Mary Hutchinson Articles

Philip Cameron never planned on extending his family, nor had he envisioned creating a refuge for potential sex slaves. Yet his efforts to transform orphans into walking testimonies of God’s love are now transforming a country.

Natalie, a beautiful girl of 16, sat outside the orphanage where she had lived since she was 7 years old, wearing a t-shirt that read: “You Can Own Me For $3,500.”

OK, so she wasn’t actually wearing the shirt—but she might as well have been. In fact, everything about her screamed the message to predators in the area. She had “aged out” of the government-run orphanage in Moldova and had no place to live and no way to make a living. She had no family, no one who would know or care if she vanished from the country known as “the engine of the sex trafficking machine” in all of Europe.

Statistics of abuse and neglect paint a grim pictureAround the world, at least one in three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her life.The U.N. reported in 2009 that up to 40 percent of women throughout Latin America have been victims of...

Publisher’s Note: J. Lee Grady has been part of the Charisma family since 1992. Early this year, after 11 years as editor, his role changed to contributing editor, prompting many readers to ask where he had gone. Lee is still a vital part of Charisma, as you’ll read in this article, but he is also embracing a bold new season of ministry. As he does, please pray for him and consider supporting his incredible vision.

—Steve Strang

J. Lee Grady, the former award-winning editor of Charisma, travels the world today rallying women to bravely serve God. What made this easygoing journalist an advocate for biblical equality? 

Former Charisma editor J. Lee Grady spent the first half of his career sitting behind a desk. Today you are more apt to see him behind a pulpit—challenging the abuse of women in a Third World nation. 

How did this mild-mannered journalist become a passionate crusader for justice? Ironically, Grady says, it all started with letters from readers of Charisma.

“Any time we ran a story on a high-profile teacher like Joyce Meyer or a female pastor of a church, I’d brace myself because I knew what kind of letters we’d get,” says Grady, who began his career at Charisma as news editor in 1992 and served as editor from 1999 to 2010. “Dozens of well-meaning people would write letters, citing Scriptures taken out of context, to attack the notion of women being allowed to minister in church.”