Tin Man Ministries

Abolishing Sex Slavery

9/30/2024

“Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land Unto all the inhabitants thereof."(Leviticus 25:10)

Holly Otten on Prayer Assignment at the National monument, the Liberty Bell, a symbol of FREEDOM!

After spending 3 days alone with God, praying, travailing and fasting, I received a vision from the Lord.
I saw Jesus Christ riding quickly toward me on a white horse. He had a double-edged sword in His hand. I received the knowledge that one side of the sword was to release His justice and the other side was to set the captives free. I knew that this vision was referring to the sex trafficking cause that I only recently had been called by God to take up. On another occasion while in prayer, God broke my heart with the following vision.
I saw women laying all over the ground. They were bruised and battered looking; clothes dirty and torn. I screamed at what I saw. My heart broke. In the natural realm, I wept profusely. In the midst of my tears, I heard God say, "Satan's been mopping up the floor with them."
            Months before, in September of 2014, on a visit to a healing ministry in Canada, God called me and my husband to include in our ministry the sex slavery cause. Until then, our ministry was to promote healing for survivors of sexual abuse. While there, I had a conversation with the ministry leader who told me that she had just been given a home so that she could take in women coming out of the life of prostitution and sexual exploitation. Every time she talked about this home during my stay, and the burden that God had placed on her heart, I would break out in tears. She had also shared with me that while we were talking, she heard these words in her spirit from the Lord─Underground Railroad.
            After I returned home, God told me to prayer walk at our state Capitol building regularly. On my first visit with a group of intercessors, while walking the halls, a bust of a woman stopped me in my tracks. I knew that God was bringing my attention to it. The plaque below the bust said “Elizabeth Buffam Chase.” When our group joined together at the end, my pastor said to me, “God is giving you a new mantle.” As soon as I got home, I researched this woman who lived in my state and learned that her home was a Station on the Underground Railroad. Elizabeth and her husband Samuel were very influential in the anti-slavery movement. She died on my birthdate, December 12th. One significant memory that I have related to this time period, is the day when I took one of our adopted daughter’s─one whom we rescued from a life of sexual exploitation─to our state Capitol, where we joined a prayer gathering for our state. We have a picture together in front of a replica of the Liberty Bell, in which it states, “Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land Unto all the inhabitants thereof" (Leviticus 25:10). The verse refers to the Year of Jubilee, when the Israelites were instructed to return property and free slaves every 50 years.
            After 1 year of prayer walking at our state Capitol, God started bringing local politicians into my life; each one, a Christian, and desiring to see an end to sex trafficking in our state. One state representative invited me and our ministry team to the floor of the Congressional House to introduce us and honor us for our work. This congresswoman also came to my church where our ministry was hosting an event to raise awareness on sex trafficking. Another state representative came and sat down with us in a small intimate setting to hear the testimony of a woman whom we helped get free from her trafficker. As he listened to the horrors of what she went through, tears streamed down his manly face. I also became good friends with Senator Cassidy* whose cousin was killed by her trafficker, because she dared to leave him and start life over in another state. Senator Cassidy also introduced me and our ministry team to the Senate Congressional floor on 2 occasions. These were opportunities to raise awareness of sex trafficking in our state, and also of the work that our ministry is doing. In the last appearance, the Chair of the Senate thanked us from the podium for our work. I felt that his words came straight from God’s heart.
            Senator Cassidy and I have worked together on several initiatives in our work to end sex trafficking in our state. Senator Cassidy invited our ministry to lead a presentation in the state Capitol to raise awareness with its Congress members. Members were given invitations to come and hear a presentation on the subject, which was led by me. We showed excerpts of a powerful docufilm called “Nefarious-Merchants of Souls,” that caused one man to shed tears. We also distributed small packets with information, including statistics and resources within our state. Another initiative involved a legislative package that I created, with the purpose for our government to mandate that the National Human Trafficking hotline number be posted at hubs throughout the state that are known for sex trafficking. The senator took my package, in which I spent considerable hours researching and writing, and had it drafted by her legal team. It was then brought to a vote with her peers, in which I attended and gave testimony. The bill did not pass that day, but a few years later it did pass, when reworded and introduced by a fellow senator. Senator Cassidy was upset that her bill was “stolen,” but we are so happy the bill was passed into law. I was ecstatic on the day that I saw a hotline poster on the back of a restroom door of the truck stop in my neighborhood, which I prayer walked for years, while alone or with prayer teams.
Truck stops and other travel hubs are places where one can spot persons being trafficked, as well as hotels, massage parlors and gentlemen clubs. With this in mind, our ministry took on an initiative to raise awareness of sex trafficking in hotels around the state. We created small packages with information, including posters with the hotline number and our contact information. While visiting a low economy motel, I spotted a young woman who was clearly being trafficked by 2 traffickers or pimps. Because of my knowledge on how to spot a victim of sex trafficking, I knew it when I saw it. I called the local police and they responded by thanking me for calling and drove out to the motel immediately. However, I didn’t stay to see how things turned out. This same motel was brought to my attention by a friend whose teen granddaughter and friends were abducted by a few men and brought there, where they were drugged and told they would have to perform sex acts on men. I feel that God purposed for me to learn of these things firsthand because He wanted to burden by heart so that I would pray and act, with the purpose to abolish sex slavery in my state.
            God has not only led me to intercede for sex slavery to be abolished in my state, but also in my nation of America. While attending a 4-day global anti-trafficking summit in D.C., I went through training in lobbying government officials. We were then sent out in teams to visit U.S. offices of senators and representatives, where we talked with Congress members or staff, sharing about details related to sex trafficking, and urging them to pass anti-trafficking laws. God has had me travel to D.C. with prayer teams on many occasions, and one of the reasons is to pray for end to sex slavery in America. After God had me facilitate prayer gatherings in states across the U.S. in a 2-year span, He said to me, “Now, take your post.” He further instructed me to start a monthly national prayer call, with the sole purpose of praying for an end to sexual abuse and sex slavery. We are certain to include praying the battle plan on each call; the strategy that God downloaded in my heart, to end sex slavery. I have obeyed God and we are now in our 5th year of facilitating the 50 STATES NIGHTWATCH prayer call.
            God has further burdened my heart to save His daughters from sex slavery by speaking to me through a children’s book entitled Moses.* I was in the children’s library checking out books with my son when I came upon this book about the life of Harriet Tubman, an abolitionist who was part of the Underground Railroad and helped free approximately 300 people from slavery. I knew I had to take this book home and when I finally sat down to read it by myself, the words in the book came to life in my heart. The entire text contains conversations between God and Harriet, words from God that guided and instructed Harriet in the ways that she should go in order to become free herself and then to lead others to freedom. When I read words that were from God, I felt that God was speaking them to ME! I wept throughout the entire book and these words will forever ring in my heart. “Be the Moses of your people…I have blessed you with a strong body, a clever mind. You heal the sick and see the future. Use your gifts to break the chains…Save all you can, daughter.” And Harriet’s response is my response. “I will do as You say Lord. I will show others the way to freedom that You have shown me.”*

