Living Inside The Rainbow: Winning The Battlefield of The Mind After Human Trafficking & Mental Bondage

Tubman

FOREWORD

With each turn of the pages of Brook Bello’s book, I could feel my heart opening wider and wider. Brook’s story is a demonstration of God’s faithfulness. He said, Suffer the little children to come unto me, for such is the Kingdom of heaven....

Brook’s story, as she explained it to me, is the victory story of a woman-child, meaning the horrifically abused child that lived inside a woman’s body for so long. This story is full of hope and inspiration: hope for the future of survivors everywhere and inspiration to the families, supporters, advocates and way-makers working on their behalf day in and day out.

I am honored to know Brook, to stand with her as mentor and friend.

You are the wind beneath the wings of so many who see their faces in yours. Your story is their story. You have allowed us to see what a survivor looks like through you.

Brook’s brilliantly written account of her life can be used as a textbook to teach those working to eradicate human trafficking. This book is a case study on the emotional and psychological state of a victim and the world she had to navigate to survive.

Brook wrote her book, but not to have you feel sorry for her. She does not want or need sympathy. She wants and needs your advocacy in the fight to change the world’s view on girls living as she did: in forced prostitution.

My request of you as you read Brook’s story is that you not allow yourself to get stuck in the horror of the story. Don’t let it overwhelm you. Instead, allow it to move you to action.

What if every person who reads this book commits to one simple action, something that you can do right where you are? It could be something simple, such as supporting an organization that’s working to help build awareness in your city or donating money toward resources for survivors. This simple action would make an enormously positive difference in the lives of so many.

Thank you, Brook Bello, for your courage in sharing your story and for your willingness to "Live: Above the Noise and Inside the Rainbow."

BARBARA A. PERKINS

Author, Personal Coach

President, Vanzant Enterprise

President, International Black Women’s

Public Policy Institute

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to offer a special thank you to Dr. Carroll A. Baltimore, first for co-writing one of the chapters, and for being an amazing spiritual father as I continue on this journey.

Of course, the book grew through me from the start of my journey to wholeness and to founding the More Too Life program and center. I would like to express my gratitude to the many people who saw me through so much in writing this book and creating More Too Life. Thanks to all those who provided support, talked things over, read, offered comments, allowed me to quote their remarks, and assisted in the editing, proofreading, and design.

Thank you, my Ted, for standing by my side as I wrote.

I would like to honor David Arkless and Sarah Summers of Arkless Consulting in Europe for believing in me with funding from the very beginning for More Too Life, Inc.

Special thank you to Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner for loving me like family, showing me what leadership means, reaching back to help lead the way, and asking me over and over, Is the book done? I would like to thank my pastor, Dr. Beverly Bam Crawford, for teaching me the ways of God.

I would also like to thank my dear friend and sister, Donna L. Kinsler, for being a great listening ear.

Shanna Biedron, thank you, my sister, for allowing God to use you as you brilliantly encouraged me along the way.

Thanks to Cecelia Garbutt (deceased), who loved me through it all.

Thank you, Diana Rowan, for editing, caring that I wrote the book, and spreading the word. Thank you for empowering, educating, and assisting women and children around the globe.

Further, I would like to thank my friends at Wheelock College in Boston and Jackie Jenkins-Scott for allowing me teach through the sharing of my story.

Attorney Sharon Bridges and the International AKA Sorority, thank you for listening.

Thank you to the White House for allowing me to be a plenary speaker at the 2013 White House Summit to Eradicate Modern Day Slavery, and to President Obama for making this part of your struggle as well.

In addition, thank you to all those who are assisting in the fight to end Modern Day Slavery.

I would also like to thank all of my friends and all family members just for being who you are and moving forward even when it’s been hard.

Thank you to each and every victim and survivor of every form of human trafficking and sexual abuse—for your continuous struggle to be free and to fight for the freedom of others. We are listening and we are fighting.

