Searching for the ONE

Three year old little Gardy sits on his father's lap at church in Haiti. Happy. Content. Free.  His papa gives him a gentle hug enjoying the loving bond between father and son. Sadly, it is only a memory now as Guesno reflects on his last moments with Gardy who disappeared right after church. A frantic search only confirms Guesno's worst fears. Gardy is gone.

Gardy Mardy - Age 3 - Shortly before being kidnapped

What do you do at a time like this? A million thoughts go through your mind at once.  Is he hiding or did someone take him? Who would do this?  Is he safe?  Is he scared? Where is he? How can I save him? Why Gardy? He's too young; too innocent; too sweet. 

Eventually, the painful truth becomes clear. Little Gardy was kidnapped and a ransom demanded. In his despair Gardy's father turns to the FBI since Gardy was born in the United States and carries duel citizenship with Haiti. Unfortunately, the FBI investigation only brings partial comfort and not the hoped for return of Guesno's son. 

It turns out the man allegedly responsible for the kidnapping is an employee of Guesno's who runs an orphanage in Haiti. There are over 50,000 children in Haiti without parents and the orphanage is always struggling to help as many children as possible. In what appeared to be a blessing, a generous donor provided materials to help improve the orphanage. The employee, seeing an increase in affluence believes Guesno has come in to some money and begins to make a plan; kidnap Gardy and get the ransom money.  But he can't do it himself so he turns to others who have experience in this loathsome  business. 

The traffickers who take Gardy know they can make more money off him by either selling him or using him as a labor or sex slave and have no intention of returning him for ransom. And that is the heart break. The now former employee is in jail, refusing to cooperate, while it is believed the traffickers are exploiting poor little Gardy for their own enrichment.

The distraught father now looks for any way he can to find his son. If the FBI can't do it, maybe a private military company can. But hope quickly turns to despair once again as Guesno learns of the $500,000.000 price tag. An impossible sum. Is there no help to be found?

Four years have passed since that fateful day when Gardy was kidnapped. Four years of not knowing. Four years of praying, hoping, begging for his return. 

Operation Underground Railroad's Founder and CEO, Tim Ballard, became aware of Guesno's plight through a mutual friend nearly one year ago. Operating strictly from donations, it doesn't cost Guesno anything to have O.U.R.'s help. A blessing he can truly appreciate. 

Through intense investigation O.U.R. traced little Gardy to an illegal orphanage in Port-au-Prince,  Haiti where children are sold with no questions asked. Many are turned into labor or sex slaves. It was this illegal orphanage that O.U.R. went to in February and rescued 28 children, hoping that Gardy would be among them. Unfortunately, he was not. But, that is not the end. New intelligence is leading the Jump Team to a new area where they believe he may be and in the continued search for Gardy, numerous other children are being rescued. 

Port au Prince, Haiti

It's difficult to find good sometimes when there is so much ugliness in this world but Gardy's father is finding comfort in the fact that in searching for his child many children are being rescued from traffickers.  Most are now in legal orphanages hoping to be adopted by loving families. But, even if they're not adopted, their life in the orphanages is a blessing compared to the future that awaited them with the traffickers. 

Three-year-old little Gardy is now seven. He is still missing, but he is not forgotten. We are looking for him and we believe we will find him and bring him home. One look in Guesno's eye's tells you what we are doing means everything to him and one day soon, with God's help, this nightmare for Gardy and his family will be over.

Written by Cheryl L. Karr

 Operation Underground Railroad

Mission Un-Impossible

If you're a good salesman you can be a good undercover agent, Ballard says. You don't have to try to act "bad" or be "bad". Just act normally. That's what they taught him at  "Undercover School" when he worked for Homeland Security and it worked beautifully. Tim Ballard is now shedding his undercover persona to be the face of Operation Underground Railroad, but that doesn't stop him from doing the dangerous stuff.

Tim Ballard with Rescued Child

The following are excerpts from an interview with Tim Ballard on what it takes to set up a Rescue Mission.

Tim: So we go in. We start doing the recon. We get the lay of the land. We know what to look for. We know where to find the traffickers. At the same time I have a team going undercover. Real dark, while I go to the embassy.  I go to the government. I tell them who we are and what we’re doing.  And then we  really start doing heavy undercover …  For example, two weeks ago I was in (unnamed country). I was meeting with the embassy. I was meeting with the prosecutor for trafficking cases.  I told them my team was here.  So that day I told him we’re going to go out. Where do you want us to start? And he says go to this city and that city and he gave us a cop and he said, “Take this guy with you.”

So we kind of got the lay of the land.  We figured out where the hot spots were and I came home and called my other operative and I said, “Okay, I want you to go.  How soon can you get there?” and he said, “Maybe a week.”  So then he flew down. Monday he met with the same prosecutor.  They signed him in.  They deputized him so he's immune from jail and then off they went. On their second day they found a trafficker selling 15 kids. Just like that. So that operation will now be a first priority.  That’s kind of how it works.  

Something really cool happened in June.  It was the first time that we had four teams out at one time. That was largely because we had a fundraiser in May in California and we raised a lot of money in one night. We immediately converted that into four teams that just took off. And that’s never happened before. And all that money, we just immediately dumped it into missions. At one time we had four teams in four different countries.  Reconnaissance missions. 

Question: So every op, every mission requires at least two trips?

Tim: Yes. Sometimes three missions.

Question: That's expensive.

Tim: Yes.The first missions are just a couple people though. Two people on the first one. Two people on the second one. And then the party. That's the one where we have five to ten people depending on where the take-down is.

Question: Are you still at $20,000 on a mission?

