This week, Dan and Rachael sit down with survivor, advocate, and Narrative Focused Trauma Care alumni Kate Ouimette-Wedell for a conversation that is both heartbreaking and deeply hopeful.

After moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in music, Kate was trafficked and spent more than a decade in the commercial sex industry. In this episode, she shares part of her story with remarkable courage, offering insight into the realities of exploitation, the long road of recovery, and the resilience that makes healing possible.

Together, they explore the power of story, the importance of being seen and believed, and why healing often begins when someone is willing to sit with us in our pain rather than rush to fix it.

Through her own healing journey and her work with survivors through Cherished LA, Kate bears witness to a hope rooted in the belief that every person has immeasurable worth and that no story is beyond the reach of compassion, restoration, and delight.

* Please note: This episode includes discussions of human trafficking, sexual exploitation, abuse, and trauma. Listener discretion is advised.

About Our Guest:

Kate Ouimette-Wedell is an experienced public speaker, writer, educator, Narrative Focused Trauma Care practitioner, and advocate for survivors of human trafficking. Kate also is a survivor of ten years in the commercial sex industry and knows what the effects of Complex-PTSD from a life of exploitation can cause. Kate speaks firsthand to what it’s like to go from being a trauma- and human-trafficking survivor to an advocate for women to discover their value and purpose. Kate created Cherished, a residential program with a social enterprise, because of her own understanding of the need to begin again. Emerging from the industry is as much of a beginning as it is an ending, and this precarious nexus is where Kate has committed much of her life to work. To support survivors through CherishedLA, donate, or book “A Walk In Her Shoes”: www.cherishedla.org

Kate has been trained in leading story group workshops through Narrative Focused Trauma Care and healing art therapy, and loves bringing this into how she helps other survivors find healing. Kate is the mother of three loved children and enjoys dancing, art, traveling to other countries, and learning about different cultures.

“Exposed: Surviving the Commercial Sex Industry” is Kate Ouimette-Wedell’s powerful memoir about surviving trafficking, exploitation, and life in the commercial sex industry after moving to Hollywood to pursue a music career. Through heartbreak, trauma, and survival, Kate ultimately found healing and purpose, using her story to bring hope, awareness, and restoration to other survivors. Her message is a reminder that no one is alone and every story matters.

You can purchase her book through her website kateouimettewedell.com or on Amazon.

About the Allender Center Podcast:

For over a decade, the Allender Center Podcast has offered honest, thoughtful conversations about the deep work of healing and transformation. Hosted by Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen, MDiv, this weekly podcast explores the complexities of trauma, abuse recovery, story, relationships, and spiritual formation. Through questions submitted by listeners, stories, interviews, and conversations, we engage the deep places of heartache and hope that are rarely addressed so candidly in our culture today. Join the Allender Center Podcast to uncover meaningful perspectives and support for your path to healing and growth.

At the Allender Center, we value thoughtful dialogue across a wide range of voices, stories, and lived experiences. In that spirit, our podcast features guests and hosts who may hold differing perspectives. The perspectives shared on this podcast by guests and hosts reflect their own experiences and viewpoints and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, or endorsements of the Allender Center and/or The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.

To become a supporter of the Allender Center Podcast, click here.

If you and your organization would like to partner with the Allender Center Podcast, please reach out to Clay Clayton at cclayton@theallendercenter.org

Episode Transcript

Dan: Rachael, I met Kate many moons ago and I’m going to introduce her in a moment. But let’s just say there are guests and then there are guests and Kate is one of those guests where I just want to say we are so incredibly privileged to know and have the opportunity to talk about this remarkable woman’s life, Kate Wedell. Kate Ouimette-Wedell. And Kate, welcome. I’ll introduce you in a moment, but just wanted to say so good to have you here.

Kate: Thank you. Thank you.

