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Think Street Walkers Are Naughty Girls? These Guys Want To Change Your Mind

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I was asked to write this article for a publication so it’s not a typical post.  I hope to not only use this platform to spread the word but get your input. You can make comments to the post or if you see edits I should make, you can email me coachsuzette@gmail.com. Thanks!

A shocking title for a shameful subject that could cause you to think something absolutely contrary to the truth. The movie Rape For Profit was produced by Cedar Park Christian School alumni to shed light on the truth of what is happening within our own communities and to challenge our thinking regarding these ‘naughty girls’ by exposing what it means to be part of this industry.
Ignoring this shameful subject, we have turned a blind eye to the fact that most girls who get involved in prostitution are between the ages of 11 and 14. Through coercion, manipulation, lies and brainwashing these little girls become slaves to their pimp – sex slaves. As a society we have thought of prostitutes as women who have chosen a lifestyle of lust and greed. This movie exposes the fact that we have bought into a lie that is absolutely contrary to the truth. 

Huffington Post writer Mark Joseph calls the film “a gritty look at inner-city Seattle’s growing problem with human trafficking.” Acknowledging that the movie is not for the faint of heart, he believes it to be a movie of extreme importance. John Carlson of KVI radio says,“It is a searing documentary and I guarantee it will give you a perspective that you have not heard in the mainstream media.”

Crowds streamed to Lincoln Square Cinemas in December to see the documentary produced by Mew Films. With many sold out shows, the theater asked to extend the showing an additional week. Eric Esau, who founded Mew Films in ’08, said, “It was pretty exciting for our first feature film to be running alongside The Hobbit and Skyfall and what was really neat is it had one of the top 10 highest grossing opening weekends on a per screen average this year.”

Besides the theater showing, the MSN Causes website hosted the film in January. During that month it had over 1 million views.

Although it was Mew’s first feature film the same crew has been making movies together since junior high school. Esau, Jason Pamer and six other Cedar Park grads were a tight knit group at Cedar Park. So tight, they gave themselves a name, “The Nations,” because they determined that whatever they did in life, they wanted it to affect the nations.  Their website says, “The Mew Films crew is a collection of guys who have grown up together, who then left to study and hone their craft and have now reunited….” Shay Carlucci, Nathan Gemmet, Douglas Haines and Riley Taylor, all part of “The Nations” make up the Mew Film crew for Rape For Profit. There were two others who were part of “The Nations,” Flavius Stercuic who is currently attending the Hillsong school of worship and Jansen Braaten, a financial advisor. They too will be joining the crew at Mew to make their next feature film – a true story about a family who escaped communist Romania.

Esau said, “Making movies was just what we did and Cedar Park always encouraged us to pursue our dreams. We made a short film that they showed in chapel and that was the first time I saw how what I did touched and influenced people. It was the first time I realized that I could do something with film that mattered.”  With encouragement at home and at school, they were kids who believed they could do what they were passionate about – use film to affect the nations. Now they have done just that.

They were inspired after viewing a movie called The Playground about the national epidemic of sexual exploitation of children. They said, ‘watching that movie wrecked us and we just wanted to do something.  We were prompted to investigate the problem in our area” and shocked to find out that Seattle has the 3rd largest number of child prostitutes in the nation. King County alone has as many as 750 girls sold each year according to Dr. Debra Boyer, leading expert and author of “Who Pays The Price? Assessment of Youth Involvement in Child Prostitution in Seattle.”  These staggering numbers were enough to cause Pamer and Esau to begin prayerfully considering what they could do. They thought, “What we do best is make movies, so let’s make a movie about it – that is what we have to offer.”

Taylor, put it this way, “Our film doesn’t attack the issue from an activist point of view. My goal as an editor was to provoke the heart, to alter perspective and change how we see these women. We tell stories through film. Our hope is to change the world through stories. Of course the greater goal is for people to see their need for Jesus.”   Haines says, “Making R4P had a deep personal impact on my view of prostitution, internet pornography, and rape. It changed everything I thought about the sex trade and opened my eyes to an entire world that I should have known existed.”

Pamer and Esau are very clear in stating that their goal was to show how these young girls and women are victimized and vilified and expose the reality that it is the pimps and the johns (men who buy prostitutes) who are despicable criminals who are robbing little girls of their childhood and women of their dignity.

Darly, a woman whose heart-wrenching story is told throughout Rape For Profit, escaped and is now middle aged. She ran away, to Seattle from another city, with only a beater car and little dog. Twenty years after leaving that horrific life she still struggles, but for the first time she’s been given a voice.  Not only did she tell her story in the film, she came to see it at Lincoln Center and was invited to come forward at the end to say a few words. She received a huge round of applause. Esau says that giving these women a voice is one of the most rewarding things about having made the film – seeing captives set free.

