Roger Marsh: Welcome to Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. Thanks so much for joining us today. During the next half hour, we're going to begin a three-part classic program from our Family Talk archives. However, I do want to mention that today's episode contains sensitive topics and some adult content. Please use parental discretion as this program is not intended for younger listeners. Now over the next three days, you're going to hear our own Dr. James Dobson in his conversation with Jessa Dillow Crisp and her husband, John Crisp. Jessa will bravely share her powerful testimony about surviving being trafficked for sex and the horrific abuse she suffered at the hands of her biological family. All of this happened between the ages of 10 and 21. Jessa was moved by her abusers across state lines and international lines as they would exploit her continually.
Now, as you may know, human trafficking is a rampant problem that damages millions worldwide. But did you know that children make up half of the victims of human trafficking? Gut-wrenchingly, this problem seems to be growing, not decreasing due to the prevalence of internet use in our culture. Like Jessa, most victims are afraid to come forward or to leave their traumatic situation due to threats of violence and even death. Thankfully, there is hope, though. Through the grace of God and a godly stranger, she was able to escape to Colorado and after several years she would meet her husband John, who shares the story of how they met and fell in love. John was able to provide grace and comfort in the relationship which created trust and a safe harbor for Jessa, and they were married in 2015.
Ultimately, God has radically transformed and rehabilitated her life. Jessa Crisp is now currently the co-founder and CEO of BridgeHope, which is an anti-trafficking nonprofit organization headquartered in Denver, Colorado. In 2022 Bridge Hope merged with the Avery Center, the National Trafficking Sheltered Alliance, and HopeBound Collective. Jessa is also pursuing a Ph.D. in counselor education and supervision and has her own private practice. John Crisp is the co-founder of BridgeHope. He is also the next gen director and young adults pastor at Crossroads Community Church in Colorado. Now let's join Dr. Dobson along with Jessa and John Crisp as they dive into today's discussion from 2018 right here on today's edition of Family Talk.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, welcome everybody to Family Talk. I'm your host Dr. James Dobson, and you've heard me say over the past 40 years on the radio that there are major issues that are facing marriages and the institution of the family. I think they're more threatening and more painful and more damaging today than even when I started back in 1977. And I want to share something that is on my heart today in that regard. When I was in college, I studied man's inhumanity to man, and if there is anything in life that depicts the depravity of the human heart and the human race, it is what is being done to children today.
We've talked about this before, but today we have a real life example of that utter wickedness as it occurred in the life of a child who is now a grown woman. And I want you to hear from her. Her name is Jessa Dillow Crisp and she lives here in Colorado Springs. And if her story does not affect you deeply, if it does not move you, then you have no understanding of morality and immorality, of good and evil, of sin and depravity, and of what wounds the great heart of God. I'm absolutely sure of that. Jessa's husband is here with us today. John, thank you for being at the table as well. And I want to just go back to your childhood, Jessa, starting when you were 10 years of age I suppose, or earlier if you wish. But first tell me, John, how long have you been married?
John Crisp: We've been married going on three years. So yeah.
Dr. James Dobson: Three years.
John Crisp: As of June 6th, it'll be three years.
Dr. James Dobson: How'd you meet this lady?
John Crisp: That's such a great story. So I had recently arrived in Colorado to go a Bible school at Nazarene Bible College, and Jessa was already a student there. And I remember we had chapel night and I would go to chapel and I saw Jessa, I noticed her across the way of the chapel and she was just worshiping with this abandon and this authenticity and I was very attracted to that, her heart. And I could just sense that something was very different about her. And I said, "I want to get to know her." And on college campus, a lot of times there are superficial relationships and we had come to be friends on Facebook and I tried to ask her out for coffee and actually-
Dr. James Dobson: You fox.
John Crisp: I thought that would be an easy first step, but actually-
Dr. James Dobson: That girl goes to a Bible study and winds up with you chasing her.
John Crisp: She actually shut me down pretty bad and unfriended me on Facebook and said, "No, I'm not interested." And that's how we met. But then there's a two-year gap where God, just through that experience, God kind of gave me peace to continue to pray for Jessa. And he put a lot in those two years as he continued to work in my life and draw me to him and similar experience with Jessa. And two years later I was coming back from chapel and a prof approached me and said, "Are you dating anybody right now?"
And I told him that I wasn't. And he said, "Well, you need to ask that Canadian girl out." And the interesting thing was he didn't even know Jessa. And I've asked him after the fact what prompted that comment and he said he believes it was the Holy Spirit. So I told him that I had already asked her out two years previous and had been rejected. And he said, "Well, don't give up so easy." And I thought that God was putting that back in front of me and I said, "I'm going to do this." So I approached her on campus and asked her out, and we went for a run together and that was our first date. So that's how we met.
