The Alabama Baptist Online

Passport Through Darkness: A True Story of Danger and Second Chancescomment (0)

December 15, 2011

By Martine Bates Sharp, Ed.D.

Kimberly L. Smith. Colorado Springs, Colo.: David C. Cook, 2011. 256 pp. (Paperback).

Any book about human suffering is hard to read. A book about human trafficking, particularly child trafficking, is especially hard to read. How much harder it must have been for author Kimberly Smith to put herself in harm’s way to confront the atrocities she discovered.

Smith was serving with her husband as a missionary in Spain when she began to hear disturbing rumors about a local orphanage. Investigating, she soon learned that the rumors were true.

Thus began her journey into an ugliness that she never expected to see, resulting in an “international effort to save thousands from modern-day slavery, persecution, disease and genocide” through her missions organization, Make Way Partners.

This beautifully written book tells Smith’s story, which began as a vague discontent of knowing God had a plan for her and continues in the ongoing fight against atrocities, particularly in Africa and Eastern Europe. 

Smith lives in Sylacauga and Make Way Partners is based in Birmingham.