Speaker 0 00:04 Hi and welcome to. That makes total sense. The podcast where we talk about faith, finance and everyday life in a way that makes total sense. I'm your host Alexis BU city. On this podcast, you'll hear the personal stories of friends I'll be interviewing who are doing familiar things in new and innovative ways. We'll answer questions specifically about money and our relationship with it and we'll explore faith and Bible teaching together. In all of these. It's not about changing our convictions as much as it is about messing with our methods. We'll have a lot of moments here together where we pause and say, that makes total sense.
Speaker 0 00:44 Hi, I'm Alexis <inaudible> and welcome to that makes total sense. Today on the podcast we have Annie lo bear and Annie is the founder and head of her organization called hookers for Jesus. So I just want to go ahead and throw that out there and say we're going to talk about this. We're going to talk about the name. Um, we're going to talk all about her redemption story. Really. Annie wrote a book called fallen that a friend of mine. Let me borrow an, I read almost the entire book on a flight to Phoenix and I just thought I have got to try and get Annie on the show so she can tell all of us about her experience. I just want to tell you, God does not waste any part of our story. And so while today, um, the language is is fine, but I just want you to know for little ears it does deal with some mature themes. Annie was in, um, the sex trafficking industry. She was a call girl in Las Vegas and so she just tells us in this episode her story, her testimony of how God sought her out and pursued her and brought her out of that industry. And now she is doing the same for women all over the countries. So I hope you enjoy this episode today with Annie lo bear.
Speaker 1 02:12 Hey everybody and welcome to that makes total sense. I am Alexis Bay city and I have to tell you, I have already been chatting with Annie Lou bear and so I'm so excited for you guys to hear the rest of our conversation. Thanks for being with us today. Amy.
Speaker 0 02:28 You're welcome. I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 1 02:30 Okay, so Amy, tell us we were actually just, we just took a pause so that you could call your husband Oz. And I'm going to do, we're going to do a little shout out to the husbands right now because, um, my husband has been a fan of your husband for a while since before I even knew and before I even knew him. So let's kind of start there. Give us a little bit of like, who, who are you married to? Where do you live, what do you do for work? And then we'll start at the beginning and kind of go back if that's okay. First started off, we started where the present and we'll kind of go back.
Speaker 2 03:06 Oh, okay. So the present and don't we love the presence because the present is a gift every single day. In fact, today, um, we got up and my husband said, thank you Lord for another day. And I said, that's right. I like that attitude with you, honey. Well, you know, my husband plays in a band called striper and he is a guitar player and he's a founding member. Um, his name was a nickname he got given in high school because he loved to play black Sabbath. Yes. I said black said van Halen. And so that was one of, you know, and besides Jimmy Hendricks, he loved Jimmy Hendrix. So that's where his name comes from. And you know, with me, my husband and I, we live in Las Vegas and we've been married, let's see, almost be next year will be 11 years.
Speaker 1 04:02 Amazing. Did we say his name? His name is Oz. Fox,
Speaker 2 04:04 yeah. Uh, my husband is, uh, living in Vegas right now. He was living in California, but when we got married, uh, almost 11 years ago, he moved here, which he's loved it every single minute because he's in several other bands.
Speaker 1 04:17 So yeah. So you guys are, you guys are there and you met and, and this is kind of where I want to start was perfect. You said he got on my space and read your story and was blown away. So Annie, I read your story and was blown away and that is why I wanted to have you on the show because I want everyone to read her story and to hear your story and be blown away by the power of Jesus. So how I find out about you, this is crazy. Well first of all I'm just going to say this is like my husband. This is no joke. <inaudible> thin a striper fan. Do you even believe me? He's been a striper fan since before we met. I mean easy and we've been married 16 years. Um, and so he was a striper fan before we met.
Speaker 1 05:07 And so actually years ago, a few years ago, I guess we read Michael Sweet's book, like he read it and he was like, you have got to read this already. And then time passed. But then I started, we started becoming more aware of sex trafficking and he said, you know what? I feel like Oz, his wife has something to do with that. Like I feel like maybe like he had heard it somewhere or something, but it was kind of vague in his memory. Well then fast forward to probably a couple of years ago, I'd seen somebody I follow on social red girls like us <inaudible> and yes. So I read that and was completely overwhelmed and couldn't
Speaker 2 05:54 did it mess you up because Rachel is
Speaker 1 05:58 a beautiful person. She's just amazing and mess me up real bad, real bad. And so it messed me up to the point that because I used to be a social worker, like a state social worker and so it messed, it messed me up. And then I was doing a podcast where someone was interviewing me and we started offline talking about it because she used to live in Houston and used to do a whole bunch of work with like Elijah rising and stuff like that down here. And I know the founder cats, one of my friends, yeah, this gal, Wendy used to do some work with the ledger rising and so she says, Hey, have you read any old bears book? And I'm like, no, I know. And so she too, she sent me her copy and she said, you have to give this back to me.
Speaker 1 06:52 And so I'm like, okay, but because I had recently read girls like us and that's kind of where this conversation came and I, and it messed me up. Your book or the book that she owned sat on my shelf. I literally didn't even open it cause I was like, I can't do it. Like I can not read that right now. It's too heavy. It's not okay. And then I didn't realize I had her autograph copy girl. I kept that thing for months and months cause I didn't know. And she said, no rush, just give it back to me. So anyway, when I finally felt like I was good, I was going to visit my sister in law who has cancer, but it was, I was tripped by myself and so I thought I need something to read on the plane. Well this book has been sitting here for awhile.
Speaker 1 07:35 Maybe I'll pick this up. This was in August. Literally just like, you know, eight months or something. And I read almost the entire thing on the plane. Yeah, I bet you're like, I can't believe that she did this turn the page neck. I could, I couldn't stop. It reads like a movie doesn't it? I couldn't, I could not stop. And so then when I finally got there, I was like, you know, she was like, I was like, I can't take this out of my room but I'm going to finish this thing. And so I finished it, you know, the next day or something like that. But I want to tell you one thing, I want to commend you on one thing, especially in this book, because I'm reading girls like us and I don't want it to be like a versus reading volume, but like reading girls like us first, I was surprised how well, and I want this to come out. Right. I was surprised how well you put this story together with the themes being as explicit as they were without the details being as explicit as they were. Does that make sense? Yeah. For us and
Speaker 2 08:56 believe that it wasn't like that in the beginning. There's a lot of swear words in the book and there was also just really risque descriptions. But we, I had a great team of editors at worthy and they, I think I had five editors on this book. It was crazy, which was really a blessing by the way, because the book companies at the time, I had tried to get a book deal and then I quit because I was like, you know what? They're all saying no to me. And this was like, again, years ago, maybe 12 years ago. And then this door opened with worthy, because Byron Williamson was actually president of Thomas Nelson for seven years. I don't know if you knew that or not. The guy that started this company and he decided to give me a book deal and he was a Christian Guy with all, he had nothing but stellar authors on his website.
