AUBURN, Kan. (WIBW) - Mrriah Curtis just turned 19 and she is ready to step into the big, wide world. Her choice of destination, though, is a controversial one, and even more so, her reason for going.
She is getting ready to travel to Thailand, a hot spot of sex trafficking in Asia, where she wants to reach out to victims and prostitutes.
"In junior high, I learned that human slavery is bigger today than it has ever been in history, which I think is insane. It doesn't even make sense in my mind. That broke my heart." she said.
Through Adventures in Mission, an interdenominational program that organizes Christian mission trips worldwide, Mrriah and seven other girls in her group will travel to and stay at a local ministry on Phuket, right in the middle of the island's red light district.
Adventures has been around since 1989. "Since then, we have sent 96,000 missionaries all around the world," Ashley Higgins, a spokeswomen for the organization, told 13 News.
They have worked with the Self Help & Empowerment Ministry, where Mrriah will be going, for several years. "At least 25 teams have gone there in the past two years," she said, with no incidents.
"It's important to know [the group] will only be going to open, out-door bars and brothels," safe and open locations where tourists congregate, she said.
In her colorful room, walls filled with photos of good times with family and friends, Mrriah was packing just one suitcase - skirts, t-shirts and books for the long journey. There is barely a week left before she will leave home, first for a week of training with Adventures in Mission in Gainesville, Georgia, then a week of cultural training in Thailand.
She graduated last year from Washburn Rural High School, but since then, she said she has been working and saving up towards this cause - $7,000 for airfare and living expenses during the four months in Thailand.
"My hope, my team's hope is that one, helping them realize that they don't have to in this cultural norm, this path of going into prostitution and getting money that way. 3:34 that there is other options," she said.
She said she and her group, women ranging from 18 to 22 years old and hailing from across the United States, will teach local prostitutes and at-risk women skills like jewelry-making, to show them an alternative way to make a living.
That's the first task, she said. And, she said, they will also talk to them about hope and God's love.
Mrriah said it's what she is called to do.
It won't be her first missionary trip. The Curtis family have gone on missionary trips to Belize and Costa Rica. Mrriah has also helped the homeless in Chicago and Kansas City. But this next one will be her first without her close-knit family.
She said she knows working with victims of sexual slavery can be physically dangerous and emotionally draining, but she feels her love for people will help her overcome those challenges.
Her family is fully behind her.
"I raised her. Her dad and I have give her all the life skills," mom Stephanie Curtis said. "More importantly, we have seen the Lord prepare her for this trip for years. She has not had that cushy life with no drama, no hurt, letdowns."
"With every circumstance that's been life-changing and terrifying, so many people would be broken from it. She's learned from it, grown from it, helped other people from it," she said.
"We have taken a lot of criticism, for one, allowing her to go, and two, encouraging her to go. But if that's where you're called to go, who am I to stand in the way?"
Mom Curtis knows there's a chance her daughter might not return.
"It would be really hard to have her not come back," she said as she lets her mind wander.
"... if she chose to stay there and work with human trafficking. But what a gift, what a gift to Phuket Thailand to have Mrriah," she said.
"If God calls her here, he's gonna call her out into dangerous areas here. It's naive to think if she stays in Topeka she's gonna be safe."
As for Mrriah, she said she worries only about missing her family.
She may be only 19, but she seems to have all the courage of a woman on a mission.
Mrriah and her team will be blogging about their experiences at www.thailand.adventures.org beginning January 13.
Mrriah Curtis On A Mission