Twenty-Five Days and One Chance to Save Our Daughter with The Baldwin Family
Pardon the Mess with Scarlet Hiltibidal - Christian Motherhood, Biblical Parenting, Raising Christian Kids
Scarlet Hiltibidal and Christian Parenting
4.9 • 850 Ratings
🗓️ 25 April 2019
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Online relationships. Predators. Sex trafficking.
We tend to think these things happen to “other” people. But today’s podcast is a great reminder for all of us raising kids in today’s digital culture.
The Baldwin family is a strong Christian family living in the Dallas suburbs. Their life was typical of most of ours—that is, until John got word that his seventeen-year-old daughter, Mackenzie, had met a man online from Kosovo and was days away from fleeing the country to marry him.
With less than a month to devise a plan to save Mackenzie, John and Stephanie Baldwin did everything they knew to save their daughter from a mistake that could cost Mackenzie her life.
John, Stephanie, and Mackenzie Baldwin join us on Pardon the Mess and share of teenage friends brave enough to speak up for Mackenzie, FBI agents willing to go far beyond their job description to save a vulnerable teen, and parents who relentlessly prayed for the Lord to keep their daughter from making the mistake of a lifetime.
Today’s podcast is a must listen for both parents and teens as the Baldwins openly share about the importance of true friends who will do anything to keep you safe, the dangers of online relationships, and the importance of family and walking with the Lord.
Links from today's podcast:
Almost Gone: Twenty-Five Days and One Chance to Save Our Daughter
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We're so glad that you've tuned in to pardon the mess. |
| 0:07.8 | We're parents just like you, doing our best to raise kids who will love and follow Christ. |
| 0:12.7 | We hope you will join us and our guests each week for honest conversations about the good, |
| 0:17.5 | bad, and ugly of raising kids. |
| 0:19.7 | There's no perfect parents, just a perfect God |
| 0:22.0 | who stands ready to pardon our mess and guide us on the most challenging yet rewarding journey, |
| 0:27.3 | parenting. Hey guys, this is Cynthia Yanov. I'm so glad you're with us today on Pardon the Mess. |
| 0:33.8 | We've got the Baldwin's with us today. It's John and Stephanie Baldwin, husband and wife, and their daughter McKenzie. |
| 0:40.1 | And they are from a suburb of Dallas, and they are pretty much the American typical suburban living, churchgoing family with three kids. |
| 0:50.2 | All of that except for the story that they're going to share with us today, that unbeknownst to them, |
| 0:55.1 | their teenage daughter, McKenzie, who's with us also, got involved in an online relationship |
| 1:00.0 | with a Muslim man overseas, and they almost lost her. This is kind of a quote from the intro to their |
| 1:06.1 | book, and I'm going to read y'all. Only 25 days separated us from losing our daughter, possibly forever. |
| 1:11.9 | We had 25 days to figure out the details of her secret plan, devise a counterplan, and then |
| 1:17.4 | carefully execute it. Remarkably, 25 days was just enough time for us to get it done, and those 25 |
| 1:23.3 | days proved to be priceless and keeping McKenzie safe. And so that's kind of a little intro into |
| 1:29.1 | their story. This is just such an important thing for us to talk about today in a digital world. |
| 1:34.3 | We hear all about predators online and sex trafficking, both locally and all over the world |
| 1:39.6 | and the vulnerability of our teens, but we tend to think, if you're like me, this is not going to |
| 1:45.5 | happen in my world. But the Baldwin's can say otherwise. They've lived this. And so it's just a good |
| 1:50.7 | encouragement for us to be vigilant. They have a book called Almost Gone. And in fact, my daughter |
| 1:57.0 | heard that McKenzie speak, McKenzie Baldwin, and she was so touched by it. She asked me to |
... |
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