229 Escape from Modern Day Sex Slavery with Rachel Timothy

The Savvy Sauce

*DISCLAIMER* This episode includes thematic material and may be triggering. It is only intended for mature audiences and those who are not triggered by graphic sexual content.

229. Escape from Modern Day Sex Slavery with Rachel Timothy

**Transcription Below**

Ephesians 5:8-14 (NIV) For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

Rachel Timothy was only nine years old when she was first approached by a perpetrator who was known to her as a teacher and coach. In her books, she goes into detail of the process of being groomed and how the evil of what was happening to her in the dark remained unseen by everyone around her. She describes how she coped for so many years by blocking out the memories only to have them resurface when she was an adult with a family of her own. Rachel had no idea that when she would pursue justice it would end up putting her right back in the world of trafficking. It wasn’t until her church family saw the signs and believed what she was saying that she was able to start the process of finding freedom. Rachel shows her faith and love of God during the highs and lows of her journey and she prays for each person who reads her story. That their eyes will be opened and their actions will lead us toward ending sex trafficking in our world.

Stop Suffering Website

Rachel's Books:

Open Blind Eyes

Reflecting Ownership

Reflecting Ownership Workbook

Questions and Topics We Discuss:

1. Will you share your story with us?

2. Will you close the loop on an update to today?

3. How can we recognize signs of trafficking in our children and in our community?

Thank You to Our Sponsor: Midwest Food Bank

Connect with The Savvy Sauce on Facebook or Instagram or Our Website

Please help us out by sharing this episode with a friend, leaving a 5-star rating and review, and subscribing to this podcast!

Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”

Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”

Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”

Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“

Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“

Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

**Transcription**

[00:00:00]

Laura Dugger: Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.

[00:00:18]

Laura Dugger: Today's episode includes some thematic material. I want you to be aware before you listen in the presence of little ears.

Thank you to an anonymous donor to Midwest Food Bank, who paid the sponsorship fee in hopes of spreading awareness. Learn more about this amazing nonprofit organization at MidwestFoodBank.org.

Rachel Timothy is my guest today, and she was only nine years old when a perpetrator began grooming her for future evil plans. She's going to share her story with us today in hopes of opening our eyes to the reality of sex trafficking happening in our area and in our world.

Here's our chat.

Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Rachel.

Rachel Timothy: Laura, thanks for having me.

Laura Dugger: Well, your story is not an easy one to share, but you write about it so that we will open blind eyes. [00:01:24] I would love for you just to begin telling us more about your childhood.

Rachel Timothy: My childhood, the good, the bad, the ugly, all of it?

Laura Dugger: Absolutely.

Rachel Timothy: Yeah, so I grew up in a Christian family. My dad was a pastor, and so for my entire life, I've been a preacher's kid. When I was nine years old, we got switched to a different church. We moved to a new town, and it was a very small town. It was really a village.

But it was something that, for whatever reason, at nine years old, I saw it as an adventure. I was excited about it. I could ride my bike all around town and feel like I was big stuff. But I remember just the adventure side of it.

I was a tomboy. I was a people pleaser. I was very much a rule follower. And, I don't know, I was a happy kid. Going into school, so I was going into this new school that was going to be K through 8, and I was going into the fourth grade, and I remember being excited but nervous about making friends. [00:02:29]

So I remember walking to the cafeteria one day. And, again, I'm very much a rule follower, so I still vividly remember the rules of how you walk to the cafeteria. You know, right-hand side of the hallway, arm's length away from the person in front behind you. Like, no talking. But a teacher from across the hallway called out my name. I remember wondering if I was in trouble. You know, did I do something wrong? Did I break a rule?

I knew who the guy was. He was not my fourth-grade teacher. There were two fourth-grade classes in this K through 8 school. He was the other fourth-grade teacher. And I also knew that he was the girls' basketball coach for the fifth through eighth-grade girls' team at this school.

So I knew who he was. I knew he was a Christian. I knew he was an elder of a church. He seemed to be trusted and loved by everybody.

So he calls my name as I'm walking to the cafeteria, and I walk over to him, and I immediately realize he wasn't upset at anything I'd done. [00:03:32] He had a big smile on his face. He went on to say, "I'm so glad that your family moved here." He already knew so much about me. He knew where my dad was working, where we lived. He knew my brothers were athletes.

He started talking to me about basketball, which basketball was my love. He already knew that. He started talking to me about my cousin, who's a good basketball player and just started to take ownership of my heart in that moment.

As a kid, when you have a teacher show interest in you, it makes you feel special. And I remember being completely clueless as to this being a red flag, because if it would have stopped at that point, it was harmless. But really I went back home, I told my parents, "You'll never guess. You know, the girls' basketball coach is so excited that I'm here. He can't wait for me to play on his team." It made me feel like I had a place in this new town.

In that moment, now looking back, I see that was all grooming. [00:04:32] And it really began before he ever even had that first conversation with me. The homework that he did on me prior to that first conversation of knowing so much about me, knowing my heart, he obviously had watched me enough to know my personality, to know that I was a people pleaser and I was an easier target. That was really the beginning of the grooming process in my eyes.

From there, he began to pull me out of class pretty frequently. He would send another student over to my classroom with a note asking if I could come sit with him. My teachers almost always said yes, unless I was taking a test or something. Like, they allowed me to go over there.

And I remember his classroom, he always had the lights off. He always had the blinds shut, at least in my eyes. That's how I remember it. That's how most of the students remember his classroom. [00:05:29]

But I would go and I would sit behind his desk and we would talk about basketball. And he would just tell me how great he thinks I am. Like when I make it to the WNBA, you know, don't forget little old him. He just really made me feel important. Whether he had complimented me or not, the fact that a kid gets out of school, that's a special treatment that a kid wants to continue.

But I'd sit behind his desk. A lot of times he began to talk about my body. Like it switched from just basketball to then my body and muscles and getting stronger and all of it related to basketball and all of it seemed to be relevant since he's my basketball coach or will be. So he would feel my muscles if they were getting stronger and my back muscles and my thigh muscles.

I've always said I remember the first time that he touched me inappropriately. He had his hand on my back and it went up around and touched my chest. [00:06:29] I remember I jumped and tears immediately filled my eyes because I knew it was wrong. Like it felt wrong. I was not developed in any way, shape or form. You know, I was 9 years old, but it felt wrong. And his reaction to me was, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, you know, that was an accident. Why are you acting like a baby?" And I thought, "Oh my goodness, of course, it was an accident. Why am I acting like a baby?"

But as I go back now and I think about that time, and I've always said that was the first time he touched me inappropriately. And I want to like take that back because, no, the first time he ever touched me was the first time he touched me inappropriately because no 35-year-old man should be putting his hands on a nine-year-old girl. I think that's important for anybody to know.

After that happened, he began to start to talk about the secrets, that we need to be a secret. And it wasn't a threat towards me. In fact, because he had done such a good job grooming my heart, taking ownership of my heart in many ways, making it to where I felt like he loved me and that I needed to protect him, his secrets were if you tell anybody about us or tell anybody about that, he would lose his job, he would lose his wife, and I didn't want to hurt him. [00:07:46]

Eventually, he had a kid in this process, and he would say, "Or I would lose my kid." And I didn't want any of those bad things to happen to him, and I didn't want anything in our relationship to change.

