They were a couple of college kids in Oregon with big plans. Matt Boyd was going to pitch in the big leagues, blessed with a strong left arm and a quiet confidence. Ashley Timm was going to change the world, in ways not yet revealed.
It was her calling, Ashley had known since high school, to advocate for those who needed her most. Passion layered with compassion layered with faith.
Huge dreams to wrap your arms around. The kind of dreams, Matt and Ashley Boyd decided early on, were best achieved by clasping hands, spreading arms as wide as possible and embracing both of those dreams as something to pursue together.
And when that happens, the outcomes can sometimes exceed your wildest expectations, taking you to places as far-flung as Chicago and Uganda, 7,700 miles away.
“[Matt] knew how he wanted his career to unfold, and he knew it was going to be an all-in situation for the two of us if it was going to go that way,’’ Ashley said. “But he didn’t want me to forsake my passions and my dreams for all of his.
“So he’s been incredibly supportive ever since Day 1. As I’ve supported him chasing his baseball career, he’s supported me. And, really, as time has progressed and our careers have unfolded, really each other’s passions have just become each other’s passions, if that makes sense.’’
Matt found his place in the major leagues. The address now is Wrigley Field. He’s in his second season with the Cubs, his fifth major-league team, and in 2025 he had a 14-8 record and 3.21 ERA, the best numbers of his 12-year career. He made his first All-Star team.
Matt is 35 now. He would never have lasted, he says, without Ashley. She stood by him through all his trials, bouts of triumph and failure and injuries, trades and demotions and being swapped by teams like kids swapping baseball cards.
Ashley found her place in eastern Uganda, in Kingdom Home, where safety and joy now fill the lives of kids who had known mostly neglect, terror and despair. That terror is never far away. Ashley would not reveal the exact location of Kingdom Home, out of concern for the children who live there.
Ashley would never have gotten there, she said, without Matt. It turns out she wasn’t the only Boyd with a big heart. Moved to join Ashley’s mission to fight childhood trafficking and the sexual exploitation of kids who should still be playing with dolls, Matt threw his support behind Ashley’s plan to start the nonprofit organization they call Kingdom Home.
“Ashley had told me when we first met,’’ Matt said, “about her dream, her heart for social justice, telling me some of the monstrosities of the sex trade, especially specific to children, how children who are in situations where they should be loved on and cared for are being exploited.’’
Kingdom Home was a place born of urgency. A bus filled with 36 little girls bound for an unfathomable hell — a brothel in the big city far from their rural homes — was intercepted by the local authorities. They contacted a social worker, asked her to take these kids in, as she had with so many others before. But her husband had died, and she no longer had the means to take care of another three dozen children.
Ashley had spent the years since college working for a nongovernment organization, Remember Nhu, dedicated to ending child sex slavery. It was named after a young Cambodian child who was 12 when her grandmother sold her to a man for three nights. She later sold her again to the same man.
Through a contact from those years at Remember Nhu, Ashley, who was looking for a new challenge, learned of the plight of the kids on the bus.
“So they reached out to us,’’ Matt said, “and they said, ‘We don’t have the funding to support them right now. Would you guys want to partner with them?’ And, like, you know how the Lord works, the opportunity presented itself, and we said, ‘No, we can do something apart from them; let’s start a nonprofit, and let this be the first step.’ ’’
That was in 2018. Matt and Ashley had only recently welcomed their first child, Meira Joy. Three more children would follow. Matt’s career was still fraught with uncertainty. He was still at a stage where he was being shuttled back and forth from the minors. Financial security was hardly guaranteed. What would it take to accept this new challenge?
“A leap of faith,’’ Ashley said. “It just seemed too divine to say no to the opportunity. So we said yes, we took that leap of faith, and, thankfully, we haven’t had to do it on our own. It started out just word of mouth, talking to people we know, and has grown. As the support has grown, our reach has grown, and we’ve been able to help more and more people.’’
Kingdom Home is made up of three buildings spread over 14 acres, housing 90-some-odd girls and boys in need of protection and love. Ashley is the executive director and supervises staff stateside and in Uganda. They have raised the funding to build another facility, this one for young adults, and have plans to raise money for a fifth home to house more kids an hour away.