Speaker 2 09:54 And his clients were, you know, top clients, like we all know that people that are movers and shakers and the Christian. Right? Right. So it was such a cool thing to get that. And so with that being said, his team was amazing. They were, they treated me so well. I met with them several times and they, it was just a wonderful experience. Alexis. I'm serious. It was just the neatest thing. And then I also have to give a shout out to one of the ladies that helped me, you know, get my story together. We recorded, my story is within like a two day period and typed it all out. Oh my goodness. And it was the, she, she asked the right questions. So key. Right. And so because of that, I think that the way it was put together, I mean I had already written a couple things and different headlines and chapters of different scenarios, but it was never like I had an outline for it. And so when anyone, I just want to give anyone encouragement out there that's listening. When you get your story on paper, don't be so focused on getting all the details right. Try to just get your timeline written out, try to get your outline for your timeline written out, and then fill in the spaces and it becomes so much easier. You know, the book isn't
Speaker 1 11:19 edible. The book is incredible. It does. It reads like a movie. That's exactly, exactly what you said. It reads like a movie. It definitely, if it was a movie would be TVMA like you know, I mean that's legit. Like if the themes are mature. I don't know if you watched, um, when they see us, this series on Netflix, um, about the, the Brooklyn, uh, boys who were falsely accused of the rape of, no, I've heard about them. It was so good. But it was TV M a and typically I just kind of stay away from those general cause I'm like, I don't know. You don't know. I've never know what's going to be on it. But then I was like really surprised that it wasn't extremely vulgar, but I was like, why is it graded like this? Oh, it's because the magically, right. With nomadically it's explicit and that's the comparison I have in my mind to your book is thematically, it's explicit but it's not explicit. And so I just felt like it, to me, it ministered it administered in a different way because of that. Because I just thought this woman can tell her story, her redemptive story in a really redemptive way to where it's anybody can read it. You know what I mean? Like, and I mean, anyway, I'm kind of fumbling over that, but anybody can read it.
Speaker 2 12:38 Well, if, unless it's a 12 year old girl that, well, I mean, I mean she could be guided by her mom or her older sister or a mentor because you, you have to really be careful because today's culture of Instagram and social media and getting famous is if you have a child or a young girl, like I was over the top wanting to get attention and wanting to make a lot of money and wanting the glamour and the glitz and the mystery behind the facade of being a call girl. It's a dangerous book. It's yet you got a lot of insight into that book of what really happened and what could happen. Right. So you'd have it's mature themes for sure.
Speaker 1 13:24 Sure. Themes. Yeah. And so, yeah. So I mean, yes, not anybody, cause I have nine year old girls and I'm thinking they're not reading this book. I don't
Speaker 2 13:31 know what that really is and what you know, definitely what human trafficking is and you get a little older. Tell fill in those details of the sexual part. You know, you're already have probably talked to your girls, which I'm encouraging you to about anyone touching them that they don't know people they do know, they've trusted for years as a touching you inappropriately. You need to tell me not just danger. Right? Yes. I mean, wow. I mean that's like when you get told that conversation by your school or you know the police or some mentors or committee group. Maybe when you were growing up you don't think about people that you know, they never said, Oh by the way, if you know them, report that too. Right. It's only strangers right now. It, most trafficking happened, happens usually Alexis's was someone that we know, right? Someone we trust and we that have established a relationship and possibly I have a girl that came into our destiny house.
Speaker 2 14:32 She knew her trafficker pre knew him probably more than a decade, you know, getting out of their life. And when she turned 18, that's when he went for it. Wow. And got her turned out 18 cause he knew wow. He grooming her that like specifically a couple of years prior to that, he was, you know, taking her out on little dates and buying her things here and there, treating her like a princess. The day came when the deed we had to be done where he brought her to a house and they, she thought they were just going to be hanging out with some of his friends and he brought her into the bathroom and he said, you need to do this for me. Do you love me? She's like, yeah, well outside, this is my friends and I need you to serve us all of them. And like she just sat there and she said she didn't know what she was going to do.
Speaker 2 15:29 She was scared, but she loved him. But she did it. Whoa. With total, you know, uh, like she was, it was literally like she was in a dream, like she was doing it because it was something that was asked of her and, but she was afraid at the same time. It's like a weird like combination of I love this person but I'm scared to death. Oh for sure Saint, no, I'm going to lose the love of this person and I'm going to lose that relationship. I'm going to lose everything that I've built for both of these years that I've been with this person. So, you know, that's another thing is when the someone knows, a trafficker knows that you are vulnerable in that area of your heart where you don't believe anyone will love you if they dump you or if they say no to you or if they, I don't want to see you anymore and they take that part of your heart away from you, you'll do anything to keep it.
Speaker 2 16:25 That's the scary part about trafficking is because that's heart trick, right? Where you're tricking the heart into believing you'll never be loved again. Right. Trouble that happened to you. Well, I mean, that's the thing is that you can't really tell this the right way without, I mean, I could just do like a couple sentences, so let's just try it in a couple sentences. So I was a girl from Minnesota. I was unloved when I was growing up by my father. He was abusive, I was rebellious, slept around, got date raped, and then later met some pimps at a bar. And all of a sudden I'm in Hawaii, sell myself, quit all three of my jobs in Minnesota. Met a guy at the strip club. He was a trafficker, didn't know what undercover, went to Vegas with them. He started trafficking me. I was with two different pimps for 10 years and then was on my own for a little while. And then I had a trick rescue me out of the industry. And then I ran a business with him, a car business for many years. But then I went back into the industry on drugs, messed up, overdosed on August 2nd, 2003 and I had a background in Christianity and Jesus, I cried out and everything changed after that moment, that overdose moment on cocaine and I've never been the same sense. I have tears in my eyes after those few seconds.
Speaker 2 17:50 Oh my gosh, I was so quick how I said everything it does, but you know trafficking's real and a lot of people might not know what that means. Just because I'm a self admitted person that sold myself as a prostitute. I did not consider myself prostitution. I didn't consider that process. You know, being a hooker or being a whore or whatever they want to call it a slut. I, you know, honestly didn't realize at the time, but even though I would consider myself a high-class call girl, cause that's what it was, I went to clientele that was very wealthy and clientele that was in suites of hotels here in Las Vegas, Nevada. I actually didn't think I was selling myself. I just thought I was some high class call girl. And, but the truth is this, someone selling themselves, either it's on a dating site or walking on the street or in the casinos or in a hotel or let's say online in Snapchat, in Facebook and Instagram, whatever it is. When you sell yourself for sex, you are a prostitute. Okay. If this has a big, if you don't have anyone taking your money and you get every single penny, okay, but if there's a transaction happening that someone's taken a piece of that money, you're being coerced, they're using you. That's called sex trafficking. Right. And there's any threat or abuse or force or fraud in that realm of selling yourself, you are being sex trafficked and that's when it gets ramped up to a whole nother level of control, abuse and slavery. And if anyone wants, go ahead.
Speaker 1 19:31 Oh no, I was just going to ask you, do you think that there are, if you making that distinction, do you think that there are actual prostitutes that are not involved in sex trafficking somehow? Does that, I mean, this is probably an ignorant question, but I just feel like the more I'm educated on trafficking, I feel like, I think that's everybody. But maybe it's
Speaker 2 19:52 not that that's a thing. So there's never, there has been some studies, but right now they're doing a lot of studies for different countries. And Melissa Farley actually has the best study that she did almost, I think it's more than a decade or it might be 15 years old, about nine different countries with almost a thousand women that were being sold. And I can't remember that stat verbatim, but I do know this, is that most girls that are selling themselves, a lot of the women don't know they're being trafficked. So how do you, how do you actually test this, this entire, uh, study by making sure they know they're trafficked? Most rurals, or I should say victims of trafficking don't know they're victims of trafficking. That's the sad part. So here's the percentage of women that say, well, if you were choked, if you were given an opportunity to get out of the industry, what would that be?
Speaker 2 20:52 What, how would you get out if you, if you were offered a way out and I believe the stat was 89 or 88 or 87 or higher, saying that they would love to get out of this industry. Wow. Okay. If it's such a great industry, then why, why do you want to get out of it? 80 80 90% you know what, actually, do not quote me specifically on that. I would just love you to go to prostitution research.com. Find out that real stat yourself. I don't know. Wow. I don't use stats that often. I don't like to because they change too much with every week, every day, every minute that goes by every month, every year. They change all the time. And then sometimes some of those stats aren't even valid. It's too small of a demographic. Right? Right. So if you only have a thousand or 900 women that were selling themselves, that's not high enough to me.