So it wasn't much longer after that I remember he brought in one of his old yearbooks, and it was from when he would have been about my age, and he was showing me pictures of him. I remember him asking if I thought he was cute and asking if I would have been his girlfriend if we were the same age. And I said yes, and it seemed as if in that moment, like we did almost become girlfriend-boyfriend.

If you were to talk to my classmates now, they would say, Yeah, we knew you guys were boyfriend-girlfriend. It was almost out in the open, in some ways, our relationship. What's hard to stomach a little bit is because it was out in the open, you think as a kid, this must be okay. [00:08:45]

Teachers knew I was going there. Teachers knew I was behind his desk, that he was paying all this attention to me. It must be safe then. He must be safe. Otherwise, they surely wouldn't let a kid do that.

What I didn't know was there were teachers who saw it and reported it. And I had a teacher walk in when I was nine, and I was apparently... I don't remember her walking in, but she says she walked in, the lights were all off. I was sitting on his lap behind his desk. He had his arms around me and she went right away and told the superintendent. And he told her, "You don't need to worry about him. He's safe."

And it seemed like if she were to push it, she was not tenure. She didn't have a lot of years behind her yet. And so she didn't feel like it was something she could push. Granted, she has a lot of guilt towards that now that she knows the extent of what it all went to, but she didn't know that at the time. [00:09:44]

So he had showed me his yearbook. And I remember him saying, "Why don't you take this home?" I lived like two houses down from him. And he said, "Let's use this as a way for you to come over and see my house." So he kind of gave me the explanation that I could give my mom. And I asked, "Hey, can I return this book to my teacher?" And she said yes. So that Saturday I went over to his house to return that yearbook.

I remember the first time being in his house, all the lights were off. The blinds were shut. It was just that he doesn't like light, which is ironic. But he gave me a tour of the house. He was very nice, very cordial and everything, like got me a snack. He took me over to this little side part of his house where it was his music room, showed me his soundproof room. In a way, I felt like he was flirting.

Nothing happened when I was there that first time. Then we started to make more plans for me to go over to his house. [00:10:44] At this point, as I had said earlier, I would ride my bike all around town. That was pretty common back then. I mean, 30 years ago, like I would ride my bike for an hour, go back home, check-in, go ride my bike for a couple hours.

Or I would go over to a friend's house. And there'd be times when I would leave there early and walk over to his house. But it was all within like a few houses of each other.

The next time that I went to his house, he started talking about this great idea he had about we could make some extra money and I'd be able to get my parents a neat Christmas gift and he was going to help me do that. So he pulled out an envelope and it had all these pictures of kids, and he's like, "These kids, they make money off of these pictures and you're more beautiful than all these kids. It would be fun." He made it seem like a great idea. He made it seem like no big deal as well.

So I remember we walked back into his bedroom. He had three disposable cameras sitting on his dresser and he just began to take pictures of me and he was goofy and fun and I enjoyed it. [00:11:46] He made those silly photographer poses as he was doing it. And it seemed like no big deal.

Then we had a conversation about it at school however many days later and he said that he had gotten the pictures back and that they were good but that they could be better. I mean, I had no idea what that meant.

But the next time that I went to his house, he pulled out another envelope of pictures but this time the pictures were of kids and they didn't have any clothes on. And I distinctly remember the look in the eyes were just totally different between the first group of kids that I saw. It was not kids that I knew. I have no idea where he got these pictures.

I think he saw the reaction I had, the shock and he's like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, this is the beautiful way that God made them. There's nothing wrong with this." In fact, we're showing the beautiful way that God made you. And I was a preacher's kid and so anytime you throw God in the mix, that meant it was the right thing.

So when we went back in his bedroom again, he had disposable cameras, he put a sheet around me to start and then he proceeded to take pictures of me. [00:12:52] And he was not fun. It was not this joyful, like silly experience this time. It was very serious and it was scary in a way.

I remember I was the one who had remorse over it. Like I was the one that knew this was wrong. And I actually had a conversation with him. I was like, "I don't think we should be doing this." And he said, "But it was your idea." And then I started thinking back, "Maybe it was. Maybe I did want to do that."

With being a preacher's kid again, the shame aspect of this stuff was so heavy. And he added to it by saying, "Your family either they're not going to believe you or they're going to be so angry at you." And I believed him. So not only was the threat with, you know, not wanting to hurt him, now it was dealing with the shame that I had. And that kept me quiet.

I believe it was the next time that I was at his house, I was really shocked to see that he was not the only one there. [00:13:57] I was taken back into his bedroom and his brother was actually standing in the corner. He had a tripod set up with a camera, a video camera on it. Actually, his brother's wife was there as well. Immediately, it was just not the same atmosphere whatsoever as the fun person that I had originally got to know.

My coach went on to explain and show me what making love was. And it was all videotaped. And I remember him telling me that the Bible says that the two become one and so that I literally belonged to him. The woman that was there cleaned me up. She told me, you know, if there's blood in your underwear, you need to make sure you throw it away before your mom sees it.

There was just immediate darkness that came over my life. One of the… I call it a gift from God, and in many ways it is. And I think God designed our brains to shut off when things got too awful, especially as a kid when you couldn't handle it. [00:15:05] So I would disassociate. And literally, I would go to a place in my mind... It's not like I went to this field of flowers like all is well. I just don't have memory of it. It just was blacked out.

I remember hurting, I remember feeling a darkness but not having a reason to understand why. So those things that had just happened, I didn't have in the forefront of my mind. And so as time went on and I would go to his house and other men would show up, I mean, my understanding is they paid money to be able to have sex with me. It then proceeded to my fifth and sixth-grade year. Now I am on his basketball team and I'm still very much protective of him.

He played these mind games with me. I feel like in the beginning he took ownership of my heart. But through the process, he began to take ownership of my mind with these mind games. And he would be all about me some days and just love me to pieces. [00:16:04] And then some days act like I didn't even exist, would look through me, wouldn't talk to me, would ignore me.

I spent majority of my time at school wondering, how can I make him happy? Like I wasn't a normal kid anymore. I wasn't thinking about kid-like things. I was, how do I keep him happy? That was an ownership that I feel like he took hold of all my thoughts.

Then I feel like whenever he started to make me question, was it my idea, was this me wanting to do this? And then me like so badly wanting to make him happy that I would almost agreeingly do things. It was like an ownership of my soul. It was no longer me making those choices. It was him through me.

And so I feel like those pieces of ownership led to where then he had ownership of my body. And there was really nothing left in me to fight it. There was nothing that I could have said to anybody, for one, that would have made sense because I didn't remember the whole grasp of it. [00:17:06]

But two, he had all of this hold on me. If somebody would have sat down with me and said, Is anybody hurting you? I would have said no.

But if somebody would have said, and this is what I tell people all the time when it comes to kids who you're wondering, is there something going on? Ask them, "Who makes you feel special? Who gives you special attention? Who do you spend time with the most?"

