FeliciaMurphy1635

Wife & mom. Southern Baptist (Reformed). mini Dachshund “Mom”! Ex-Californian.

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

Cool!

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

@robbystarbuck Yes. What’s the point in voting, in participating at all?

[NWRain-Judi @RYboating]

Americans travel to Pakistan to free Christians trapped in modern-day slavery: 'God's hand was in it'

Here's a feel-good story for you! 🤗🙏

Christians are mistreated across the globe in Muslim countries. They are forced into slavery that lasts for generations.

Aaron Hutchings is doing his best to free as many Pakistani Christians as he can.

God bless him! 🙏

From the article:

Idaho resident Aaron Hutchings arrived at a Pakistani brick factory in January. The devout Christian told Fox News Digital that he was shocked to see children turning bricks under the hot sun to work off the debts that their families had incurred, sometimes over the course of generations.

Within hours of his arrival, Hutchings paid off the debts for two enslaved Christian families and escorted them to freedom, breaking the "curse that they’ve had for hundreds of years."

There are up to one million Christians working in slave and bonded labor in Pakistan, according to Emma Hall, a persecution researcher working with charity Open Doors U.K. and Ireland, told Fox News Digital. This could comprise as much as 30% of Pakistani Christians, counted at 3.3 million in the 2023 census and accounting for 1.37 percent of the population.

Hall noted that "extreme poverty drives desperate families to accept advance loans (peshgri) for emergency and basic needs, trapping them in cycles of debt bondage where repayment systems are structured in ways that make exit extremely difficult."

Emmanuel Hernandez said he was shocked when he first heard that Christians in Pakistan were living in debt-based enslavement in Pakistan’s brick-making industry. After traveling to Pakistan to meet the woman who would later become his wife, Hernandez witnessed bonded laborers at a brick factory for the first time.

"Never in my life have I seen such hopelessness," he told Fox News Digital. "At that moment, I committed myself to rescuing one family a year for the rest of my life."

In January 2025, Hernandez started the nonprofit Project Jubilee. He says that it is "by the grace of God" that people have already donated enough through the nonprofit to save 300 Pakistanis from slavery.

Though Project Jubilee will save any bonded slave, regardless of race or faith, Hernandez said that "98% of the people we rescue are Christians, and that’s because they’re second-class citizens" in their country.

The average cost to help one family is about $8,500, Hernandez said, because Project Jubilee recognizes that slaves needed more than debt relief to escape the cycle of bonded labor.

"Our goal is for them to succeed in life and make sure that they never go back," he explained. To accomplish this, Hernandez and his team pay lawyers to take care of all applicable paperwork, and help each family with two months of rent and food. They also get families in touch with a local minister, pay for children to attend school and purchase every family a tuk tuk, a motorcycle taxi, which they can use to create income.

He said that in most cases, factory owners are grudgingly accepting of letting slaves go after their debts are paid off. But in some cases, he says owners have put a cap on the number of families Hernandez’s group can free in a month, or told them that they’re "never allowed to come back again."

Hutchings found Hernandez’s online profile in late 2025 and messaged him, asking to be part of his effort. Retired from the IT world, Hutchings said he is "just a normal guy who wanted to do something…to help people."

After a short conversation over the phone, Hernandez invited Hutchings to come along to a trip to Pakistan in January. Hutchings agreed. It was during this visit that Hutchings freed two families and reported he "just got hooked." He admits that the process is highly emotional. "It changes an entire family’s future for generations," he explained.

Hutchings said that it is especially impactful to witness the change that freedom brings to children. "We get to ask them, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?" Hutchings said. "They probably haven’t even really thought about that. They’re [thinking] ‘I’m going to be a brick worker for the rest of my life, just like my parents.’"

Hutchings started his own nonprofit, Intentional Faith Foundation, which he now uses to collect donations from people who want to help free more slaves.

Just months after his first journey, Hutchings returned to Pakistan in May to free an additional ten families. After video of his visit went viral, Hutchings said that his nonprofit raised enough funds to save another family from enslavement.

The practice of bonded slavery was outlawed formally in Pakistan in 1992, Hall says, but "enforcement remains weak." Discrimination extends beyond the bonded labor environment, with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom noting in 2025 that there were "recent and escalating attacks against religious minorities" in Pakistan, including Christians.