Notes
1. Senator Cassidy-name changed.
2. Moses by Carol Boston Weatherford and Kadir Nelson. Jump at the Sun, Hyperian Books for Children, New York. 2006.

“I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer, until I prayed with my legs.”
─Quote by the 19th century abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass.

Sexual Sin in the Church

7/10/2024

Licensed with Shutterstock.

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her to sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a glorious church, without stain or wrinkle or any such blemish, but holy and blameless.” Ephesians 5:25-27

Forenote: This article is for a mature audience.

I am not judging. I am weeping. I understand one of the root causes of the sexual sin that we are now seeing being exposed in the Church. The moral failure we are seeing in Christian leaders and beloved spiritual fathers is heart-breaking but necessary because Jesus is coming soon and He’s coming for a pure Bride, the Church (Ephesians 5:25-27). I am writing this piece to raise awareness on the connection between sexual sins and unhealed childhood sexual abuse wounds, and I base it on the experience I have as a five-time survivor of childhood sexual abuse and founder of a ministry whose mission is to promote healing for survivors of sexual abuse. I want to shout out to my sisters and brothers in the Church, “We must get to the root causes of our sexual sins!”

I have gained much experience on this topic as I have undergone thirteen years of professional Christian counseling and have been sharing with and ministering to female and male survivors of sexual abuse since 2012. From my experience, I’ve learned that many cases where there is repeated sexual sin, the root cause is unhealed childhood sexual abuse wounds, whether known or repressed. I will share many examples which will serve as proof of what I am stating, and I will start with me. I was saved at age sixteen but engaged in a promiscuous lifestyle for many years following. I believed that Jesus Christ was my Lord and Savior, but deep down I also believed that I was a filthy rag. When a person has such a belief about themselves, it makes it easy to engage in “dirty deeds.”

