2
My New Friend

Another boring day,” I said as I lingered at the shallow end of the pool. I had few friends and didn’t know any kids to play with. We were living temporarily in the Dynasty, what I’d call a middle-class hotel in Miami Beach. It was moderately priced for the average American family to stay for a few nights, although a number of residents lived there permanently.

I wondered how long we’d stay. While I was growing up, my mother, brother, and I often moved. As a lonely, insecure, barely teenaged girl, I spent the summer days by the pool. I had nothing else to do except watch television.

I had already experienced sexual, physical, and verbal abuse, although I wasn’t aware that it was abnormal. I struggled with feelings of low self-worth. Each morning, Mom left early for work because she had to take two buses to get to her job. Since I had nothing to do and no responsibilities, every day was another day with no one to play with or talk to. I had cried so many times, it seemed I had no tears left.

A few hotel guests came to the pool, but none of them stayed long. Within a day or two they went back to Ohio or Maine.

One morning I was standing in the water at the edge of the pool. I closed my eyes, wishing the day were over. It was the same way I had felt the day before and the day before that.

“Hello there,” a young woman said. I opened my eyes and stared at the smiling face of a beautiful blonde-haired woman with blue eyes. Thin and pretty, she looked like everything I wished I could be. She wore a red bikini and had the perfect figure for it.

“Hi,” I said, surprised that she would talk to me.

“I saw you here by yourself,” she said, “and you seemed sad and alone. I thought I would keep you company.”

I mumbled something and she smiled again.

“Is it all right if we sit down and talk?”

I nodded, too excited to know how to respond. She wants to talk to me. Maybe she wants to be my friend.

“You must be lonely.” Before I answered, she said, “My name is Mary, and I’m nineteen.” She held out her hand. “What’s your name?”

“Katariina, but everyone calls me Kat.” I shook her soft hand and inhaled the sweet perfume she wore.

“Katariina is a nice name. How old are you?”

“Thirteen.”

“Where’s your family?” Her voice was warm and she continued to smile as she looked at me. Mary bent forward as she spoke, and I sensed she really wanted to get to know me.

“My mother’s at work and—well, my dad doesn’t live with us right now.” I shrugged.

I got out of the pool, dried off, and stood in front of her, engulfed in my own thoughts, wallowing in self-pity, discontent, and loneliness (my usual thinking pattern).

Immediately I liked her. She’s so beautiful and confident. She’s everything I would like to be.

I still couldn’t believe that she liked me, and I didn’t think she had any flaws or could understand or imagine the rough childhood I had experienced.

Even in that first meeting, I yearned to be exactly like her. Mary had intense, bright-blue eyes that made me feel as though she could see right through to my heart. I began to feel she was the older sister I never had.

Mary smiled at me again, as if to say, “I understand, and I’m sorry.” Within those first minutes, Mary gave me hope and offered me friendship and support. No one had ever treated me that way. I was bullied both inside and outside of my home; I had never had anyone stand up for me.

Looking back, I now know she chose me even before she talked to me. I’m sure she spotted the longing in my eyes and the loneliness that I projected out of my hurts and agony. As I would learn later, predators watch their victims before they target them. They especially seek lonely and abused children who display their vulnerability by the way they walk, their clothes, their general demeanor, or the helplessness in their eyes. Predators sense the children’s lack of family support and their susceptibility. Only later could I see that my own identity was fragile and distorted. Then I would realize Mary had chosen me because she knew I was vulnerable and lonely.

For perhaps an hour, Mary sat on a lounge chair next to me and we talked. It didn’t take long for her to win my trust. She asked the right questions and focused on my eyes as I answered. No one had ever listened to me so intently before.

She told me almost nothing about herself, which I didn’t think about until weeks later. Her questions expressed interest in me, something no one had ever done. Even at school, no one paid attention to me. I was tall for my age, slightly overweight, and I constantly sought approval from adults and older kids. But that approval rarely came. Even when it did, the longing in my soul was so desperate, the acceptance was never enough.

As I stared at Mary, I kept wishing I looked like her. She seemed sophisticated, the type who could stand up for herself—nothing like me. I could tell she’d had a rough upbringing from her references to parents and those in authority. And like any naïve teenage girl, I opened up quickly and talked freely, deliriously happy to have someone older who would listen and care about my thoughts and feelings.