Dr. James Dobson: You have fond memories of those romantic days?
Jessa Crisp: Oh, completely. And still very romantic.
John Crisp: Very romantic.
Dr. James Dobson: I want our listeners to pay attention to your voice because I hear two things. I hear strength and I hear tears, and I see tears. Both those things are in your life, aren't they? And in your heart.
Jessa Crisp: Yeah. Both of those things are definitely in my life and in my heart. And it's interesting how both of those things can coexist together. And I think that very much is part of my story, and our story is.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, let's go back, as I said, to, what, 10 years of age? Is that a good time?
Jessa Crisp: So actually can we start a little bit earlier than that?
Dr. James Dobson: Oh, by all means. It's your story.
Jessa Crisp: Thank you. So my story started when I was actually born in Toronto, Canada, and I was born into a family that perpetrated great evil against me, and it started off with childhood sexual abuse, and then it moved into child pornography and me having to pose.
Dr. James Dobson: As you being the victim?
Jessa Crisp: Me being the victim. So the child pornography became a place where I was having to pose for the pornographers and almost like a China doll with a smile plastered across her face. I had to do things that no child should ever have to do. And-
Dr. James Dobson: Were you sold for that purpose?
Jessa Crisp: So I was used in child pornography. The actual selling of my body actually came later, shortly later. It wasn't long and there definitely was an overlap, but I was then sold for sex inside my neighborhood to individuals and then was taken to bigger cities and sold once again for the purpose of sex. And then I was also brought to the USA for the purpose of sex, being sold for sex.
Dr. James Dobson: That's called trafficking.
Jessa Crisp: It's called trafficking. And what I experienced is called familial trafficking where I experienced my family being my main perpetrators to start with.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah. Was there no one that you could talk to at that time?
Jessa Crisp: Silence was so ingrained into me and there really wasn't anybody that I could talk to. I wasn't allowed to go to school growing up. And so I remember just standing at the window as a child looking out and just wishing that I could be the other children that I saw walking to school. And I wished that I could have a lunch sack, a paper sack, and go play in the playground. And I will always remember that strong desire I had as a child to go to school like that. So no, there really wasn't anybody that I know of that could have said anything or could have done anything.
Dr. James Dobson: Were you threatened with harm if you revealed what was happening?
Jessa Crisp: I did. And as often with individuals who are being trafficked and individuals who are being abused, it's very common for them to have threats made against them. And I often had those threats made against me of if you ever share or talk about this, then we will hurt you, or we'll hurt your loved ones. And so that was something I experienced and it is something that as I work with victims of human trafficking today, it's something that is a very common theme with each of the survivors that I engage with.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah. Give us a timeframe. When did the things happen that you're talking about now?
Jessa Crisp: Yeah. Just so I did not go to school as a child. I never went to school.
Dr. James Dobson: You never went to school?
Jessa Crisp: I did not go to elementary school. I did not go to middle school. I did not go to high school.
Dr. James Dobson: Do you have any kind of formal education or informal?
Jessa Crisp: So that is where redemption comes in and that's like God's miracle. So to tell a little bit more of my story, I did not escape until I was 21 years old. And it was when I was 21 that I was actually at a hotel in Kansas City and a woman approached me and this woman who is a mental health professional saw the signs and symptoms of somebody who was being trafficked. And she reached out to me, and she gave me hope in that moment. She actually gave me her contact information on a small piece of paper.
So she reached out to me, this woman did. And I actually was back in Canada when I got the nerve to go ahead and reach out. Because I was scared. I was scared about the threats that I had experienced and I was scared about the consequences or potential consequences. And I reached out and called this woman who had reached out to me and the first phone call absolutely changed my life. During that phone call, she said, "Jessa, did you know your life is not defined by sex?" She said to me, "Did you know at the age of 21 you can make the choice to leave?" And that wasn't-
Dr. James Dobson: Nobody had ever said that to you.
Jessa Crisp: Nobody had ever said that to me. And so it was a whole new concept and it started to change my mind. It started to change my perspective. And that call was just one of many that took place. And we would talk on the phone and she would continue to speak truth in me and over me. And it was shortly, to back up just a little bit. It was a couple of months later that I actually ended up escaping. She helped me put together an escape plan.
Dr. James Dobson: The thought of somebody being controlled and handled and threatened by a pimp is terrible. But when it happens within a family, I mean, you talk about devastating.