While many of us are aware of the international sex slave trade problem, most of us believe it is mainly an issue in third world countries. Not so. It looks different here because girls are generally not kidnapped, they are lured. Our pimps are sly and skilled at keeping their crimes below the radar. They know how to side step every question the authorities ask, hide their tax free earnings (upwards of $400K), quickly get rid of evidence and brainwash and train their girls to do the same. These girls, longing to be loved, are convinced their pimps do, in fact, love and care for them. Yet when asked if they want to be on the streets, most say no.

Girls susceptible to being enslaved by a pimp are often runaways who are running from something. When we take a look into what they are running from, we begin to understand how they could be so deceived. A large percentage of them have been sexually abused as children. Broken homes with alcoholic and/or drug addicted parents and physical abuse is typical. Becoming homeless makes them an easy target for pimps.

Many are picked up in malls. Even at our most upscale malls like Bellevue Square, girls are watched and preyed upon. Looking for girls with a longing to be loved, pimps entice them with all kinds of lies and promises. Their innocence is stripped by men who trick them into believing they will love and care for them.  At the beginning, they treat them like princesses and capture their hearts. They develop relationships with them over weeks and months eventually enticing them to come be part of their ‘community’.  One of the girls in the movie said, “people want to be a part of a community no matter how bad the community is.” Another said, “Somebody wanted me, a terrible person, but somebody.”

When the time comes that a woman is no longer valuable to their pimp, they have nothing. Getting out of a pimp’s control is extremely difficult but, by the grace of God, some do. Places like the Genesis Project are there to help, but more help for these women is needed. These girls and women have no one to turn to outside their sick and corrupt community. They’ve been victimized and robbed of everything. The stories told in the movie are compelling proof of this fact.

Pimps only stay in business because there is huge market for their product. The johns that buy them come from all walks of life. Esau is convinced that many of these men have no idea what they are doing. They hope the movie will open the eyes of these men and reduce the market demand.

It takes heightened awareness to bring people to action. Because of the help of people like Jada Pinket Smith, wife of Will Smith, more people will have the opportunity to see Rape For Profit. She heard about the film and asked producers to fly to LA for a private viewing with her. She is now playing an active role in helping post production promotion. By gathering the support of other celebrities they hope to have a tremendous number of views when the movie comes out on multiple VOD (video on demand) platforms this summer.

Who did what?
Jason Pamer- Producer/Co-Director/Writer
Eric Esau- Director/Co-Producer/Writer
Shay Carlucci- Associate Producer
Douglas Haines- Associate Producer/Director of Marketing
Riley Taylor- Asst. Editor/Sound Designer/Colorist
Nathan Gemmet- Music Composer (co-written with Michael Rath)

Their thanks goes to the Executive Producers:
Jada Pinkett Smith
Passport Unlimited
Champion’s Foundation
Steve & Susan Esau
Paress Salinas
Luke 12:48 Foundation
Christen & Shauna Esau
Roger & Terri Blier
Richard & Sarah Mueller
Jordyn Cline
Liberty Road Foundation

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Lack of Peace?

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I once had a client who said she didn’t want peace because it sounded boring. She apparently knew my tagline – pursuing your potential, passion and peace, so she quickly let me know that she only wanted the first two ‘P’s.  She said she came to coaching because some stressful situations were depleting her and causing her life to be less than what she wanted.  The verse “Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” came to mind. She said  fully realized that it was her troubled heart that was zapping her passion and keeping her from stepping into her full potential.

I explained that I love that verse because it says “Do not let,” meaning we have the power to not let it happen. We do not have to let ourselves have a troubled and fearful heart. Putting that power into action takes conscious effort for most of us, but is absolutely doable, although it may not be easy because it calls for a shift in our thinking.

When we want to change a mind set it often helps if we combine both physical actions and/or visual reminders with mental determination. I think of it as circular. Our mental state is altered by what we see and do and our ability to act comes from our mindset.  After exploring some ideas of  what might work for her and implementing them she was free to feel passionately again and able to do the work needed to grow in her potential.   

A light bulb came on at some point and she said, “well, if this is what it means to have peace, then ok, I do want it” which was good because she got it! 

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Is Your Shadow Haunting You?

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When the sun is shining on you your shadow falls behind you so it generally goes unnoticed. Occasionally if you look to the side you may catch a glimpse of it in your peripheral vision but rarely do you wring your head around and stare at it, yet it follows you wherever you go.

When we are headed in the direction we desire it feels good, like a warm sunshiny day. The path is graced with things that make our heart smile and we are excited to reach our destination. We are energized, our thoughts are clear and we are not distracted by our shadow. It is always with us but it has no power to hold us back or cause us to second guess the direction we’ve chosen.

