From Secret Prostitution to Shores of Grace
A Q&A Interview with Maz O’Callaghan
“The power of the testimony is so much stronger than anything the devil thinks he can do. I’m continually surprised by how God uses my story to bring about healing and redemption in other people.” - Maz O’Callaghan
This month’s guest blog is a powerful Q&A interview with Australian native Marian “Maz” O’Callaghan. Born into a loving family and raised in Canberra, Australia, the trajectory of Maz’s life was forever changed at the age of 10 years old. During her teen years, she became entrenched in a life of drugs, alcohol addiction and prostitution. Now 41 years old and a devoted follower of Jesus, the truth has set Maz free! Her past helps her minister to girls and young women who have been rescued from a life of trafficking, abuse, addiction and other traumas. Shores of Grace, located in Recife, Brazil, is part of their new beginning.
LH: Maz, I’m so honored to hear your story and be a part of stewarding it for others to hear. I feel we should start in the middle and work our way backwards. When did you come to know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and how did it change your life?
MO: I was 20 years old and went to a tent revival one night [Harvest Crusade with Greg Laurie] in a little college town where my sister got married. The only reason I went to the tent crusade when my little sister asked was to get out of the wedding clean-up. I was drinking and doing drugs, living a secret life as a prostitute since the age of 15. I was living a lie, while my sisters were chasing hard after God. My sister’s wedding was really centered around Jesus and what He has done for us, so something was already stirring in my heart. That night at the tent revival I heard the gospel. There was an altar call, but I had lived the majority of my life in hiding and I wasn’t going to profess something in front of thousands of people. But I asked one of the girlfriends of my sister, at the house where I was staying afterwards, if I could talk to her. I said, “You guys are all so happy…I don’t know what that’s like. I’m literally digging my own grave and I hate my life… I want to be happy like you are.
LH: So you were staying at a house of Christian women after the wedding…girlfriends of your sister? Oh Wow, so this is a real-life “God and My Girlfriends” moment!
MO: It was the beginning of a relationship with Jesus for me. I asked her, “What do you guys have that I don’t have?” She said, “a personal relationship with the Creator of the universe. Would you like one?” I said, YES PLEASE! That was the night I stopped work in the industry.
LH: Let’s dig into that a bit. Did you say a prayer like, ‘Jesus I want You to come into my life…I want to stop digging my own grave…?
MO: Yes.
LH: Did you hear a voice say, “This is the night you stop being a prostitute.” Or was it just more of a ‘knowing’ you had? Like, I’m making a new start with Jesus so I have to stop this…
MO: I already knew what I had been doing was wrong, before I even received Jesus. I also knew it would devastate my parents and my family…so much so that I didn’t tell them for another 15 years that I had been in the industry.
LH: Oh my goodness, 15 years! If you’re willing to share how they responded when you finally told them, I’d love to go into that. But first, let’s rewind to how you got into the life you were living at such a young age?
MO: I’m one of 4 kids with 2 loving parents. I come from a beautiful family, but I was bullied in school as a kid. We didn’t have much money so I was called the poor kid. We had what we needed but not all that we wanted. That led to me being bullied and having low self-esteem. When I was about 10, one of the school bullies asked me to do him sexual favors. I thought it would stop the bullying, but it didn’t. It went on for a few years and my self-hatred got worse and worse. I thought that love was having sex with a boy, so I started doing that early on.
LH: There are some red flags you’ve mentioned that I think we should touch on, because it could make a difference for someone else reading this who might be going through something similar. There are spiritual roots that can take hold and carry us down a road we never thought we would go down. What I’m hearing is that for you, it started with shame and fear? Feeling shame in not having things other people had, and fear from being bullied.
MO: Yes. My self-worth [was damaged], and I was also feeling self-hatred because I was stealing money from my parents to buy food so that people would be my friend. My parents didn’t have much money and I really wanted to stop stealing from them. So I thought, “What have I got to sell?” Then I thought, “My body. I hate it anyway…and I know I’m going to hell…so I might as well use what I’ve got.”
LH: Wow, that is what the lies of the enemy can do. First shame, then fear…then damaged self-worth…then self-hatred. All of it opening doors to lying, stealing, making the choice to sell your body because you hated yourself and also felt guilty for stealing from your parents. The Bible says “the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10),” and that is exactly what satan was doing in your young life. Even though you had a loving family, the enemy’s lies were destroying your self-worth, killing your ability to receive your family’s love, and destroying with your own choices a happy life or good future. Had you learned about God in your upbringing?
MO: I had grown up going to a Catholic school that was more about “smells and bells”…which is, rules and regulations [rather than relationship with God]. At this point in my life, my view of God was that He was an I AM THE JUDGE finger-pointer in the sky…the opposite of the God I know now.