Jessa Crisp: Completely devastating. And I think that's one of the things that we're so passionate about, John and I, is bringing awareness. There's different types of trafficking and there's different ways that trafficking happens. And so familial trafficking is only one typology of how trafficking is taking place. We have pimp control trafficking, we have gain control trafficking, we have domestic servitude, we have labor trafficking. And so familial trafficking is trafficking and it's only one kind of trafficking. And that was what I experienced.
Dr. James Dobson: People hear the word trafficking and don't understand what it means and don't feel the impact of it and don't realize they are lives. There are children that are young lives that are today absolutely captured by this industry, which is usually done for money. And we had Linda Smith here. She was a former congresswoman. Have you ever met Linda?
Jessa Crisp: I have. She's a sweet lady.
Dr. James Dobson: She's given her life to this issue.
Jessa Crisp: She has, and I-
Dr. James Dobson: And has done a world of good, but she told us things when she was here that haunt me. About the fact that a man maybe being out of town can go to a hotel, pick up a phone, and within 30 minutes have a child, if you call an early adolescent a child and I do, delivered to his door and make a payment. And then he does with her whatever he wishes to do. Now come on folks. This is not an unusual thing. This is happening all over the world and it's happening in other countries in ways that often lead to death. So you have studied what you went through now, haven't you? And you understand a whole lot more about it?
Jessa Crisp: I really do. And so I actually train Homeland Security and other different offices on what human trafficking is, what it looks like here in North America, and then practical ways that nonprofit organizations, faith-based organizations, as well as governmental organizations can do to respond.
Dr. James Dobson: Yeah. I said I hear strength in your voice. One would never know sitting here talking to you, where you've been and what you've experienced, what kind of woman are you to have overcome this, and your life is together today. Is Jesus Christ the cause of that?
Jessa Crisp: Completely. He is my healer and He has done an absolute miracle in my life and I praise Him. Can I go back to the education story?
Dr. James Dobson: Please do. Yes.
Jessa Crisp: So basically I was able to escape and I was able to come to America where I entered a safe house for-
Dr. James Dobson: How did you escape? Let's go through that story.
Jessa Crisp: You know, this woman helped me put together an escape plan, and she helped me put together all the details. And so what happened was I actually was able to one evening just walk out of the house and leave, and I look back at that and I'm like, "That's a miracle in and of itself." That God enabled me to escape and not-
Dr. James Dobson: How'd you get across the border.
Jessa Crisp: So I did have my passport and I was able to get across the border. I took a flight and was able to get across the border and this woman helped me put all of those pieces together. And when I came to America and entered the safe house, I actually only had a two-month visa to stay in the States and that tourist visa expired. And so was able to get an extension for six months and so was able to be here. And that was a really special healing time for me because for the first time in my life, I experienced things that I had never experienced in my whole entire life. And it was incredible because I got off the plane at DIA and I felt the sun for the first time just kiss my face and my arms and it was like, whoa, this is such a beautiful experience.
And being able to get in the car and drive down I-25 to Colorado Springs and see tumbleweed for the first time was an experience that I had never had as well. And I made a vow to myself that someday I was going to experience freedom internally, just like I was seeing the tumbleweed externally roll down the road. And that became this mark. This almost like stake in the ground that someday I'm going to be able to be free. And so I was at the safe house and the day came though when my visa was about to expire. And that was a really scary time for me because I did not know what was going to happen. I knew I had to go back to Canada, but I did not know what was going to happen. And so I eventually ended up going to Vancouver, BC. And I did not know anybody safe, and I did not know where I would even go. And so-
Dr. James Dobson: You feared you might wind up in the same kind of situation in Canada.
Jessa Crisp: I did. And that was truly a very realistic fear. I was a very vulnerable individual and very much in a place of having the possibility of being hurt. And so when I went back to Canada, I actually went back to Vancouver and it was at the end of 2009 and ended up at a safe house in Vancouver. And it actually started to shut down shortly after I arrived because the 2010 Winter Olympics were about to start. And I don't know if you've ever been in an Olympic city as the Olympics are about to start.
Dr. James Dobson: I have been, yes.
Jessa Crisp: Yeah, it's quite the experience. And so the Canadian government, from my knowledge, was removing money from some of the resources that I was taking advantage of and was needing to survive and needing to be able to live. And so the safe house shut down and I ended up being homeless and ended up-
Dr. James Dobson: I don't believe that. Where is the compassion of mankind, knowing that there is a location that's what you call a safe house where they're dependent upon the funds from government to keep operating, and they shut it down and you go to the street?
