’s like He said to my spirit, ‘You’re right. It’s not okay. What are we going to do about that?’ It was one of those moments where all of my excuses of when I’m done having babies or when we have more money or when we have more stable jobs or when we can pay our bills better, they just didn’t matter when you think about the reality out there in the world.”
Mark Batterson’s Coffee Shop: Ebeneezer’s
Eugene Cho: Q Cafe (closed due to location change) and One Day’s Wages
6:27 “I started with what I had.”
6:45 Steph shares about the early days speaking at small events and small groups to raise awareness of human trafficking.
“As Christ followers, we have been set free from sin. I think Satan is the greatest trafficker. Christ has purchased our freedom. We are free. And he [Satan] manipulates us, coerces us, lies to us, plays on our emotions, tells us we need these other things and traffics us into sin….We have been set free from that, so as Christians, I think, it is our greatest responsibility to be about freedom, both spiritual and physical.”
9:01 Stephanie shares about acquiring the food truck, which is known as the Freedom Truck.
13:28 Steph walks us through what to expect when you walk up to the Freedom Truck
14:41 “I started Stories on the very optimistic belief that people would want to make a difference in this issue and that they would RISE UP. The truck has proven that to be true. People, if they’re given an opportunity, they will choose to make a difference.”
16:45 Steph shares some of what she has learned about human trafficking since 2012.
“When you look at sex trafficking. We have sex trafficking. We have child sex trafficking, because we have pornography, because we have an over sexualized culture, because we have sexual addiction. When you start…to say pornography is a reason for child sex trafficking, child sexual abuse, child sexual exploitation that’s going to strike some chords of shame…When shame is revealed people want to hide.”
“Traffickers look for vulnerabilities to exploit.”
20:18 Steph shares a few common ways a person in America may be trafficked
“With trafficking, it is one human being looking at another saying, ‘How can I use you for my own gain’.”
Be intentional.
Ask:
Shop ethically:
30:21 Stories mission “Use business to empower people to fight trafficking through what they purchase.”
*The curriculum Steph mentioned was not available upon the release of this episode (May 2019). If interested, continue to check Stories Foundation website.
“It also comes down to a really personal level. What am I, what seemingly small changes am I going to make every single day to say that I value people?”
32:57 “Live your story, share your story, change a story. What would the world look like if we lived authentically the story written for us and shared that story with others? That we would see stories change. Not only the stories of the oppressed, but the stories of every day people as they reached out beyond their comfort zones to make a difference.”
33:37 Steph shares stories of how her ministry has impacted people.
Beautiful and Loved is one of the first organization’s Stories gave money to