Chasing Freedom

 photo copyright of Aaron Smith

My friend Aaron is chasing freedom. Freedom from slavery, freedom for abuse and neglect. Freedom to live a full, happy life. My friend Aaron is literally placing one foot in front of the other, pounding the pavement to reach those people. He is running across the entire state of Minnesota in NINE days. That's over 200 miles. On foot. For freedom.

Why in the world would anyone want to run for 18-20 miles a day?

Here is some awe-inspiring reasons.

• An estimated 27 million adults & 13 million children worldwide are victims of human trafficking.
• There are more human slaves in the world today than ever before in history.
• Approximately 75-80% of human trafficking is for sex.
• 80% of those sold into sexual slavery are under 24, some are as young as six years old.
• An estimated 30,000 victims of sex trafficking die each year from abuse, disease, torture & neglect

To find out more about Run Free, visit here.

I met Aaron in college. He was one of my editors for the school newspaper and was breathe of grace in an often hostile news room. He was always so patient with me, even when he red-lettered my whole article. (Which he could still probably do to this blog post! I went on into broadcast writing, he stayed with print) While this unassuming guy could help me with my sentence structures, he was already doing and planning great things. He and a few other guys decided to bike across the entire country to raise money for missions. And they actually did it.

 Venture Expeditions was started.

Three boys on a bike grew to a whole community that empowers people to benefit the world and discover their souls through adventure-driven humanitarian efforts.

Awe-inspiring, isn't it?

To follow along with Aaron on his run, visit his blog here.

Learn more about Venture Expeditions and how you can help, visit here.

Watch a video that I produced about Aaron here.

If you want to donate, you can do it here.