Dan: Kate is the founder of Cherished LA and it’s a survivor-led organization out of human trafficking, out of the issue of exploitation and trauma. And she is as well an author of the book Exposed and indeed has come out of her own heartache of exploitation. And I think one of our first longer conversations, even though we were so privileged to have you go through our narrative focused trauma care work, but one of our longer conversations was at the organization called ICAP, the International Christian Alliance on Prostitution. And all I can say is the interplay between you are hilarious. You are a woman of such deep heart and with a capacity… one of the ways I think of the resurrection is that it creates the context for deep, deep grief but also deep laughter. And I would say you are a woman of deep grief and deep laughter. And so what a delight to have you here.

Kate: Thank you. Thanks so much, Dan. That was beautiful. And it is just such a privilege to be here and not something I ever thought would happen. And I’m super excited and feel very delighted in to have had this that feel like God saw me and placed me in this moment and I’m just very excited about it.

Dan: Yeah. And I go back to the fact that I can see where you’re sitting next to the window as we’re looking out at the Green Lake, Green Lake in Wisconsin. And I think sometimes the level of my own obtuseness at times actually becomes very troubling. And I remember we’re having this conversation and it was like, why have we not had you on the podcast? It’s insane. So anyway, at least we’ve been able to bridge my obtuse and insane lack of understanding. So tell us and our folks listening a little bit about you and how truly, and this is a great phrase, in the name of God did you start Cherished LA?

Kate: Yeah. So I’m originally from the East Coast. I’m from Georgia and then I went to school in North Carolina and ended up going to beauty school to become a cosmetologist. But my real dream was to be in the music business in the entertainment world. And that came from my father who was a World War II veteran. He was a jazz musician. And in those days we didn’t have the influencers that people have today. Our influencers were television and whatever they showed that week and also music and albums. And my dad’s albums were the thing that I think influenced me the most. I remember one of his favorites was the Herb Albert album Whipped Cream. Do you remember that?

Dan: Oh, absolutely.

Kate: Dating myself.

Dan: Sorry, Rachael.

Rachael: No, it’s great.

Kate: But that album cover was so provocative and beautiful and artistic at the same time. And then the music was great. So I would sit and stare at his albums and that is later what propelled me to chase after music I think on both our behalfs because he died when I was five and that was a tragic event in our home. But that was a part of him that continued to really parent me without even being there, that I wanted to follow something of his world, his footsteps. And so I later went to beauty school and then I left that when I got the opportunity to join a band and that ended up bringing me to LA. I was here for less than 24 hours when I was sold by someone I trusted and thought was my friend for drugs. And when that reality hit, I was basically homeless or I was relying on him and he decided to sell me to someone and there’s where I landed with no money and in a situation that created basically survival sex in order to survive. And a lot of people don’t understand that that is a window and a way that a gateway of things that happen when you feel so vulnerable. And so that’s what led me to LA and it would be 10 years, almost 11 years of being in the commercial sex industry trying to get out of the frying pan and jumping into the fire. And that world was just a nightmare really. But I thought that I was chasing my dreams and I thought I was coming for a completely different reason, but within 24 hours, my world was completely turned upside down and it would be like quicksand for 11 years. And the more I struggled to get out, the more it held me captive.

Dan: The reality of how many people end up being prostituted in the context of… it isn’t a choice. It isn’t a process by which anyone would choose normally, but the reality of being caught and then being used. So that is why it’s such an important word to have and that is the word exploitation. And how would you describe, especially for people who have not heard someone talk about trafficking, how trafficking in one sense becomes quicksand and catches you again and again. How does that structure exist?