SPECIAL NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

I was a victim then I became a survivor of child sex slavery. But we who have survived this horror need to move further than that; we need to soar beyond it! With God’s help and the support of many, I evolved into being a thriver—and now I am simply a champion. I am a champion as anyone can be who struggles through a grueling battle to victory. And my victory is to tell my story and carry out my work in the world to help others on the path out of sex-slavery and other root causes that can lead from mental bondages caused by violent abuse into healing and wholeness.

Thank you for taking this journey with me, this testimony of God's undying faithfulness. My story is woven throughout the pages, and I tell much of it. My prayer is that it increases your hope for a better future, your faith, awareness, and love like never before. I hope that men and fathers begin to understand that their lack of leadership in the home and with their children throws off a divine rhythm. That even in the best of times a woman with a man of honor at her side does not have to sweat and toil to try and be both father and mother in broken homes. Men are the biggest part of the problem to sexual crimes and violence, rape, commercial sexual exploitation, human trafficking and fatherlessness and so they will be the biggest part of the solution.

Brook Parker-Bello

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING

"Living Inside the Rainbow is about God’s promise of restoration. This process of recovery involves the soul and enlightening of the mind. In this book, Brook’s honest and transparent story of spiritual power helps us to consider the contribution of our thoughts to the ultimate result of one’s life. 'It is a must-read!'"

Dr. Beverly Bam Crawford

Founder and Pastor,

Bible Enrichment Fellowship International Church

I thank God for the power, strength, and courage of the life force that is Brook Bello. We are on the planet to use our gifts—our pain and suffering—to being wholly transparent. We literally breathe life into others when we share our stories with one another. It is the essence of healing—and the only way we can know we are not alone. Thank you, Brook, for standing and living in God's grace. Living Inside the Rainbow reminds me of words by Edmund Burke:...'All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men remain silent and do nothing.' Your book is a clarion call for us to use our voices to put an end to human trafficking."

Terrie M. Williams, Author

Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We're Not Hurting

Brook, I am sure that this book this will be powerfully freeing and enlightening as you share your traumatic testimony and dramatic deliverance in and through Jesus Christ and other good people who have been Jesus to you along the way.

Pastor David Anderson

Author, Radio Host, and Church Leader

"Human trafficking is the absolute lowest form of inhuman treatment that can be perpetrated by a person or group against another in a free society. The freedom to realize one's God-given potential is crushed almost beyond repair for those trapped as sex slaves—many, like Brook Bello, as children. But Brook Bello simply refused to remain locked in the prison others intended for her and by God's grace and power, broke free, not just physically, but emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. While still on the road to full restoration, she has committed her life to freeing and nurturing to wellness others trapped in this most evil industry. Living Inside the Rainbow is a must-read for those who hate evil and want to learn how to help eradicate the human trafficking industry.

Dr. Barbara Williams-Skinner

President, Skinner Leadership

From rape to redemption, from human trafficking to a transformed life, Brook shares her amazing journey from fear to freedom. I recommend this book to those who are looking for healing, restoration, and their own pathway to freedom.

Rosemary Trible, Author,

President, Fear2Freedom,

Wife of former Senator Paul Trible

"Living Inside the Rainbow by Brook Bello is a must-read book. She reveals her own life's journey of God's Amazing Faithfulness and Grace. Life is not a game, life is a gift...a gift of grace. Living Inside the Rainbow, Brook moves from trauma to wholeness. Literally, from 'Grace to Grace'.

Dr. Carroll A. Baltimore, Sr.

President, Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.

Part 1

THE IMPORTANCE OF UNDERSTANDING

INTRODUCTION

I want to take you on a journey from death to life, from living with and without knowing love, without the Holy Spirit, without the full knowledge of God's true love and what it's like on both sides.

I was shackled to a couple from Middle America, those that I also call traffickers and pedophiles. They are traffickers because supplying human bodies is the biggest part of child sex slavery and human trafficking. They are pedophiles because they rape minors and broken women in the process. They tried to appear safe before me, in a world of evil, but they are evil, with the intention only of selling young bodies for profit. They create in their own minds the sociopathological illusion that the victim wants to be there, that I wanted to be there.

