Amidst Antwerp, Belgium’s bustling cafés, green parks, and historic architecture, lies a much darker trade: one of the largest red-light districts in the world. This 24 hour a day, seven day a week center welcomes prostituted and trafficked women — women who often feel beyond hope of liberation —working daily 12-hour shifts behind glass windows. However, just on the edge of Antwerp’s red-light district stands a symbol of God’s freedom, truth, and love: the Oasis Center.

The Oasis Center is a physical hub of Breaking Chains Network, a human trafficking prevention ministry founded in 2007 by April and Jerry Foster. It is also associated with the Europe Network of Project Rescue, which works to restore survivors of sexual slavery through prevention, intervention, and restoration. The Oasis Center serves as a coffee shop during the day and a ministry center in the evening where women gather for meals, Bible studies, and community. The foundation of Breaking Chains is God’s love.

The Fosters have served as AGWM global workers in Belgium since 2001. Both April and Jerry believe in the importance of being as equipped as possible to work where God has placed them.

The Fosters’ educational backgrounds have given them the skills to lead Breaking Chains — Jerry with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, and April with a bachelor’s in human services and master’s in international community development. They are both ordained ministers.

The idea of Breaking Chains began after God placed a stirring in the Fosters’ hearts toward trafficking. They soon discovered that Belgium is a major trafficking destination for women from Eastern Europe, Africa, and many other countries.

April and another missionary began to have prayer walks through Antwerp’s red-light district, seeking God’s heart and the needs of the community. As the two women walked, they passed out flowers to the women behind the glass and shared that God loved them. However, the response to this statement was typically, “Well, that’s great, but how is that going to change my situation?” The Fosters quickly realized finding freedom for these women would involve offering practical help and solutions.

God continued to supernaturally open doors for this ministry in Belgium, and Breaking Chains soon began.

There are many ways women might end up in red-light districts like the one in Antwerp. April comments that a commonality is “a physical or economical vulnerability that creates a place for them to be taken advantage of.” These can include supporting sick or aging family, providing for children as single mothers, or paying off debt bondages. Some women are misled, thinking they’ve been recruited for a valid job such as restaurant or hotel work. Many others, especially from Eastern Europe, are trafficked by organized criminal gangs or mafias.

April says, “They’re just like any of us, our own daughters, sisters. … They’re trying to find their way, and so they’ve fallen into this exploitative situation, and then it’s hard to get out."

Through Breaking Chains and the Oasis Cetner, the Fosters and their dedicated team on the ground provide practical help to educate, encourage, and equip women to achieve freedom. Breaking Chains has connected women with counseling, taught them professional life skills, sponsored them for further education, assisted with housing, and even bought them airplane tickets home. April says, “It’s a matter of supporting them, encouraging them where they’re at until they can leave.”

One young woman was able to leave Belgium and return to her home in Bulgaria through Breaking Chains. As someone who was trafficked, she wanted to fight organized crime and trafficking in Eastern Europe. Breaking Chains sponsored her to go to school for law enforcement and achieve this goal.

The Fosters explain that many of these women, especially those from Eastern Europe, come from a religious background that teaches you must be good enough to earn your salvation. They believe they have crossed a point of no return. April says the women are “blown away” when introduced to the idea that no one is good enough except Jesus, and that He will meet them where they are, no matter the circumstances.

They often come with questions like, “Can God still love me even after everything I’ve been through or some of the choices I’ve been forced to make?” The Fosters and their team share the life-changing news that “there’s nothing too big for God to forgive.”

An important aspect of Breaking Chains is their prevention program. After working in Belgium for some time, the Fosters saw a consistency in many cases: women from rural communities falling victim to a false promise of a better big city life, then being forced into prostitution.

April says, “After a while, we asked, ‘What can we do to prevent them from being trafficked here?’ And that is to go to the source countries and start an awareness and a prevention program.” This program teaches girls how to safely leave their homes without becoming targets for trafficking and emphasizes their value in God.

God has opened doors and created opportunities to share this prevention program globally. The Fosters have presented the program in town halls, high schools, and on television interviews especially across Eastern Europe. It has been adapted for youth camps and into Russia to reach young people. Fida, a Finnish aid society, used it in an awareness campaign that reached 32 countries.

As the Fosters have taken Breaking Chains’ prevention program outside of Belgium, the Oasis Center remains supported by a team of missionaries, volunteers, and interns who are all dedicated to ministering to Belgium’s women. Shawn Alderman is the current director of the Oasis Center and oversees this ministry in collaboration with the Fosters.

Interest has recently been expressed in the Fosters sharing prevention information among the First Nations people in Canada. The Fosters share that “there’s a huge problem with the First Nations women being targeted for trafficking. A large number of them go missing or murdered every year — especially in Western Canada, British Columbia, Yukon.” With April being from Alaska and growing up surrounded by indigenous culture and people, this issue is close to her heart. God has planted a seed for growth and ministry in Canada.

The interest in Canada is new, and the Fosters are still seeking God’s guidance for their next steps. Jerry shares, “We’re very much dependent on God opening the right doors for us. … It really has to be His direction because there’s no way we would know who to go to or how to do it.”

The Pentecostal Assemblies of God in Canada (PAOC) and local churches are vital in assisting and guiding any new ministry that might take shape. Jerry says, “Our program is very much designed to be taught, but then to be followed up. It has to be followed up by a local church. So, we’re looking to partner with local churches so after we present the program, the girls aren’t just dropped and left off.”

The heart of Breaking Chains is summed up in a theme from Galatians 5, displayed proudly at the Oasis Center: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. As April and Jerry take their ministry into new mission fields and their team in Belgium continues to reach women in the red-light district, the goal remains the same — to help women “experience freedom and truth in Him [God], and come to know Him and His love.”

By Joy Myers