Kate: Yeah, it’s such a mashup of emotions that to be chosen by someone, whether it be one of my traffickers came to me as a boyfriend, as actually someone that before the boyfriend phase, he really was able to groom me because he was from another country and he recognized with my, at the time, very Southern accident that I was not from here and he really worked that part of the relationship to let me know, I understand what it feels like to be so alone, you and I have the same thing. And then there was my just huge desire to know other cultures and travel. I had never been anywhere. So LA was my first time out of the small area that I had been in. And so I just was overwhelmed and fascinated and captivated by him, honestly, and began to learn about his culture and his world and just fell for him, fell hard. And he would bring me beautiful gifts and treat me differently. I was actually working in a strip club when I met him, but he didn’t approach me as a client. He would come and play such a smooth game. He would sit in the very back and he never tipped or tried to flirt with anybody. He would just wait to keep me company in between sets or if I was having a bad night. And then it turned into, “Well, why don’t we live together?” And so I lived with him. I ended up moving in because I was staying in and out of hotels at the time and from there is when everything shifted and I didn’t have the language for it at the time, but he was a pimp and he had every intention of selling me from the beginning to clients. And he had a beautiful big home. He even allowed me to drive his very nice car to work for a while. But then he switched that and had a bodyguard that would actually drive me to and from and collect my money at the end of the day and say, we’re in this together. We’re saving money so that we can do something together. But in the meantime, at home he was turning a downstairs room into a lounge where he would have drug parties and people over and then other girls came to live with us and we were all having to serve his friends and clients that came over. And when I finally realized this is what was happening, I was devastated. I was still in such a naive kind of a place thinking, I thought he loved me. I thought this was something different and still in shock by that, but so angry. And when I let him know my true feelings about the whole situation, he beat me up and asked the bodyguard to get rid of me. And so they threw me in the car and the bodyguard actually ended up after about an hour of driving around, had mercy and just let me out. I’m sure that’s not what his instructions were. And so yeah, it’s such a shock. And then when you find yourself in that place, now survival is kicked in and I have to do whatever it takes to live just to live and you began to just beg. And I remember asking a hotel, please just give me a room for a night. I’ll go back to the club and make money and pay you. And things like that were just on and on. At one point I had a girl ask me, I was in the dressing room at the strip club and two of the girls, I began to realize the women here we have so much hope. There’s so much hope and women are expecting something different to come out of this, that their break is going to come and that day is going to finally show up, that things will change. And I heard two girls talking about an audition one of them was going to and it sounded like she was getting her big break and she said, you should come and audition for this girl. She knows all the celebrities in town and she has an escort service. You don’t have to do anything. You just go on dates which was not the truth. And maybe that’s what she still believed, but she did go on her audition I think the next day and convinced me to go and audition for this woman. And it was from there that she was able to traffic me and blackmail me that if I wanted to break into this industry, I would have to go through her because now she knew what I was doing and she would use that. And if I were to badmouth her or make her look bad with any of these celebrity clients by not doing what I was asked to do, again, she would blacklist me. And so there’s always some threat that for whatever reason it’s the threat that you will believe and also believing your value at this point, like what do I have to bring to the table? How can I get out of this? I mean, I was a cosmetologist before, but coming to LA, I couldn’t just go work in a salon. It wasn’t that easy. You have to switch your license by taking another exam and you need money to do that and you need somebody to be your model. And it’s just simple things, but they seem huge at the time and it felt like I couldn’t overcome that, not at that point, not at that day.

Dan: Well, and that’s the reality that in so many ways this process functions similarly to how any predator works, grooming, setting up, creating something of a network of relationship. And so much trafficking has been the boyfriend setting up exploitation, creating a context. And I’m assuming that what you find with regard to the work that you do now in LA, that’s a very common paradigm.

Kate: Very common. And so often women still don’t recognize they know something isn’t right and they may stumble across a program or a support group, but I have found that it’s sometimes we’re doing work for a while before they’re able to really name that they have to dissolve that loyalty. They have to see that this is not what they thought it was, but that’s such a hard thing to look at because then you have to look at yourself and why did I choose this? There’s the mashup of wanting of that desire wanting to be chosen and now I have so much shame around it.

Rachael: Well, and I’m just thinking about the role of how cutoff you are from community and certainly a lot of healing communities who haven’t done the work to have categories for this kind of grooming, this level of exploitation in an actual system that’s working to exploit you so that they can use that against you and how painful that must be to not have as many avenues for help where people actually know what kind of help you need. Well, exactly what you’re putting words to. And I’m so curious, Kate, I have had the profound privilege of holding story with you through the NFTC training, what a sweet gift and you are just such a fierce and tender and delightful and beautiful human being. So it’s just so fun to be having this conversation with you. I know that storywork has offered such beautiful gifting to you. I also know you’ve had not good experiences of seeking help. I’m sure this is something you’ve also seen in your work with others, but not that I would love to hear about that, but I think it would be helpful for people to know that what is actually healing and helpful and what is re-traumatizing and actually probably going to drive people back to places of profound harm.

