How a VBS in Rural Iowa Rescued Six Families from Slavery in Pakistan

I laid out our Blueprint for Freedom — the three steps we use to help families escape bonded labor:

1. Debt Relief – paying the legal amount to clear a family’s bonded debt
2. Income Generation – tools or training to start a new livelihood
3. Financial Literacy – skills to help freedom last for the long term

I showed videos of families who had been trapped for decades and the joy on their faces the day they were set free. You could feel the weight of it in the room.

Months later, when Hope’s leaders met to choose the mission focus for Vacation Bible School, the decision came quickly: this year, the kids would raise money to free one family. The exact cost? $862.

A Goal That Felt Just Out of Reach

Pastor Stan Johnson leads Hope Evangelical Free Church, a small congregation in the farming community of Onawa. When the VBS leadership team first discussed making the $862 “Key to Freedom” their goal, he was both excited and realistic.

“Our best year before was about $700,” he told me. “So $862 felt like a stretch — but maybe we could do it if we really pushed.”

VBS would run for three mornings. The plan was simple: tell the kids what was at stake, show them daily GCR videos from the field, and invite them to give.

The Week It Happened

Day One:
Kids poured their donations into the offering box — coins, crumpled bills, even a few folded checks. When the total came in that afternoon, they were already 70% of the way to their goal. A family in the church quietly offered to match the day’s giving.

Day Two:
Another family stepped up with a matching gift. By the end of the morning, the original $862 goal had been passed. The dream of freeing one family was already reality.

Day Three:
A third matching gift was promised. Kids arrived with more money they’d earned in the sweltering July heat — hauling insulation, detailing cars, doing whatever they could to give. Now everyone was wondering: How high could this go?

What $862 Can Do for Families Experiencing Slavery in Pakistan

This is what they were giving toward.

In Pakistan’s brick kilns, the air is thick with heat and dust. Families work from dawn to dusk, forming thousands of bricks a day for just $3–$5 — and after loan payments and interest, they might take home $1.50. Many debts began small, but high interest and constant need make them impossible to escape.

On a recent trip, I met a family like the ones Hope’s VBS was helping. We found Khalid in the middle of the brickfield, sweat pouring down his back as he packed mud into molds. His children, ages six and nine, flipped bricks in the sun to dry. They had been praying for freedom for 15 years.

The day we arrived, that prayer was answered. We went with them to the kiln owner’s office, handed over the check, and watched years of debt — and hopelessness — disappear in a moment.

The Announcement

Back in Iowa, the third day of VBS ended with the moment everyone had been waiting for.

As the song leader approached the stage to announce the final total, she couldn’t speak — she was in tears. After a moment she read the number aloud:

$5,219.02

The room erupted. Kids jumped to their feet, cheering. One boy stood up and flexed his arms like a weightlifter, grinning. A little girl shouted, “Who’s the family?”

For a church that thought $862 might be a stretch, the number was staggering. Enough to free not one, but six families.

More Than a Number

Pastor Stan told me he couldn’t stop smiling at how deeply the kids embraced the mission. “Even kids who don’t normally get super excited about church were filled with joy,” he said. “And that joy was contagious. Adults caught it too. It was just beautiful to watch.”

Hope doesn’t see this as a one-time event. They’re already planning to invite me back to share updates on the families we’ve freed together this year. “It seems like it is … something that becomes part of the heartbeat of our church, that it won’t just be a this-year type of thing,” he said.

From a Stretch Goal to a Miracle

Three days. One small-town church. A stretch goal of $862.

And now, because of the faith and generosity of a group of kids in rural Iowa, six families in Pakistan will walk out of the kilns for good — their long-awaited day of freedom finally here.

I keep thinking about those two scenes: a crowd of kids in Iowa, cheering as the number $5,219.02 is announced … and a family in Pakistan, stepping past the kiln gates for the last time.

One scene is all bright light and morning smiles, the other thick with heat and dust — but they are connected now, forever.

That’s the power of the body of Christ. A gift given in one corner of the world becomes an answer to prayer in another. And sometimes, God takes what feels like a stretch … and turns it into a miracle.