We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Yevette “Vette” Christy. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Yevette “Vette” below.

Yevette “Vette”, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My name is Yevette “Vette” Christy. My mission is to generate awareness about ethical advocacy, religious violence, community complicity, and cultural competency within the anti-sex trafficking movement. As a survivor of childhood drug addiction and sexual, religious, and domestic violence, I was homeless and working the streets at the age of 18. The power and inspiration for my mission has been gleaned through lived experience; 28 years of drug abuse and 18 years as a prostitute. In 2019, after being ordained a United Methodist elder, I decided it was time to pursue my doctoral degree and create The Reclamation Project (TRP). The Reclamation Project’s purpose is to open a transitional home. Our home will be for women who have survived commercial sexual exploitation and have already completed a residential recovery-based program but want additional time to complete a vocational or educational program. Recovery is not complete if women are not receiving comprehensive services and leave residential programs unequipped to change the socioeconomic trajectory of their lives.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

I grew up in West Chester, Pennsylvania. The middle child of three. When I was 6, a young man, a house guest, began coming into my bedroom several nights a week, and as a family, we were enduring domestic violence at the hands of my stepfather. We also attended a church that told my mother that the beatings would stop if she were more obedient. At 9, my mother and stepfather thought it amusing to get high with their children. Because my stepfather dealt drugs I soon had access to narcotics. When I was 11 my mother went to prison. At 12, I entered the foster care system. At 18, I was working the streets to support my addiction to crack. For the next 3 decades I was at war with what my childhood had deposited in me. My trauma and my addiction grew up together – the stronghold was real. In 2003, I gave birth to the son of my trafficker. This narrative defined me, defined the ways in which I saw myself, until 2008, that’s when I decided to take the pen and write a new narrative.

I arrived at this work by way of lived experience. To quote a friend, “this is the area of service that makes my heart beat fast.” Living with all my trauma, coupled with a childhood addiction that soon had adult consequences, I repeatedly came into contact with every system; foster care, welfare, child protective services, law enforcement, church, etc., and each was painful. I was never seen and was certainly not being understood, but I was constantly judged and condemned. As a result of the religious trauma and my desire to understand God for myself, I earned my Bachelor of Science in Religion from Texas Wesleyan University and a Master of Divinity degree from the Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, before being ordained a United Methodist elder in 2019. I am working on a Doctor of Ministry degree at Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University. My dissertation will explore and interrogate the harmful religious rhetoric and practices that can be life-limiting for women in recovery from sexual exploitation.

As a result of the systemic issues I faced, I spend my time studying and addressing agencies and direct care service providers with ways to consider if their policies and practices are ethical. This understanding of what is ethical for a female survivor of commercial sexual exploitation has to be survivor-centered, so there must be an ongoing dialogue about what that means in context. The question of ethics lends itself to an ever-expanding relationship with what it means to be culturally competent or at least self-aware. How often do we ask ourselves, as citizens or advocates, how am I complicit in the systemic issues that makes girls and women more vulnerable than others? How often do we consider our political posturing and religious ideologies before participating in anti-trafficking work? What ideas about God, women, and sexuality do I espouse, and how might these ideas impact those I want to serve? These are essential questions.

I am also working to open TRP’s first residence. We are looking to house four women at a time for up to 4 years as they participate in comprehensive care services and complete a vocational or educational program. After spending 4.5 years in two long-term residential programs and countless other recovery-based facilities, I know what it is to re-enter society and be just as financially disenfranchised as I was going in. I know what it means to talk about recovery but be unequipped to fully embody it. The Reclamation Project will provide each survivor with support, community, and the resources a woman may need to reclaim her life and rebuild it with confidence and joy. What I know from lived experience is that healed women can heal their families, and healed families create restored communities.

I have also written my memoir, /Hôr/, A Sex Worker’s Journey, a nod to Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero’s Journey.” I not only share the details of my personal life but also how the pain and perceptions of others often complicated my journey towards wholeness. There is a special place in our society for a woman who is considered a “whore,” and it isn’t always a place of grace. I talk about community complicity, from the corner store that sold drug paraphernalia to the motels that act as petri dishes for the drug-sex industry, to the many churches that told me to get out. If we are called to do the work of prevention and awareness, we must consider the systemic issues that inform who we are and how we approach the most vulnerable among us.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn the nature of God. As a woman, within the Christian tradition, I was taught I was to blame for the fall of humanity. I was taught to be silent in the presence of male leadership. I was taught that my gender made me flawed, weak, and more inclined to sexual depravity. I was taught that although I could give birth to male children, there would be a time that I could not teach them the things of God because women could not teach men. The weight of these messages complicated my recovery process because I didn’t believe I deserved God’s love, and if I did not deserve God’s love, then there was no way home. Nothing is more painful than searching for a love that transcends time and experience only to look into the eyes of someone with no genuine regard for your life. Believing in this God who had limited grace for women but endless grace for men was not conducive to a life of freedom and purpose for me, especially when men had traumatized me the most. I unlearned the nature of this God, and I released those who told me to be silent and stand down.

I was a member of a church in Pennsylvania. I was eighteen months into my recovery journey. I was vocal about my process because transparency and community are important in recovery. So, everyone knew my story. I had been accepted into seminary and was preparing to leave when the “First Lady” of the church, the pastor’s wife, asked to have a word with me. I was excited because I thought she was going to encourage me, pray with me, or maybe even write a check to help me cover some academic expenses. Instead, she told me that going to seminary was a waste of time since I would never be able to serve in the church beyond a Sunday School teacher, a missionary, or administrator. She told me that some women have stories that make it hard for other women to follow them. She told me that my story was hard for some of the women in the church and that God could not use a woman with a past as complicated as my own. I smiled, thanked her for her time, and went to my car to cry in private.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I cannot recall how often I was told that my life would never amount to much, but I am here, and I am doing the work. I have been stabbed, beaten, and even overdosed twice, but I am here, and I am thriving. My life is far from perfect, but I have purpose, peace, and joy. I define resilience as spiritual buoyancy, a gift I cannot claim to have given myself. I believe it is granted when adverse circumstances are navigated with a hope that is anchored in eternity. Resilience is not just the ability to recover quickly; it is the ability to recover well.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thereclamationproject.org www.yevettechristy.com
• Instagram: @vette_christy
• Facebook: Yevette Christy. Vette. The Reclamation Project
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/yevette-christy-aab6761a6

Image Credits
Chanti Sprauve
Cathy Wagner Burkey
Logo – Patrick Johnson