Because if somebody would have asked me that, I would have had so much fun telling you about my coach. You wouldn't believe how much he cares about me and that he thinks I'm going to be the greatest WNBA player ever. That would have given you an indication that there is a weird dynamic between a grown man and a little girl that shouldn't be there.

Laura Dugger: And then even to follow up, you did try to escape one time because it was such a slow, long, strategic on his part process.

Rachel Timothy: Yes.

Laura Dugger: You said that there were certain times that you had these red flags, but he would mess with your mind. [00:18:11] But also when you tried to get away, that did not work either as he was progressing this into bringing others in.

Rachel Timothy: Yes.

Laura Dugger: Is that right?

Rachel Timothy: Yes. So there was a point where he had brought in another... it was actually another teacher from my school. It was really confusing to me because he was the next person that came in and I was just taught that we made love and I belong to him. So now there's a new man showing up and I was supposed to "make love", quote-unquote, to this man. And I didn't want to. Like I wanted nothing to do with this horrible, ugly man. And I did try to run and I got stopped at the door and I was actually told either you will make love to this man or you will make love to a knife. And it was, I mean, obviously what choice I made. And it wasn't a choice. That's not a choice. But things got really, really dark, too dark for a kid to be able to comprehend.

So then here I am fifth grade and I was on his basketball team and I was a pretty doggone good basketball player. [00:19:16] So one day at the beginning of school, which it was not uncommon, he would pull me out of this entire gymnasium full of kids, he would pull me out and talk with me down on the gym floor. And he was doing this again.

At this point he had said, you know, you get to practice up with the high school tonight. Like instead of practicing with us, you're going to get to practice with the high school. I'm going to have a car pick you up and take you over there. There was no time for me to go home and say, "Hey, guess what, Mom and Dad, this is what I get to do." Like I was told in the morning, this is what's going to happen in the afternoon.

And so practice came and I was so excited. I remember going to practice and then him showing me, "Go out that door, there's a car waiting for you." And I went out there and it was my coach's car, but it was his brother standing next to it. And I knew at that point I was not going to practice.

My coach, he was the one who really was like the grooming and the pulling on my heartstrings and all that. His brother was mean and I was terrified of him. [00:20:17] He was big and ugly and just super, super mean.

So what he said I did out of fear. When he said, get on the floor of the backseat of the car and don't look at where we're going, I did it. We probably drove maybe five minutes, but with it being such a small town, we were in the country by the time we got to our destination.

I was taken out of the car and we were at this country house. It looked like an absolutely normal little white country house. This ended up being a place where I was taken often, often enough. I couldn't even tell you the exact number of times just because it all kind of begins to flow together. But I would be taken there and I would be put in a room and men would pay money and I would see the money exchanged.

And then they would come into the room where I was and have a certain amount of time with me. I would then be taken back to the school, I would go into the bathroom and I would clean myself up and I would go right back to this acting like everything was fine. [00:21:24]

And really like to the point where I believed everything was fine. I could disassociate, shut down when the awful evil things were happening, and come back to the school and clean myself up and just be a different person. I mean, I smiled a lot in the beginning. I never struggled with my grades, really. I had friends like those type of signs were there in the beginning because I believe of the dissociation.

Now, this went on through my fifth and sixth-grade year for whatever reason. I don't know if it's because I was developing, I was no longer a kid and that was more of the desire. But by my sixth-grade year, when that was over, I don't believe I went back to the White House, that little White House after that.

But my sixth-grade year is when a lot of the signs started to show up behaviorally, emotionally. I hurt so bad and I couldn't tell you why. I would have flashes of different men standing over me. And that didn't make sense to me. [00:22:27] I saw images of a place that I don't remember going to, but it was all just little bits and pieces. And my heart hurt so bad. My heart and my gut is where I carried most of my pain.

I began to cut. I began to have suicidal thoughts. And I did share that with some people. I tried to cut my wrist at school one day and I remember being taken to the principal's office and getting the nurse and all of that and them calling my parents in. My mom, I think, was the only one that was there. And I remember being told I was seeking attention. I was attention-seeking. And I got in trouble for it. So nothing was dealt with. I was just this preacher's kid that wanted attention. And I heard that time and time again.

So my 7th grade year then... behaviors were still going on as far as I was not okay. And then my 7th grade year, I was able to put enough together in my mind to know I had been raped at some point. [00:23:32] And I had an image of a man from the neighborhood, from the area and I was putting enough together where I was able to say, not in like great detail, but I'm pretty sure I was raped by this man.

And so I told friends. That was a safe place for me. I told some friends and they told teachers. They did a great job. They did what kids should do when somebody confides in you. They told the teacher. The teacher told the principal. The principal called my parents. I remember then being taken home. My mom sat me down on her bed and I remember her saying, "This is what was told to me." And I said, "Yes." And she said, "You're lying." And I said, "No, Mom, I'm not." And she said, "Yes, you are. You're lying." And I said, "Mom, I'm not." And she said, "Yes, you are. You're lying." And I said, "Okay, I'm lying."

And she went on and told my dad. She made it all up. Again, I was punished for attention-seeking. And then they proceeded to have me go to all of these people that had heard about this and apologized, including the man who had raped me. [00:24:42] And I remember being taken in his house and my dad telling him, "This is what my daughter said about you. She lied about you. I'm so sorry. She's here to apologize to you." And the man crying because he just couldn't believe that I would say something like that about him. It killed another piece of my soul. Like, that was trauma on top of trauma.

Even if a kid does not necessarily make sense in what they're saying, listen to them, believe them. Something is going on. Because, no, like, I couldn't give you A to Z what was going on. But there was obviously something. And ignoring it made it to where the trauma went on into my adult years.

Like, had it been dealt with in that moment, had it been addressed in counseling, and believed and action taken, I believe that my adult years would not be like it was. But because it was all pushed under the rug, it was my fault, it shifted a lot in who I was and who I saw myself as. [00:25:48]

So you already have the words from your abuser saying, you know, this is what God made you for and then you have, your Christian family and your Christian circle either seemingly seeing it but not doing anything or hearing about it and saying it's your fault. So all of that just compounded this feeling of maybe this is who God made me as. Maybe this is my lot in life.

Laura Dugger: Let's take a quick break to hear a message from our sponsor.

Sponsor: Midwest Food Bank exists to provide industry-leading food relief to those in need while feeding them spiritually. They are a food charity with a desire to demonstrate God's love by providing help to those in need.

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Midwest Food Bank also supports people globally through their locations in Haiti and East Africa, which are some of the areas hardest hit by hunger arising from poverty. This ministry reaches millions of people every year, and thanks to the Lord's provision, 99% of every donation goes directly toward providing food to people in need. The remaining 1% of income is used for fundraising, cost of leadership, oversight, and other administrative expenses. Donations, volunteers, and prayers are always appreciated from Midwest Food Bank.

To learn more, visit MidwestFoodBank.org or listen to episode 83 of The Savvy Sauce, where the founder, David Kieser, shares miracles of God that he's witnessed through this nonprofit organization. I hope you check them out today.