“We’re a prevention home,’’ Ashley said. “We want to identify children who are at risk and bring them into our care before any exploitation is ever even a reality in their life because we know that trauma cannot be erased. And so we find children, many of them orphans, abandoned or effectively abandoned, meaning there was someone looking out for them who was totally inadequate. Those children are, of course, the most vulnerable.
“So, many of them have not been actual victims, praise God for that. But a handful have been victims of sexual exploitation. They have been sold or their families have tried to sell them into child marriages.’’
Some, Ashley said, have been exploited as child labor. “A few of the boys and girls who are very, very young, like 5, 6, 7, have scars on their faces because they’re dealing with uranium, trying to sift through these mines to get gold and parts to make batteries and things like that.’’
Ashley just returned from a weeklong visit to Uganda, a place that represents a full-circle moment for her. She first went to Uganda while still a teenager as part of a high school exchange program, and somehow knew that one day she would return. Coincidentally, Uganda is the same size as her native Oregon, but where Oregon has around 4.27 million people, Uganda, one of the fastest-growing countries in the world, has roughly 50 million, three-quarters of whom are 35 or younger.
“That was a life-changing opportunity,’’ she said of her first visit. “I think anytime in those formative years you’re able to step out of your comfort zone and experience what life is like for someone in an entirely different culture, it’s impactful.
“And I just fell in love with the country. It’s hard not to. A beautiful place full of beautiful people. So I always knew at some point that I would end up back in Uganda.’’
Matt estimates he has been to Uganda three or four times, his most recent visit a year ago. When he was with the Tigers, some teammates joined him on his journey there.
“We’ve never wanted to push anything on anybody,’’ Matt said. “However, I’ve had so many teammates over the years that have partnered with us financially.’’
And, yes, he has brought along bats and balls to introduce a game these kids have never seen before.
The magnitude of the challenge of combatting child trafficking can be overwhelming, not just in Uganda, but throughout the world. Even in the United States. “It exists here,’’ Matt said. “It looks different than it does in Uganda, but it’s here.’’
A 2024 U.S. State Department report on human trafficking cited a study that estimated 27.6 million people were exploited in forced labor globally, of which at least 3.3 million were children.
“Child trafficking can occur as sex trafficking and/or as forced labor, including domestic servitude and forced begging,” the study said.
Matt and Ashley Boyd are not naive to the challenge.
“When you think about things that are bad, things that are horrible — there is no other word for it — people want to do something, but it’s hard to talk about, and the lack of attention brought to it lets it grow in the darkness,’’ Matt said.
“It needs to be brought to the light.’’
This past April, the Players Trust, the charitable arm of the Major League Players Association, shined its light on the work Matt and Ashley Boyd are doing. Boyd was the recipient of the Trust’s first Most Valuable Philanthropist Award, which came with a $10,000 grant. It is the first of six awards the Trust intends to give this season.
And on June 19, after the Cubs play the Blue Jays that afternoon, Matt and Ashley Boyd will host “Where Hope Begins,” a fund-raising event for Kingdom Home to be held in Wrigley Field’s Catalina Club.
“These children all mean so much to me,’’ Ashley said, “and all of their stories are worth telling. I think that the ones that are probably most near and dear to me are the ones I’ve known from the beginning because I’ve had the privilege and joy to watch them grow over these last eight years. Seeing them just blossom and become just wonderful young women who are so articulate and full of dreams and aspirations and taking steps toward achieving those things.’’
Ashley tells the story of Angel, the middle child of five children raised by a single mother.
“She didn’t have the funds to send any of her kids to school,’’ Ashley said, “let alone provide them with adequate housing and medical attention and food. So little Angel was living a very destitute life until she came into our care.’’
Now?
“She’s dreaming of going to law school,’’ Ashley said, “and I have no doubt that she will do it. She was named head prefect of her entire school, which is like being named valedictorian. I am very excited to see what Angel is going to do.’’
The battle, you see, is won, one precious child at a time.