Speaker 2 21:46 We need a good stat of about 10,000 let's see what the real numbers look like. Right? Wow. That's happening right now. In fact, um, our agency is going to be conducting a research in 2020 that's going to be really exciting of, of women that we help here in Las Vegas and women that come to us from all over the country and others. And also by the way, other countries we do that are refugees that are trafficked refugees. Our agency. Yes we do. We help them. So tell us about your, tell us about your agency a little bit more, the present and then we'll go back to your story because your agency is phenomenal. Are you ready for it? Ready? Ready? Everyone out there listening. Don't get offended, but I'm about to offend you. Okay. So here's one called hookers for Jesus. Yes. And what it means is we are here to hook people, women, anyone that's been abused in the sex trafficking, right hook, help, heal and give hope to these women modified industry.
Speaker 2 22:52 It does not mean whore for Jesus. It does not mean prostitute for Jesus. Get that out of your head. And if you had a problem with that name, I would suggest you need a culture change in your mind. A shift. You need a shift in your mind to take the name hooker and not think of it as something dirty anymore. Did you know that our agency name, actually the Holy spirit gave it to me when I was driving one day, but it's based on Matthew four 19 which is I will teach you how to fish for people. Jesus told the first four disciples that he wanted to teach them how to fish for people, fish, and in other words, he was saying the better thing to do is not to become rich off fishing. The better thing to do is to bring people into the kingdom of God. Come on somebody.
Speaker 2 23:46 I'm going to lay it down right now. That's what we're here for. We're here to bring these women, these young ladies out of slavery into freedom. Amen. And so if I have to offend what that name, soapy it, I've had people tell me you need to change it. You'll never get grants. <inaudible> we're getting grants. The name doesn't bother a lot of people, but it does bother some, I'm being honest. And maybe for our people that turn their backs towards us because of the name and I think the other half. Alexis, is this ready? Jesus, they're offended by Jesus, right? They can't handle the Jesus thing. I'm like, get over yourselves. Okay
Speaker 1 24:26 man. So take us back Andy. I love, we're just going to, we're going to preach at each other a little bit and you guys can listen. But um, take us back to the girl in Minnesota and I, I, I love the, the part, we were talking about this earlier, how your book reads like a movie. And I still, I have the, my imagination, I have my images in my head of Minnesota of your trip to Hawaii. Even when you were just telling that my mind was flashing back to the pictures that my mind made up, the pictures in my head of the pimps in Hawaii of, of your time in Vegas. So just take us back to Minnesota pre Hawaii. You can go back as far as you want, but I want us to get a picture of, this was not your aspiration when you were in high school. You thought, I think I want to be a call girl for Richmond. I think I want to be a prostitute. I think that I want this to be my lifestyle. Um, so take us back there and, and, and just move us forward a little bit.
Speaker 2 25:48 Well, obviously that, you know, when you're growing up, I mean, you don't aspirate to be that. Like you don't go, Oh, I think I'm going to do this. I do know this though, that I, when I was growing up, I, I just wanted, it was like this feeling Alexis, of always wanting to escape. Mmm. Runaway. I never did. I was too afraid cause I knew my dad. If he found out that I ran away and found and got me, I would be highly, highly, severely punished and I would possibly be hurt to this point of, you know, I could never come back from it. So it scared me. But I had this like feeling of like I wanted to run. And that's part of complex trauma. When you're being abused by a, by a family member or someone that's a mentor or you know, obviously a mom or dad or aunt or uncle or grandma or grandpa or maybe a neighbor or it is
Speaker 3 26:44 when you can't get away from that bad situation, you, you, you have this feeling inside that you want to run. That's called fight, flight or freeze. And the flight part is the running, you know? And then my, but I also was wanting to stay because I was afraid I didn't want to leave my mom, I loved her. I knew she was being abused as well. And if I thought if I left, then I would leave her to be abused by my father. So just this little girl mind. And then I had the Disney princess thing. I just, I mean, back then Disney came on on Sunday nights and you never got to see any, cause there was no internet back then. It was like, okay, we're going back 50 years here. I mean, you know, so it's like literally I, I was like, you know, stuck in this crazy family that I love deeply but secretly wanted to escape.
Speaker 3 27:40 And I, my innocence was stolen at a young age, but I still was innocent in a lot of the ways that I thought. And I lived my life because even after the eight and nine year old little girl being sexually abused by the neighbor, I was very naive and I trusted everybody, right? Everybody. And I thought everybody was my friend. You guys are listening. Not everybody is your friend, okay? Not everyone is to be trusted, you need to have wisdom and discernment. And because I didn't have that experience and I didn't have necessarily, you know, the Holy spirit guiding me, even though I did accept Jesus in my heart when I did not go with my gut, I always got in trouble. And I know my gut back then. Now I look back, I think about the Holy spirit because he was trying to talk to me, right?
Speaker 3 28:34 And I just ignored it. And when you started Goring him, he will not tap you on the shoulder as often as you want him to. He'll stop doing it. He'll be there for you, but he'll stop tapping you as much as he does. Right? So I would get these warning feelings in my stomach, like, that person's not safe. And then I would hear my other voice say, Oh, you're tripping. Just trust they love you. Because I wanted to believe that. See, we tell ourselves lies that that person is safe when they're really not. So yeah, boys in high school used me. I had rapes happen when I was in high school. A few rapes happened to me. I woke up, don't remember what happened. I got date raped and drunk, you know, maybe something put in my drink, I'm not sure. And then of course, uh, going out to the nightclubs when I was in Minnesota, after I left Wisconsin, I went out to the clubs and obviously met these two guys with my girlfriend and I, we had no clue.
Speaker 3 29:36 They were pimps, no idea. They were pimps, but they had all the telltale signs, a pimp. They had nice clothes on. They bought us grease, they were dripping with gold diamonds and they were wearing, Whoa. So one night we were out, me and my girlfriend because again, I was like in this space in my mind that I wanted to go to college. I really had that in the back of my mind because most of my friends at the school I was going to in Wisconsin at the time, they were all going to college and I honestly couldn't afford it. And my parents, my daddy actually spent any potential college money on antiques. Unfortunately he had an antique addiction. He was very materialistic. He bought a lot of different things and you know, unfortunately us kids had to pay the price we even actually went to school with, with garage sale clothing, church clothing that was given to poor and needy families.
Speaker 3 30:38 I mean that sounds really bad way I'm putting it because I don't want to dishonor my father. But the thing is, is it drew, it drove this banking process of materialism in my mind of I need to have new clothes. I need to have a car. It didn't matter like I didn't need a fancy car, but I wanted my own place and I wanted to go to college. I wanted to pursue music cause I'm an, I'm kind of artistic, creative, which we all are by the way. Everybody is. Even if you're not a musician or an artist, when you write your creative, when you create a build buildings, you're creative. When you just do something that no one ever, ever has done before, you're creative. So I don't like calling just musicians and artists, creatives cause they're not. It's something that I'm struggling with too, but I'm like we're all made in the image of God.
Speaker 3 31:27 So we all made to create, right Alexis, you have this podcast now who created that? Like where did you think the idea up? Right. That's crazy. Right? Cause you're creative. Yeah, that's right. Way base your creative. Yeah. Yeah. So all that to say like I have this like I don't know this, this sire to have these things and I felt secure if I had nice things. I can't explain the feeling. But I think we all go through this in our lives because if you've already, we're born into a wealthy family and you've never been without it, you wouldn't understand what I'm saying. You wouldn't because if you've never been without it, then I couldn't explain to you the craving for it. Hmm. I just like totally like watch my girlfriend get this ring and she had this, he gave her the keys to his car, he had a bends and it was a drop top 500 S L Pearl by the way.
