by Doug Mainwaring, LifeSite News:
LifeSiteNews sat down with Tim Ballard at the Washington, D.C. premiere of “Sound of Freedom,” at the Museum of the Bible.
Ballard, played by Passion of the Christ star Jim Caviezel, quit his job a decade ago in order to rescue thousands of innocent children trapped in the horrific underworld of child sex trafficking, described by Ballard as “the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world.”
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Ballard, the founder of Operation Underground Railroad and CEO of the Nazarene Fund, told LifeSiteNews:
I wouldn’t have gotten into this work and stayed in this work if I didn’t believe that God cares deeply about this cause and about children.
The scripture that I hold onto is where Jesus gets very passionate and clear where he stands when he says, ‘Better that a millstone be wrapped about your neck and you cast to the bottom of the sea then that you would hurt these children.’
He noted that when he goes into dangerous places to rescue kids, he calls to mind those words of Jesus.
The movie doesn’t show kids getting abused, but still punches you ‘in the gut’
Ballard said that when work began on making the film eight years ago, hardly anyone was aware of the problem of child sex trafficking and its magnitude. The challenge to the filmmaking crew – who chose to devote themselves to bringing to light the dark world of depraved adults paying to sexually abuse abducted children – was twofold: “No one really knows about it,” and “it’s such a devastating topic.”
So, the question confronting all involved was that the world needs “to know what’s going on there,” but “how do we do it?”
“The movie never shows children getting abused,” said Ballard, however, “it still punches you. If you’re not punched, you’re doing a disservice to those children.”
The movie is a “white knuckle thriller,” keeping audiences on the edge of their seats until the end, wondering if the kids will be found and set free from their sex traffickers.
Ballard explained that he doesn’t watch the film because “it triggers too much PTSD in me,” but allowed that he does like to duck into theaters to watch the audience’s reaction at the end of the movie.
“At the end, when the credits roll, no one moves,” said Ballard. “No one gets up. They sit there until all the credits are done and they still sit there.”