Kate: Oh my gosh, that is the golden ticket right there because when I first had gotten married and hadn’t done any work and understood my background or anything, how it was following me and still with me, the trauma of all of that harm, relationship intimacy was actually not welcome all the time. It’s not something that I was … I feel like I’ve had plenty and not intimacy I haven’t had plenty of, but I’ve had plenty of interactions that I just … It needed to be really different for it to be something for me to be excited about. And so my then husband and I went to counseling because I was like, this arguing and all of this is just we have to go get help. Someone suggested we went to a Christian counselor in our area where we lived and when we walked in, I remember sitting down and remember he was very reluctant to even be in the room. So I remember sitting down, putting down my purse and I’m just so relieved we’re finally going to start to talk about some things. And the first thing she said to me was, “So what’s the problem?” And then I think he talked about sex. And then she said to me, “You need to have sex with your husband whenever he wants it because you are physically killing him.”

Rachael: Wow. Oh, wow.

Kate: And no curiosity about my story about … You don’t tell someone who’s been sexually abused and raped thousands of times and I’m speaking of all the women that I know, like so many harmful stories. I can’t imagine looking at them and saying, “You should enjoy sex. You should have sex.” And many, it’s not that I shouldn’t have said the word enjoy because that’s not really the problem, but the intimacy and the relationship and for her to say that, I just won’t say the words I said to her here on the podcast, but I had some choice words for her and I picked up my purse and I walked out the door and I thought this is what therapy is like. I was longing for therapy and this was my experience of it. So when fast forward years later, when someone put Dan’s book in my hand and I began to read it, I remember getting really angry and throwing it across the room. I was laying in my bed at night and reading it and I was so pissed off at him and-

Dan: So honored. Thank you.

Kate: Because you just touched into those places that weren’t being named and making … I had to look at my story like I had not wanted to look at the whole story. And so that’s how I ended up finding the Allender Center, friend took me to that shout out to Roe, I know you’re listening. And so I went to the Allender to Cert. 1 and my mind was blown and I was, that’s what I mean, the golden ticket, like I would not be where I’m at today if I had not gone through the Allender work. And I recognize when working with survivors, it’s not the appropriate time always for everyone to do this deep of work, but it is such a great modality to have and understand to be able to help these women name the harm that has happened for them. And that is something I have recognized with survivors, I would say in my experience limited that versus working with people who are not maybe survivors of the sex industry, I have found that even for myself, it is much more helpful when someone like Dan names the harm right out loud, hard as it is to hear for me because we know darkness, we know it. We’re not hiding from it. It’s not that. It’s actually, I need you to tell me what it was so that I can have some containment after that of how to and have someone like you, Rachael, when you worked with me in that room, I know that’s another thing I feel so really bad that I entered that room with daggers in my hands because no one was going to get close to my story. Nobody was going to do it, nobody was going to know how to do it. You might know what you’re doing, but you don’t know my story. And I had such an attitude, But Rachael , you were-

Dan: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Rachael , are you saying no to that? You’re saying no, she didn’t?

Rachael: I mean, she did, but it was like she’s also very dear. And so it’s like someone who’s got daggers and you see them and so you know you need to be kind and honoring, but also like she let herself out. She was so dear to everyone and her kindness and how she brought herself to others, it’s that thing of like, yeah, I don’t want to get cut by you, but I’m also not afraid of you.

Dan: Let me just say as a quick aside as if we’re not having people listen, you are both formidable human beings and in that formidable, shall we say, capacity to take out weapons, there’s also this deep, deep, deep tender capacity to receive. But I would say, and again, I wasn’t obviously in the group, but it took a while for you to trust that Rachael was as disturbed as she is.

