Since 2021, John and Ruth Ann have been part of Woodland Hills, growing and changing through Sunday services, processing and sharing in Gathering Groups and Sunday Breakfast Club, and serving in Heroes Gate.
If you happened to bump into them on a Sunday and ask what they were up to, you might hear about their work with Citizens Against Sex Trafficking (CAST). That work began when John and Ruth Ann were entering retirement, and set aside time to think and pray about how they wanted to spend their time. Ruth Ann says, “We wanted to live with purpose and serve others in a meaningful way. We didn’t want retirement to just be settling into leisure and free time—although we looked forward to some of that too. We wanted to keep investing in Kingdom things.”
As they were thinking and praying, John heard a talk by former Washington County Attorney, Pete Orput. Pete spoke about the growing issue of sexual exploitation, something that many were (and are) unaware of. Afterward, John wanted to know more. So he, Ruth Ann and a group of others arranged to see Pete. Ruth Ann says, “He met with all of us for about five minutes, explaining the issue of sexual exploitation, told us we should create a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, and then left the room. It was definitely baptism by fire, but in 2017 the seven of us began the work.” When CAST was formed, John served as the first board president. He’s now vice president and chair of the Operations Committee while Ruth Ann chairs the Awareness and Education Committee.
Raising awareness and educating people is a crucial part of their work, as they focus on prevention of sexual exploitation. CAST offers training to educators as well as age-appropriate teaching for students. As Ruth Ann explains, “We go into schools, churches, youth organizations, and community spaces to bring awareness and education on such issues as internet safety, healthy vs. toxic relationships, how to recognize a predator, pornography and the brain and how to get help. So many victim-survivors of sexual exploitation say they got sucked into a bad situation simply because they ‘didn’t know’ about these topics.”
While CAST is not a faith-based nonprofit, John and Ruth Ann’s faith motivates them personally. Ruth Ann explains, “Ultimately, the two of us do this out of love for Jesus. We pray, ‘Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth…’ We see this work as a way we can flesh out God’s Kingdom of love and justice right here in our corner of the world. When politics and violence and deceit and disunity threaten to bring us to despair over what we can’t do, we lean into what we can: offering people an opportunity to be all they were created to be, free from harm. All children are worthy and valuable. They deserve to be protected from exploitation. It’s just another way of saying that each person has ‘unsurpassable worth,’ a statement we hear often at Woodland Hills.”
She adds, “The internet, sexual predators and our sexualized culture pull youth away from innocence and toward exploitation. Often it is disguised as love or belonging, when it is actually manipulation and destruction. John and I do this work to help preserve the dignity of those made in the image of God and to save young people from trauma that can last a lifetime. We believe that protecting the vulnerable, especially our children, is a kingdom value worthy of defending. We want children to be able to be children.”
We continue to be amazed at the sheer variety of ways Woodland people use their time and energy to affirm the unsurpassable worth of all. Thank you Ruth Ann and John!
If you’d like to share your own story, please email us at info@whchurch.org.