I’ve ministered to many female survivors of childhood sexual abuse who admitted to having promiscuous lifestyles, leading some to commit adultery, engage in same-sex relationships and some ended up victims of the sex trafficking trade. Two born-again Christian women who came through our ministry’s residential program later ended up selling their bodies for sex. I feel that each one was easy prey for their traffickers, as they had never undergone healing for their childhood wounds of sexual abuse. Both refused to go through the healing process. Let me explain in spiritual terms that where there has been trauma, such as childhood sexual abuse, a door gets opened to demonic spirits. To name just a few potential spirits that obtain footholds in the lives of SA victims: lust, perversity, seduction, anger, shame, low self-worth and rebellion. These spirits sometimes lay dormant, but eventually come out and tempt the wounded person to sin, especially in the area of their sexuality, but in many other areas as well.

The Church is filled with people, including pastors, who have unhealed wounds of childhood sexual abuse. Where there are wounds, there are demonic strongholds, which lead to moral failures. There are well-known Christian leaders who’ve been exposed for sexual sin in past years and who have publicly admitted to being sexually abused as a child. Amongst these is Frank Houston, former pastor and father of Brian Houston, founder of Hillsong Australia. The truth came out that he was a serial pedophile, abusing boys in the church, and he admitted that he was sexually abused by his grandfather as a child. Another is Carl Lentz, former pastor of Hillsong NYC, who’s sin of adultery was exposed and this led him to open up and share that he was sexually abused as a child. Another leader in the Church who fell into sexual sin is the late Lonnie Frisbee who birthed the Jesus Revolution. He shares in his book Not By Power Nor By Might that he was sexually abused as a child on multiple occasions.

I loved reading the book Once Gay Stories, a compilation of testimonies from people who engaged in same-sex relationships but experienced the love of God and His healing power and which led them to leave their gay lifestyles, finding peace and happiness as heterosexuals. I mention this book because a large number of these stories included childhood sexual abuse. These testimonies, as well as many that I have heard firsthand, tell about how these SA victims became confused about their identity. It’s easy for me to understand why a twelve-year-old boy who was sexually abused by his father at age three would become confused about his identity when puberty hits. All of a sudden, amongst raging hormones, he finds himself having same-sex attractions and starts to believe that he was born to be with males. He thinks that perhaps he was supposed to be a girl and then it makes sense that he has feelings for boys. Whether he has memories of his abuse or whether they are repressed, the unhealed wounds and the demonic footholds are present. This is why it is so important that as Christians, we don’t stop growing after we are saved. It is important to go deeper in our relationship with God and to allow him to take us through the sanctification or purification process. We must not stop at the thought, “I’ve got my ticket to heaven,” or “God loves me even though I am a sinner...Even if I engage in pornography, adultery, same-sex relationships or fornication before marriage.” Yes, Jesus came for the sinner (Mark 2:17), but it doesn’t mean that He is pleased with us if we continue to sin.

An excellent film that I feel every Christian man and woman should watch is The Heart of Man streamed on Amazon Prime and YouTube. The film features both drama and interviews with Christian men and women who overcame sexual sin by allowing God to heal their brokenness, in which most stories include childhood sexual abuse. One interview is with William Paul Young, the author of the NY Times best-selling novel The Shack. Young shares how his wife caught him in an affair with her best friend and how this led him to embark on a healing journey in which he allowed God to show him that he had unhealed wounds from childhood sexual abuse. Another interview is with the author and poet Jackie Hill Perry who engaged in same sex relationships, but after receiving salvation and walking with God, she no longer felt those unhealthy attractions. Perry openly shares that she was sexually abused as a child and from that early age and on, felt urges to engage in sexual activities. This film is profoundly eye-opening, inspirational and heart-warming, as the drama that weaves throughout portrays the love of the Father for His son, who allows himself to be seduced by a woman, which creates a separation between them. It depicts the Father’s sorrow caused by this separation and His efforts to help His son turn from his sinful ways and back toward Him and their life together.