Rachael: Fair.

Kate: Yes. It was wonderful. It was a wonderful revelation

Dan: Because she looks normal at first and she looks so sweet and innocent. I mean, this looks like a church girl, doesn’t it? So here’s a woman who has known deep, vicious, incomprehensible cruelty and you’re going to work with a story like yours with a church girl. I would imagine that that was kind of disturbing at first.

Kate: It’s how I viewed everyone that it was very othering like everyone else and then us, the survivors. And I’m so thankful and this is really strange to say I’m thankful, but I was really so grateful to hear so many stories of people coming forward with stories and I’m not talking about comparison anyway, I’m just saying it was so beautiful to see one story is enough that we need to spend that time and honor that place and be with that. And it was so beautiful and the whole experience, I mean, Rachael, when you cried with me, I did not understand what was happening, but I felt like I saw you with the sword. It was like that. It was like, you’re crying with me was like, “Mama’s got a sword and she will cut anything that is going to try to stop this healing from happening.” And that’s how it really felt. I felt very protected and loved and that’s the first time I met, side note, I met Trapper when I was there and he became my therapist, which was a whole nother thing. I was like, can you handle this? And he helped me really kind of talking about you, Rachael . And it was like she really mothered you in a way that you with the tears you never got to see on your behalf. And I was like, that was it. It melted my heart and it put a place in there where something could begin to open and life could begin to come in. It was beautiful. So the Allender Center has been a huge piece of my healing. But as I said, when I work with survivors, I’m so grateful to have this. I have kind of like a double standard. I think that all of the people who do this kind of work should go the distance and do the hard work of storywork because you will be triggered by all of this. Something will come up for you and your own story that you have tried to put aside and ignore and it will come up. So I have a double standard. Everyone who’s doing this work, they need to get their own work done because like Dan said, I always quote that you can only take people as far as you’ve been yourself. So if you’re not doing the work, you will come to a wall. And then with the survivors, of course, we have this tool, we’re able to do this work with them when they’re ready, and that’s the difference.

Dan: Love to hear something of… I know there’s no quick, certainly not quick, but even a sequence, when people begin to just find your existence and begin that process like you, they’re highly suspicious. They have known some of the darkest realities of living in a fallen world, yet by making that first phone call or coming into a group, they’re exhibiting a level of courage that’s almost incomprehensible kind of hope, even if the hope’s hated a profound sense of, I’m going to take a risk in a way that I’ve never done before. So how do you help people in the beginning level to hold that suspicion but also hold that hope?

Kate: Yeah, I recognize it right away when it comes in the room and I feel so honored and excited for them that they have made that choice to step into that space. I feel this is where I am a Christian and so I’m really relying on those Holy Spirit to give me the moment and time and when I approach or say certain things. And so we will get a phone call or somebody will hear about our program. They come to, let’s say, a support group, or if they call me because they need housing, because we have two homes, and so maybe they come to live in our home. I have to tell them all right up front all of the, this is what is expected and here’s our rules and here’s the things, but it’s such a fine line because we’re trying to create a place of safety, but we also want for them to have autonomy. And so just to side note, one of the things I learned from you, Dan, and when I was in all of the trainings and you didn’t know you were teaching me how to run my program, but you were, I was recognizing that I was having a lot of issues at one point with a lot of the women in the house arguing with each other or fighting or wanting to watch horror films and the other one didn’t want to watch it. She’s being triggered. This is going on. A lot of these kind of conversations were happening and I recognized because of the training with you that this was their familiar and safe, it felt like normalizing the horrors that they have been through. And when I first started the program, I was like, no, we don’t watch anything but PG movies in the house. And I had all this and then I started saying, well, is that actually giving them choice to figure life out? Not really, so let’s give them more choice. And then that burst into arguments and people like watching horror films and triggering other people. So now we have to deal with that. But it was so good to have the behind understanding of that groundwork, this is what feels normal and can we be with that person who needs that to be normalized in her world right now in order to even open her eyes tomorrow. She needs to know that you can let me be in this darkness and you can sit with me here and we can come out together when I’m ready. And those are the steps I take with them. I just walk through some of the really dark places and wait even though I want some Something more, but it’s not about me. It’s about them. And one of the things I always try to remind people who do this work who they get so attached and want to help women, but it does become about us sometimes instead of about the person. And one of the things I want to remind people is that you don’t know what part of someone’s journey you get to be on. That’s right. And it’s such a sacred offering in a moment when you are invited into somebody’s journey, whether it be that phone call or if it’s only the phone call, or what if it’s two years I get to walk with somebody, whatever it is, that’s what my allotted time, my gift was. And I don’t get to know the outcome and I don’t get to have the bow on top and make it all. And I did my job, pat myself on the shoulder. It might look like a big mess when my time is up still, but that was the time that I got and that’s sacred. And so I just want people to honor the moment you get to walk with somebody and you’re not there to fix it. You’re not there to fix it. You’re just there to give some offering. And that’s why it’s so important you know your own story because if I hadn’t known my own story, I wouldn’t have understood the darkness that they needed to be in order for someone to sit with them enough to bring them into the next step when they felt safe enough to walk into that next step.

