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Sometimes I think people fall in love with a voice and put up with mediocre music because they like the voice. But once you start doing music that they think is more meaningful, it's amazing to watch them respond.

There's another kind of awakening underlying your new album. Tell us about that.

Grant I was sitting in my favorite living room chair watching television, just to veg out while watching a rerun of Law & Order. I wasn't prepared for what I was going to see, and I never thought TV was going to change my life. They did an episode about human trafficking, which I hadn't even heard of at the time. And they were actually showing kids being shipped into America, held in cages and chained up with each other.

Now I've always thought that Law & Order was based on at least a shred of truth, but I just thought there's no way kids are being brought into this country for sexual exploitation and underage labor. That's fathomable for Thailand maybe … but not America! Not in my neighborhood.

So I went online and started to Google "human trafficking." I found a government report on trafficking human persons and read up on statistics. Over two million children in the world have been trafficked for sexual exploitation, some as young as six years in age. And the countries on the watch lists include places I dream of going to, like Australia.

Two young Indian girls, rescued from the sex trade, pray for Natalie

The dark side of society, right under our own noses.

Grant It just started disturbing me greatly, and I remember sitting there bawling my eyes out reading stories about these kids. My husband kept checking on me wondering what was going on because he heard me crying.

It troubled me the most because I thought, Why is this allowed to go on in the world? It could have been me, or my sixteen-year-old niece, or even my eight-year-old niece. We have so many terrific organizations today that deal with feeding and sponsoring starving children. But there are starving children out there that are forced to have sex twenty times a day. It's the filthiest side of humanity that you can imagine, and it bothers me that I hadn't heard about this going on until recently.

I remember hardly sleeping that night, knowing I'd never be the same. I can't explain it other than I'm convinced it was a God thing.

And what was your response to learning about all of this?

Grant I figured there had to be some faith-based organizations dealing with human trafficking, and I found two—International Justice Mission (IJM) and Shared Hope International. I was relieved that at least somebody's doing something about this. [Editor's note: World Vision is also very involved in fighting this battle.]

There was an 800 number on the Shared Hope site, so I called them immediately and started rambling about how I was a singer who saw human trafficking on Law & Order the night before. The woman on the phone was like, "Okay, slow down. Let's start with your name." I told her I was Natalie Grant and she said that she was at my concert the week before. That confirmed that it was a God thing to me!

She put me in touch with [ex-Congresswoman Linda Smith], who started the organization. We talked on the phone that same day and she told me how she started it. And she said, "You know, Natalie, if you think the television show changed your life, you need to see it first hand. We've never taken somebody with us, but if you want to go, we're going to India next July."

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