Speaker 3 32:36 All the trim was dipped in gold, the Mercedes, the doorhandles, the wheel rim. I mean it was crazy. And I was like, girl, Oh my gosh, that car is beautiful. She was like, yeah, it's mine. And she was like showing me that what I, I got in the car and you know, by then, you know, it was just like too late because I was sold, sold, you know, I couldn't control myself. Like I was just so attracted to that thing. And then all of a sudden, you know, she calls me from Hawaii few weeks later and says, Hey girl, come to come to Hawaii. She's like, ah, I gotta show you something. This place is incredible. First of all, it's beautiful. Second of all, I'm making a ton of money. You'll never have to work again.
Speaker 1 33:16 Now did she know, did she tell you how she was making money when she was in Hawaii?
Speaker 3 33:22 Oh, she would. She, she did. She, she was basically tricking men are of her money or out of the money. She, she said, Hey, I don't have to have sex. She's like, you can get the money and run out of the room. I was like, what? I was like, Oh, I'm in. Oh wow. You know, and, and she was like, well, when you get here, I'll show you. I'll just show you. So if we did have to do something, you know, if by chance, you know, we had condoms on us and then, you know, we'll take care of it. But more often than not, we would get the money, take our clothes off, and then get dressed again. And we're done. And so, and back then we didn't have regular clients. All we would see in Hawaii was Japanese men and they were so docile and so sweet. And so like you tell them, Oh, I need $1,000. They're like, okay, they give it to you low. And back then the economy was really good, if I'm not mistaken, I think Reagan was president. I think he was in the 80s right lady? Yeah. It was booming. It was booming for the Japanese people. It was boom men. Okay. So they had a lot of money to spend and it was just so corruptive like as soon as I learned how to sell myself, it was like, I knew I was never going back. That's my claim I had in my, in my heart anyway because I knew that, uh,
Speaker 3 34:46 I could, you know, get money from men
Speaker 1 34:49 and when, and this is like, I mean, I know it sounds crazy, but listening to it, it sounds, it sounds like it sounds like a, a teenage young adult game at that point.
Speaker 3 35:05 Well, yeah, I mean I'm, I'm, so here's the thing is that, do you know the scientists, the brain scientists say that we don't fully develop our full brand until we're about 25 right? So as the brain still growing, it's getting all these new memories of not only abuse, K date rapes, but it's getting these new memories and pathways built of, Ooh, quick money. Ooh, Ooh, nice clothes. Ooh, nice cars. Woo, woo. This is exciting. Woo. You know? And so your brain's to be addicted to that type of lifestyle.
Speaker 1 35:42 Now when you were in Hawaii, just so, cause we kind of talked a little bit about the prostitute versus the sex trafficking victim when you were in Hawaii. Like did you have a pimp?
Speaker 3 35:54 No. So you were keeping money. That's girl. I kept every single dollar and I, and I'll tell you what the, we went to the nightclubs, a place called Rascals. It might still be there. I remember, I remember going down, it was either in the basement or we had to go to the second floor. I can't remember what it was, but there was a nightclub. It was two stories and there were a bunch of pimps there and they were, they were trying to talk to me and my girlfriend and I was like, I don't need a pimp. And I was just sassy with them and they, you know what the pimp culture that I came from here in Las Vegas and in Minnesota, you don't do that type of thing to girls. Like as soon as a girl, this is their rules. You're supposed to get checked. It's called getting checked your out of pocket and they can take your money and in their world it's legal.
Speaker 3 36:43 You got out of pocket with me, now I'm going to charge you. So now all of a sudden you gotta, you know you, let's say you have 5,000 on you, the pimp gets every single dollar because you got out of pocket. And what that means is, is that you broke the rules of pimping and the game and that you are, you need to be charged now for what you did. Since you don't have a pimp, you're not supposed to district the pimp game according to their rules. So this is a whole subculture that is underneath.
Speaker 1 37:13 Cause when I was about to say this is it, this is a culture that we're just not familiar with. If you've never,
Speaker 3 37:19 no, actually if you go on the internet, people can learn how to be pimps. They just have to Google it. Say this culture happened a long time ago and one of the most famous stories is that the, a book by iceberg slim, he was a real pimp in Chicago, which my mom and dad's family are both from uh, and back in the 30s and the forties. And he was a pimp, uh, and a very famous pimp that taught all about the game and a lot of the jail guy, people in jail, they read this book and make it inspired by it. And they live some other rules that iceberg slim laid down without saying they were rules in the game. So one of them is if a girl doesn't give you all her money, you beat her down, you teach her a lesson, you, you know, you, you, you have to make sure you're groomed the girl, you got to make sure that you treat her really good, give her a lot of sex in the beginning, you know, buy her things that she wants, make her feel like she's important.
Speaker 3 38:16 And then that's when you charge her, you know? So there's all kinds of different, uh, way that the pimps believe and the way that they live in the way that they have the rules. And again, the rules of the game, they're always basically the same, but they can change at any given moment. Cause the pimps gets changed. Them, the girls don't. Right. So again, it's a, it used to be a secret culture. Now it's not. You have the internet, so everyone's getting snitched on as they say in the game. Everyone's getting tattletaled on because these pimps, you know, they can claim the exploiters can claim that they treat the women good, they treat the boys, the girls, whatever it is. Cause there's a lot of pimps out there that have boys and young teenage men and young men. It's really sad. There is a smaller percentage, but it's just, I believe it's an under, it's an underrated percentage because it's never been investigated fully.
Speaker 3 39:05 Right, right, right. Gay young boys out there, gay teenage men, gay boys even and gay adult men that are being prostituted that are being trafficked but other traffickers. Right, right. And that a lot of that's not being reported. I mean it's, so it's, it's all crazy. But when did it change for you? So fast forward because it took me, you know, the lifestyle is so in the beginning it's so like <inaudible> as far as like money and connections and excitement because you meet when you're a call girl in Las Vegas. Woo. Right? When you're a call girl in Las Vegas. And first of all we needed a salvage something. I did not realize my boyfriend at the time that I met at the strip club was a pimp. I had no idea he was a pimp till we got to Las Vegas. And the first night that I was bringing home money, he took all the money and beat me down and declared I was now going to work for him and there was no more, they call it square.
Speaker 3 40:14 I'm not going to square, square, fill in the blank, put the emoji symbol, get it right. That's where put the emoji symbol going. They're going to go on between us anymore. In other words, he was calling me a square because a square is someone that works at regular job that doesn't break the law and thinks like a normal person would. I guess that's what a square is, right? It's their terminology for someone that doesn't break the law, basically that works a normal job. Right. Right. So, um, I was like, I was shocked to my core and you know, for the next 10 years I had two different pimps that, uh, the first pimp took every single dollar from me. The second one was like a live in Romeo boyfriend type and he lived off of my earnings. Right. Uh, yeah. And he was abusive as well, but the whole lifestyle and B and transitioning into hating it eventually was, it was, wasn't an overnight thing.
Speaker 3 41:10 Alexis G, I can't say it happened overnight because even though I got beat down, I always, and I, this is, I think about rehab on this moment because I had faith to believe I could get away and I couldn't do on my own and I could still trick everybody, right? I could still make the money, but I could be an honest prostitute. You know, I, I have to say I wasn't a scammer. I was very honest with all the men that were buying me. I didn't run out of the room and rip people off. I tried to be fear. It sounds really like an oxymoron, but I was a moral prostitute, you know, like call girl. Like I believed in no lies. I believed in not stealing and deception and things like that. I want to do the right thing. So I had, because of that, I had a lot of repeat, repeat clientele. And as the trafficking would say, repeat buyers, people buying me over and over and over because they liked me. They liked what I gave them, they trusted me.
