SOMETIMES OUR CALLING IS BORN FROM MOMENTS THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO BRING OUT OUR GREATEST WEAKNESS

In 2010, Shelley Repp had a series of encounters that exposed her to human trafficking. Shelley worked with a young refugee who was trafficked by her sponsor family. That same year a family friend adopted twins. The twin’s biological mother had been and was still being sexually exploited.

Shelley began to learn about the dangers of human trafficking, through research and news articles. However, human trafficking, sex trafficking in particular, became much more personal when she discovered that a family member had become entangled with the commercial sex industry.

Shelley did not remain silent about this crime. In 2011 she started an outreach ministry to women working in strip clubs. Through this work, she began a ministry called Spoken For. Its mission was to provide resources and services to women who had survived sex trafficking. In 2016 Shelley was invited to become a part of the New Mexico Human Trafficking Task Force. She gained knowledge and experience that helped her ministry, Spoken For, become an independent non-profit. This journey led her to another person who was a sojourner as well.

Rob Thomas was awakened several nights in a row with a recurring dream about starting an outreach ministry to the poorest and most vulnerable people in Albuquerque. He started the nonprofit, New Mexico Dream Center in 2016 and began to build financial support for his mission. Rob and Shelley had connected several times about their like organizations and Shelley had shared her heart about the connections she had discovered between unhoused youth and sex trafficking. She was driven to find a way to create a low-barrier resource for these vulnerable teens to help them not fall so easily into the trap of sex trafficking. Rob and Shelley decided to combine their resources of Spoken For and New Mexico Dream Center to create a stronger and more supported nonprofit. In 2018 they merged the two nonprofits and Shelley stepped into the role of Executive Director for New Mexico Dream Center and Rob shifted his role to become the President of the Board for their joint efforts. Soon after this merger, they located a building that was in the perfect part of town to open up the low-barrier resources Shelley felt so strongly about. The Harbour opened its doors in June of 2018 to begin providing outreach and services to young people struggling with survival on the streets of Albuquerque.

Today the New Mexico Dream Center continues to provide services to survivors of human trafficking and unhoused youth . It is an agency that believes that every human life is valuable to God and therefore to us.

IT IS PROOF THAT SOME OF OUR GREATEST AND MOST BOLD IDEAS ARE BORN FROM THE THINGS THAT COULD HAVE BROKEN US.