Rachel Timothy: So this whole process, this whole time from fourth grade through eighth grade, my coach is still taking me out of class, I'm still sitting behind his desk, still having these intimate conversations. He's very possessive of me as far as doesn't want me to go out with boys my age. [00:28:02]

But by my eighth-grade year, he actually asked if I could go to a basketball game with him. So there was a high school game that was taking place probably 40 minutes away. And to us, it was a date. And my parents agreed to it. So he picked me up, just like a boy would pick up a girl for a date. He picked me up, we got in the car, and we went to this high school basketball game to just watch it.

We only stayed till halftime, and we listened to it on the radio on the way home, so I knew what to tell my parents as far as how the game went. But he took a different way home, and he ended up brutally raping me on the side of the road in his car on the way home. It was one of the most evil experiences I had been a part of at that point. It really was awful. Then when it was done, he was this happy guy again. Like, it was a very odd experience for me.

When I graduated, there was no more communication from him. [00:29:02] Occasionally I would see him here or there, and he would still kind of flirt with me, but I was no longer living in that little area. We had moved further, probably five miles outside of town. So I went to a different school so that the access to me wasn't there. But not only that, I was not a kid anymore, and I think he was attracted to little kids. I know he was.

So I went into high school. I dove into basketball. That became my coping skill, which seems like a very healthy coping skill, except for the fact that I would go to any length to be the best basketball player I could be, even if it meant destroying my body. And my body was not in great shape anyway, due to everything that I had been through, but I would not stop.

So I had knee surgery after knee surgery while I was in high school. Still got that D1 scholarship that I needed to have in order to be happy in my mind, like, in order to be okay. I got it. [00:30:01] But I was never able to play a single game because I had destroyed my body so much in the process of trying to find happiness, despite the pain that was inside.

Eventually, by my sophomore year of college, I was told I no longer can play basketball, my career was over. And so that was devastating. Now what? How do I fill this odd void, this pain in my gut? So kind of my next coping skill was, okay, I'm going to set up the perfect life. I'm going to find the perfect husband and have 2.5 kids and eventually be a stay-at-home mom. And I'm just going to make my world safe and okay.

So in 2009, I got married. 2011, I had my first son. 2013, I had a little girl. So 2014 rolls around. At this point, I had a 2-and-a-half-year-old and a 6-month-old. It was January of 2014. I remember scrolling through Facebook, and I came across a Facebook post of a friend of mine. [00:31:03] She was sharing a painting that her little girl had done. The little girl was probably fifth or sixth grade, went to the same school that I had gone to.

The mom was just talking about how great the painting was, but then in the comments said, "Thank you to my coach for spending time with her daughter after school to work on this painting. And in that moment, my whole world fell apart. All of those moments where I had disassociated and I had seemingly forgot or just wouldn't acknowledge in my mind came to the forefront of my mind, like image after image and memory after memory.

And I ran to the bathroom, and I puked, and I puked, and I puked. It was things I knew, like it was almost the puzzle pieces that I knew were there, but I had never really acknowledged. If you've ever read the book, The Body Keeps the Score, it talks a lot about how your body does not forget the trauma. Your mind might, but your body always remembers. [00:32:02] And it was like that connection was made in that moment between my mind and my body. So it made sense, but at the same time, now what?

Like my husband left that morning to go to work having no idea the depth of trauma that I had had as a kid. It was to the point where I had asked my coach to sing at my wedding. Like that was where my mind was. I still thought he was, quote-unquote, "a good guy", made some mistakes, maybe we had an inappropriate relationship, but I didn't remember the depth of the darkness. I had always just remembered the good things that I could about him.

So now here I am remembering all of this, having to share this with my husband. I began cutting again. I began an eating disorder that lasted a long, long time. We started to get me into counseling. And the number one thing that I wanted to accomplish was to make sure that little girl was okay, because I knew what she was going through. [00:33:00]

We talked about meeting with the police. I had actually met with the police. I was going to file a report. But what we ended up doing because of fear was we filed an anonymous tip through DCFS. They went into the school. My understanding is that they went to him and they interviewed him, my coach, and then they went to this little girl.

Now me and this little girl are close now. She's actually the one who designed the cover of my book, Open Blind Eyes. She's a special, special girl. But I had asked her about it, like, what was that experience like? And she said, "They basically came in and said, has anybody ever hurt you?" And she said, "No." And that was it. And I knew, like, that's not enough. That's not going to get you any answers. Whether she had disassociated, didn't fully know, was trying to protect him, whatever, that's not enough to know if something was going on. [00:33:59]

Laura Dugger: And like you had said, had you been that little girl in that moment, you would have responded in the same way, even though he was absolutely hurting you in your 9- and 10-year-old mind. It was something different.

Rachel Timothy: Exactly. The hard part with youth is that you can't just simply ask a blunt question and expect a blunt response back. Their mind is not going to be able to do that, especially if grooming has taken place.

So they called the case unfounded. Honestly, I didn't know that there was anything else that I could do at that point. Then I found out that the case was not anonymous. It was supposed to be anonymous. However, it was not. I actually found out probably just three or four years ago that my name was actually put on it.

But about a month after I had made that anonymous tip, I was outside in my yard. At this point, I had an almost 3-year-old and 11-month-old. [00:35:03] My coach walked into my yard. My little girl was sitting on the ground, and I froze when I saw him. He picked up my little girl and walked straight into my house.

Me and my son followed, and thank God he put my little girl down. But then he turned around and walked towards me and kind of backed me up against the wall and proceeded to just threaten me to tell me, if you ever talk about this again, I know people who will hurt your family. And I know he did. I remember those people now. Like I know he's not lying with this.

And I don't know how to explain it, but I was not 28 years old standing there before him. I was that 9-year-old little girl. And I had no power against this man. Emotionally, I was 9 years old, and I have no doubt he saw that. Because over the course of the next, like the 2 weeks after that and another 2 weeks after that, I was hurt. Like he would come and beat the crap out of me, just reminding me again, you are not to talk about this. [00:36:05]

Then another 2 weeks after that, approximately, I was assaulted by both him and his brother. I had not told my husband. Like I went right back to the way that I was as a kid, 2 separate worlds. I'm just not even going to go there.

Then when that assault happened, only by the grace of God did I have the strength to get on my phone and I simply texted my counselor and said, "I was just raped." And I remember she tried calling me, and I couldn't get words out of my throat. And I hung up on her. And she called again, and I hung up. And then she texted and said, "Get your kids and come to my counseling office." And so I did.

We ended up telling my husband. They were like, "You have to go to the hospital, and you have to file a report." I didn't want to do either one. I was terrified. I was traumatized. I was a hot mess. So at that point, it really wasn't my choice. [00:37:04]

So we went to the hospital, and I did have a rape kit done and I was interviewed by a police officer. I told them everything except for the names of the men who had hurt me because I was scared. I remember my husband saying, "Either you have to tell them the names, or we're going to have to move." And I said, "Then I guess we have to move."

We real quickly, within two weeks, uprooted and went about an hour and a half away. My husband got a real quick new job. We just were hoping to start life over. I remember I had so much anger towards myself because to me, this was all my doing. I didn't fight back. I didn't tell anybody the right way. I didn't do any of this the right way. So I felt like it was my fault.

