Renu - Nepal

It was my foster brother who took me when I was just 14 , drugged me with some juice, and sold me into prostitution. I woke up far from home and found I had been bought by a man who also owned other girls. I was so frightened and confused, I was kept in a locked room and I could do nothing of my own will. Though my spirit had died, I remained alive in that place for 4 years.

Girls in the brothel suffer terribly. Many of them are locked in dungeons in utter darkness, unable to tell if it is day or night, unable to talk to anyone at all, their only contact--the men that use them. My life was better, my brothel owner permitted me to go out on occasion and I met a girl from Teen Challenge who told me about the one true God.

One day I took the little money I had hidden and fled to the train station. All during the long trip I dreamed and hoped my family would accept me but it was not to be. In the Hindu culture, if a girl is out for even one night the village assumes the worst and will not accept her back. I was shunned and rejected, and alone.

Then I remembered I had a slip of paper with a phone number slipped to me by a Nepali Christian missionary who had visited me in the brothel. I called and was so happy to find out that she was now the housemother for a new home that Shared Hope had just opened with the Believersʼ Fellowship in my own country of Nepal!

They made a home for me and accepted me and became my new family. As I began to heal with God's help and the love of His people, I was able to help other girls returning to Nepal from the brothels of Bombay. Eventually I moved to the Village of Hope outside of Bombay in order to work with Teen Challenge to minister to the women and girls coming out of where I had been held captive. Of my friends in the brothel there when I fled, I alone remained alive, and I know God has spared me for His purpose.