Most children go through a phase where they are fascinated with their shadow. Some kiddos try to jump into it, others try desperately to grab hold of it and some try to run away from it.  So it is in life. Our past is like our shadow – it will always be there following us. We cannot jump back into it for a re-do, we can’t hold onto it trying to keep it alive, nor can we run away from it. It is just there. Our life resembles it’s shape, but it has no power. Like a child who obsesses over their shadow, many of us obsess over our past yet we can’t move forward until we stop looking back.  It serves us well to acknowledge it’s existence so that when we catch a glimpse of it in our peripheral vision it doesn’t scare us – we just laugh at ourselves when we realize our shadow scared us for a second!

The difficult thing about the shadow stories of our past is that they create beliefs, many of which are subconscious beliefs. These beliefs are often warped by our unpleasant experiences. It may be easy to let go of our past but it is far more difficult to change the belief it created.  We often don’t realize where the belief came from.  As a coach, I do not work with people analyzing the past. It can take years of psychotherapy and in some cases people have unknowingly created false memories in an effort to understand themselves. In coaching we let the past be what it is – over.

Thank God we have the choice to change the shape of our shadow! Every day we create a little piece of history that will follow us the rest of our lives.  While altering our hairstyle or losing/gaining weight can make our physical shadow drastically different, every choice we make in life has the potential for creating new beliefs.

Pondering who we are and what we believe can be empowering because  subconscious beliefs rise to the surface.  By noting what they are, we have the power to embrace or denounce them. (This is where coaching can be helpful.)

What are your shadow stories and what beliefs have they created that hinder you? Do you identify with any of these?

Common Shadow Stories and the Beliefs They Can Perpetuate

*Shadow Story: I thought I had a happy family but my parents divorced as soon as I moved out. Belief: People just pretend to be happily married.

* Shadow Story: “I was brought up in a poor family and saw my rich relatives act condescendingly toward my parents.” Subconscious Belief: “Wealth makes people arrogant snobs so I want nothing to do with rich people and I certainly don’t wan’t to be one.”

* Shadow Story – “My mom had an affair shortly after she lost 40lbs.” Subconscious Belief – “My husband loves me just the way I am. If I lost weight I would be attractive to other men and could be tempted to have an affair.”

Shadow Story – “My dad owned and operated a thriving business and mom stayed at home.” Belief: “I can’t go back to work because my husband would have to pick up the slack at home and I want his career to thrive. Plus, my kids need me at home. It’s for the best – no one knows I hate every minute of being a housewife.” 

* Shadow Story – My grandmother raised me, and had a career while my grandpa and mom did nothing. Mom and grandpa drank too much but they never worried about much either. Grandma was always stressed out and angry. Belief – I don’t want to be stressed out all the time so if I do have to work it’s going to be an easy job – not a full blown career.

*Shadow Story – My parents had great careers but spoke negatively about people who were more successful than they.  Belief – I can’t be more successful than my parents or I’ll lose their approval.

You may not identify with any of these Shadow Stories, or, maybe you do, but your belief is different.  The point is we all have a past that has shaped us and we have adopted beliefs that do not serve us well. 

Realizing that my choices today will tomorrow be the history that shapes me help me put a better perspective on today. As adults our circumstances are largely determined by our choices and/or our response to uncontrollable circumstances. We get to choose what we believe.

Thinking about how we think if overdone makes us crazy! However, it is extremely helpful to recognize the lies we believe so that we can retrain our brains with truth, putting our past behind us like our shadow on a sunshiny day. 

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Nudging in Your Spirit?

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Have you ever done something completely out of the ordinary that felt completely natural in the moment? Really not that big of a deal, but something that, had you thought about, probably wouldn’t have done?  …. but you had a nudging in your spirit…. you knew it was the right thing to do, so you just went for it? And afterward everybody started talking about it as if you were a saint and told your story publicly? I haven’t but….

I heard such a story.  It was about a young man who is an introvert to the core. I wanted to spend some time with him and dig a little deeper. Being an extreme introvert, I wasn’t sure he’d be willing but I took the chance and asked him out to lunch. To my delight he was more than happy to oblige. Maybe it was the free lunch -haha!

I asked him what prompted him to do such a thing and he said, “everyone is asking me that.”  He said that at first he really he didn’t know, but after talking with his friends decided it must have been God. “I just had a thought and did it – that’s all”. That was it, enough said, or so he thought. But no way, I just bought him Jimmy John’s – I was going to dig!

I asked him how it made him feel to be put in the spotlight? As you would expect from an introvert, the answer was “kind of embarrassed” – although he had given his permission. He told me about some other folks who were inspired because of what he did and have taken action on some of their promptings. I said, “well that’s got to make you feel good” but to my surprise he was a bit embarrassed about that too. I wanted to say, it’s ok to feel good that God used you to spark good in others, but I held my tongue because I was just so impressed with his pure motives! I was actually a bit dumbfounded. I am so “all about” doing everything in my power to spark good in others! But he just did good – with no ulterior motive. Wow!

