Around 15 years ago when our ministry first started working in the sex industry. I didn’t know anything about the sex industry and especially sex trafficking. I watched a movie called “Trade” at the movie theater that was about sex trafficking and it totally broke me. I remember after the movie ended, I just wept. And this incredible sense of “go” came over me. I didn’t need to know how, I just knew with absolute certainly that I was supposed to go. Whatever that meant. At that time our ministry was mostly working with refugees, and I didn’t know why God so strongly put this on my heart, but I knew we were about to dive right into this situation and we did.
I had no idea how to jump in. Because of the movie, a lot of people were thinking about how they could help. I found out about an informational meeting on sex trafficking in our city. Some law enforcement were there as well. To be honest I was frustrated with the meeting because the only information I was hearing was that nobody was doing anything. It was mainly just educating everyone about the situation, but there were no practical ways to get involved. In hindsight, I could see why. It was because in order to get involved, one would have to be pretty crazy to do so. I say that because at the time, prostitution meant brothels. Brothels meant pimps, gangs, or even the mafia might be involved. At the time, there wasn’t anyone going into brothels. Even law enforcement really didn’t have a handle on what was happening inside those brothels. I know, because they told me. There wasn’t any plan, any strategy, and nobody had any idea where to go from here.
But I knew God had told me to “go,” so I stood up and passionately said something, to the affect, that I don’t know what I am doing, but I am going to do something, and you can join me if you want. It was very blunt and I didn’t know if it had any effect.
To my surprise, after the meeting ended, several people surrounded me just desperate to do something too. Long story short, a couple of those people by faith quit their jobs and joined our ministry team and we just went for it! Talk about faith. That takes a lot of faith to not only commit to working in the sex industry with absolutely no plan, but to quit your job, and even move, that’s faith. And that’s how our team to reach women in the sex industry was formed.
First let me start off and say, we didn’t know what we were doing. This was at a time before people really started getting interested in reaching sex trafficking victims, so we also didn’t know any other ministry, church, community coalitions or even law enforcement doing anything at the time so we had to figure it out on our own. For many months we researched the sex industry in Dallas. We were shocked in what we found. Hundreds and hundreds of prostitution ads in our city. Dozens and dozens of brothels in our city. Brothels posed as massage parlors, in homes, apartments, and even in the middle of shopping centers.
Of course some were more obvious looking, and they were in run down parts of our city. It was so obvious, you wouldn’t believe how they got away with it. But sometimes they weren’t as obvious, but in plain sight. We found brothels near churches, in shopping centers, and even brothels in normal looking neighborhoods. They were everywhere. On top of that, there were also dozens and dozens of strip clubs. Who was doing anything about this? Who was going in and reaching these women in these brothels and strip clubs. The sad reality was, mostly nobody, and especially when it came to brothels.
After we did our research, as a team we just dove right in. Again, we had no idea what we were going to do. At first, we would just sit in our office and ask God to show us what to do. I think He showed us many times, but we were a little hesitant to go into brothels to say the least! What was behind those doors? Were there dangerous gangs or even the mafia behind these operations like in the movies that we had seen. Where were the pimps? Yes, these things are a reality, and yes, there was fear, but the love God had for these girls blew away the fear. He gave us so much love for these women, that we started to not fear, even our own life. I have said it before, but not fearing anything is actually really freeing! We didn’t care about the pimps or the mafia. We knew God was with us and we were willing to die for these women. I know that sounds crazy, but God’s love got in us and His love is powerful.
As we started to go into brothels, we didn’t know what to say or what to do. Our goal for our team of women was to start and establish relationship with the women in the brothel, but we literally couldn’t get past the front door. We tried everything! “Can we pray for you?” “Do you have any needs? “Can we help you with anything? Do you want to learn English?” “Can we fix anything for you (mowing, painting, cleaning)?” We offered food. I mean, we went in for months, did and said just about everything. All the practical things didn’t work. The routine was go up to the brothel front door, knock or ring the doorbell, say anything we could come up with, and basically they would say they are not interested or we would literally get the door slammed in our face. We got rejected every time. We were actually getting comfortable being rejected! And that just made us even more bold.
This went on for almost a year! That’s a long time and a lot of rejections. One day, as we were praying back at our office, one of our team members said that she felt like God said to wash the women’s feet as Jesus did in the Bible when he washed his disciples’ feet to show His love for them and to be an example of love (John 13:1-17). My first reaction in my head, very sarcastically was, “yea right, that is gonna work!” We had tried everything practical, but God wanted us to do it His way. Believe me, I didn’t believe His way would work.
We got some tubs and towels and went to the brothels. Our team of girls walked in and something interesting happened. They didn’t come out! I started to worry and even panic. I just prayed in the car and prepared myself to go storming in the brothel to rescue the team:) How? I did not know! A little while later I received a text that things were going great inside, so I just continued to pray in the car. For three hours!
THREE hours later they came out, and they had washed all of the women’s feet! They prayed for the women and just loved them. Just like Jesus did with so many hurting people in the Bible. I was completely shocked.
That same day, we went to another brothel in another part of town. Surely the same thing wouldn’t happen twice with a totally different brothel. Well guess what. The same thing happened. I couldn’t believe it. We were truly experiencing a miracle. What an amazing feeling, to be right in the middle of a miracle. Our team was in the brothels for about 8 hours that day. Offering to wash women’s feet got us in to many places in the following months. Our team would go in and wash their feet and tell them the story of Jesus washing his friend’s feet and pray for them. There were many tears. Many lives touched. Relationships began to be established. All because one of the girls on our team, had the courage to believe God.
Our team of women even started going into strip clubs and doing the same thing with the same results. Our team even started giving the women free pedicures. Managers would just let our team in. Now these were low-income strip clubs. These were dirty, scary looking places. Really scary! I remember meeting with the strip club manager in his office in the back of his strip club. It was like in the movies where the people don’t come out:). But miraculously, they said that our team of girls could come every week and wash the women’s feet, give them pedicures, and pray for them. Just like that.
Just like God telling me to carry a cross and being able to see the amazing fruit from it. The same thing was happening here. It made zero sense for these ideas to work, but they did, because we heard from God.
This can happen in your life too. It can happen in your everyday interaction with people or God might have you start to minister to a specific community. The key is; you need to believe God has a way to open the door. To any community. His heart for people and communities is already there. We need to believe that! He is just waiting for someone to answer the call to go and reach them! He has a way. His way always works.
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