Annie Dieselberg: A Different Kind Of CEO
It takes the power of God to free a woman enslaved, body soul and spirit.
by, JB Mavrich
Annie Dieselberg is the CEO of NightLight Designs, a jewelry company based in Bangkok, Thailand. In the world of the corporate take-over, this is one of the most recognizable titles: Chief Executive Officer. But Annie’s company isn’t an ordinary company. To start with, all of her employees are former sex workers, rescued from a life of few-if-any-options, prostituted in Bangkok’s clubs and bars. And with this kind of resumé comes a particular kind of baggage, which is why, in Annie’s world, CEO has a double meaning: Chief Exorcist Officer.
Sex workers suffer layers of bondage, and typically the most neglected level is the spiritual bondage. The physical bondage they endure is the easiest to comprehend. Some women are locked in apartments, others in cages, and others are simply under the 24/7 vigilance of thugs and pimps as they stand on street corners. But it all qualifies as physical coercion.
But the bondage of sex work is deeper than physical bongage. The emotional duress applied to a girl when she is raped everyday for years before she even turns 18 is seismic. It is a soul-breaking coctail of fear, depression, and self hatred. Just to cope with her miserable existence, a women suffers a change in identity that goes far beyond a low self-esteem: she actually begins to accept her condition. If you imagine something like the Stockholm-Syndrome-times-a-thousand you could come up with the resultant mental-malfunction necessary for woman to “choose” to remain in the commercial sex industry for decades after she is free (this happens routinely), or return to her hometown to help lure other girls into slavery (this also happens routinely). While none of us can relate, we need to grasp that the sex trade industry deliberately, systematically, and effectively breaks a woman’s will to leave.
But if our understanding of bondage stops at only the physical and emotional, it doesn’t penetrate to the critical depth where these women really need deliverance. Sex slavery and the commercial sex industry is a spiritual oppression. That means there are demons involved. There are big ones that oppress countries and regions, and there are smaller ones that hold individual women in a death grip. While the three cannot truly be separated–physical, emotional,spiritual– they need to be acknowleged. Just as the physical acts of rape and torture destroy a woman’s emotions and psyche, the dark grip of a demon will torment her years after its over. That’s where Annie comes in.
Women rescued and brought to the NightLight Center begin a process of escaping bondage, and leaving a lifestyle of prostitution is only the first step. Many of the women Annie ministers to come from the impoverished rural areas of Thailand’s northeast regions, where animism and witchcraft are prevalent. They get tangled in a web of spells and curses before they are even trafficked to a foreign city. This kind of oppression needs spiritual deliverance.
“Spiritual deliverance is a regular part of our ministry,” Annie said. “Usually we’re engaged in deliverance ministry 2-3 times a week, but sometimes it’s 5 days a week. For each woman, deliverance can be like peeling back the layers of an onion. Just when we think we’ve covered all the ground with a woman, she comes back with another layer. And our jaws are still dropping as we hear of new practices and rituals that have been done on these women.”
I asked Annie how many women were currently getting ministry at NightLight. She said, “We employ 80 women at NightLight and have had a total of 130 come through our program, so there’s a continual surfacing. The Holy Spirit is continually working. It typically begins during worship when the women are singing their hearts out. The spiritual issues get disturbed and stirred up. A woman might begin to experience symtoms like bad headaches, or she finds can’t stay awake, or she suddenly has the urge to run out of the meeting to go to the bathroom. But when it becomes bad, she’ll begin to get nightmares, or get attacked by suffocating spirits, or they’ll get very afraid. When that happens, they’ll come to us and ask us to pray for them, and when we do, that just opens up Pandora’s box.” It can take a team of deliverance ministers hours of prayer and ministry to break bondages at that point.
All in a day’s work for The Chief Exorcist officer. By providing spiritual deliverance alongside vocational training, Annie and the Nightlight Center are working with the Holy Spirit to ensure these women get free and stay free from the commercial sex industry. Without this critical element of freedom, a woman could be tormented for decades after her freedom from the lifestyle of prostitution, and may never escape fear and anxiety in her emotions.
“You know,” she said, “this is the only job where you get paid to get delivered or get slain in the spirit.” She’s probably right.