I was picked up from near my school the first time, where I was wandering lonely. I was 15 and lured by the promise of work and friendship. This lead to a process of what I now know is called grooming. By the time I ran away, months after that, I was broken, a runaway, and with the promise of food and shelter I ended up in a house across town. I did not tell my mother, I was too ashamed and thought it was my entire fault. Unfortunately, this made it easier to eventually run away out of state, where I was picked up by a pimp and his bottom girl. Then, one of the tricks that purchased girls, was also another unassuming couple.

This first time, I was taken to a back room that appeared to be normal but it was a setup; then they pulled out the equipment (sex toys, gadgets, and pornography) that they used on lost children of any gender, especially females. They began to beat one another to show us how it needed to be done. They beat each other horribly in the process of what they called sex, and I assumed at this point that most people were, in fact, like this. Before they hurt me, they raped my mind, our minds. I was already medicated and had sat through a tortured dinner earlier which was meant to facilitate some crazy pretend game that seemed to confuse us kids regarding who they really were and why we were there. I mentioned to someone how I longed for a father and how, after I was raped as a young girl, I so longed to be loved and feel safe enough to tell someone what happened, and that I lost my virginity through rape when I was close to 12 years old. But most rape victims don’t tell, and I was no different. It seemed those that groomed us were looking for us, for broken and violated kids because they knew exactly what to say to get into our heads. It reminds me of much of what I now teach about Human Trafficking, victim and predator identification. It’s not surprising that 65% of African American females are sexually violated in some form, rape is one of them.

I was trained, through emotional beating and rape—for which they use the perverted term seasoning, to do what I was told, to pretend that I liked it.

Let me pose a question: What child or even healthy woman would choose brutal and evil intercourse and rape? How can a young mind even gauge it? This is what happens to so many children—young girls and women ranging from the ages of one (yes, one year old) to 18 years of age and up—who often think a protector or friend is just that, a parent or parent figure, true friend, or hero but who turns out to be a pathological predator.

I know of a woman who was taken from her country by missionaries at age two and was raped from that point until she was 18 and after. She was so emotionally damaged that she even called it sex, and would go on later to be prostituted. She would tell the authorities that she was having sex at seven years old. After being molested, raped, and trafficked from the age of three years old, she still thought it was her fault.

She even thought she desired it, as it was the only form of intimacy she had ever known. Yet her vaginal walls and anal cavity are torn from the years of abuse; she is physically and emotionally scarred. As the sparkle of a match is to a three year old, so is a pimp’s fake smile and false love—a shine or glow that a small child/broken teenager thinks is a glimmer of hope. But it is merely a lit match that becomes an enormous fire that burns up everything in its path. The smile of a pimp is one of the worst aspects of trafficking. Hopes, dreams, minds, and lives are burned up in this fire of immoral abuse and the film Hustle & Flow states this well as society made this a blockbuster as we watched it and breathed in the abuse of women, as commonplace. The devastating pain and destruction is wrapped in sterile terms like human trafficking, forced prostitution, abuse, incest, molestation, and child sex slavery/sex slavery.

I am praying for two 13-year-old girls that I know of. When they heard my story they could not believe that I had survived and am not only functioning, but also thriving. They were raped from the ages of five to nine by an adult male relative, with other young cousins also in the room. They were ravaged and hung from the ceiling. He cut them and stitched them back up, and their young virginal wounds were raped, pillaged of innocence and sacredness by this elderly male. He sodomized them and raped them for hours. All the while, no one really knew what was going on. I was told the cuts and stitches were explained as issues they were having while playing too roughly outside on the jungle gym. These girls simply cannot believe that I am still here. But because they are still so very young, they have an innocent hope—something that is more natural in younger children but just as possible for all, as we are all God's children.

The fact that their brains are not fully developed is good and maybe not so good. This depends on the assistance they receive, hopefully as soon as possible. If they do receive help, they do have an opportunity to heal more quickly with less discrimination and a little more mercy from others. They will do better than children who have slipped through the cracks and are long forgotten; these innocent young ones still need the same assistance as adults in order to heal and discover, even for the first time, who they really are. They are, with God’s love, willing to absorb the possibilities of change. No matter how old you are, I have to share, again, that this really is possible. I am an example of that: God's unrelenting Grace, healing presence, mercy, and supernatural counsel of the Holy Spirit through the Bread of Life found in the Word of God.