Tim: Well, it depends. It varies so much. The Haiti Operation cost that much because we didn’t have to do a party. It was just a small deal.  We were buying two kids. But once you do the party… the Cartagena one was more like $45,000. It’s usually between $20-$40,000 which is safe to say. And I’m so proud of that. It can cost up to $500,000 for a private military company  just to put boots on the ground where we operate so it’s still a super good deal.  

Question: So the private military company’s motivation is to make money whereas your motivation is to save kids.

Tim: Yes. We have no other motivation.

Question: Is this turning out the way you had envisioned it?

Tim: It’s growing way faster than I thought.  I’m super excited about it.  I never thought … If someone told me in January that I’d have four teams out by July I’d say you’re crazy. 

Question: “Dutch” (Jump Team Leader) said they are hiring people for the jump teams.  Is that still true?

Tim: Yes, we are.  Most of them are just contract guys.  Some volunteer. Some we pay a daily rate.  It’s way under what a private military company would pay somebody. Right now we’re still small enough that I’m not opening it to the general public yet.  I’m hand picking people who come through our training.

Question: I would think these would be people you would know personally.  People you can trust.

Tim: Yes, they’re people I’ve known for years. They’re cops, former CIA or military who I know.  Because in the beginning phase I’m not taking those kind of chances. 

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Utah Governor Gary Herbert and O.U.R Founder Tim Ballard

Tim Ballard met with Utah Governor Gary Herbert last week to let him know what O.U.R. is doing in Utah. To see the news story click here KUTV-News

Angels Among Us

Idaho housewife Heidi Frandsen is a mother of three children under the age of eight.  She is also a grassroots fundraiser for Operation Underground Railroad. No one asked her to do it; she just knew she had to. The following are excepts from an interview with this angel among us.

Families Raising Funds to Rescue Children

Question: How did you first become aware of O.U.R.?

Answer: I was driving my husband's truck (which never happens) and he had the radio tuned to Glen Beck ... and that's when I heard Tim Ballard talking about O.U.R. I listened for a few minutes on my drive home and then sat in the truck in our driveway to keep listening.  Once I finally turned it off, I went straight in the house and got on theblaze.com to find more information.  I ended up spending the next three hours reading everything I could about Tim Ballard and O.U.R., and signed up to be an Abolitionist.  I actually read the entire ourrescue.org website that night too.

Question: What is your motivation for organizing these fundraising events? Do you know someone whose child was abducted?

Answer: No. I have never personally known a child who has been abducted. Honestly, I feel like my motivation comes from promptings of the spirit to help O.U.R.  I have felt an overwhelming desire to help. Even after signing up for monthly donations, I felt like there was so much more I could and should be doing to help, I just didn't know how.  I was so sure I was supposed to be helping in some bigger way.

Question: What types of things have you done to help raise money for  O.U.R.?

Answer: My husband's company has created a group for the wives as a sort of moral support system, with monthly 'competitions' (all in fun), so one day I had the idea to incorporate fundraising for O.U.R. into our countrywide activities. I submitted the request to the company and they said they would create a 'service project activity' for June and I could 'recruit' whomever I wanted to help. So that's what I did!

We ended up getting the help of women in Texas, California, Washington, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia, Maryland and Idaho to help. Between all of us we printed thousands of pass-along cards which Doug Osmond* had emailed me for printing, distributed them in doctors' offices, at bake sales/fundraisers, apartment communities, and in parking lots on cars.

The girls in Texas also started the gofundme page so we could keep a record of some of the money we were able to raise as a whole. It is my understanding that they will leave the page up at least until the end of this month (July) before transferring the donations to the O.U.R. donation site.

Children Helping Children by Raising Money for Operation Underground Railroad

The kids are so great, so enthusiastic about making money to rescue these kids. Somehow it just feels like such the right thing to do to have kids helping other kids. It has been a great experience for us and will continue to be for a very long time.

I also have plans to do fundraisers at Walmarts and grocery stores around Indiana this summer and in Idaho where we live.  With these pass-along cards from Doug, it really makes it so easy to spread the word about O.U.R. anywhere and I have every intention of continuing to spread the word indefinitely.

Question: When did you first start and how much have your raised?

Answer: We started raising funds and distributing cards the last week of June.  So far we have raised almost $2000 on the gofundme.com/arrelc page and hopefully have had multiple pass-along card holders look up the website to donate as well, I think over time, it will be a huge success.

This has all affected me and my family profoundly. My children talk about 'the people who save the kids' often and I pray every day to know what else I should do to help. We also pray as a family for O.U.R. and especially the jump teams when they are in action.

I feel so so grateful to have been 'coincidentally' introduced to Operation Underground Railroad.  It has been a huge blessing in my life so far and I am so excited to see what the future holds. I always think about that story Tim Ballard tells about the first rescue he ever did, the brother and sister, and how the sister told him that she always knew that God would send someone to save them, 'eventually'  ... and God works through His children to help His children in need. So I feel like it is our duty, my duty, to do what I can, since I know how now.

Pass Along Card

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Where the Money Goes

Heidi Fransen is one of many grassroots fundraisers who is blessing the lives of children who are enslaved in the sex trade. Operation Underground Railroad is profoundly grateful for their efforts.  It is because of these angels among us that O.U.R. is now able, for the first time, to have four jump teams in the field at the same time. That means four times the amount of children rescued and four times as many people arrested and stopped from exploiting children.

Every dollar O.U.R. receives is considered sacred funds and is used as judiciously as possible. The below graph explains where this money is going and how it is being spent. We could not do this without your help.  Thank you!

Where Your Money Goes

For more information on how to raise money to rescue children please visit https://www.ourrescue.org/help/.

*Doug Osmond is in charge of fundraising for Operation Underground Railroad. You can contact him through the ourrescue.org web site.

Written by Cheryl L. Karr