Rachael: Well, and there’s such a parallel to that in any kind of storywork around stories of harm because I think that’s a lesson I’ve had to learn in holding space for people to bring their stories of harm. I’m sure therapists, any kind of healing work, that’s such beautiful hardwon wisdom of like we don’t know the moment of a journey we’re on. And some people it’s that moment that plants a seed that someday down the road might come to fruition and we may not be there to see that because it’s not about us. We are just meant to be faithful with the moment that we’re given and how holy that is and to trust that the goodness we’re offering, even if it feels insignificant, is more than sufficient for that moment. And all of us could say from our own healing journeys, sometimes if people offered us what we’re really meant for in that particular moment, we weren’t ready to receive that. We didn’t have enough resourcing inside to take that amount of goodness. Maybe we just needed a little morsel and to see if we could tolerate that before we could actually receive more. And I just am grateful for you and your honesty and vulnerability there. And I know that’s probably been really costly to come to. So I’m grateful for you sharing that.

Kate: I’m still trying to figure it out. There are so many times I still get it wrong and I get in my own way rather than letting the moment happen the way it should because I want to see something different and I have to hear my own reminder sometimes.

Rachael: Well, me too.

Dan: The work that you do is a work of profound extremity. No one’s going to engage the reality of what you’re inviting them to unless they have known something of deep decimation, something of such deep degrading and the reluctance for any of us to actually bear kindness with ease. That’s why we’ve got this significant category that we come back to often where Paul says, it is the kindness of God that leads to repentance. Why do you treat the kindness of God with contempt? So one of the realities that I know from listening and hearing your work is that you dismantle contempt with a triple black belt. Is that fair metaphor?

Kate: I do feel like I’m at war with contempt a lot, yes.

Dan: But you’re also brilliant at dismantling it, true?

Kate: Yes. Oh, thank you.

Dan: Teach us. I mean, in one sense, the reality is most people don’t encounter people with as much severity of harm as you do as a regular basis, but you’ve learned in some ways the jujitsu of engaging rather thick contempt. I would just love for you to put some words to tell us about your skill.

Kate: Well, I’ve never heard that, so I haven’t really thought about that much. I think I see myself and I go, okay, all right, know what this is. And so I get there. I get to that level of like, I totally understand this and I can just articulate with them my own contempt of those moments. And I think that that helps so much when… I mean, isn’t that what the storywork is all about, is not being alone in your story and having someone understand and see you, really see you to be seen. Isn’t it so amazing and life giving? And I think that what all of the leaders have done with me with Rachael and with you, Dan, at Recovery Week and sometimes being seen is really painful.

Dan: Oh, terrible. And again, contempt is alienating. In some sense, its purpose is to alienate, therefore isolate, therefore justify why it is that your kindness apparent can’t be trusted. So in that sense, you have read others through the heartache of your own. And in that, again, what I would say is just being around you, we laughed at that table a lot that evening we had dinner with Becky and a few others. So how does humor, your hilarity, play into this?

