About JSASSN

JSASSN Mission: To stop sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sex trafficking world-wide one person at a time

JSASSN Organization: JSASSN is a Christian ministry that aims to stop sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sex trafficking world-wide through prayer, education, and networking. As a Christian ministry, we believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God and God-made-flesh, died on the Cross for our salvation and our redemption. We believe that by Christ’s wounds, everyone affected by the trauma of sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sex trafficking can receive healing in their bodies, minds, hearts, and souls.

JSASSN Methods: Pray, Educate, Network

Pray: We pray for salvation and redemption for both survivors and perpetrators because we believe that the love of God is the true path to healing and change. For a list of our prayer requests, see PRAY. We also receive prayer requests through our website and email address (jsassnprayer@gmail.com). We send personal replies as we are able.

Educate: We want to support and educate those who have been sexually abused, assaulted, or trafficked about the nature of what has happened and its effects on them physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. As we are able, we provide references to support services in the medical, legal, and counseling fields. We seek to provide access to a variety of educational resources (websites, articles, books, audio-video multi-media, speakers, and so on) that can help in the reporting, recovery, and renewal process. We also seek to educate families, friends, and communities (such as churches, schools, and work-places) about how to provide support to those recovering from abuse, assault, or trafficking and how to obtain support for themselves when they need it. See EDUCATE.

Network: The problems of sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sex trafficking world-wide are too big to be stopped by one organization, but if many people empowered and directed by the Holy Spirit work together with the same goal, then these evils can be stopped in the lives of countless thousands. To this end, JSASSN International provides links to ministries world-wide that aim to stop sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sex trafficking and encourages people to support them. See NETWORK.

JSASSN Beginnings:

In 2007, the groundwork for JSASSN was laid both spiritually and practically. I believe that God gave me specific experiences that allowed me to begin this ministry. One night, I remember that my roommate and I were practicing listening-prayer and seeking spiritual direction from the Holy Spirit. I was actually reflecting on my desire to be married, and when my roommate asked me, “Are you ready?,” I passed the question on to God and asked, “Am I ready?” Then I saw in my mind’s eye two diamonds, one of ordinary size on my ring finger and one the size of a pomegranate held in my cupped hands, and I understood that God was telling me I was not only ready for marriage, but I was also ready for ministry, a ministry to stop sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sex trafficking. Spiritually, JSASSN was born right then.

Practically, in 2007, I believe that God increased my knowledge of sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sex trafficking in order to empower me to help stop these evils. First, Nicole Braddock Bromley came to speak at Wheaton College in January, and she gave me a picture of what a speaking ministry on the issues of sexual abuse and sexual assault might look like (www.onevoiceenterprises.com). Then I supported Michelle McDonald, a student at Wheaton College, when she went to Calcutta, India to work with the Free-Set Bags business-ministry that helps transition prositutes from working in the the red-light district to working as self-supporting business women (www.freesetbags.com). Next, I became an advisor to Rachel Wathen, another Wheaton student, who went to Moldova to work with a ministry called Bethania that aims to prevent the sex trafficking of orphaned women and girls (www.bethania.md). When I visited Moldova personally in July, I learned that approximately 70% of orphan girls are captured and sold into sexual slavery outside of their country. I learned many more details about the horrors of the industry, and I conceived of the importance of a three-fold ministry approach: prevention, intervention, and redemption.

When I came back to Wheaton College to begin teaching in the fall, I went to grad chapel and heard a presentation on a form of sexual slavery in northern Ghana. I met Rev. Walter and Marion Pimpong, native Ghanaians who run a ministry called Trokosi Freedom, an organization to free women and girls who are sexually enslaved to fetish priests to pay for the crimes of their ancestors (www.innetworkusa.org). Later, I attended a presentation by the Well, a ministry based in the Chicago area that works in Thailand to help transition “bar girls” from the streets, again with a business-ministry that gives them skills in the beauty industry or in making jewelry, cards, and bags for sale (servantworks.org). I heard Prang, a former prostitute, speak. I listened to her story, and it made a tremendous impact on me. At that time, I also learned about “lady-boys,” young boys who are given hormones and surgeries to give them the physical characteristics of women so that they can be used in the sex industry in Thailand. I began to see, clearly, that ministry needs to focus on the demand side—on “trafficker-sellers,” “buyer-owners,” and “clients”—as well as the supply side, since there is an apparently never-ending supply of poor, uneducated, disempowered boys, girls, women, and men who can be taken advantage of by their poor families and unscrupulous mafia.

Then I met Patricia Green, a missionary originally from Austrailia affiliated with the Assemblies of God who ran Rahab International Ministries in Thailand for twenty years before moving to Germany to run Alabastar Jar. Rahab International works with prostitutes and trafficked women in Thailand, again functioning as a business-ministry that transitions women out of sexual slavery and into skilled work in a beauty salon (www.rahabinternational.org). Education, health care, and knowledge of the love of Jesus are all offered to these women. Alabastar Jar ministers to prostitutes and trafficked women in Germany. Thai women, as well as women from throughout the world, are shipped to Germany, sold on the streets, and prostituted there. This is one of the reasons why Patricia Green is in Germany today.

As I learned more about sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sex trafficking, I also taught about it, as I had first begun doing at the University of California, Davis in 2002. In “Writing for Educators” at Wheaton College, using an essay by Cates, Markell, and Bettenhausen, called “At Risk for Abuse,” I taught future teachers how to identify signs of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, as well as neglect, in K-12 students. In another course, “Composition and Research - History, Memory, and Identity,” I invited Patricia Green to visit and speak on the problem of world-wide sex trafficking. I also taught my students about the effects of traumatic memories on sexual abuse survivors. I had the opportunity to talk individually to specific women and men who had been traumatized by sexual abuse and assault.

In 2008, with much prayer and reflection, JSASSN—Jane’s Sexual Assault Survivors Support Network—went public as I offically launched the JSASSN website. At this stage of the ministry, JSASSN’s goals are to pray, educate, and network (PEN) in order to help end sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sex trafficking world-wide. I am looking forward to what God will do with JSASSN International in 2008!

Dr. Jane Beal
JSASSN International