Tashina finds it helpful to talk about it. “We lived in darkness,” she said. Magazine Photoshoot For Ofelia, talking about the past is too painful. She just winds up crying.
But both women smile broadly as they talk about their future. A future filled with promise and hope, thanks to the kindness of a complete stranger half a world away from their home in Mozambique.
Kimba Langas is a college-educated, stay-at-home mom in suburban Denver, Colorado. She says she grew up in a middle class family with loving parents, never wanting Magazine Photoshoot For anything.
“I am fortunate,” Langas said. “I was born at the right time, in the right country, under the right circumstances, so I've had many privileges as a woman growing up in the United States. I've had just about every opportunity I could want.”
Her life could not be more different from those of Tashina and Ofelia. And yet, today these three women are connected in a most unusual way.
The story began when Langas got a call from Dave Terpstra, a former pastor at her church. He had just moved his wife and three children to Mozambique on a mission to help rehabilitate women who had been rescued from sex trafficking.
“The way people find themselves trafficked is normally out of desperation,” Terpstra said. “I think sometimes we have in our mind that somebody somewhere has a gun and they're stealing them away and selling them. But so often, people are taken advantage of simply because they're so vulnerable.”
Terpstra wanted to help them find jobs, a sustainable income that would make them less vulnerable and reduce their risk of being trafficked again.
He found his answer in the bustling used clothing markets of Mozambique.
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