Speaker 1 42:11 Right? But you know, it's, it's, it's that part of, of you with the relationships with the, with the man who trusted you, but it's, it's your room.
Speaker 3 42:21 That's me by the way. Right. My colleges many times.
Speaker 1 42:25 Right, right. But it's, it's that, it's your relationship with the culture, your relationship with your job, but even your relationships with your pimp. I mean, the thing is, when I was reading your book and we talked earlier, I read, um, girls like us also, but, and, and you know, just some of the exposure. And even in my previous job as a social worker, it's like not even in these relationships that you could look at and, and people on the outside want to look at these in this black and white way and say, this is a wrong relationship or this is a bad relationship and this is a good relationship. But if it were black and white, it's not going to stay there. And so even inside these abusive relationships or even inside these, um, relationships that were driven by the prostitution, there are good parts to them and there are good memories. And even like you're saying, there's these kind of good pathways and so it's like, it's not bad all the time or it'd be easier to leave, right?
Speaker 3 43:27 Oh, totally. So here's the other thing, the way to look at it as to where, what are you benefiting from that person? So if I'm benefiting from my exploiter and he's emotionally there for me, then I stay, right? Okay. If he is there for me to protect me from tricks, hurting me, then I stay right? He is say, selling me a dream and telling me, Hey baby, we're saving all the money. Don't worry. We're going to have our own business soon. And I, and I accept that lie that's being perpetrated towards me about my future with this person that we're gonna eventually get out of the business. Don't worry. Hang on. It's going to get better than I stay proving to me, handing me car keys, buy me diamonds, giving me designer digs, telling me I'm beautiful, lifting up my, my, my totally insecure heart and filling the void that he knows that I need to be filled. Then I stay right. The only way to tip that relationship factor over to the other side and to understand this as, I mean social workers understand this part <inaudible> the outside people that don't understand this is to put that in perspective and one of that, one of those things is this. If this is the part that would make belief when I'm feeling unloved,
Speaker 5 44:52 <inaudible>
Speaker 3 44:53 when I'm feeling under appreciated, when I'm feeling that I'm being cheated on, when I feel like it's not fair anymore, I don't like where the money's going and I'm seeing that it's not being spent where he said it was being spent and I'm being lied to. Now when I start adding all those up, that's when the soul wakes up and says, wait a minute, this isn't good. Right? Someone could tell me all day long, a pimp is bad all day long, that explode is bad for you. But if you're in love with that exploiter you got blinders on and you see and take off those glasses yourself and you start seeing the truth for what it really is. That's when we can wake up a trafficking victim and see that's why these, these surveys that they do will never be valid until you can give all those points to the person as, as they're taking that survey. And then that survey is done every day for a period of time until that person wakes up out of their stupor because love covers and it works this way in the kingdom. But outside they came him love covers a multitude. Incense
Speaker 5 45:56 <inaudible>
Speaker 3 45:57 that is true.
Speaker 5 46:00 <inaudible>
Speaker 3 46:00 even in the kingdom of darkness.
Speaker 5 46:02 <inaudible>
Speaker 3 46:04 that's very scary
Speaker 1 46:08 is scary because, because, but because the enemy is an imitator, right? He's a deceiver and he's an imitator and so
Speaker 3 46:17 he's I our saying,
Speaker 1 46:19 right, cause what you're saying is true because he's imitating love because,
Speaker 3 46:23 cause he knows how powerful it is. It's a counterfeit. And so right. Have that counterfeit and you don't know what's the counterfeit. You think that's love, right. Right. And no one can do anything else. Cause if you feel love when you're with that person, right, that's what it is to you. Right,
Speaker 1 46:39 right. And he's an imitator and I mean, we've seen it, right, with counterfeit money. Some people can get along way on something that's <inaudible>.
Speaker 3 46:46 Oh yeah. Right. Speaking of that, I remember dancing in the nightclub, uh, at the strip club where I met my trafficker in Minnesota. It was called Skyway lounge. It is now called spearmint rhino. Uh, I was on the stage and I never forget, there was a guy that came in and he had the, you know, we didn't know about it at the time, but I, this guy was hitting me a lot of money. They were a bunch of twenties, and they were new and I was tripping cause he was tipping like two, three, four, or $500 a set. When this guy walks in, I'm gonna dance just for him. And so later we find out later the guy was printing money. He had stolen one of those printing blocks from the federal reserve, the mint, what? And it had been all the, had the same serial number on it and back then in the 80s, they didn't have that, you know the power they have the little line. Yeah.
Speaker 1 47:40 Huh.
Speaker 3 47:41 The, the, the, the hologram thing, you know what I mean? So he got away with it for awhile and what he was doing. Yeah. Yeah. People never know a did they notice a hundred dollar bills but not twenties, not twenties 20 somewhere. And people wouldn't even notice. And especially in an establishment and adult establishment like that. Right. But man, it's, it's,
Speaker 1 48:04 people are getting along way getting along my own. Something that that's fake that looks like it looks like the real thing. So this was your life for a decade?
Speaker 3 48:14 Yeah, often not. Well, the fulltime from, you know, more than a little more than a decade. But then I got out of the business for a short stint. Uh, I started working at the automotive company right in on cars, fixing cars, getting fleet accounts. But don't get that twisted Alexis, because I started turning tricks there too. Right? And that what that means is I would go to the managers and I would say, Hey, um, we need this fleet account. And if the manager had been flirting with me earlier, I could tell he was kind of open. My partner at the time, never knew I was doing this, but I would, we'd get him and I would kind of flirt and kind of rub against them a little and say, Hey, we can make this deal solid if we just shut that door right there. Wow. And I would girl, girl trust and believe I handled it. Wow. Dude. Whatever I needed to do to make that deal go through. And I got the, and I got the car deals. I got them because I sold myself there to corporately. Wow. Do you think that happens more than people think it does? Okay. Now listen,
Speaker 1 49:18 I wish you guys could see the honor roll. She just gave me the side. I just got, I've never gotten one like that before.
Speaker 3 49:26 Let's just do this poop emoji poop emoji. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Because I mean, Hollywood does this, they perpetrate it. I mean to, for you to get a great movie deal. Do you ever wonder why some actresses just in the past, I'm not saying recently because of the me too movement, but in the past have gotten these just these crazy roles that you would never think, how did she get that role? Well, <inaudible> did somebody talk to Harvey Weinstein? I mean, here's the thing, actresses have admitted, Hey, I went to the producers house. Hey, I went to the director's house and I did whatever I needed to do to get that part prostitution one-on-one. Just Hollywood style. You know, it's like, right. I mean, that's the thing is do women sleeper their way to the top? Do men sleep their way to the top? Absolutely. Right. It's still, it's still prostitution.
Speaker 3 50:24 Come on, let's just keep it real. Right? So, so you were returning drinks. Yeah, at the automotive company. Right. And I actually, we had a, something happened to our corporate offices and we made a bad business deal with a company here, not locally in Vegas, but in another state. I don't want to say what state, cause you'll probably figure it out if I do. But we ended up losing our managing aspect of the company. My friend did. And we were devastated because it was no fault of our own. We were very good at what we did. It was just that we had some corporate people come in and say, Hey, we're going to cut costs here. We're going to cut costs there. And they believed in more production and less relationships. So they believe the relationships were not as important as the numbers. Right. You don't have relationships, you don't have numbers.
Speaker 3 51:20 That's true. But they didn't see it that way. They wanted it to be more of an assembly line. We did not agree with that. So we lost our position and I was devastated by it and started, uh, before the end of my first decade of working, I had gotten on cocaine probably the 10th or 11th year. And I quit after about a year and was sober, but then started doing it again and you know, getting back into being a call girl on this trip. <inaudible> without the call service. So I was on the strip and I was working the carpet behind my friend's back at the time and it was a mess. Like I, I was devastated by what we were told. And Oh, you have to move out of your house, you're gonna lose your arm. Like what? We can't lose our house. Our house is a, it's 5,000 square feet.
