By Steve Bertel
(Editor’s note: This is the first installment of a two-part article.)
It’s basically a slave auction.
Where young girls are forced to parade on makeshift runways, allowing men – many, American men – to bid on them.
Threatened with beatings or death if they don’t then meet the needs of their despicable male customers.
Forced to hand over all their earnings to their procurers, often getting only a pittance in return.
Trapped in a world of sexual and psychological torture.
And many haven’t even reached their 18th birthday.
Such is the life of countless women in the Philippines. Young women who started off meaning well – wanting to find jobs so they can help financially support their dirt-poor families back home. But invariably, the girls find themselves sliding down that slippery slope into a world of prostitution.
And fighting to survive in a never-ending cycle of threats. Of fear. Of abuse. Of darkness.
But the Boise-based nonprofit group Wipe Every Tear is working to break that cycle.
“I grew up in a non-believing home in Oregon,” said Wipe Every Tear founder Kenny Sacht (pronounced “sacked”). But then, while attending Southern Oregon University in Ashland, he experienced what he would later describe as a “radical transformation” during the so-called “Jesus Movement” of the mid-’70s. One day, his buddy and their two girlfriends were hanging out together. “We had a couple of beers and went down to the Student Union Building to play some air hockey, when we noticed a poster advertising a free concert,” he said. So they decided to check it out. However, the only seats available were in a middle section, near the very back of the crowded venue.
The man performing on stage had long hair and a beard – typical of the times – and was playing a piano. As soon as he started belting out songs about love and Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, Kenny realized, much to his disappointment, “Oh, this is just another one of those religious concerts.” But he and his friends decided to stay, not wanting to go through the trouble and embarrassment of saying, “Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me.” to all the people they would have to scoot past in front of in order to leave.
Little did Kenny know at the time that the performer would go on to become world-renowned Christian recording artist Keith Green – and that, staying seated allowed the Holy Spirit to dramatically change his life. “Listening to Keith Green’s Bible-based rock songs, listening to the powerful lyrics, I came to know Jesus that night like never before,” Kenny remembered. “God touched my heart in a very intimate way during that concert – and my life has never been the same!”
Going from a non-believing college student to a man who was now deeply spiritual and empathetic, Kenny graduated from college, taught for one year at a Christian school in Medford, Oregon, then attended seminary, graduating in 1981 – the same year he and his wife “D.A.” were married. (Today, they have five daughters, a son, and eighteen grandchildren.)
Eventually moving to the Boise area, Kenny became a high school teacher and basketball coach at Cole Valley Christian School.
Occasionally, he’d take his students on what he called “cross-cultural experiences,” long field trips – road trips, actually – to places like Washington, D.C.
One day, in 2007, “A Christian friend of mine from the Philippines was looking for a basketball coach to help with his ministry,” Kenny explained. “Kids in the Philippines love basketball; it’s the #1 sport there. In general, Filipinos are very poor people. So, we figured bringing in American high school students who are 6’5”, 6’6”, 6’8” would be quite a big deal for them.”
So Kenny rounded up a group of his basketball students and, with their parents’ permission and financial backing, they all boarded a flight to the Philippines. Once there, they held a week-long basketball camp in the city of Manila, combining the popular sport with sharing the Word of God. To many who had never heard it before. “Many of those who attended our camp were in their late teens to early twenties, living in slums with their families, since hunger and poverty are really rampant in the Philippines,” Kenny pointed out. “So we reached out to them like any ministry, and God just opened doors for us. After all, who would’ve thought we could use an orange basketball for the glory of Jesus?” he smiled.
Kenny described the event as “… much like a sports camp, like many churches here in America do. In addition to playing basketball games, we also provided them three free meals every day. Many of those kids – and many of the people in the Philippines – don’t even eat one meal a day. In fact, some don’t eat for days. Or they eat very little. Maybe one little meal with rice. If that. Sometimes, they may get a little bit of meat, but that would be their only protein. Plus, we gave each kid in our basketball camp a free pair of new tennis shoes, since many kids over there don’t even have shoes to wear, let alone new ones.”
The following year, Kenny, his wife, and a group of students made another trip – this one, a little different from the first. “Very few girls in the Philippines play basketball. But many play volleyball. So, in June of 2008, we brought over Cole Valley’s volleyball coach and girls from the school’s volleyball team,” Kenny recalled. “And we held a two-week volleyball camp for the teenaged Filipina girls” – providing, like before, gifts, fellowship, Bible teachings, and three filling meals a day.
Even though, during his first trip, he had witnessed first-hand the abject poverty and hunger Filipinos struggle with every day, the 2008 trip “was when I first got a real feel for the poor,” he said. “One like I never had before.”
The most memorable example: a young woman named Cecile. “During our volleyball camp, she had expressed that her teeth were hurting,” Kenny recalled. “And that she was hungry. But it wasn’t like kids here in America do when they whine about ‘Boy, I’m soooo hungry!’ when they really aren’t. I could tell Cecile was truly hungry. She kept saying, ‘Lolo Coach, I get really hungry.’ All the kids over there affectionately call me ‘Lolo’ – the Tagalog, the Filipino word for ‘grandfather.’