LH: OK. So you’re on this path of destruction, from the age of 10 into your teen years. You said when you asked Jesus to come into your life at 20, you did not tell your family about your life as a prostitute. None of them had any clue?
MO: They knew about the drugs and alcohol addiction of my past, but they didn’t know I had been a prostitute. It took 15 years and telling them was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. But my God was there with me…
LH: And the truth sets you free!
MO: Yes! We were on a family holiday…afterward my little sister called it the family holiday from hell. I had joined an organization to get healing, for women who want life change out of addiction and/or the sex industry. It’s called The Hope Foundation in Brisbane.** Even though I had been out of the industry since I became a Christian, I had swapped my sex industry work for a people pleasing addiction. Trying to earn people’s love and respect. I felt I had to do penance for what I had done…in essence, a Christian work “clean up” of people pleasing.
LH: That’s an important statement. Others can learn from what you said there.
MO: I felt I had to earn people’s love…because there was a voice in my head that said, If they knew what I was doing before I became a Christian, they wouldn’t love me the way they think they do.
LH: Ah, and that’s why telling the truth ultimately set you free. Another lie from the enemy was festering…the devil would have always held that over your head and you would always be worried about, “When am I going to be found out?” It’s so much better that you had the courage to finally say, “I’m going to tell you what happened.” The enemy’s Achilles heel weapon was no longer a threat, because as hard as the truth was to say, it came from you. Not from someone else. It took satan’s power away.
MO: The founder of The Hope Foundation is a woman who was a prostitute. The best healing I have received is from somebody who has been where I have been. There was a deeper level of healing and understanding, which is something I want to do to help other women. It’s one of the redemptive tools that God has given me. I can say to a woman on the street, “I’ve been where you are, and I’m a walking testimony that there is healing.” Within Shores of Grace I’ve also been able to share my story. I do this because you never know who you’re talking to. I ask these women, “Did you ever think that I was prostitute?” And they say, “Of course not!” I tell them, “I don’t think that about you either.”
LH: So I hear you saying that you’re encouraging them not to see themselves as someone carrying around the Scarlett letter because of their past. Your story makes me think of the book REDEEMING LOVE**** by Francine Rivers. Have you ever read it? It’s based on the Hosea in the Bible.
MO: Yes.
LH: Excellent book! I’ve read it several times, it’s one of my favorites so I will include it in the reSOURCEs for this blog. It is also on the reSOURCEs page of my website. OK, so back to how you told your family…
MO: We were on this family holiday, and my best friend knew about my industry work of the past. I said to my family, “can we get together for some adult time, there’s something I want to talk to you about.” We went for fish and chips, like you do in Australia, and put the kids to bed. I called my friend before we went to eat and told her, “I’m so scared, I wish you were here.” I had gone for a walk on the beach and it started raining. She started praying as I was sitting underneath the dock, and the rain was coming through [the board slats]. I said goodbye to her, and I said to God, “I cannot do this without You…I know You’re with me, I just need your peace.” Then…it just came. I just started laughing. I thought, This is so strange - why am I laughing? I just felt His peace. My friend had suggested I get my brothers in-law [who are both pastors] to pray for me. So I told them, “Guys, I’m going to tell the family something pretty hard core tonight, I just need you to pray for me.” They were praying for me in the middle of the fish and chip shop. When we sat down, I was crying but my support worker had said to me, “When you tell them, look them in the eye. Because the devil doesn’t want you to look them in the eye.”
LH: Mmmm. That’s so powerful. The devil doesn’t want you to look them in the eye…
MO: Because he wants you to live in shame. So I was a blubbering mess but I looked around at them and said, “When I was a teenager, I worked in the sex industry.” It is still one of the most painful moments in my life, because I felt like I let whole family down. My mother burst into tears, and my dad didn’t say anything [at first]. Everybody was shocked. There were some questions. “How did this happen? How did it start?” And some other pretty gnarly questions…then, my brother said, “Well, this is going to change our family.” And my dad said, “Yep, you’re right. It’s going to make us stronger.”
LH: Your dad’s response is so important. Spiritually speaking he is the headship of the family, so when he said, “This will make us stronger…”, I imagine that the power of those words had an influence on how others in the family responded. Did anyone recognize, in that moment, the courage that it took for you to confess this to all of them?
MO: I don’t remember. I’m sure they did, because my family is super encouraging. And one of the reasons I wanted to tell them was because I could use my story to show people the redemptive power of God. Hence, why I have a heart for people who have been trafficked, or through addiction and sexual abuse. It really is my heart’s desire to see people restored, redeemed, and brought into a living and loving relationship with God.