Mary related to my tales of abuse (although I didn’t know that word) with comments such as, “Your dad hurt you, huh? I know what you mean. My dad did that too when I was growing up. That’s why I ran away.”

After I told her a little more, she said, “You shouldn’t be mistreated like that. It wasn’t fair what happened to you. You should have had somebody there to defend you and protect you. If I were your sister, if I had been there, I would have done that for you.”

It wasn’t only her words, but the tender sound of her voice had exactly the right tone. I’d never met anyone whose hurts and wounds seemed to mirror my own. Of course, I didn’t realize it at the time, but she listened to my words and used them to describe herself so she’d appear to be like me. So I would relate to her.

As would be obvious later, I was being groomed for the life of sex trafficking.

As a naïve thirteen-year-old, I found it easy to like Mary. Why wouldn’t I like her? She showed interest in an affection-starved girl. She kept talking to me. The attention Mary gave me made me feel special. Here’s someone who cares about my feelings.

Before the end of our first meeting at the pool, I was convinced that Mary was someone who would stand up for me and love me. In her presence, I felt good—better than I had in a long time. I had come back to life again because someone liked me and cared for me. No longer was I alone. I had a true friend, someone to confide in, who would comfort me when I needed it.

My new friend told me about herself—or at least what she thought I wanted to know—to gain my trust. But when I asked a direct question, she seemed to avoid it and acted as if she was more interested in listening to me. Instead of being hurt by her indirectness, I thought she was mature and confident, able to keep things to herself. That made me want to be like her even more.

Instead of talking about herself the way most people did, she plied me with questions about what I thought and how I felt. Instead of noticing that I might be in danger, I thought it was sincere care and concern for my well-being. With her constant caring reactions to my hurts, we grew closer and closer each day, developing a strong bond and relationship.

No one else in my life seemed to have time for me. My mom was working many, many hours; my dad was abusive; and my older brother didn’t want me hanging around. With Mary, however, I felt loved, wanted, and valued.

“What’s your home life like?” Mary asked, and didn’t look away from me. No one had ever paid so much attention to me. “Tell me about your mother. What’s the relationship like with your dad?” She gained insight into all the hurts of my heart and found that my biggest wounds stemmed from what I now call a “daddy hole.”

Each day as Mary listened, I poured out my sad responses, and she often replied with simple statements such as, “I’m sorry to hear that.” Two or three times she patted my arm. It felt wonderful—I suppose that any type of kindness, even the slightest touch, was better to a lonely soul than being ignored or abused. Her older, sisterly affection made me feel valued, safe, and loved. Right from that first meeting, I trusted her.

She wants to know everything about my terrible life. Mary is my friend.

I told her things I hadn’t ever told anyone else. Although my parents were divorced, Mom worked for my father, so he was still a part of our lives. He came to see us whenever he wanted. His language and behavior were abusive. Even though he earned good money, I rarely received anything from him unless I worked for it. I had already learned that I had to earn love in order to receive it. Mary was different, and when I was with her it was easy to forget about my pain and loneliness.

After that first morning, my summer days became wonderful and exciting. Every morning I hurried out to the pool, waiting eagerly until Mary showed up. And she came. Every morning. On the second or third day, she said, “I’m going to help you lose weight.”

I wasn’t fat, but I was overweight. I was also at the age when I noticed boys and wanted them to like me. But as someone who was inexperienced with the opposite sex, I knew I needed her help to gain their attention.

“We’ll go for walks at night,” Mary said. “I’ll show you fun exercises and you’ll lose weight.”

That kind of talk pushed me to let down my guard. For the first time in my life, I was happy and contented. To be known and to know someone intimately as a friend and as a sister profoundly impacted me. I felt valued and worth something, and my self-esteem grew. Before long, she became my only priority. Whenever she said, “Let’s go,” I didn’t hesitate to leave. Mary had chosen me as her friend. She could have befriended any girl, but she picked me.

She chose me.

I kept reminding myself that Mary could have selected hundreds of other girls to befriend. But she selected me and offered herself to me. I was too naïve to suspect her motives. She offered her friendship and I didn’t have to do anything to earn it.

At least twenty-five years would pass before I would understand what it truly means to be chosen—to be chosen out of true love, not for evil exploitation.