About nine months after this, my husband got a new job. And so we ended up taking this new job. [00:38:06] It was going to have better insurance, better hours. And it would be about 30 to 40 minutes from where my coach lived. And we had hoped that would be enough distance.

There was still a lot of trauma in me, but also in my husband. We were not communicating very well at this point. He was angry. We were both very distant. We just had a lot of other hard stuff tied to all of this going on. So we got this new job. We moved to this new town. We're renting a house.

About three or four months into living at this new place, my coach shows up again. And this time, he's in tears. And I'm still 9 years old when I'm talking to him. This moment of being in my kitchen, having this conversation with my coach, I regret more than anything. Like I wish that I could have had a different response. But as he went on to say, you know, I'm stuck in this ring. I'm stuck with this awful group of people, and I can't get out. And I don't want to be here. Like this is not who I am. [00:39:09] All of those old feelings began to come back.

And when he said, "I need your help. And I'm going to have somebody come tonight. And when a truck shows up and revs his engines, you know, if you would go out there and just this one time, just help me." And I said, okay. And I did.

That night, in the middle of the night, I heard a revving of engines outside my house and I left my house, and I got in the truck with this man I didn't know. And I was taken to a hotel probably a mile and a half from my house and was raped for about three hours. And driven back to my house, came back inside, and literally just went right back to my old habits. I went to the bathroom, I took a shower, I cleaned myself up, and I got in bed with my husband, and I acted like everything was fine.

But because I did it that one time, there was no stopping it at that point. I was threatened, you know, we're going to tell everybody what you did. We're going to hurt your kids. We're going to hurt your family. So my worlds just became separated again, and I began to leave in the middle of the night. [00:40:16]

Anytime I heard a revving of engines, I would go out. I would get in a vehicle with somebody I didn't know. I'd be taken to places, whether it was a camper out in the country or in a house that people didn't know that it was actually a brothel or a hotel or just a group of guys in a car. I was taken to these places and sold repeatedly and then brought back home and acted like everything was fine.

My husband, I mean, he knew something was wrong. I began to lose a massive amount of weight. I would wear long sleeves and long pants even in the summer because I was hiding cuts and bruises and marks from this awful abuse. He assumed it was because of the assault that had happened, you know, the year prior. He knew I was struggling from that.

Then in the middle of the night, he would wake up and I wouldn't be in bed with him. He assumed I was in bed with one of the kids. You know, like you don't assume, oh, my wife's out being trafficked, you know. You don't think those thoughts. It was poor communication between two very traumatized people. [00:41:24]

It ended up going on for a year. Like it was awful. And when you think of this type of stuff, you know, like I had one lady one time say, Do you just really love sex? Like, no, that's not what this is. This is not like what you would picture between a husband and a wife. It is beyond evil and beyond what your mind can think. It's not something anybody would want.

There were videos made. This is why I say anybody who thinks that pornography is a harmless sin, it is not. Those women don't want to be there. Statistically, they say 90% of the women on a porn site, video, whatever, are being trafficked. You don't see what's happening before the video or after the video. They maybe appear like they want to be there.

But whether it's force, fraud, or coercion, them being on that video, it's not their choice. No woman wants to do that. So people make the assumption, even men that would come and pay for me made the assumption, I wanted this. [00:42:28]

And that's not the case. You don't see all of the trauma that took place prior to you showing up or prior to you watching this video. So really, you watching pornography, you are paying a trafficker.

Laura Dugger: I think that is so important to pause there and reiterate. There is such a lie that this is a secret thing. This is harming no one. This is just me. And that is just not truth.

Rachel Timothy: It's not truth. I mean, you can go into all the reasons just within your own marriage. You are rewiring your brain in a way that is not healthy, not of God, is not going to benefit your wife, your kids. I mean, all of it is evil. But when you recognize that you're actually watching a victim of sex trafficking, it does take a little bit different turn for some men. So I do want to point that out.

I've had times when I've gone and I've spoken and I've had men come to me and say, "I want to apologize because I was one of those men that watched porn." [00:43:33] I had no idea. There's no judgment there. Like I'm not angry at them. I just want change. It needs to be taken care of.

We need to be pouring into our men, keeping our men accountable, asking our husbands, our sons about, are you watching porn? The average age of a kid that sees pornography is eight years old. And that changes a mind.

And the amount of trauma survivors that we work with in our program, whose older brother sexually abused them because they had watched porn, you know, a little sister's easy access. It causes things that you would never think possible.

Laura Dugger: Also for women and for girls as well, their statistics to support pornography usage and viewing is going up so much, especially since COVID, it was compounded, but both men and women.

Rachel Timothy: Yeah. And it's an addiction and it is like a drug to your brain. So once you start, it's like you need more and a little bit more and a little bit more. [00:44:38] Denise, the co-founder of our program, she talks a lot about addiction and she does a great job of explaining when you have an addiction, it's almost like a tunnel. Like that's the only thing that makes you happy at that point. You lose joy in everything else except for that addiction. So you need more and more of that to get that dopamine feeling.

Whereas those of us that don't have an addiction, we find joy in the sunrise, in our children. But when you have an addiction, it's just not there anymore.

Laura Dugger: It even reminds me of something that you wrote in your book, and I don't have it in front of me right now to quote verbatim, but just that we cannot make sense of evil.

Rachel Timothy: Yeah. I say that a lot. Because there's people that hear my story and they cannot comprehend it or they don't want to believe that our world is this dark and ugly. And I get it. Like I don't either. I have kids. I don't want them to go through this stuff by any means.

If I could put them in a bubble, I would. But I also know that God has a purpose for their life. [00:45:42] And if I can equip them and empower them and listen to them when they have hurts that they need to tell me and say, "You know, I believe you. I want to hear about this. It changes everything for them and it equips them to then do better in the world."

We are raising traumatized kids, whether it's from what they're seeing on their phones, what's going on at school with bullying.

I heard a statistic recently and I am sharing it every chance I get because it's that important. In our country, we are only recognizing 1% of trafficking victims. So when you see... it's like 700,000, 800,000 is what they predict as possibly the amount of victims in our country. That's 1%. And it's literally in every school. It's probably in every classroom. These kids are being videotaped. Their parents are taking them on the weekends to get a little extra cash, whether they need drug money. I see it all the time. [00:46:45]

But we think of trafficking as you have to be taken out of the country. You have to be taken across borders. You have to be kidnapped. And it's not that way. These kids are still going to school. They're still going to church. They're still leading a quote-unquote, "normal life" and not able to tell anybody the hell that they're going through because they don't even understand it completely.

Laura Dugger: From your experience then, are there any indications that may be red flags to us as adults with businesses? Is there any signal or anything that can give us indication that there's more going on here?

Rachel Timothy: So when it goes to the spas, if you have to ring a doorbell to get in, that is not a normal spa. If you were to call and they say, "Oh, we don't serve women," that's a brothel. And we don't realize it, but we have brothels everywhere.

These foreign women who are taken from their country, their family is promised that they're going to get all this money from this beautiful job that they're going to have in America. And they take these foreign women who do not speak our language purposefully, and they house them in these little spas. [00:47:58] And they have man after man come in.

