Source: San Jose Mercury News
By Jean Bartlett
Pacifica Tribune Correspondent
05/16/2012 08:05:52 AM PDT
Life can change on a dime and the journey is full of twists and brambles, simple joys and things nearly impossible to dream.
Tatum Yonts is 21. Smart and kind, she is unafraid to talk about the things that others might shy away from. The oldest daughter in her family, Tatum has a brother Jonathan who is 24, her sister Casia is 19, Peter is 18 and Timothy is 15. Her parents are Tisa and Dan. The family moved to Pacifica from San Francisco when Tatum was five.
"I have such a wonderful family," Yonts said. "I am really blessed." Home-schooled, when Yonts was 13, and taking some classes at Alma Heights in Pacifica, she ended up in the hospital. She'd overdosed on muscle relaxers.
"After the hospital, I went to a psychiatric hospital for about a month," Yonts said, "and then to Montana." She came back, she dropped out of school, and she traveled. She returned home officially when she was nineteen.
"At 20, I was kind-of at rock bottom," Yonts said. "Basically I had been asking God to show up for me, to show me that He cared." Yonts said that God showed up on Valentine's Day, 2011, while she was in the theater watching the Walt Disney film, "Tangled." "I went from being hopeless, dark and depressed to being full of life and joy all while sitting in the movie theater," Yonts laughed. "He completely changed me in that moment and I have been different ever since." Yonts said she listened, and when she heard the inner call to go to Discipleship Training School (DTS) in France, she followed. ("One Thing" DTS is part of Youth With A Mission Bridges of Life.) It turns out her best friend Jessie also discovered DTS was in her plans as well. The two saved their money and off they went to Southern France for an intense, three month discipleship training course which then sends students out into the world to teach.
"Basically we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into," Yonts said. "But we were completely transformed. It was like a heart surgery. We went through intense healing and forgiveness. It was all God. That's really where the credit goes. But it was hard — like rewriting all the old tapes, like getting out of your old skin and stepping into new. But the process is extremely rewarding." At the end of the three months, Yonts and Jessie joined their fellow DTS graduates with follow-up practical assignments. Now officially representatives of Youth With A Mission (YWAM), Tatum and Jessie were two of four women who headed off together — first to Thailand for six weeks and then to Cambodia for six weeks. Their mission was to pair up with organizations in each country that worked against sex trafficking, and to talk with the women and the girls who were being trafficked and let them know there was a way out.
In Thailand, specifically Phuket, that meant working through the local organization SHE (Self Help and Empowerment), a Christian charity, committed to helping women trapped in the commercial sex trade. The help SHE provides includes placing the women in jewelry-making jobs. In Cambodia (Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and Battambang), Yonts and her fellow YWAMs — Jessie, Ali and Beth — worked with the group, Daughters of Cambodia, a faith-based non-Government organization reaching out to victims of sex trafficking. Daughters' help includes jobs in the field of sewing. For the YWAM women, their mission was to encourage, evangelize when possible, and as requested, to teach English.
"A lot of the women were there because their husband or relative had sold them, or because they had to provide for their parents," Yonts said. "None of these women think they have other options." In Thailand, Yonts and her companions went to bars at night to build relationships with the women. If there was a connection, they returned to talk to the same women. All these women, even the youngest among them, were supporting children.
"We only approached the women at outdoor bars," Yonts said. "If you went behind the walls, you might get shot or trafficked yourself." Because Yonts' group only purchased sodas and water, bartenders only allowed the four women 30 minutes in their bars. The group did however make two very strong connections in Thailand. One was with a young woman named Poke and the other was with a young woman named Bee.
"We met Bee the first night and we really got along with her and she wanted to meet with us again," Yonts said. "But we didn't find her again until nearly the end of our stay in Thailand." It turns out Bee had been bought for the month by a married man in his late fifties, though the man eventually consented to let Bee visit with Tatum and the others in her mission group and Bee came to know that there was help.
As to the woman named Poke, Yonts said that for her, when she met Poke, it was like meeting an old friend and it took Yonts about two weeks to realize that while she and Poke were completely communicating, neither spoke the other's language.
"At our training, we learned basic language skills such as 'hello,' 'goodbye,' 'thank you,' and things of that nature," Yonts said. "Mostly we were taught how to be respectful of the country's beliefs and moral codes and of the country's politics." These requirements meant the YWAM women wore appropriate clothes — skirts below the knees, blouses which covered their shoulders and they never allowed the bottom of their feet to be seen. When allowed, they prayed with the women they met and in one case, they prayed with the bar owner who cried and gave Tatum a hug. The connection with Poke could not be sustained.
Did Tatum feel that they were ever at risk?
"We definitely had to keep our eyes out," Yonts said. "And often while Jessie, Ali and I connected with the girls, Beth would be our watcher." They did see some shocking things, including a man lying in a patch of green in the middle of the road.
"He had been lying there for eight days. He was so frail." The man had AIDS and was considered a pariah by locals. The women paid for someone to take him to the hospital and paid to be sure he wasn't just dropped off along the way.
Yonts said the Cambodia trip was more spiritual. They would pray with the members of Daughters of Cambodia.
"That was crazy!" Yonts said. "While we were praying someone would come in and say, 'Okay! This prayer has been answered.'" In Cambodia, the four women also taught English at a school called Hope.
"We taught children words for emotions and acted them out," Yonts said. "And it was hilarious and also very tender. Especially when one little girl, Hullop, who had been hurt in a fight, looked at us through tears and said, 'I am beautiful.'" "But really, I am the one who was taught so much," Yonts said, and she is saving her money to return to France to work with the DTS staff. "When you see someone understand that they have value and self-worth, just as much as anyone else, that is very freeing. Not everyone is able to get out of these difficult situations but you just pour yourself into doing what you can do, out of obedience and out of love. God loves all of them as much as He loves anyone else. We just keep praying for them." For more information, email Tatum at tatumyonts@yahoo.com.
Although extreme poverty and the lack of law enforcement are mainly to blame for child sex trafficking in Cambodia, I think the Cambodian people's casual attitudes toward sexual predation also contribute to the problem. Cambodians generally look up to foreigners, especially Westerners, as wealthy and benevolent. It's unfortunate that some foreigners are in the country to take advantage of children.
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