Jessa Crisp: I did. And it wasn't just me who was experiencing it, some of the schools were also having issues with funding, some of the hospitals, some of the government hospitals. And so it was a lot of people were affected by the Olympics in 2010 in Vancouver, BC. And so I ended up being at a church where I was partaking of this big, beautiful pancake breakfast. And something about me is I love pancakes. And I was like, pancakes breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Give me pancakes. And so I had my plate of pancakes and I went downstairs to the basement of this church where I got some coffee and orange juice and sat down at a table and a woman actually came up and sat down beside me. And one of the things that she said to me was, "I see that you've been abused." And at the moment, at the time, I was like, "Is this something that I wear across my forehead everywhere I go?"
Do people know that I've been traumatized, that I've been sexually abused? And it kind of took me by surprise. And then she went on to say that she too had experienced abuse growing up and that she knew what it was like. And I was like, "Oh, okay, that makes sense." And she basically befriended me and I, in my very vulnerable state was looking for friends. I didn't have any friends in Vancouver and I didn't know anybody. And so for her to approach me and offer a friendship to me, I was very open and receptive of that. And so I kind of clung to it, and we went and saw a hockey game on one of the big screens because we couldn't get tickets to go and see the game in person. And that was an experience. I remember shouting, I remember screaming with just pure delight.
And then she asked me if I would go out for dinner with her, and I was like, sure, I would love to go out for dinner with you. So we went out to dinner and she had all these appetizers brought to the table and I was like, "Oh my goodness, food. I'm so hungry." And she told me I could choose whatever I wanted off the menu. And so as my Alfredo is coming to the table, she looked at me and again said, "You're the most special, but I love you and I have a lot of girls just like you, but you are my favorite." She then told me that my hair color had to change, that my eye color had to change, that my clothing needed to change, but it was because she loved me and wanted to take care of me, and she wanted to be my mom.
Dr. James Dobson: She was setting you up, wasn't she?
Jessa Crisp: Yeah, she was. And so I went back to her apartment and she shut the door and she looked at me and she said, "My name is not the name that I had told you it was." And that kind of took me by surprise, and she was standing in front of the door. I couldn't leave. And that evening I ended up being gang raped and turned out during the 2010-
Dr. James Dobson: Did you say gang raped?
Jessa Crisp: That's correct. And turned out during the 2010 Winter Olympics, and so I was trafficked during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC. One of the things that trafficking is called here in the US is called the game, and the way that I respond to that is by saying the 2010 Winter Olympics was not a game for me, but rather it was a time of sadistic evil and complete pain, and it is a miracle that God redeemed my life and rescued my life and that I'm sitting here today with a husband beside me.
Roger Marsh: Wow. It's amazing to know how much Jessa Crisp really has suffered so much over the years, but what grace and optimism she has as a survivor and a true example of God's redemption. You just heard the conclusion of part one of a conversation featuring Jessa and John Crisp, along with our own Dr. James Dobson here on Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. Be sure to tune in again tomorrow and Friday, March 2nd and 3rd for parts two and three of this powerful testimony. Now, if you or someone you know is a victim of human trafficking, remember you can always seek help by calling the National Trafficking Hotline. That number is 888-373-7888. Or simply text the word "help" to the number 233733. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians chapter three, verse 17, "Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."
Now, you may know that Dr. James Dobson has a heart for the Lord and he longs to see God's word transform hearts and minds. This is especially true for marriages. For a husband and wife to be on the same page about a long list of things, there's bound to be some friction from time to time. This can be fueled by our natural differences and desires, but it's also important to remember that that is not God's plan for a married couple. If you'd like some fun and thoughtful reminders of what makes a good marriage strong, join Dr. James Dobson's 10-Day Marriage Series Challenge. To join the challenge, all you have to do is visit our homepage at drjamesdobson.org. Select the 10-Day Marriage series in the upper right-hand corner of that page.
Once you do officially sign up, over the next 10 consecutive days, you'll receive an email from Dr. James Dobson with tips about how to improve the spiritual strength of your marriage. Enjoy reading some words of wisdom from Dr. Dobson and do the short exercises that are recommended, and also pray the prayer that is included along with your spouse. Again, to sign up for the 10-Day Marriage Series Challenge, just go to drjamesdobson.org. I'm Roger Marsh. Thanks so much for joining us. Be sure to be with us again tomorrow for part two of this powerful and fascinating conversation with Jessa and John Crisp about surviving sex trafficking. You've been listening to Family Talk. The voice you trust for the family you love.
Announcer: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.