It's really mind-boggling that our system in many ways allows it because it's obvious it's a brothel. But for whatever reason, our police system, our court system, whatever, is not stopping it.

Not too far from here, there's a safe house and they have office buildings in this little strip mall. So they have their Christian ministry safe house for trafficking survivors. And literally right next door is a brothel. And they know when a man's walking in, they know that he is about to rape one of these women. And they know these men have to shower before they are with a woman. And they will hear the shower turn on as they're sitting there trying to help one of their trafficking survivors.

It is awful. And it doesn't matter who you contact, what level of state, police, whatever, it doesn't matter. It continues to happen. [00:48:58] And if they are busted, these women are put in jail for prostitution and the pimps are set free. And then the pimps pay for them to get out and they go right back to it.

Laura Dugger: How did you find out about The Savvy Sauce? Did someone share this podcast with you? Hopefully, you've been blessed through the content.

And now we would love to invite each of you to share these episodes with friends and help us spread the word about The Savvy Sauce. You can share today's episode or go back and choose any one of your other previous favorites to share. Thanks for helping us out.

The entire system is so corrupt. And yet, I do want to eventually ask you some things that each of us can do. But let's first go back to close a few of the loops. At this point of your story, your husband believes you. You have a counselor. How did things progress to you getting out? [00:49:56] And are you considered that you've gotten out?

Rachel Timothy: Yes.

Laura Dugger: What does that look like?

Rachel Timothy: Yes. After I had been in it for like a year as an adult, we ended up moving to a different town where there was a Christian school and a Christian church that we decided that's where God wanted us to be. And so this was the first time I was no longer going to my dad's church, which was new for me. But there was an elder's wife of this church that I could just tell there was something about her that was safe. I had tried with many people to reach out. And my story was too much. The danger of it was too much. The understanding of it was too much. And I get it. Like, I understand. But in a way, like, what do I do? You know?

So I had kind of given up hope on reaching out to people. I was barely making it, but I was still putting on this facade as best that I could that everything was okay. [00:50:56] I saw her one time at one of our little Christmas events at church and she asked if she could hold my fourth baby at that point. And there was just something different.

So I started to text her some and would ask for prayer. Just almost like testing her. Like, what can she handle? So I would give her little bits and pieces of things. Eventually, I texted her and I said, "What would you have done if your daughter had come to you and said that she had been abused?" And I remember her response was nothing like my mom's response.

She picked up on the fact at that point that I had probably been sexually abused as a kid. So she literally dropped everything. She was supposed to teach at Awana that night at church and she got a substitute. And she came and she picked me up and we went for a drive.

I told her as best I could some of the pieces of my childhood, still keeping a secret what was continually going on at that point in my life. [00:51:54] But I remember her saying to me, you know, when men do this stuff to kids, it's often for power. And I said, or money. And her jaw dropped open and she had no idea. Like she knew trafficking existed in Cambodia, or Haiti, or wherever. She did not know it was in her backyard.

I remember her saying to me, "You've told the right person. This is not going to continue." And she meant it. As time went on and she began to pour into me, she would show up at my house for maybe five minutes just to give me a hug. And I was a shell of a person at that point. I couldn't cry. I mean, I was barely functioning. And here I was needing to take care of four kids. So she would show up and she would just hug me.

And I remember holding on to her and not wanting her to leave because I didn't know at what point would another truck come? At what point would I be hurt again? And so I would hold on to her for dear life, like a 9-year-old would hold on to a mom. [00:52:55]

At one point she recognized bruises and cuts and different things and she realized this is still going on. And so she showed up at my house with her husband one night and I was like, "Oh, why are you guys here? And she said, "Your husband needs to know." I had so much PTSD that all I knew at that point was my life was over. He was going to leave. He was going to take the kids. Everything was going to be over. My trauma response has always been to just run. I don't know where I'm going. I don't know why. I just have to get out of this space.

So I grabbed my keys and I began to run. And my husband grabbed me and literally to where my feet could not hit the floor, held on to me with his arms wrapped around me as she told him everything that she knew and what was going on. And mind you, so she's telling my husband, your wife's leaving in the middle of the night to be sold for sex. AI honestly thought this was it. And he whispered in my ear, "I'm not going anywhere. I'm here. It's okay." [00:54:03] And we proceeded to call the police.

And I was supposed to tell them like everything that I could, especially from that most recent attack where I had been hurt. I literally thought when I signed the papers for that police report, I'm the one going to jail. I really wholeheartedly believed that, that this is it. This is what God... this is my punishment. To the point where I was on my hands and knees trying to crawl and escape out of this house. Like I had so much PTSD.

And this led to us, granny. So I called this lady, this elder's wife, granny, because, well, for one, I don't use names in my book and everybody calls her granny. So she just became kind of... she became granny. Anyway. So she would begin to take me to police stations and I would share my story with them. There was a case then open, a criminal case open. They did a raid on my coach's house, a raid on his brother's house. I was then having meetings with FBI, like because of the child porn and the money exchange, like it went really high up. [00:55:13]

One of the FBI agents was incredible. She was a woman. She was like what you would see on TV. She had red hair. She like dressed in a suit and she was really fit and just... she was ready to catch these guys. And she was able to pull bank accounts and be able to put different pieces together and be able to see where money was being exchanged. She was putting all of the pieces together.

Then she had told me at one point... you know, she couldn't come right out and say it, but she's like, If we were going into your coach's house looking for candy, we found candy. And she's like, "It's just a matter of time. We have to go through every device that he has to know the extent of everything. But just know that it's just a matter of time before this will be an open and shut-case. And I felt so grateful like this is going to be it.

It took obviously a lot longer than it should have for them to go through all of these devices. And in the meantime, I still had trucks showing up. [00:56:13] I mean, this ring of men was much bigger than just my coach. I don't I still don't believe I know the depth of it, but still, I was not safe. So we ended up having me go to... we chose an eating disorder facility. Yes, I had an eating disorder, but it was serving more as a safe house purpose.

I didn't need to go somewhere for two years and learn how to use food stamps. Like that was not my situation. Women who are taken off the street who have no ability to function in everyday life, they need that. That's not where I was. And so we went to this eating disorder facility, I was separated from my kids for eight weeks. It was awful. I missed my youngest daughter's first birthday. But they began to work with me on healing. When you feel safe, it's amazing the amount of healing that you can have.

So things were getting better. But while I was there, I got word that they allowed my coach back into teaching and coaching and back into being an elder of a church. [00:57:13] And I call up the FBI and I'm like, "You said you guys found child porn." Like that was the indication I was told. And she wasn't the only one who told me. I had three or four other officers say it's just a matter of time. And she said, "Yeah, and it was on a thumb drive and it's gone. The forensic guy has no idea what happened. He says this never happened before. It's gone."

So without that evidence, he's free to go back into the school. And I was devastated. And from that moment on, things just were up and down as far as safety went. Different people showing up at my house and the trauma that was happening that my kids would even see with being followed and all of that.

