Creston grad looking for help for mission trip
Nov. 17—A 2022 Creston High graduate is looking for some help to improve the lives of certain others.
Derek Paup, a sophomore at Dordt University in Sioux Center, is looking for financial assistance to fund a trip in late December to Cambodia to learn about the country's human trafficking issues. But it was not something at school that directly got him interested in helping.
"I saw the movie 'Sound of Freedom' which got me thinking about it," he said. The 2023 film is based on a true story. After rescuing a young boy from traffickers, a federal agent learns the boy's sister is still captive and faces a dangerous mission to save her. Human trafficking can be girls and women who are coerced into commercial sex and boys and men coerced into work with dangerous conditions and or with low pay.
Paup will be one of 12 in the traveling group, including two Dordt professors. Paup said he is a total of seven Dordt freshmen and sophomores. They will be working through Agape International Missions which has a history of working with human trafficking in the southeast Asia country of Cambodia.
"I have already heard from others who have been on the same trip and they told me about the horrible things that go on there," Paup said. He expects the group to work with orphanages in Phnom Penh, the country's capital. The country has an approximate 16 million residents and similar in size to North Dakota.
"We will learn about the culture there, the nature of its human trafficking and the daily lives of people who are part of trafficking," he said.
To learn how to contribute to Derek's cause or learn more about his trip, contact him via email at derekpaup@gmail.com.
Paup also plays defensive line for the Dordt football team which begins its NAIA playoff run noon, Saturday vs. visiting Ottawa, Kansas.