God is exposing the sexual sin in the Church. He is shining His light on the secret sins that have been hiding in darkness (1 Corinthians 4:5). What we are seeing in the media surrounding well-known and well-loved Christian leaders is ugly. It’s painful. But it’s necessary! Jesus is coming soon and He cares more about our souls than our reputations. Jesus desires that His Bride be pure and spotless and that she have no other loves. I exhort my Christian brothers and sisters to allow God to take you through a journey of deep self-examination. Are there secrets of sexual sin? Are there secrets related to sexual abuse? I wrote a piece entitled, No More Secrets, and I encourage you to listen to it on our ministry’s YouTube channel. As long as we keep our sexual sins secret or the instances of sexual abuse we experienced secret, the enemy has a foothold. Freedom comes to the sinner and to the victim of abuse when things are brought out into the light.

I am extremely proud of the women who have come forward publicly of late who’ve shared that they were sexually abused by Christian leaders. Amongst these are, Cindy Clemishire who admitted to being sexually abused by Pastor Robert Morris starting at age twelve through age sixteen; Lori Anne Thompson admitted that the late world-renowned apologist Ravi Zacharias engaged in sexual misconduct with her; Tammy Woods admitted to being sexually abused by Mike Bickle from the age of fourteen through college-age. I applaud these women. I too brought out the truth of my abuse decades ago while going through my inner healing journey. I said yes to God when He asked to take me through the healing process. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done but it brought me freedom, healing and wholeness, and it allowed me to learn to love myself, as well as equip me to help other survivors get healed.

I exhort my Christian brothers and sisters to ask God to purify you and prepare you to meet Jesus. You never know when that day will be. It could be tomorrow. Are there secret sexual sins that you have been engaging in or unconfessed sins from years ago? Are you keeping secret the time or times when you were sexually abused as a child? If so, I encourage you to ask God to take you through the healing journey. Ask Him to lead you to someone who is experienced with helping others heal from sexual abuse. If you think that you may have been abused as a child but aren’t sure, ask God. Seek the truth with all of your heart and He will show you. If you were abused and have repressed memories, God will most likely begin to bring memories from your past to the forefront of your mind. But don’t be afraid, Jesus is a gentle surgeon! And He will never leave you as you walk through your healing journey. He will lead you from victim to victorious survivor. Once a SA survivor experiences healing, the demonic spirits that came through that open door of trauma will go right back out that door. They no longer have a basis for staying and therefore they no longer have power over the survivor in the area of his or her sexuality.

Jesus is coming for a pure Bride. Will you let Him prepare you for that day? Jesus is coming back for His Bride, the Church. Will you commit to pray that “She” be holy and pure as He is holy and pure?

Thank you for letting me share my heart with you. It is weeping and breaking. Not judging.

Helpful Resources

1. Video: No More Secrets
2. Video: Prayer for Pastors
3. Video: Prayer for the Church
4. Video: Prayer that Breaks Pornography & Sexual Strongholds-Jennifer LeClaire Ministries
5. Video: The Heart of Man film Free on YouTube
6. Video: Interview with journalist Julie Roys on sexual misconduct in the Church- Remnant Radio Channel
7. Be Broken Ministries
8. Nathan Project
9. Allender Center
10.
11. Audio Book: The Tin Man
12. Audio Book: Brides of Christ
13. Healing Hearts Curriculum

Scriptures Related To This Topic

1. James 5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”
2. Psalm 32:5 “Then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not hide my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and You forgave the guilt of my sin.”
3. Mark 4:22 “For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be brought to light.”
4. Ephesians 5:11-13 “Have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that is illuminated becomes a light itself.”
5. Luke 12:3 “What you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the housetops.”
6. Acts 26:18 “To open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’”
7. Colossians 3:5 “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.”
8. 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
9. 1 Thessalonians 4:3 “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality.”
10. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

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NO MORE SECRETS

3/1/2021

I will not be silent. I will talk about the things that for generations people have been saying "Shh. Don't talk about that stuff," or "Keep the past in the past," or "The skeletons are better left in the closet." Better for who? The perpetrators? Satan and his kingdom? If we stay quiet, Satan can produce more child molesters, tempt more victims to commit suicide, entice more people to numb themselves with alcohol or narcotics, convince more people that they are homosexual or of the opposite gender, and talk more people into not getting married or having children.

I am Holly Otten, a survivor of sexual abuse and incest, and my life's work is to help people heal from sexual abuse. I am sharing with you my thoughts based on my own personal experiences and from those who've come through our inner healing curriculum for survivors, as well as from counseling survivors. I am a voice for the voiceless−the weak and wounded.