So 2020 rolled around at a time when we thought I would be the safest because the whole world has shut down. Evil does not shut down in the pandemic. Things escalated to a whole new level. This part's not even in my book. Like this is recent. [00:58:15]

But we knew we needed to leave. We no longer could stay where we were. Which killed me because I would be leaving Granny. And she was the first person to believe me. She was my safe place. And I didn't think I could do it. I was scared out of my mind to leave because in my mind, the ring is big enough. They will find me wherever I am. But then I won't have Granny.

So my husband got transferred. Again, a new job. Uprooted the kids. Again, they're traumatized just from their mom being traumatized. We ended up in Bloomington, Illinois. It was great that we ended up there. There's a lot of great people that had helped us. And I was super grateful but things were not great in the beginning.

So here we are running away from a trafficking ring to get safe. The person who had opened up their house to us to live in because we couldn't buy a house until we sold our house. So we move in with this family that we don't know. But people we know know them. They're a Christian family. [00:59:17]

The husband's an elder and all those things. We end up living there for about two and a half months. And while we're there, there was a particular morning where my kids were at school, my husband was at work, and it was me and my youngest daughter at the house. And at 10 a.m. on the dot, "I hear a loud bang at the front door." And I go over to the other bedroom and I look out the front window and I see just a slew of police officers. Then I hear the man of the house open the door and I hear them say, "This is such and such police. We are here to raid your house."

I run back to the other bedroom, I grab my daughter and I'm like... I hear the police say, "There's somebody upstairs." So they storm up to the upstairs. My daughter is terrified. She's three, four at this point. They pulled the iPad out of her hands. Like, we're going to need every device you have. Come to find out the man we were living with was creating and distributing child porn. [01:00:16] And we were living with a pedophile. I had no idea.

So then we have to get involved with DCFS. And they have to interview my kids. Were they safe with, you know, while living in this man's house? That all happened at like 10 a.m. By 1 p.m. we get the understanding of what we were living with. And we are now homeless. We have nowhere to live. Like they said, you cannot go back to this house. That's fine. I'm not going back to this house. No worries there. But where do we go? And I need to pick my kids up from school at three.

I go back to this house and I try to get all of our stuff out before this man is released. Because, again, they have to go through all of the devices. And it has taken a year and a half. He is now in jail. But it took a year and a half for them to go through all of that.

So I go and I pick up my kids from school, and they're like, "Why is all of our stuff in the car?" And I said, "We're going on an adventure. God's got an amazing plan for us. I just don't know what it is yet." [01:01:20] And God showed up big time.

Because it was COVID, hotels were empty. And a man in the area heard our story and said, "I, for free, will give them two bedrooms." And so two conjoining rooms in this hotel became our home for the next month and a half until we were able to sell our house and buy a home. So my kids will still be like, "Mom, were we homeless?" Kind of. Let's not say that. But, I mean, it was just one thing after another.

Finally, I started to get this chance to share my story. And people, for the first time, wanted to hear and wanted to know and learn and understand what trafficking looks like here. So I would be able to share the signs. School teachers were wanting to understand. My book began to be passed around.

The more loud I got, the safer I got. Because I was almost in this middle ground of I'm kind of saying what's going on. I'm kind of going to the police and giving bits and pieces. But I'm not being loud to where I'm really making this big scene, but I'm also not staying completely quiet about it. [01:02:32] And in that middle ground, it seemed to just be where I was the most unsafe.

Laura Dugger: That totally makes me think of Ephesians 5, which I recommend the whole chapter. But I will just read a little excerpt. So verses 8 through 14 say, "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said: 'Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.'"

I think this is exactly what you're talking about, Rachel, because we expose the darkness into the light, and we confess and bring this forward, and it loses its power. Sin loses its power, even if it's the sins that others have committed against us. [01:03:51]

Rachel Timothy: Yes. To a T. That was literally the scripture that I remember during this time. No joke. As I'm deciding to publish my book that I had held on to for three, four years, deciding to speak and share my story, it was, number one, the truth will set you free, and then bringing the light into the darkness, because evil does not like light. They will run from it. That was my only game plan. Like, literally, "Here you go, God. I'm going to speak out. You do the rest." And He has.

And now we have this program, and we're helping trauma survivors. I am not healed by any way, shape, or form. I'm healing. And it will probably be a lifetime thing. But the way that I've got to experience God in the midst of all this has been unbelievable.

Now I get to pour that into other trauma survivors who have this confusion with God. Trauma confuses the Bible so dang much. What I would love to do someday is have like a Bible handbook for trauma survivors to be able to understand, because you can twist Scripture to say almost about anything you want. [01:05:00]

Laura Dugger: Which is what Satan did to Jesus when He was trying to tempt him. He used it as a weapon rather than as a tool.

Rachel Timothy: Yes, exactly. That's a dream I have. I don't know when I'll have time to sit and do that. But God's just been working miracles.

Laura Dugger: At this point, do you feel safe as you've brought this into the light?

Rachel Timothy: Yes, I do. Now, it's not to say that there's not idiots out there and that there's not still an occasional message that shows up that's just off the wall. But I am stronger, and therefore they don't have their power anymore. I've chosen to do a civil suit against them. The criminal side of things has not worked out yet. So I'm doing a civil suit, and I'm taking them to court. Mainly for the reason, because my coach is still an elder of a church. He leads worship, and he's around kids. [01:05:59] It's mainly about making sure people understand he is not safe and kids cannot be around him.

But God is using it in so many other ways too. Like I'm learning so much about the court system. Ways that victims are not being treated correctly in the court system, and things that need to change. And I'm just at a place where I never thought God would have brought me. I mean, this is not the path I would have chosen. I don't believe it's the path that God chose for me either. I wholeheartedly believe He's taking what Satan has done and bringing good out of it. And I just love Him for it.

Laura Dugger: Well, Rachel, as you're sharing all of this, and how God is bringing goodness out of everything as He redeems and restores, you have clearly such a unique perspective that I think you can teach a lot of us. Is there anything you would recommend we look for, especially with our children or in our communities?

Rachel Timothy: Yeah, absolutely. [01:06:59] I think if you're looking for physical signs, victims are pretty good at hiding those. That's probably not going to be the first sign for you. I think majority of the time it's behavioral or emotional. But if you see a kid wearing baggy clothes a lot, wearing long sleeves, long pants in the summertime when it just doesn't make sense, that could be a sign.

Isolation is huge. If your kid all of a sudden starts to isolate, starts to spend more time alone, or if they are wanting to spend time alone with, obviously, a grown person, that's not normal. Oftentimes these perpetrators will pose as a way to help the child, whether it's a mentor, you're a working parent that needs a babysitter, and, oh, let me come.

As a grown adult, you know, especially as a grown man, to be alone with a child doesn't make sense, especially in this day and age. You just don't. And so they should understand the fact that you're not going to be alone with my child. [01:08:02]

But with children, I mean, asking them the heart questions, not so much, hey, is anybody hurting you? Because immediately I'm going to be like, "What do I say? I don't want to expose him. Will this make me look bad? Will I get in trouble? So asking the heart questions of who you spend time with the most, who do you enjoy spending time with, who makes you feel special.