Kate: I think we have to see ourselves sometimes and I do laugh at some of the idiosyncrasies or things that I… Today when I came into this studio, you told me there was a little camera set up on the computer and I was like, “Not cameras.” And then I recognized like, well, I have a lot of work to do around some of this stuff where I can still get messed up by the smallest thing. But I think that being in that and being able to name that about yourself and being able to remember that we are human and for survivors, bringing that back into the picture is so important because it’s always been about dehumanization. And so reminding laughter is to be human, to laugh at something and to be able to see things through a different lens with someone that trusts you trust or someone that is a trusted friend or someone that has earned your trust can begin to break some of that ice and help start to defrost some of those places that need God’s beauty and warmth and to understand who you are, who you were created to be. I think for me, the scripture that God gave me when I first got out of the industry was, and I wasn’t really reading my Bible, so I don’t know how he managed to get this scripture to me, but was Psalm 18:19, he delights in me, he rescued me because he delighted in me and that sitting with that, he delights, delights. There’s so much behind delight. There is laughter and delight. There is joy and delight and he delights in me no matter what I’ve been doing. He’s just waiting and been delighting in me. When I realized that it broke my heart and I think I just saw myself through his eyes and that’s why I named my program Cherished because I really want women to see themselves through his eyes and it’s not my job to do that, but I just set the table and make the place and hope that that’s what will happen.

Dan: I wonder, I’ll just put it bluntly, do you have a sense of how proud your earthly father is of you?

Kate: Thank you.

Dan: I mean, we don’t have to wander into my view that those who have passed and are still present. They are part of the surrounding, cheering, watchful, but this is a part of your story that I don’t know, but the loss of your dad at age five and the context of grief, loss, threat, danger was simply part, yet there was music. There was something of the presence of jazz and in that there is something of music you do bring, you’re aware of that and you may not be in a band, but you’ve created a band. Is that a fair way of putting it?

Kate: Yes.

Dan: And a band with many, many, many women who have learned to sing a very different song. From despair to defiant joy, from a sense of soul being consumed and lost to, again, that image of being cherished. And I think that’s again, where I would say the likelihood of many hearing this and choosing to go, this is a group of human beings I would love to get to know. And I would say if you check out your website, check out ICAT, the International Christian Alliance on Prostitution. I mean, Becky and I would say, can hardly say it without tears. Some of the most glorious and amazing human beings we have ever met do this work with human trafficking. And though we don’t do that work directly, we have some degree of engagement and you are a stunning picture of God’s delight and it just broke my heart when you realized that you would be on camera and to know I don’t need to know any more of your story than to know that you’ve been on cameras and those images have been used to decimate and violate and exploit and just choosing to do this work, let alone being on camera with us, even if no one can see us other than the three of us, you have chosen to step across boundaries that evil would have preferred for your heart to be bound by. And in that, I mean, we are so proud of you, so proud of you. And I can say without question, so is your father. So thank you, Kate. Thank you for giving us an invitation into something of the absolute wonder of redemption.

Kate: Thank you.

Rachael: And I just want to say if you do want more information or want to contact Kate or order her book, you can find her at www.kateouimettewedell.com We’ll have this in the show notes so you could look for it there. You can find her book on Amazon and you can also support survivors and her work with Cherished LA at cherishedLA.org. So again, we’ll make sure all these things are in the show notes so that you can find them. Kate is just so stunning to hear from you, but also to learn from you. And I think one of the things I’m most struck by as we come to a close is just your naming probably for all of us that the healing work never ends… There’s always more healing for us even as we’re trying to create context for others. And I just think that there’s something really powerful about that confession, I would say for myself. The places we get caught where we go, oh, there’s more. There’s more and we’re doing good work and there’s more.

Kate: And yay, there’s more.

Rachael: And yay there’s more. Yes, right? How boring. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Thank you. So good to be with you.

Kate: Thank you. Thank you so much.