Let me give you an analogy of why we must deal with the sin of sexual abuse and not keep it secret. When I was a child, I watched my grandmother take out a bowl of chicken soup from the refrigerator. When she removed the lid, I noticed the soup didn't look like it did the day before when I ate it. It had a layer of fat floating on the top. It didn't look very appetizing and because my grandmother knew that the fat was not healthy for our bodies, she skimmed the fat off and placed it in the garbage. Both perpetrators and victims try to block out the abuse as if it never happened, but the effects of the abuse create much damage in their lives, including passing down the behavior of incest to their children, who pass it down to their children, and so on.

Image via Public Domain Pictures cc

It's time to clean out the skeletons from the closets. It's the only way to break the generational patterns (or curses¹) of sexual abuse and incest. We Christ-followers must war for our generations. We must deal with the sin of the past and present generations so that our future generations can be spared from the horrific consequences of sexual abuse and incest. We must not keep silent when we hear a loved one say that they were sexually abused (present or past). We need to listen when a child tells us that her uncle makes her feel uncomfortable or when a child says that he doesn't want to live with Daddy any longer. We must stop protecting the perpetrator and start fighting for the rights of the victim. We must stop aiding in keeping the perpetrator's secrets. We must stop looking the other way. We must stop choosing to live in a place of denial.

Pastors are not immune to temptations to molest children. I know personally of 3 pastors who molested their own children, and other church leaders who abused children, including 1 deacon, 1 worship pastor and 1 youth-group leader. There are generational curses of incest that produce strong temptations. If the pastor was molested himself and never dealt with his abuse, then there is an even stronger pull to give into temptations to molest his children, or any children who are in his life, such as his daughter's friend, a niece, a boy in his Boy Scout troop or a girl on his baseball team. Children are easy prey. The drive to satisfy his sexual desires are satiated, no matter the gender or age. In most cases, the younger, the better. Some of the reasons for this are that the children are less likely to tell anyone and they are more vulnerable because of their small size. In addition, men get more pleasure when they penetrate a smaller child, and lastly, there is no threat of pregnancy if the child is prepubescent.

Let's all agree to make an effort to change things around. For the sake of our children, let's profess: "NO MORE SECRETS. NO MORE LIES. NO MORE DECEIT." It is time to tell all. It is time to get everything out in the open. God knows it all anyhow. Nothing is hidden from His eyes. God knows about the pastor's secrets. His certificate of ordination is not a sure ticket into heaven. There must be repentance in the heart of the pastor if he is to expect to have eternal life in heaven. Of course this goes for all perpetrators.

I encourage perpetrators to repent to God for their sins of sexual abuse and to pray for the healing of their victims. If a victim comes to him later in years and tells him that she knows what he did to her, he should not deny it. He should apologize to her. It will help them both to heal. I experienced this with a perpetrator who sexually abused me. This family member came to me when we were adults and apologized for abusing me. After he apologized, he sobbed profusely. I saw the weight of his sin fall off of his shoulders. He became clean and free of the burden that he carried for so many years. Unfortunately, he was only 1 out of 5 perpetrators who apologized for sexually abusing me. Nonetheless, I have forgiven each one and have placed them in the hands of God, the one and only Judge.

Afternote

I have used the gender of the male when speaking of the perpetrator because there is a much lower percentage of women who are found to be child molesters and rapists. Also, I have used both genders when speaking of the victims, but there is a higher percentage of female victims than there are male victims. There are various statistics, but there is one that I find to be close to my personal experiences. By the age of 18, 1 out of 3 women will be sexually abused and 1 out of 5 boys. This stat is only based on known cases. Therefore, the stats are higher. I believe them to be MUCH higher because of the number of people, both women and men, who have told me of their abuse, but never told anyone else in their lives.

Footnote

Scriptures that speak of incest, curses and blessings:
Galatians 3:13, Deuteronomy 28:15, Leviticus 20:17-21

Listen to an audio recording of "No More Secrets" as read by the author. Please share it with others. We can't stop sexual abuse if we don't talk about it.

About the Author

Holly Otten is co-founder of Tin Man Ministries, a faith-based non-profit whose mission is to promote healing for survivors of sexual abuse and to advocate for victims of the sex trafficking trade. TMM has produced many resources to help survivors heal and grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ.

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Abolishing Sex Slavery

Sexual Sin in the Church

NO MORE SECRETS

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Categories

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