Speaker 3 52:15 No, you know what I mean? Like <inaudible> I couldn't handle that. I was like, no, I worked so hard to get where I'm at, you know? And so I was just in a very, a state of panic I think. And eventually, yeah, I got back on drugs and overdosed and work in the carpet is you're going out and you're just approaching men. You're on your own. You don't have any agents anything. I'm in VIP poker. I'm sitting by the VIP tables. I am around the wealthy men and I'm proposition them. Yes. Right. And you overdosed. I overdose on cocaine August 2nd, 2003 and I never, I'll never forget that night because I was a, it was like the last of the last, my heart was just out of control. It couldn't take, I was in my thirties at the time. Um, but I felt like my heart was about to explode.
Speaker 3 53:09 I had a heart attack and if anyone's ever had a heart attack and hurts and some people when you have a heart attack, you actually don't feel it. So for me, my heart attack was, it's like a knife was going in my chest and it was re every heartbeat that my heart took. I could feel the pain. <inaudible> boom, boom, boom. Like somebody was stabbing me. Um, and that lasted for a couple of hours. Hmm. Not fun. Um, I passed out several times. Ambulance came and uh, yeah, it was pretty scary. I thought I was going to die. I prayed and I asked Jesus into my heart. So Jesus, let me, I, I want to get out of this. Well, that moment when I overdosed, I could only remember the saving grace of my faith. I mean, who else is going to save me? Like I have no choice at that moment knowing I was about to die thinking, okay, if this is it, I need Jesus.
Speaker 3 54:12 I need like if I die, I die. At least I'm going to have Jesus. I'm going to ask him to please forgive me. And I did that. It was a panic prayer. I'm not going to lie. I was like, Jesus, please help me please. I don't want to die. Please forgive me. I know I've been wrong. I prayed to you before to get out of this business, but I, this time is, I'm done. I like, I need it with all my heart. And I know he knew. He knew that I meant it. <inaudible> and there he was like the presence of God in the hospital. It was so, it was so overwhelming. I felt like this piece and just, you know, and then going home from the hospital, I was like, I got eight different, I got vitamins. I became a vegan, a total vegan for awhile. Uh, I got my life together and one night I'm laying there on the, I couldn't sleep cause I was up all night doing drugs before. So my schedule was all off in my head. And I remember watching this sassy pants lady walking across the stage. Joyce Meyer,
Speaker 1 55:15 she is sassy pants. I love Joyce Meyer.
Speaker 3 55:19 Who the heck is this? Right? I was offended for a second and then I thought, wait a second, she's talking some good stuff here and man, God's just starts setting me free. Wow. Three in the morning, girl. He just read the new levels of, this is why you get this the way she talks.
Speaker 1 55:39 That's pretty good. Joyce Meyer, she's a partner with us, the ministry
Speaker 3 55:44 and I love it. She's our mama bear and I, Shelly and David, they come and they've been to our property several times at destiny house and they've, they've given us two vans. Amazing. There they come, they come and just bless us when we have a financial need, they're there for us. Um, it's just, they're just wonderful, wonderful people. And, uh, that doesn't mean we don't need no date donations because we don't sit there and hit 'em up and go, we need money. You know, if I ever get to this place where I'm like, Oh my gosh, I don't know what we're going to do. This grant didn't come through, I will let them know, Hey, there's a need. They always tell me, please let us know. But I
Speaker 2 56:24 honor that woman of God and I honor the legacy that she has built. She is on fire. I, I, I've met her. I just, she's wonderful. He's, I don't care what anyone says about Joyce Meyer. I will defend her to my death. She's the real deal.
Speaker 1 56:42 But she has a history similar. I mean, she wasn't a call girl, but she has a history of abuse. She has a history of freedom. I mean, she,
Speaker 2 56:50 she told me, she said, you know what Annie? She said, I never forget that day she told me this. She said, I that, that, that was that w that would have been me. <inaudible> her baby. In fact, David in her arms, she had left her husband, the abusive one, the one that was trying to make her, you know, break the law and do weird stuff. And she was at a telephone booth and I remember she said she had, she had to make a phone call and she, you know, she was very close to selling herself. She didn't do it. And she said, by the grace of God, she made it out of that. Wow, your Spanish. She had nowhere to go. She had like, I think 10 cents or 25 cents in her hand and she had made a phone call and thank God that person answered. Wow. It really cool just to hear her, cause she, she, you know, she had a lot of grace in her life, given to her by God. And it's like, it's very evident.
Speaker 1 57:38 It is. But what was it about some of the, what she was saying, what was it about the words that you heard that you, that you started realizing you're experiencing freedom.
Speaker 2 57:50 That God loves me no matter what. Again, God loves me no matter what I'm done. Like I'm going to get teary eyed right now. Like I never heard that type of, I mean, yeah, I was raised a Lutheran but I just, the words coming out of her mouth because of what she had been through were, were, would they rang in my ear like a bell. I'm not kidding you. When I would listen to her, I heard like a bell ringing like angel bells. It's like, I really believe that God is using her to access heavenly realms when she talks because it's like my ears would perk up and I would be like, Oh my gosh, everything she's saying is hitting my heart like a sword. So good. Like it's like, it's like that song by John Cougar. It's so good. I mean that's how it felt.
Speaker 2 58:37 I was getting themed, I was getting convicted but I was getting set free. I was being called out. I love that part. You know what you're doing, you know? And she's like, Oh now and it's like, man, she's got, she's got me, she's got me in the grip of the attention of her hands. Like I'm just like say something else. Like, tell me more. Right. I think that, you know, hearing God and what he thought of me through her story and through her teachings helped me see who God was, that he was actually kind <inaudible> he, he had thought of me before I was born. He had planned my whole birth out. He knew what I was going to do, but he still chose to love me anyway. That he absolutely has an incredible adventure plan for me if I would just embrace the plan. Right? Oh, I did. Wow. Here we are. Wow. Are years later and destiny house and outreach with hookers for Jesus. And you know, we go to the jail every week, um, and we teach a class in the jail. It's, it's been incredible. And honestly, I want to have other houses across our country and other countries as well.
Speaker 1 59:57 So tell us about, tell us about hookers for Jesus and destiny house and how God, I mean, it's like God didn't just, I think that's the wonderful, I, I don't know, like this phrase is coming to my mind. It doesn't even make sense. Probably when I say it out loud, I'm like the currency of redemption. It's like there's, it's exponential, right? Like God didn't just redeem you have been in, but he using your redeem to redeem all of these other people. So tell us about what destiny house and her group this are doing now. Tell us how we can tell us how our listeners, can you guys, once we get over the fact that my or may or may not be offended by hookers for Jesus over it by now, hopefully it's all good. That's true. That's true. Well,
Speaker 2 00:50 you know the hookers for Jesus was a simple offer of a business card to any girl that was working in the casinos that I saw homily. My friends, they were still working like I would see them all over, Hey girl, Hey girl, how are you? Hey, here's my card. I'm not in the business anymore, but Hey, if you need help just call me. That's how it started. It was, it was a friendship. It was a one on one, your friendship. And then I saw girls that I had never met before and I was like, Oh, what about those girls? And you know, honestly just called me to this. I had a dream about him and he told me to do this. He told me, Oh my gosh, it was so beautiful. You've got to get the book everyone, if you want to read what happened, the vision and all what I saw,
Speaker 1 01:29 you have to book. It reads like a movie, get the book.
