ROOTED RENEGADE

Some memories linger.  Some memories stay hidden.  Some memories the Lord will allow to be completely wiped clean from your mind.  Some however will stick around because they will be used for testimony.  Don’t ask me the why’s or the science behind it…you would be asking me to place myself on the throne of the Creator, and that is not a place I want to sit (although I think we all tend to try that seat out more often than we care to admit).

It was close to Thanksgiving 2015 and there are some things about the memory which is like staring out of a pair of eyeglasses whose script is too strong.  I had been at his house for a few days after he agreed to pick me up from the hotel where I was being trafficked.  I was never allowed to leave but that night I had set it up an outcall with this buyer once my traffickers left me alone again in the hotel.  I had a window to leave, and I was taking it.  For me, it was a scary move but a gutsy one too.  My traffickers would either leave for days and have someone watch the room, or they would be gone for hours or minutes.  I wouldn’t ever know so I took a chance and knew it was a chance that would change my life one way or another.  I would either get caught or finally be free.  I was hoping that the latter would be true.  So, when I hit up this buyer to “rescue” me by way of an outcall, I really thought this was my chance to be free.  I was so wrong (for a time – but God heard my prayers).  My trafficking would continue for several months but before it did, I was about the meet the fam (the family – his family for Thanksgiving dinner).

People think that trafficking is duct tape, ropes, hand cuffs, and the like.  They make these memes, campaigns, etc. to raise awareness, but that doesn’t depict what the vast majority of us experience.  I didn’t have any of those things.  I was emotionally tormented and mentally broken.  I was groomed well before I ever knew what grooming was, as a child.  So, it was easy to trick me, manipulate me, break me, and use me because I had gotten to the point in life where I stopped fighting back.  It wasn’t that the fight wasn’t there, it was buried deep inside me.  Covered up by years of sexual and physical abuse, addiction, and mental abuse from narcissistic people who made me think they loved me, but in reality, were only after one thing, their success at all costs.  Sometimes people are who they are, no matter how bad we want them to be someone else.

He lived in a 2-story home, pretty decent, drove a white truck and made good money making machinery for the government.  He had several government contracts.  White middle class male working for the government.  Don’t act surprised.  I wasn’t.  He knew the lifestyle and how to traffick someone better than who he so called “rescued” me from.  He gave me my own room in his house and helped me get detoxed off meth but still provided wine for me to stay relaxed. I slept most of the first day and when I wasn’t actually sleeping, I pretended to be when he was awake because I knew what was expected of me.  I used the detox excuse until I wasn’t able to use it anymore.  He would fall asleep then I would get up and go to bed from the couch.  I knew that eventually I would have to perform in order to maintain residence.  It is how the game works.  Nothing is free in that world.  It certainly wasn’t for him. 

I just wanted to go home.  I kept telling him that too.  Every time he asked me what I wanted I told him I wanted to go home to my kids.  I didn’t want anything else but to go home.  So, I was told to write down my top three goals in life and he would help me achieve them (this is why many survivors struggle with doing a goal list after getting free – this is a common practice with buyer/traffickers).  First goal was to get my kids back.  The second was to get a car and the third was to get a job.  It is the same three goals that most survivors want when they are just getting out or in a program.  It is our inherent basic needs as women – love, happiness, sustainability, stability. 

The part that saddened me the most was that he took me to Thanksgiving dinner with his own family, like it was normal.  I had wrestled with what it meant to be the prostitute, call girl, victim, etc. at the table with a man who is a buyer while he sits with his family, daughter, mother, nieces, nephews, brothers and sisters, at a holiday dinner.  It had ruined my own family functions because of how I had seen myself and others due to the experience. I walked around the food table with these people like it was a normal thing to do knowing their son was purchasing me for sex and then posting me online for others to do the same.  No one asked any questions.  No one asked what I did for a living, how I knew their son, brother, etc.  No one bothered to ask if I needed help or if I was okay.  They let me sit at the table as if all was okay.  I wander if I had not been the only one to come to the family home before.  Maybe not.  Maybe they were scared.  Maybe they just didn’t know.  Who knows.  It is sad to think back now and know that all those people were around me and could have helped, but no one said a word.  I was desperate to go home.  Desperate to be free.  And just like Joseph, I was being sold and no one stopped it, not even the family (Genesis 37-50).

Maybe you have been there too.  Maybe there is something about my story that touches yours.  Can I tell you that either way, if it is a lot that you relate to or a little, that you still are not alone?!  You are seen and valued during your healing process. For years I was hypervigilant about the holidays and would get extremely triggered until I went through inner healing, deliverance, and intensive trauma therapy with a Holy Spirit filled counselor. While I can sit at family functions now and enjoy myself, I still think back on that Thanksgiving and wonder how many women or men or children are sitting at family functions like I did, knowing they were being sold to the highest bidder. Trafficking doesn’t take a holiday break and buyers / traffickers don’t take time off. My prayer this year is that someone at those dinner tables speak up for the voiceless and offers to help those who are being brought while being sold.

While I have since forgiven this man and the others for trafficking me, devaluing me, and exploiting me in ways that are just inhumane, the events still happened. We can have a new life in Christ Jesus (Hallelujah), and we still have our experiences. The beautiful part about the new life with Jesus is that He walks us through all the trials and everything we go through on our path to freedom. I am grateful for my life (all of it), and I am praying that you find hope through my story.

Faythe

If you or someone you know needs help for trafficking, please call the National Human Trafficking Hotline 1-888-373-7888 or the hotline for your state. There is help and it may be hard, but we do get set free.