There’s one important element I want to inject here, because God began to play an important role in my life, even though it would take years for my life to change.

We didn’t have much religion in our home, although my mother took me to whatever church was close by. In my memory, those churches were mostly filled with old people, and I was bored. Nothing made an impact on me. But when I was six years old, several youth members of a nearby Baptist church picked up my brother and me for their summer camp. It was a wonderful time away from home. Although I didn’t remember the lessons, I felt the people were loving and sincere. I think they genuinely cared for us. That was my first memory of a real church experience.

My mother must have been searching for God in her life. Whenever a big-name evangelist came to Miami-Dade or Broward County, Mom wanted to attend the meetings. Because she didn’t drive, she had to beg Dad to take us. He usually did—and always seemed angry and put out by the inconvenience.

I heard several famous evangelists such as Oral Roberts and Jesse DuPlantis. The one I most remember, however, and the man who changed my life, was Billy Graham. In 1985, he came to our area and held meetings in Fort Lauderdale.

My mother again begged Dad to take us; he agreed, although he wasn’t happy about it. My brother didn’t want to go, so there were only the three of us—Mom and Dad in front and me in the backseat. Dad yelled at Mom most of the way. By then, their yelling at each other had become such a normal part of my childhood that I paid little attention to the words.

Dad went inside with us but insisted we sit in the uppermost seats in the stands. “If I have to sit through this, that’s where we’re going.” Obediently, we followed him. Throughout the entire evening, he didn’t sing with us and I don’t think he said a single word.

Billy Graham talked about “everlasting life, deep peace, and a joyful future,” and I remember that statement and the words made sense, even to my young heart. As he spoke, I felt what I could only describe as a tug at my heart.

At the end of his message, Dr. Graham gave what I later learned was an altar call, in which he urged people to come forward and surrender their lives to Jesus Christ.

I turned to my mother. “I want that—I want what he’s talking about.”

I didn’t understand what most of the words meant, but I grasped the love and sincerity coming from that man, and I would never forget it. What he offered was better than what my home life was like—getting pushed around, beaten up, and enduring Dad’s verbal, mental, emotional, physical, and even sexual abuse.

I don’t know if Mom gave me permission or if I just told her and started down the aisle. It seemed a long, long way to go, but I didn’t care. I wanted what Mr. Graham promised.

Just as I got to the front, the evangelist turned and faced me. As a child of twelve, I was sure he was speaking only to me when he pointed his long index finger toward me. “Remember this: God will never leave you or forsake you.”

I cried when I heard those words.

Through Billy Graham, the message became embedded in my heart. Even now, after all these years, I can close my eyes and see the evangelist standing with his left hand on a black Bible and the index finger of his right hand pointing at me. “Remember this: God will never leave you or forsake you.”

A woman laid her hand on my shoulder and talked to me about what it meant to become a Christian. I remember little of what she said because I kept thinking of those powerful words from the evangelist. She prayed with me and talked to my mom for a while.

Mom didn’t pray to receive Jesus Christ at that time. She went forward and was interested and wanted to learn about God. But she had grown up in the Lutheran church in Finland, which didn’t have calls for salvation. From the time I was little, she often told me about Jesus. Eventually, Mom became a believer, but only after seeing the life transformation that would occur in her daughter after years of tumultuous teen trauma.

That night, however, something happened in my life, and I felt happy and full of peace. We went back to where my dad was sitting in a row all by himself. He was impatient to leave, which was no surprise. Mom didn’t say anything but she seemed unusually quiet.

When I walked out of the meeting, I had no way to know what was ahead for me. Years would pass before I was able to live the kind of life that Billy Graham talked about and experience the blessings a life of obedience would bring. During the next twenty years, my life was filled with fear, chaos, humiliation, and shame. And yet, even in the worst moments, I could still hear those words: “Remember this: God will never leave you or forsake you.”

Those words would later prove to be true, living, and active, even in the midst of being bought and sold by human traffickers.

Billy Graham pointing his finger at me and speaking the healing words of God was something that never left me. When he said “everlasting life, deep peace, and a joyful future,” those statements made sense in my heart.

Even though Mom seemed more at peace, Dad’s violence and anger didn’t go away or even lessen.