Speaker 2 01:32 Because honestly that that was something I could not ignore, that I knew in my soul, in my heart that I had to do and that I knew that this was my life's purpose. Now <inaudible> out and you go down to that strip and you go into those hotels and you release those women from the prison that they're in. You will be set free just like me. You don't have to do this anymore. You can have joy and peace and love and you know, just beauty and freedom and all those things that come with believing in Jesus in your life. And you don't have to be in bondage anymore. You don't have to be the under the thumb of a pimp of a trafficker. You don't have to go home where you're going to get beat cause you didn't get bring enough money home. You don't have to worry about a trick hurting you and choking you out or the condom breaking or whatever it is that you're going to be faced with the dangers and the and the depression and the just not having enough money and whatever else it is or, or being taken, having everything taken from you just because you disobeyed your pimp.
Speaker 2 02:26 No girl, there's a new life for you and with this many women who we, you know mentioned earlier that the stats, it's like, Oh this many women who want out. I mean come on, you know, Las Vegas is grown trafficking. They did a report. The Creighton studies showed a report on Backpage. They did a report on all these different cities across America. We had the most per capita being sold. We had been most women being sold for 100,000 calling for women. It was 171 per 100,000 that were calling for women to be sold, hunted 71 women, not of 100,000. I mean it was awful. Like you have to look up the stats yourself, but there was a between, I think it was, they said 5,000 something on Craigslist, a month for being sold in Vegas. What? So, but that was, that's not that, that's not a big number because it's per capita.
Speaker 2 03:22 In fact, you know what the, the, the actual stats, um, hold on a second. I'm going to look at my phone and see if I could find it. But the actual stats for that study is, it's pretty, uh, it's really shocking. I honestly, um, I can't find it right now, but, Oh, here it is. Let me say I found it. I lied. Okay. Nevada by the numbers. I'm going to read this to you based on the number of unique sex providers ad advertising on Backpage, at least 5,016 individuals are sold for sex on an average month in Nevada. Now that's just on back. Went back pace was still around. Now we can compare this to New York, Florida, Rhode Island, Delaware, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, North Dakota, Georgia, right? So it says top States, unique monthly sex providers per 100 K residents. Ready for the numbers or just 77 out of 100,000 North Dakota, 78 out of 100,000 now remember, this is just on Backpage, South Carolina. 78 out of 100,000 residents are selling themselves. North Carolina, 82 out of 100,000 are selling themselves. California. 84 out of 100,000 residents are selling themselves. Delaware, 86 Rhode Island, 89 Florida 89 New York, 105 Nevada, 171 out of 100,000 residents are selling themselves. Case closed. Las Vegas is ground zero for sex trafficking. Okay, wow. There it is.
Speaker 2 05:04 So if we take the 171 of a hundred thousand residents that are selling themselves on Backpage, only, by the way, that doesn't all the other sites were way more than that, right? If we take that out of those 171 women getting sold on Backpage per hundred thousand in Las Vegas, which we have about two, 2.5 million population. I would say 80 to 97% have traffickers. Wow. Or more. Could be more, but yeah. Crazy. So then the reason why we started destiny house, I should say I because it was or SSA, we was, because I was bringing girls to my own house cause I had nowhere to put them because they were leaving their pimps. They were like even their pimps and droves. And I'm like, where? What do I do with these women? There were no services back then. There were no organizations helping women that were being trafficked.
Speaker 2 06:00 So it was, you know what God said to me, it's your time. Get it done girl. And I didn't know anything about Rachel Lloyd. I didn't know anything about gems at the time. I discovered gems. Actually someone sent me a link, I think, or I discovered them by accident in 2008 wow. Wow. After. Yeah. We started the first desk down in 2007 so yeah. Well, we opened it in 2008 but yeah, it started in 2007. It's gone strong ever since. It's amazing. This is our third desk house property. The other two got shut down because they were too little for one. And the first one got some pimps came over and yeah, it was a crazy situation. Tiny little house. And this one we own and yeah, it's a several houses actually. Wow. And what do you, what happens when a woman decides that she's done and she comes to you guys?
Speaker 2 06:56 So first of all, we have to find out where she's at. We give her a little survey, where are you at? What kind of services do you need? You know, and we're going to where regardless of she's in another country cause we've helped women in different countries, uh, we will get her, her local resources that we can get her connected with first. And she can make a decision, Hey, do I want to work with these? We started this or do I want to get out of where I am? Right. They will choose to come to our state and they will get out of another state or another country and they'll come to us and we will help them know the ones from other countries already here in the United States, usually within the United States borders. So we help them get their state comp, their uh, uh, it's called, Oh my gosh, it's gonna slip my brain cause I had enough sleep last night.
Speaker 2 07:41 It's called Oh, TV set. We try to help them file for their T visa. Okay. So that way they can get some government help and if not, we virtually we end up having to pay for their medical and their all their food cause we try to help the women get some kind of state assistance program. Destiny house itself is, it is free to, uh, to the residents and people that apply for it. We do not charge, uh, everything's funded by donations and grants and our operation and we, I think we have 18 employees right now. Maybe 19. Yeah. We have a, I think 12 alternating house managers that we have. And I designed it like that because I don't believe that we should have continual house parents that don't get a break. Right? Yeah, that's right. Shift changes. It's very unethical to do that to someone emotionally, mentally and physically.
Speaker 2 08:40 You should never do that to a staff member is to over extend their, their help with the ladies and, and you know, force them to be in a situation where they don't get a break themselves because they will burn out. It's called vicarious trauma and you know, this is a social right. It is a real thing and you will never come back to social work because you allow yourself to be exposed to this. Correct. Secondary trauma. Yeah, that's right. And I've done it myself, Alexis, I have actually abused myself and yes, lived at the destiny house property before I was married for almost a year now. It's hard. It's hard. I would never ever do that again, but I'm going to tell you something. It was one of the best time of my life as well though. I had great memories. I love the ladies that with, at the time we had eight people in the house and a little children as well.
Speaker 2 09:34 It was quite a quite the experience. It was a variance actually. I loved it. I loved every minute of it, but I was burnt out. Yeah. Varied. I didn't want to come back. I was scared. I was like, I can't handle work 24 seven anymore. I can't do it anymore. I didn't have any breaks. Girl, nobody leave me. Nobody gave me a day off. I just by the way, didn't have a paycheck. So I would encourage everyone out there that's doing a nonprofit. You're not gonna always get a paycheck. In the beginning, for the first almost 10 years of HFA, I did not get a paycheck. Oh, you got to pay the price sometimes. Right. You know?
Speaker 1 10:09 Right, man, man. So what, when, when they come in, I mean, I'm sure you guys provide, you provide counseling, you provide some sort of like resource so they can learn a, learn a trade or get an education. Right. I mean, safety, obviously you provide love, you provide, you know?
Speaker 2 10:28 Right. Just like in every model of any, any type of trauma treatment, the ladies need to be stabilized first, right? Hone it in place, and they need to know that they're loved, that they're safe, and they can just now exhale. And so in period, that's like a six month period. Yeah, I believe it. We just need to get them kind of like, Ooh, SA just relax. Let's get you into therapy. Let's get you, you know, doing some devotions. Let's get you get some self awareness going of what you're going through. Let's get some group trauma therapy as well, not just one on one trauma therapy. Let's get inside the house and trigger each other. And that's super important that you have group trauma therapy where the girls can come in that group, and I'm not part of that, by the way, because the leaders, we don't allow them to be part of that or mentors because they need, the girls need to vent to each other and to their counselor.