“So I took her aside and started talking with her. She held out her little hand – which was about half the size of mine – and she said, ‘I get only about this much rice once or twice a day.’
“And wow! – it was like God drew an arrow out of a quiver, pulled it back on a bow, and shot it deep into my heart. It hurt so bad. As it says in Lamentations 3:12-13, ‘He used His bow, and set me as a mark for His arrow. He has taken out His arrows and sent them into my heart.’
“Cecile then explained to me, ‘I’m not hungry right now, because I’m here at camp and we have all this food. But when I get home, my family and I get real hungry.’
“I asked her about why her teeth were hurting. She said, ‘I have this thing – what do you call it?’ Because her English wasn’t that good.
“I said, ‘A cavity?’
“And she said, ‘Yeah! A cavity. And it hurts so bad.”
“As an American who has health insurance and dental care, I asked her, ‘Have you ever been to a dentist?’
“And she replied, ‘My family is so poor, we can’t afford a dentist.’
“And again, it felt like God shot another arrow right into my chest – an arrow of righteousness, an arrow of ‘God Justice.’ My chest started hurting. And I began crying.
“It was then when God showed me Revelation 21:4 that says, ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’
“And then, I felt God’s arm around me, like a coach who loves his player and puts his arm around him on the sidelines. And God said to me, ‘You know, I’m going to wipe away every tear on my side of Heaven. I want you to begin wiping away tears on your side of Heaven. And I want you to begin with her.’
“And, when I shared with Cecile what God had just told me, she started crying. Then I started crying even more. I was a mess! I had snot going everywhere. I had no tissue, nothing. I was the biggest mess I’d ever been in my life!
“When the camp was over, I went to the pastor who was heading up the camp, told him my story, and asked him, ‘My wife and I would like to help Cecile and her husband. Can you help us? Can you help us feed her? How can we help her?’
“Well, long story short, we soon began financially supporting Cecile and her family, regularly sending them money for food. After all, God said, ‘Wipe every tear.’ No more crying, no more pain, right?”
As far as Cecile’s persistent mouth pain, Kenny and his wife were also finally able to get the young woman the dental care she so desperately needed. But she didn’t have just a single cavity. Or as Kenny pointed out, “Twenty-seven cavities – yes, twenty-seven cavities – and two or three extractions later, she’s now no longer suffering.” Then, a few weeks later, after Kenny and his wife had returned home to the United States, he received a letter from Cecile in which she wrote: “Hello, Coach. I want you to know all my pain is finally gone. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
But God wasn’t yet finished directing Kenny’s steps. Cecile was only Step One.
Step Two came a few months later.
Kenny recalled, “That following December, I was in my living room, working online, on my laptop. It was late; about 10:30 at night. My wife and kids were all in bed. And I happened to come across an article about sex trafficking – in the Philippines.”
He was curious. After all, he hadn’t seen any evidence of sex trafficking during his two previous overseas sports camp trips. And certainly no blatant red-light districts. But the article said the Philippines was a hotbed for prostitution. In fact, reports say the Philippines has some 500,000 sex workers, the highest in the region.
So he read the article. Then another. Then another. “And it led me on an hours-long research of the whole sex trade in Southeast Asia,” he stated. He learned prostitution is illegal in the Philippines, of course, but many law enforcement authorities turn a blind eye to it. The main reason? Sex tourism – in which people (particularly Americans) come to the Philippines to engage in illicit sexual activities – brings a lot of money to the impoverished country. Money that also reportedly goes into some authorities’ pockets.
The more Kenny read, and the more he learned, the more heartbroken he became. To the point where, “I started crying. I looked down, and there were tears on my keyboard,” he recalled. “So I metaphorically raised my hands – rather sheepishly, I must admit. Not enthusiastically; like, ‘Here I am, Lord! Take me! Send me!’ – but I told God, ‘Please help me, from here in Boise, Idaho, to set just one girl free.’ I had read about girls trapped in the sex trade who were about the same age as my own lovely daughters. And the thought of them being trafficked was more than I could bear. So I kept wondering, How can I set just one girl free?”
For decades, Kenny had prayed about helping others. “I told God, I want you to break my heart with the things that break your heart. I prayed that prayer for over twenty years,” he stated. “And that night, sitting alone in my living room, I began to experience God’s heart for the poor, for the broken and, specifically, for all the sex-trafficked girls.”
The next day, he talked with his wife and family about what he had learned. And about his desire to help the victims. But he was in a quandary. “I’m a pioneer. I’m a Let’s-grab-a-machete-and-cut-through-the jungle kind of guy. I truly wanted to do something to help these girls. But, for some reason, I didn’t have it in me to go forward,” Kenny admitted. At the time, he and his wife were working multiple jobs to make ends meet and be able to minister the gospel. As a Christian school teacher, he was earning less than most of his public-school counterparts. He worked in real estate. Had a painting business on the side. His wife even managed her own cleaning business.