During his recent visit, Hutchings learned that securing housing was difficult, with many landlords refusing to rent to Christians. Eventually, a Pakistani Christian group working with families was able to find housing and jobs for parents, and located a teacher for the children who were largely illiterate.

Representatives of the Pakistani government did not respond to Fox News Digital's questions about the enforcement of laws against bonded labor, or about the treatment of Pakistani Christians. Neither Hutchings nor Hernandez reported having complications with the Pakistani government when working to free brick kiln laborers.

Link to article in comments

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

@LeahRain77 @CRRJA5 What’s the point of voting? For anyone?

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

@ShirleyHouck9 @ronsterd89 Hmm. Not like that when I’ve cooked it.

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

Amen!

[Byron Donalds @ByronDonalds]

To you, it's just a Cracker Barrel parking lot. To me, it's where I gave my life to Jesus Christ.

I was 21 years old. I was working at the Cracker Barrel in Tallahassee after some of the worst years of my life. I'd made mistakes. Real ones.

I grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, raised by a mom who worked hard and didn't accept excuses. But I made decisions that should have ended my story before it ever really started. By the grace of God, they didn't. But every day, I was carrying them.

One afternoon, a church group came into the restaurant, just back from a revival. I served them their meals like I served any other table. But something happened while I was serving them. I can't fully explain it to you. The Lord spoke to me. He said, “Stop running from Me.”

It knocked me back.

I went to find the table, and they were all gone. I could see through their windows that they were getting on their bus, and I knew deep down that if I let them drive away, I was going to keep running. So I went outside. The last woman, just as she was stepping onto the bus, turned to me and asked, “Are you okay?”

I told her, “No ma’am, I’m not okay.” I told her the Lord was telling me to stop running.

That whole bus emptied out, stood with me in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel in Tallahassee, Florida, and prayed over me right there.

I gave my life to Christ that day. Right there.

I still get emotional about it. Because I know what I was before that moment, and I know what He's done since. He gave me a wife who shares my faith. He gave me three sons. He gave me a career, a community, a calling I never would have dared to ask for. He took a kid from Crown Heights who’d run out of chances and gave him a life that doesn't make sense apart from grace.

People ask me sometimes why I talk about it. Why I bring up the parking lot. Why I don't just keep that part private and let folks see the polished version.

I'll tell you why.

Because there's a young man out there right now — maybe in Tallahassee, maybe in Tampa, maybe in Miami, maybe in a small town in the Panhandle — who thinks his story is already over. Who thinks the mistakes he's made disqualify him from the life he could have had. Who thinks God doesn't want anything to do with somebody like him.

I'm here to tell him: that's a lie.

In life, you're not who you are at the lowest point. You're who you choose to become after.

The Lord met me in a Cracker Barrel parking lot. He'll meet you wherever you are.

You just have to stop running.

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

@Hania16836 Number 2!

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

Holy moly! Nearly 17% inflation.

[Jeremy @jeremyct]

My wife and I were talking last night about groceries.

I went back into my Walmart app and pulled up an order from January 2020.

30 items. $70.20.

I added every single one back to the cart today.

$165.42.
Same 30 items. Same store. Same cart.
$95 more, In six years.

They told us inflation was temporary. They told us it was under control. They told us the economy was recovering.

My grocery bill didn’t get the memo.

135% increase in six years and nobody in Washington has missed a single meal.

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

@FoodPleaser Crushed up Fritos are better!

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

@RandyStine167 @ronsterd89 Exactly!

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

@lapatriot012 @Sassafrass_84

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

@Sassafrass_84 Dachshund in your spot, just how they are!

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

@Sassafrass_84 On the fleecies…of course!

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

@moveon_9910 A mix of B and D!

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

@chefsevenn Jumbo black olives though!

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

@chefsevenn Yummy! We do water.

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

@reformedhg Mine are a semi neat wad, lol

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

@JennMGreenberg Mine left out the “h” in a Mother’s Day card he made me one year and still says “Happy Mot-ers Day” 🤣

[FeliciaMurphy1635 @FDMurphy1635]

@ann_ann886 Thanks! Looks yummy! Loaf pans are so convenient.