By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-08-10 09:11:59 | Updated at 2026-08-10 09:36:46
36 minutes ago
Two sisters walked into a Kentucky church looking for a way out of the life they were trapped in.
They had danced at a strip club the night before. One was eight months pregnant. The church could only offer them a motel room and a few meals.
That’s when Ked and Michelle Frank stepped in to help. Sitting on a park bench in Kentucky, talking to the two desperate sisters “really began something,” Ked told The Epoch Times. It broke his heart and began a new mission.
Meanwhile, a friend had started a ministry visiting clubs and reaching out to the women who worked there. “There were 100 people in our church that were either cooking food, delivering food, or praying for the women, that would go into the clubs, and minister,” Ked said.
The night after the encounter, Michelle went into a club with the ministry, armed with lasagna.
Something extraordinary happened.
“The bouncer opens the door into this club, and it’s as though everything froze,” Michelle told The Epoch Times.
“And in that moment, there was this haze around the atmosphere of this club, and all I could see in the darkness of it all were words on women’s foreheads like ‘broken,’ ‘lonely,’ ‘help.’
“I saw all these words on women’s foreheads [as I was] holding this lasagna, and my heart broke.”
Twenty-some years later, the memory still brings her to tears, Michelle said. It was what she needed to spark the same drive to help that Ked was feeling.
The encounters began a 20-year mission to provide a safe place for survivors to go after they escape their traffickers.
Together, Ked and Michelle have helped hundreds of women through their programs.
Before dedicating their time to combating the effects of sex trafficking, Ked and Michelle served in full-time ministry. The pair has been married for 26 years and have two daughters and a son.
About 6.3 million people—mostly women and girls—are involved in sex trafficking around the world at any given time. Shutterstock
An Old Farmhouse
There are some 6.3 million people—mostly women and girls—involved in sex trafficking around the world at any given time. After realizing that many women who escape trafficking have nowhere to go once they left, the Franks got to work.
The Franks opened their first home for trafficking victims on a friend’s farm outside of Lexington, Kentucky.
When his friend showed him the land with its old farmhouse, Ked said, “There was this pulling on my heart: ‘Ask him if he’d be willing to use that land to bring women who needed a place to go, to get away, to be safe.”
Ked took the leap: “I feel really awkward asking you this,” he said to his friend, “but do you think God would want to use that land to bring women to who need a place to go and escape?”
His friend then related that he had awakened to a message at 4 a.m. in the morning: “The Lord literally told me that’s not your land that you just bought, but I’m going to do a ministry on that land.”
Transforming that run-down farmhouse into a safe place led to a nationwide anti-trafficking ministry, Refuge for Women, which now provides emergency housing and long-term care at locations across the United States.
Michelle and Ked Frank (2nd from R and R) with helpers, in the Kentucky farmhouse they rehabbed to become their first shelter for human trafficking victims, in 2010. (Courtesy of Ked and Michelle Frank).
Today, Ked and Michelle run
Safe Places for Women, their 12th home. Safe Places for Women is a faith-based transitional living program for survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation headquartered in Littleton, Colorado. The organization provides long-term housing, case management, and addiction recovery. Ked serves as its president and founder, while Michelle is the organization’s co-founder and ministry leader.
While many anti-trafficking organizations offer a broad range of services, the Franks have focused on housing: “Housing has really been at the heart of what we’ve done,” Ked said.
“The opportunity to walk alongside of women who are beginning a brand new story, and looking forward and having hope, maybe for the first time in a long, long time. That’s always what’s gotten us really excited.”
Providing housing for survivors of human trafficking has an impact that lasts through generations, Safe Places for Women founder Ked Frank says. Shutterstock
Generational Impacts
According to Michelle, the vastness of human trafficking means the resources to meet the needs of those trafficked need to be just as expansive.
She noted the work of Rescue America. The organization’s 24/7 hotline connects women in need with organizations like Safe Places for Women.
“Women can call that hotline and then Rescue America then calls organizations like ours,” Michelle said. She called the relationship between the two organizations “huge” as survivors who reach out to the hotline find safe places.
It was at their first home that someone took a photo of a resident, Devon, holding her 3-year-old daughter, Gwenna, next to a sign that said: “Welcome home, Devon.”
The Franks found that photo and planned to speak about Devon at a recent gala where they were presenting their work.
But Devon reached out to them just before the event, telling them she had someone who wanted to speak to them.
Sixteen-year-old Gwenna then told the Franks about her passion for music, how she’s using that passion to lead worship, and about the college courses she’s taking.
Ked and Michelle now have a new photo to put next to the one welcoming Devon and Gwenna “home.” They discovered that Devon, married, now works with trafficking survivors.
Ked said that is one of hundreds of stories he could tell—stories of people who have found the hand up they needed to change their lives.
“I‘ll never forget that day that she said, ‘I need help,’” he said.
Not only is Devon’s life much different, but helping her had a generational impact, he said. “Gwenna now is on a completely different path than what she would have been on, had that situation not occurred.”
Michelle summed up her time in the ministry: “As I look back, it’s such an honor to be able to release and extend love.”
The issue of human trafficking is so huge that it can be overwhelming, she said. But each person can have a great impact that “can ripple out.”
“What I would say is, give God your ‘yes.’ Find your something and extend it and give hope to someone … because their lives will be forever changed.”
This article is part of the “Heroes Wanted” campaign, honoring the brave men and women who fight to end human trafficking. The Epoch Times and sister media outlet NTD Television were proud partners of Kaleido.Charity and the Fifth Annual International Summit Against Human Trafficking in Washington from July 21 to July 23.
To learn about many more remarkable heroes, visit Kaleido.charity/HeroesWanted, watch their videos, and VOTE (once per day) for the hero who inspires you the most. Voting ends Sept. 23, 2026.