But his wife also had a desire – an even stronger desire than his – to help the trafficking victims. “She said, ‘Yes! Let’s do this! And let’s call it Wipe Every Tear!’ So her faith strengthened my faith,” Kenny pointed out; proving that, sometimes, God temporarily reverses roles in a marriage to serve His purpose. “So you might say Wipe Every Tear became an organization in spite of me,” he chuckled.
What’s more, it wasn’t long before even his grown children joined in, essentially saying, “We’re all in this together as a family … so we’re going to do this as a family.”
They figured their first step was to find – rent – a “safe house” for girls in the Philippines sex trade, to give them a secure and comforting place to stay for a while, far removed from their abusive life on the streets. But money was still tight. So Kenny and his family prayed about it – and God miraculously provided. Not only helping them find a secure house, but bringing to them a woman named Rebecca Angeles, who became the organization’s Filipina Director.
God had set His plan in motion.
But Satan wasn’t happy. And wanted Kenny to change his mind.
Kenny prefaced relating his experience with, “You may think I’m a weirdo when I tell you this, but it really happened.” Late one night, he was driving home along a dark rural road south of Boise, “away from all the city lights,” as he put it. He stopped at an intersection. There was one car ahead of him.
“In my headlights, I saw this ‘thing’ – what I knew was a demonic entity – suddenly appear out of nowhere. It’s eyes were staring at me, as it walked in front of the car ahead. Then it suddenly disappeared!
“I drove about another mile, stopped at another intersection, and the ‘thing’ suddenly appeared again – this time, on the hood of the car ahead of me. Then it jumped rather cat-like onto the roof. It was dressed as a human, and was looking at me with hideous, beady eyes. At that point, it was about twenty feet in front of me. And it screamed out in anger [in a very deep, loud, raspy voice] ‘I hate what you’re doing! I hate what you’re doing – especially in the sex trade!’ Then it vanished into thin air!”
At first, Kenny was startled. He didn’t know what to do, or what to think. “But then, God spoke to me. He told me, ‘It wants to pounce on your car, glare at you right through the windshield, and scare you so much that you twist the steering wheel, go off the road, crash into a power pole, and die. That’s its plan for you.’ God then showed me a vision of a newspaper obituary – my obituary. It read, as most obituaries do, ‘Kenny Sacht feel asleep at the wheel and died on a rural country road. He was a teacher at Cole Valley Christian School. He started an organization called Wipe Every Tear. He is survived by his wife and children … blah blah blah.’ But God told me, ‘I will not let that happen.’”
So Kenny and his wife organized another sports camp trip to the Philippines. “Only this time, not only were we going to minister to the young people as we had before, but I wanted us to go out afterward as teams and try to rescue young girls from the sex trade. Surprisingly, when I told our students’ parents what I had in mind, every one of them was fully supportive. They all said ‘Go for it!’” So I really respected the fact they trusted me with their kids,” Kenny said.
But the school’s administration was a bit skeptical. “Once our dean got word of it, he said, ‘What in the world are you doing?’
“So I explained to him, ‘We teach our kids here at Cole Valley to take up the cross and follow Jesus, correct? That’s what we’ll be doing. If you say ‘No,’ what will that be telling our kids?’
“And the dean understood that. He said, ‘You know, you’re right. I get it.’
“I told him, ‘Sure, there are risks. But we will be taking precautions. We’re going to be as careful as we can. But we’re going to go out, find girls in the sex trade, and bring them hope, freedom, and a great future.’
“Some people feel they are ‘called’ by God to certain missions. I felt God was ‘inviting’ me to the Philippines. To partner with Him. He was already working in my heart. So I wanted to take him up on that invitation.
“Finally, our dean looked at me across his desk and said, ‘[In all your other trips,] you’ve never let me down. Don’t let me down here. Don’t lose one of our kids.”
“I told him, ‘I can’t guarantee that. But I’ll do my best. I know God will be with us.’
“And with that, we were off and running.
“That’s how Wipe Every Tear began.”
In Part 2 of this article, in our upcoming March/April issue, we’ll follow Kenny and his team as they spread out into the dark – and sometimes, dangerous – streets of the Philippines, rescuing young sex workers, and leading them into the full grace and light of God’s unconditional love.
If you’d like to help support Wipe Every Year, or find out how you can accompany Kenny and his team on one of their overseas trips, you can learn more at the organization’s website: wipeeverytear.org. Or you can call Kenny directly at (208) 866-1967.
Steve Bertel is a multi-award-winning professional radio, television, print media, and social media journalist, who retired after a 30-year broadcasting career. Now a busy freelance writer, he wrote a debut suspense novel, “Dolphins of an Unjust Sea”, available on both Amazon and Kindle. Steve and his wife of 43 years live in Meridian, Idaho. He can be reached at stevebertel65@gmail.com.
