My name is Karli Shchekotun, I’m married to Daniel Shchekotun the head minister of Trust in Truth Ministries, and this is my testimony.

I was raised in a fun loving home in the earlier years of my life and Jesus is someone who was at the beginning of the foundation of my life. I remember Sunday school with my family, vacation bible school and going to a christian preschool Awanas, and giving my life to Christ and getting baptized.

Unfortunately this was not the center of my parents’ life. Jesus was not truly Lord of their lives. So I was not really being brought up in the ways of the Lord. In fact, my parents loved to party and use marijuana and alcohol with neighbors and friends. By the time I was nine years old, I realized they also did crystal meth and oxycodone.

By the age of ten, my neighbor split up with her husband but my mom remained her best friend, and I was best friends with her child. However, now her new boyfriend whom I would later realize was a meth trafficker and a drug dealer, and we started playing after school at what seemed to be a trap house, people of all sorts in and out all day buying drugs. This guy wasn’t kidding around. It was a 24/7 ordeal and I became familiar with these drug addicted characters as though they were my new family or something.

At the age of twelve my house burnt down, we lost everything, they sold the property and used it to pay for hotels for about 2 years and to pay for their crystal meth addiction. At this point my self esteem and depression were completely out of control, cutting didn’t get noticed or do anything and my dreams of joining the military were becoming too difficult to even imagine. My mother began to give me ounces of weed and alcohol to cope with it all and cigarettes too. Drug dealers would come and go all the time, taking me to school because they got her high in the morning and she and my dad  became too intoxicated and probably too ashamed and paranoid to take me to school. I was arrested and nearly sexually assaulted. Then it turned into the drug dealers being my overnight baby sitters and that’s when I was abused at age 11. 

By the age of sixteen I was being groomed and drugged by my mom and her older friends. It started with opiates and love bombing while keeping me up using drugs in my room all night away from my father. I thought I was being prepared for a life that would turn into a marriage, but in reality my mom was selling me to a thirty year old man to enjoy as a party favor while she was selling him opiates and meth. That’s when he took me and a bag of drugs from my mom one day and he injected me in his house for three days with syringes full of a mixture of meth and oxy. By the end of that weekend I was addicted beyond what I thought could be repaired.

I had become so lost, all hopes of graduating high school were gone and it was time to keep up with a new habit. I think people were telling Charles the man that this is technically pedophilia. Not every one in the drug rink was ok with it; he eventually ran off with a friend his own age who also has prescriptions of narcotic pain killers too. That’s when mom started introducing me as her friend to all the people she bought from and she had them all get me high on crystal and then I met the people who cooked the meth.

At this point I was the one selling but I was also so addicted I was becoming to me what seemed to be a child prostitute but by state law this is called sex trafficking. I would sell them the drugs but then stay so I made sure I got not only the money but also the product but at the cost of fulfilling every fantasy of these old men’s lives, I was still only 16. As most child sex trafficking victims I was in and out of juvy for going crazy. I cant remember much, but I have a ton of charges for domestic violence and theft and drugs. Mom was told she lost custody of me at fifteen but DCF never came back.

Mom played the role of the good parent and got me out of trouble each time, after days of detox and jail but I always ended right back where I was in a room clouded with toxic chemicals, the rooms the meth labs were being cooked in were places that would require law enforcement to wear hazmat suits to enter and I was placed in situations where I was being forced to give up my body. 

My ability to inject myself with drugs wasn’t efficient and over time I ended up in hospitals for long periods of time trying to recover from infectious disease, nearly losing my arm to amputation. At the age of nineteen, I was taken to a drug dealer’s house by a woman I had known as Minna since I was 11. She and her gang member husband were the biggest meth traffickers in town. Turns out it wasn’t the only thing they were trafficking. I was given a lot of drugs, my mom was on the other side of the room. I didn’t know what was transpiring except for a lot of free drugs. I was sold that night while mom stayed and got high. I was about to end up on an advertisement of Craig’s list as a “date,” I was convinced by the man who bought me who I only thought was my new boyfriend and loved me that it was his fantasy to watch me with other men. He would arrange me to go on dates to give men their fantasies and it would give him satisfaction knowing what I was doing with other men.

Eventually my arm got infected again and I had to go into a long term hospital stay again to save it from amputation again. The man backed off but continued to show up as the loving boyfriend to show support. 

When I got out of the hospital this time, mom took me back to the drug dealer’s house and due to my uncontrollable addiction and believing there was no other life out there I began to go with other men and fulfill their sexual fantasies. Until one day I got sick and tired of it all, I was so broken, burnt, damaged, dying, I had the bright idea to just simply be my own boss. I thought I would prostitute myself to get the drugs I wanted as an immediate exchange. That’s when I met a man who said “wait, lets get to know each other.” He was no different than any one else but I would stay with him for a long time, eat food, get high and fulfill his fantasy.

One day I began to read the bible more often, I was really high and confused but I wanted more. Then the man I was with said do you want to go to church? I said yes. I had been high for days with no sleep or food but I walked into church wearing my nicest dress. It was maybe a month later that would ultimately change my life forever. I thought I would just get high, but when I tried all I could feel was the fear and the fire of God. I was being convicted of my sin and I ran inside scared, I ran to the bible.

My eyes were opened wide and I knew the word of God was alive. I sensed He was saying it’s alive and taking place right now. I went to sleep for days. When I woke up I felt as though I entered the twilight zone and I wanted to go home and felt like I wanted mommy and daddy. So weird to feel that way. I went home and I stayed home, I ate, slept, and watched tv until the demons began to try to take over again. I thought “lets call Bob and go get high,” he picked me up and I went to his hotel room where he had the drugs, but suddenly for the first time in my life I felt so convicted that I couldn’t do it anymore, and I said no I cant I don’t think God wants me to do this any more. He said the words I’ll never forget “I’m putting you in a monastery.” I walked out of that hotel that night sober, and I saw the sunset across the sky. It looked like the kingdom of God painted in the clouds. I knew at that moment there was a calling on my life.

It didn’t happen over night it was a process but from that day forward my life forever constantly changed according to the will of my lord and savior, my father God, my Lord Jesus had rescued me. Bob told every one I went crazy or maybe he threatened them but I was never allowed back at my traffickers ever again. I never used crystal meth or oxy again. Unfortunately I have had one or two tiny relapses since then. I guess it’s a part of the growing process for some, but the gospel of Jesus Christ, the power of God and His love saved me, rescued me, and delivered me. 

Today I have dedicated my life to serving him with my incredible husband, Daniel Shchekotun, praying deliverance and offering discipleship for people all over the world. Fighting to end sex trafficking and to advocate for women who have experienced that trauma and domestic violence, sexual assault and also helping the homeless. Truly just following the Lord trying to fulfill His vision and establish His kingdom according to His will.