I had to tell this story because it’s such a great example of how when we act on our promptings to do good, the affect is often way more far reaching than we ever could ever plan or even dream.

There was a torrential down pour that began as we ate, so we hung out a little longer which was nice because it gave me a chance to process what I was hearing. He kept saying things like ‘it wasn’t that big of a deal’ yet to me it was huge. . . and to others it was hugely inspirational! My intrigue intensified. I had to figure out the lesson in it all..

I love the idea of structure, schedules and goals, but when they take away our ability to freely act – there is a stifling effect on us and we miss opportunities that may indeed be far more meaningful than what we could ever plan. I posted this on my facebook page last week, “Does your need for efficiency make you a great time manager but poor mind manager? Are you getting a lot done but you’re completely exhausted and relationships are suffering?” When I had this thought I wasn’t correlating it consciously to our conversation but in retrospect, maybe that is what it stemmed from.

As I think back on what he did, nothing big, just a very kind, loving and thoughtful gesture that was totally (well…ordinarily) out of his comfort zone I am stuck by how one person’s action affected so many. It makes me wonder how different the world would be if everyone just did what they felt called to do in the moment instead of brushing our nudgings aside with excuses. An introvert doesn’t ordinarily walk up to a stranger, much less a homeless woman, and ask her to join them for lunch but that is what he did. She accepted and accompanied him back to the restaurant where he’d left his buddies to wonder where he’d gone.  After he bought her lunch they joined his bewildered friends at a table. They talked for about an hour and then went on with their day. That’s it, nothing big.

I have this feeling that more than the woman’s stomach was full. Her heart just experienced an act of love and kindness from a complete stranger. Her life may not be much different today because of lunch with three 20 something gamer dudes but many others lives are changed.

It’s crazy how what would cause overwhelming anxiety most of the time becomes “no big deal” when we have the nudging within us to act. Thank you David for inspiring us all.

I hope you too will be inspired to act the next time you have a nudging.

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How to Strengthen Any Relationship

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Think about how you feel when someone asks you a question but they don’t listen to your response. Or when you are having a conversation with someone but when you begin speaking they are obviously less than engaged. It doesn’t feel good. Checking phones, or worse yet texting, looking back at the tv, interacting with a toddler are distractions that happen all too often. 

Learning to be a great listener is not that hard and it’s one of the best ways to strengthen relationships. Most of us are guilty of being less than great listeners, and need to be reminded of it’s importance.

We are busy people and great multi taskers – often at the expense of great relationships. It has been proven that it is not possible to multi-task with 2 streams of words. Forbes News Post writer Erika Anderson reports, “Your brain just can’t take in and process two simultaneous, separate streams of information and encode them fully into short-term memory. When information doesn’t make it into short-term memory, it can’t be transferred into long-term memory for recall later. If you can’t recall it, you can’t use it.”

Maybe you don’t mulit-task – good for you! Interrupting, thinking about our response, or analyzing/judging what is being said are other signals we are not listening well. These often stem from a good motive. We are listening, but we are more concerned with our role in the conversation than with the person, so we are thinking about what we will say next rather than listening with empathy and for understanding. When we begin to understand what they are saying and how they feel we know we’re on the right track. This doesn’t mean we have to agree with them or adopt their feelings – it just means we have and understanding of the content of their words and can see where their feelings are coming from.

Some conversations are simply for information, so the importance is about content, but not necessarily less important. Just yesterday my son told me where he was going and who he was going to be with. When he returned I asked him if he had a good time and he began telling me about it. I was stunned to realize I had not listened well. He was with an entirely different group of people than I had thought. I didn’t let on, but when I looked back at his texts, there was evidence he had told me, both verbally and by text who he was hanging out with!  In this case, no harm was done because he didn’t know – unless he is more perceptive than I think!  But generally, when we get information wrong that people have taken time to relay – they feel slighted and we have damaged our relationship. Writing this is convicting me. I am guilty way too often of not retaining this kind of information.

Whether it’s business, friends, family or acquaintances, relationships are what keep the world in harmony. Relationships blossom and grow when we respect each other enough to listen well.

Realizing the importance of good listening skills is the first step. There are many tools and tricks to help you, like eye contact, repeating back what was said, asking clarifying questions etc.  A google search will quickly pull up all kinds of articles if you need more ideas.

We all have the capacity to be good listeners and we become one when we begin valuing people more highly. When we place a greater value on our relationships we choose not to multi task and we have a desire to understand so we engage in their story and/or take interest in the informations that is being shared. This may mean we need a moment before we respond, but that is ok. Being quick to listen and slow to speak is wisdom from above!