And ask them about at school, like is there any teacher that makes you feel special? Your coach, your youth group leader. I mean, guys, because it's in all of these areas, unfortunately. But if you have an isolated period, if you have a drastic shift in personality, all of a sudden angry, all of a sudden just not who they used to be, there's something that's happened. Now, whether it's sexual abuse or something else, getting to the heart of that is huge for a kid.

Be very, very, very mindful of devices. [01:09:00] My 8-year-old actually got approached on a Barbie app game by a predator. Literally, I had no idea there was messaging capabilities in this app and was blown away at the sick things that he said to her. She didn't tell me because she knew it was wrong and she didn't know how I would respond.

And so be mindful because our kids are being approached by evil nonstop online and have that open communication with them and have safeguards in place for them. But not only that, then you're also going to have kids at school that are seeing those things and are then going to talk to your kids about it or want to act out on your kids with it.

I mean, our kids are in the lion's den and we have to equip them. We want to cover their ears and cover their eyes and say, don't look at the evil world. But then they're not prepared for what they are going into the world and facing. And so we have to talk to them about it. [01:10:00]

Those are probably some of the biggest signs that I can think of and practical ways of empowering our kids to fight this evil.

Laura Dugger: Well, and then would you share a little bit more about even the resources that you've made available and your nonprofit?

Rachel Timothy: Yeah. So our nonprofit is Stop Suffering in Silence. We acronym it Stop SIS. But along the way, along my journey, I met this amazing lady, Denise Walsh. She is a former clinical psychologist, but she has a huge heart for victims and just really she wants everybody to find their spark, to be able to live free of all of that baggage.

I did one of her programs called 90-Day U-Turn. That is where for the first time I walked away from my eating disorder. And when I did the chains that fell off of me, like that was my coping skill of I can't live without this. The pain will be too much. I didn't trust God to be my comfort. [01:10:59] So it was one of those where, God, I will let it go. Once you comfort me enough, then I will let my eating disorder go. But I needed to let my eating disorder go in order for God to be my comfort.

I went through that journey while I was on 90-day U-Turn, and it changed my life. So now we're like, we need to pass this information along. We need trauma survivors to have a chance to do this program just for trauma survivors. So we started Stop Suffering in Silence where we do the same program, but geared towards trauma survivors. And it's obviously a 90-day program. We do it all through Zoom. Women from all over the country join us and take this program, and it's been life-changing for them. It's been beautiful.

Laura Dugger: Well, and if any of us want to do our part to get the truth out there or support you in your ministry, what would you advise for each of us?

Rachel Timothy: So you could go to our website, stopsuffering.org, if you are interested in donating to help with these women. [01:12:05] Everything that we provide is free. We take them on retreats. We love on them and give them an extra dose of healing while we're out there.

And then we also have what we call the Granny Program, where because of the Granny in my life and the way that she literally pulled me out of the darkness, we have where when they're done with the 90-day U-Turn, a survivor, we pair them with a healthy adult woman of God who becomes their mentor and just walks alongside them through life to be a phone call away, a text message away, to just say, you can tell me anything and I'm here. We train our grannies and we stick with our grannies because they need encouragement along the journey too.

Then I also recently wrote a book, Reflecting Ownership, which is a trauma program, and we're providing that for these women as well and going around and speaking and opening eyes. I get an opportunity to speak at a hospital later this afternoon and shed light on what trafficking looks like there. [01:13:07]

So there's just a lot that God is opening doors to. So we have a prayer team if you would be interested in joining that. But yeah, and if you know of anybody who is struggling with trauma, have them reach out to us. We're not going to hash and rehash and go over and over your trauma. That's not our job. We always recommend counseling for sure. But there comes a point where you've said it all and you still feel stuck. And that's where I was for the most part. Yes, I still have flashbacks and triggers and struggles, but I was stuck in my trauma.

This helps you dream again. It helps you get out of that and to see yourself as God sees you. You have a community of people who understand you. You're on Zoom. You don't know these people from Adam. You can share your heart and know you're not going to see them in the grocery store next week. And it's just been really empowering to see these women take control of their life again and do things they never thought possible.

Laura Dugger: That's incredible. We will absolutely add links in the show notes for today's episode and also to the books that you've written. [01:14:13] I've read both of those, and I appreciate you clearly give God all the glory. And we get to see more of your spiritual walk through all of this.

We also get to see what you were talking about, how the Bible was twisted in certain ways and used against you, but then how God continues to reclaim and redeem all of this and even the miracles that he's shown you along the way. And we don't have time to cover all of it, but I would recommend those resources. And just like your first one is entitled, it does help us open blind eyes. And so I recommend those to everyone listening today.

But on a lighter note, Rachel, you know that our podcast is called The Savvy Sauce because "savvy" is synonymous with practical knowledge or discernment. So as my final question for you today, what is your savvy sauce?

Rachel Timothy: My savvy sauce, I would have to say, is the Bible. It's crazy because that's what was used against me. But as I have been able to study it myself and see God's character in a way that I didn't see before, it blows my mind how much He loves and cares for us. [01:15:25]

When I opened the Bible in the past, I felt shame. But now when I open it, I feel loved. So for anybody out there who is struggling with, well, where was God when this happened? And why did God allow this to happen? And who is He and who am I to Him? All those questions, if you truly want to know, if you really want to understand Him, it's right there. And there's resources and there's people who can help guide you to understanding his character.

But, I mean, when I get in His word, probably on top of the word is when I stop and just listen. When I'm quiet, when I quiet my mind, when I quiet my heart, everything, and just pause, even if it's just in the morning for just a little bit, and I let God speak, it's my favorite part of the day. I can't get through the day without that moment of letting Him speak life into me. So that's 100% my savvy sauce.

Laura Dugger: I love it. I can see even getting to be face-to-face with you, just the love of God pouring in and through you. [01:16:30] I so much enjoyed getting to know you a bit better. This is not an easy story to share and so I just want to thank you for being courageous to do this and bring this into the light. I pray that it causes more healing for you and also for others, that it will set captives free.

So thank you for sharing the power of your testimony, because we know we can overcome Satan with the blood of the lamb and the power of our testimony. So thank you so much, Rachel, for being my guest.

Rachel Timothy: Thanks for having me.

Laura Dugger: One more thing before you go. Have you heard the term "gospel" before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you. But it starts with the bad news. Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves.

This means there is absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. [01:17:32] So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved. We need a Savior.

But God loved us so much, He made a way for His only Son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with Him. That is good news.

Jesus lived the perfect life we could never live and died in our place for our sin. This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished if we choose to receive what He has done for us.

Romans 10.9 says that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. [01:18:32]

So would you pray with me now? Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to You. Will You clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare You as Lord of their life? We trust You to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring Him for me, so me for Him. You get the opportunity to live your life for Him. And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So you ready to get started?

First, tell someone. Say it out loud. Get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes & Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible, and I love it. You can start by reading the Book of John.

Also, get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. [01:19:37] I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps, such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.

We want to celebrate with you too, so feel free to leave a comment for us here if you did make a decision to follow Christ. We also have show notes included where you can read Scripture that describes this process.

Finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, "In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." The heavens are praising with you for your decision today.

If you've already received this good news, I pray that you have someone else to share it with today. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.