Since she was 15 years old, Rebekah has been a victim of sex trafficking:
“We took a drive, and I didn’t know what was happening. We showed up at one of his friends’ house and they had me go into the other room and I happened to see…they were giving my dad money for me. I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen and that’s when they all turned on me. My dad held me down and they all raped me. That was the first time I guess that my dad trafficked me.”
Rebekah was scared, and she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t think she could tell anyone without getting herself into an even more compromising situation.
It kept happening:
https://youtu.be/eQC-hN7-hOk
For three years, Rebekah was coerced by her own father, and sold for sex.
Thankfully, her intuitive high school basketball coach could sense that something was going on. Through their conversations, she pieced things together and knew that Rebekah’s dad was abusing her.
“We would talk and I said, ‘Just tell me,'” her coach said in a Backyard Broadcast interview (above).
“And I would just say, ‘It’s your dad. It has to be your dad,’ because we had spent so much time, and I was piecing all of it together.”
Reluctant to admit what she was facing, Rebekah would “beat around the bush” and deflect from what her coach was asking. Through trial and error, her coach was not going to give up.
She said to Rebekah, “Fine, you don’t have to tell me. Write me a letter.”
And she did.
Coach built that trust with Rebekah, and shortly after, she became Rebekah’s adopted mother. All of a sudden, a teenage girl who believed she was worthless had the most priceless gift of all time—a forever family.
“That was the first time I’ve seen beauty in this world,” the teen vividly recalled as she was driving in the van with the family that so warmly welcomed her.
She had a mom and a dad who loved her, and two brothers who genuinely cared about her. After some time she told her parents, “I think I’m beginning to understand what it’s like to be loved.”
Adoption gave this survivor a life she could only dream of. Their love and respect for her is nothing short of inspiring.
Share Rebekah’s hope-infused story if it inspired you too.💛
