Recently, Michelle participated in the Gulf South Summit at the .

While there, she learned about the Stop Sex Trafficking Project (STOP) and later told us about it.

STOP is an initiative that grew out of a required first year course at called “Engaging the World.”

Class participants studied Judeo-Christian ideas of ethics and justice and read authors such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jr., and Abraham Heschel.

The students also read from the Bible and found resonance with the call to “loose the bonds of injustice, undo the thongs of the yoke, and let the oppressed go free” (Isaiah 58:6); and to Matthew 25:40,  “Whatever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me.”

Their readings led them to view their own community through new eyes and to talk about the injustices they saw.

Exploring the issues of poverty, education, and race, they noticed the excessive number of billboards on the nearby interstate advertising for massage parlors.

After extensive research, they discovered the voiceless women and children who, lured by fraud, deception, and coercion, were enslaved as prostitutes in their home town of  , Georgia.

The students wrote essays, pamphlets and blog posts about the injustice and soon realized that their efforts were larger than a class project. Real women were suffering.

The Mercer students believed they could help.

Their movement quickly grew to include additional students and, ultimately, their efforts enabled the release of six women who had previously been enslaved.

Theirs is a powerful and inspiring story.

When people believe they can make a difference, they do.

After hearing about these students, I found myself thinking about their professor.

How might each of us inspire a similar confidence in the young people we influence?