LH: The thing I am feeling in this moment is that there are a lot of generous people in the world who have a heart for helping people…they give of their time and resources to help the downtrodden, and this is a wonderful thing because it’s an example of, as the saying goes, being Jesus with skin on. However, not everyone has come from the broken background you have come from. The “why” behind your story – the redeeming part of it – is so compelling because you have actually walked in the shoes of the people you are now helping. I have no doubt that you can reach the heart of people in a different way because you truly know how they feel.
MO: The thing I always come back to is that what the devil meant for harm, God is now using for good. The power of the testimony is so much stronger than anything the devil thinks he can do. I’m continually surprised by how God uses my story to bring about healing and redemption in other people.
LH: There’s SO much more I want to share with readers about your story, but it would turn from a blog into a novel! This is already much longer than our usual guest blog stories. Let’s end with what you are doing with your life since you became a follower of Jesus?
MO: I now work in a rescue home for girls and babies who have been trafficked, abused, or can’t live at home anymore with their parents or family so they get removed by social services and are brought to the rescue house. Right now we have 12 teenagers and 8 babies. They have all been through some kind of trauma. Our whole ministry is working towards redemption, restoration, and reconciliation.
LH: What is the home called, and what is the reconciliation component?
MO: The home is called Vila Betânia, which translates to Bethany House.*** It is our goal to reconcile young people with their families whenever it is safe to do so. If that is not possible, we help with the adoption path. We have seen 5 babies adopted in the past year.
LH: Do the older ones get adopted too?
MO: Adoption for teenagers is harder because of the effects they carry from the trauma. But these beautiful teenagers can choose to live broken, or they can grasp these opportunities to heal. We get our teenagers programs for work. One of our girls has been learning English the past few years. She is one of our success stories. We have a transition house (18-21) for those who age out of the system and still need a little help.
LH: I can see how your personal story can especially make a difference for these older kids if adoption is not possible. If no one has ever told them that things can be different, then human nature would lean toward, “Life has dealt me a bad deck of cards. I’m always going to have bad things happen to me.” This mindset makes it difficult to break free of the past. But if they are hearing from someone who came out of the darkness and carries a light, telling them “What came before is not right. But from this moment forward, you have a choice to change the trajectory of your future…” there is hope for their future even if adoption is not part of their story.
MO: We all have choices to make every day, and our past and current situations affect those choices. The Hope Foundation says, “We help women who want freedom from addiction and/or prostitution.” The key word in that sentence is want ! If you don’t make a choice to want something different from what you have been given, then it’s not going to happen. Like the old saying says, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink. Having people around you who have made those good choices is both encouraging and a testimony to what good choices can do in a person’s life.
LH: The potential of change for these kids is even greater when you look at things spiritually. The generations that came before them laid a path that they didn’t have a choice in – ground that the enemy was given by those who came before them. But when we learn to look at things through ‘spiritual glasses,’ we begin to understand that no matter what came before, anything is possible through Christ who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13). You understand that with Jesus in your life, you can do spiritual battle and say I AM BREAKING OFF WHAT CAME BEFORE, I AM NOT IN AGREEMENT WITH IT. ENEMY, YOU MAY HAVE HAD ACCESS TO MY PAST BUT NOT MY FUTURE!
MO: In our home they are hearing that kind of message on a weekly basis. The majority of our workers and volunteers are Christians. We have things in the house that display and encourage a relationship with Jesus. We also have a worship element in our weekly schedule. On Tuesday, a missionary comes to the house and leads worship; the girls join in or just listen. The presence of God is not questionable. He’s always there. We have people praying for us [through difficulties and processes]. We also have a weekly night of worship with our community at Shores of Grace, and the girls love coming to this as well. And every week we have discipleship on a Friday night with the girls. We are currently watching “The Chosen” series, and they are loving it!
LH: Thank you for sharing your story with us. It took courage to tell your family, and I imagine it takes even more courage to put it all out there in the public eye. I pray that Lord will lead each and every person to this story that needs it. He knows them each by name!
About Maz O’Callaghan
Marian “Maz” O’Callaghan was born and raised in Canberra Australia. When she made Jesus Lord of her life at the age of 20, she was delivered from a broken past of drugs, alcohol addiction, self hatred, stealing and prostitution. God is now using Maz’s story to bring about healing and redemption in other people through Shores of Grace Ministry* in Brazil, where girls and young women have been rescued from a life of trafficking, abuse, addiction and trauma. Maz has a deep love for the Brazilian people and is passionate about what God is doing in their country, as well as learning their Portuguese language. She also loves playing basketball and working as a boxing instructor. To subscribe to Maz’s email newsletters, send an email to mammasmaz@yahoo.com.au or Direct Message her on Instagram.
Maz’s reSOURCEs:
*Visit the Shores of Grace website to see how you can help this organization
**Hope Foundation, Brisbane Australia - Facebook page (website currently under construction)
**Hope Foundation - Link to give
****REDEEMING LOVE book by Francine Rivers