What has so blinded the hearts of those who think, even for a moment, that a child desires these violent sexual crimes: to be burned and scarred by the evil of pedophilia? It has become a forest fire that no one seems to understand how to put out. Was there ever such a thing actually or truly experienced as teenage prostitution? Or was it just a phrase made up by the ignorant and closed-minded in life who refuse to take a closer look? Are we trying to wrap our heads around the fact that eight-year-old girls are given in marriage around the world? Do men compare in their hearts what they think of as 13- to 16-year-old girls who married in the Scriptures? We don't know exactly how old all of the girls in Scripture were. Do some men today evilly believe that incestuous rape, happening today with fathers against daughters, is to be compared with biblical persons marrying half-brothers and the like in a different world and in a different time? Whatever happened in biblical times is over and could never be compared to the pedophilia of today! Even today, people and our world are not the same as they were 70 years ago. Therefore, children need different lifestyle and family structures for healthy psychological development.

The supernatural manifestations of the populating of the earth and what took place in that time is not to be compared with this. This evil, this human trafficking of which forced prostitution is a part, this modern-day slavery, is an abomination. This abomination is being revealed in all its stark horror now, so that we wake up to all forms of bondage and live for God. For in truth, there is nothing else but His love. He is the answer; in God’s wisdom and love are all of the answers.

This issue of human trafficking is not one in which mere treatment of the symptoms is going to produce a cure. We need to go deep, to examine the root causes, which are found in discrimination of all kinds and negative and destructive societal pop culture. From focusing too much on self, to gender issues, to ethnic discrimination, economic discrimination, classism, unresolved child abuse, too much unrelenting media violence, evil, and lust without conscience or respect for innocence anymore—it seems that many of these discriminations are at an all-time high. Men’s desire for conquering and to conquer has put the innocence of children and others in harm's way.

There are also times in church when those in pain do need much more than a song and a sermon to heal. They need to see and experience real love in a dying world. Sometimes we give up when healing does not come quickly enough for us. Some people have not seemed to wake up after all of the help they receive. And yet, how can we judge the depth of the hurt that they need to heal from? Healing comes as the Spirit wills, and oftentimes the Lord requires us to be a part of our own healing and the healing of others, on a line-by-line and precept-upon-precept basis. If God said that He would not allow anyone to suffer above that which they are able to bear, then what we suffer as individuals must be as much as we could possibly ever survive, even if it seems simple to someone else. You see, we can transform after the process, if, in fact, we live beyond it. Our minds can be rewired to a whole wonder of destiny and life, when we make it through.

Let’s talk about sex. It is and should be a sacred thing that has to do with knowing one another and is still thought of for many as a part of blissful matrimony. Yet a child or woman with an underdeveloped heart and mind is still a gentle flower, an innocent that must be protected. How do they heal and rebuild from severe abuse? I don't much like using the phrase sex slavery. Do you know why? Because, as I will share with you in the book, it relates to a word that means intimacy, and this isn't intimacy.

This is a vile and horrid thing, this human trafficking. I call it soul assassination.

We are a spirit; we live in a body, and we have a soul, a soul that comprises our will, our mind, and our emotions. Our ability to maneuver in and around who we are in our soul is what is robbed and assassinated. When people hear the word sex, something happens in the brain: a heart-body connection that can cause confusion in the outcome of how we see a thing, how we see abuse, how we view the real trauma that takes place when sex becomes a crime, is unwanted, and, moreover, when a child is involved.

There is simply no way a very young child can wrap his or her mind and heart around the abuse they’ve suffered or, worse, are still going through; it causes severe mental confusion and damage. These days, there is so much severe dysfunction in families and parenting that people often grin about it because it has gotten to be so normal. Because of the failure to truly have restorative justice¹ of one’s soul after dysfunction, there is often an underdeveloped child in many adults, one that is just wondering how to grow up, how to "come of