Speaker 2 11:28 And if they hate whoever and they hate this person, or they wouldn't mad at this mentor or they're mad at this shift leader or they're mad at this, you know, social worker, they can say it in that group and be safe, you know, that's kind of their trauma and healing. Um, and then we, you know, the girls get, uh, I think it's either three or four times a week. They have a personal trainer. Wow. Yeah. And they have, uh, someone that's teaching them how to cook, uh, ladies that, uh, we do equine therapy every week. Like cloth don't go without it. We think it's very effective. The girls love it. Um, the girls do housework, they clean up our yard. They, uh, and you know, we don't, uh, tell them they have to, but a lot of them want to, they volunteer their time when that, when it comes to the house, sometimes I'll give them like little directives that you need to do this or whatever.
Speaker 2 12:18 And they gladly do it because they're staying there for free. And we award them with gift cards. You know, we give them gifts and when they first move in, the girls, uh, they get brand new clothes. Wow. I had to go shopping for their own food. They don't, they're not forced to eat what we, what they don't want to eat, but we do teach them to eat healthier. Right. They have their own little part in there. Frigerator to huge fridge by the way. And they can put their name on all their food and they cook together. They're, they're a family. Uh, it's, uh, it's very holistic just trying to, trying to serve their, their whole selves. And after that six month period, we move them into another stage of, you know, financial development, financial education, how to handle their money when they start making money again.
Speaker 2 13:09 And then we go into the job training acquisition and the vocational school or college if they want to do that. And then, you know, usually the ninth month they get a job and they can stay here longer than a year if they want to. They can stay here for a year and a half if they need to or up to two years. Wow. And then also what we do is, uh, we're lucky, so I'm going to put the feelers out there. We're a transitional home for women graduate and now they have their job and they still want to be part of our program, but there's no more house managers on site and they're showing more support with us and random drug tests of course, but we're going to now have them pay a little bit of rent, but not like the max. Right. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. We really, really need that house.
Speaker 2 13:58 I'm going to, I'm going to pray that thing in. Yeah, it's going to be a nice one. It's going to be beautiful and it's going to be something that when they get there, they're going to feel like they're home just like you love them. You know when the girls come here, it's such a sanctuary. There's, there's trees everywhere. There's a pool there. I mean there's workout room. We got a tennis court. I mean it's a beautiful place and they are like, I can't believe I'm going to live here. They're looking. Wow. It's like a mansion. It's not a mansion, but it is a large house, you know, it's 5,000 square feet. Yeah. So yeah, it's got five bedrooms and a, we can take 10 girls. You know,
Speaker 1 14:41 I love that. I love that they get to just that. That's their reaction is like, Oh my goodness. Like we, I get to live here. Like that's, that's, it's so incredible. And I think even that, you can look at that and say like, that's a picture of the kingdom. You know, like you go from,
Speaker 2 15:00 we go from slaves to daughters, you know, slaves to daughters and we brought them in. A lot of the girls, they're like, my daughters, I never had to have, never got to have physical except for the daughters I have with my husband now that he had from another marriage. And they're my daughters too. And I love them dearly. But these ladies are very, very special to me. I love them. Um, they're super unique. All of them. And I've, my life has been so much richer because they're in my life and I love them and I love to mentor them. And I love to be a pastor to them and I love to be a leader to them. I, I don't mind interacting then. Yes, I've been cussed out. I've been threatened. I have been, you know, when girls don't do what you want them to do, like they're, they're breaking the rules of the house and you're like, well, you got to get a little strong with them and say, Hey, you can't do that here.
Speaker 2 15:53 You signed an agreement that you would not get violent but the knife down. Right, right. Trauma does that. It triggers the ladies and so they know, I mean business like you cannot mess around, right? Girls, unfortunately, if they're not ready to heal, they will push back at you, talk smack about you and the borderline personality thing will hit kick in and 60 personnel disorder will kick in because even though it's not a term that DM DM five anymore, DMS five, I should say. Um, it's real and trauma eights, that subset, it creates that altered personality even though it's really not who they are. And I sound like this isn't who you really are. This is a triggered condition that you've accepted in your brain to be, but you're not that person anymore. You're not. It's just like the Bible is just like the gospel because the gospel is the good news. Good news. You're not that person, right. It'd be like this anymore. Good news. This is not what the doctors, yeah, that psychologist told you you had borderline personality, but do you really? Nope. You don't have that actually. You just need to get healed and that will slowly, if not soon, disappear as you heal. Right,
Speaker 1 17:09 right. But we've, you know, I think about, I think about the man who laid, who laid with his mat and Jesus said, do you want to be healed? You know, do you want it? And I love, I mean, we want to make healing so enticing that, and we want to make Jesus so enticing that everybody's answer is yes,
Speaker 2 17:33 yes. But you know, it's not going to be fun. You're going to hurt. You'll things that you've never felt sure you, you, you push them down in your psyche and you disassociated and you hid from them. Right? But you got to face this now, right? You've got to do it alone anymore. We're going to do it together. Yes, you're not alone because there's power in relationship and community. There is, and there's girls that have been on our program several times that have graduated several times already. They went back out there and got twisted and got hurt again and got re trafficked and it doesn't mean we didn't do the right thing. It just means it's a new level in their journey and now they're even more, yes, they're not going to accept this type of relationships. One of the biggest downfalls for the girls that come, that I've ever met that most, if not all the girls I've met in this industry and out of the industry, trafficking and all that, is the relationship piece. They don't know how to have the right relationship with the right people, right. You'll have a gate towards the toxic people. They have a gate towards the people that are abusive that they're attracted to because that's part of their hurt or their Cromer and so trauma, it loves repetitive addiction. If you're safe in that place. Right, right. And that's the reason why they get stuck in there. Right.
Speaker 1 18:58 Doing such good work. So tell us how we can connect, like where, where are you guys online? Where are you like where can we find you and where can we find out more and how can we help and how can we pray?
Speaker 2 19:12 Yeah, it's just hookers for jesus.net and you can just go and click donate and it'll come straight to us if you have a PayPal account or secure gift. And then also we have cash app. It's a new thing you can just do on your cash app. You can put the dollar sign hookers for Jesus. It'll come directly to our bank account. Wow. That's kind of crazy. Yeah, it uses actually square platform, so cash app and square. All, I think they are owned by the same company. And then we also have Facebook, you can donate through Facebook now. It takes longer to get the donation. We'll get it about 30 to 60 days, but you can donate on Facebook, on our Facebook page and hookers for jesus.net that has all the information protested in the house. Don't donate. And also hopefully the website will be up, but we're working on a new website or websites, five years old, maybe six net by, but I've got a brand
Speaker 1 20:08 new one with new colors and I'm so excited about it for modern. It's really made for the phone so it's going to be really fun. Oh that's fun. That's so good. Yes. And you should be able to look at it even if you have a filter cause I have a filter for Jesus. I love it. I love it. Annie, this has been so great. This has been so great. Thank you. It has. Thank you so much. And you know it's kind of long so you can just maybe make a couple of shows out of it. There you go. But you know, I want to say, let's, um, you know, we're going to join with you. We're going to pray for destiny house. We're going to pray for those needs that you have. We're going to pray for us, um, and his health challenges right now.
Speaker 1 20:47 And we're just going to lift you. We're just gonna lift you up because I'm just convinced that your work, it's not done, that you've got a lot more to do, that you guys have a lot more to do. You're going to need people to surround you. Just like you guys surround the girls. You're going to need people to surround you to do 50 more years. Girl, that's what are you? Go do it. Pass this to someone else and you better rocket girl, whoever you <inaudible> times 10. That's all I'm going to. I love it. Thank you so much.
Speaker 0 21:21 So thank you again so much for listening. Don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss an episode. Share the link with your friends. You can visit
[email protected] and until next time, this is Alexis Piseti remembering to do well for ourselves so we can do good for others.
Speaker 6 21:41 <inaudible>.
