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A VOICE FOR
SEXUAL EXPLOITATION SURVIVORS JOIN HER CAMPAIGN TO DELIVER A MESSAGE OF HOPE
“WE ENDURED PRETTY TRAUMATIC We were born into a cult.”
sexual abuse.
That’s how sisters Jessica Anderson and Catie Reay’s story begins. During the 1990s in Billings, the girls’ parents were members of Curly Thornton Ministries, reportedly a cult of roughly 100 people who believed Emmett “Curly” Thornton was training them to be a part of the “army of God.”
sexual exploitation survivors.
“We want people to know that there is freedom. There is healing,” Catie says. “There’s wholeness and full restoration on the other side. Jessica and I are living testaments that joy and peace is absolutely possible.”
Both had been abused from birth until about the age of 10.
It took more than a decade for both sisters to get to this stage of healing. They’ve withstood years of therapy to peel back the layers of trauma.
Before a crowd in Casper, Wyoming, last April, the two shared their story of abuse, manipulation, coercion and betrayal at an anti-human-trafficking event. Known by friends as the “Power Sisters,” they are using their voices to bring a strong message for
“I don’t remember a lot,” Catie says. “What I do remember is a lot of people who I didn’t know personally having very intimate places in our life,” she says. “The rape, the writing of bad checks, the sexual exploitation happening inside the cult, it was brought
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YVW MAGAZINE
