Why did I get interested in the sex industry? It was after I watched a movie called “Trade” about sex trafficking. It totally broke me. At the time we were 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.
For many months we researched the sex industry in Dallas. We were shocked in what we found. Hundreds and hundreds of prostitutes. Dozens and dozens of brothels in this city. Dozens of strip clubs. Who was doing anything about this? Who was going in and reaching these women in these brothels and strip clubs.
I think to get a heart for these women, you have to understand them and I didn’t. I didn’t realize that the average age entry into prostitution was 13. You do not just wake up one day and say I want to be a prostitute. Many girls are simply forced into it and most girls suffer abuse. It’s a world that I still cannot understand. But this suffering mostly goes unnoticed.
After we did our research, we gathered a team and just went for it. 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. Funny thing that I learned was, 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. What a feeling!
As we started to go into brothels, we didn’t know what to say. We tried everything! “Can we pray for you?” This didn’t work because their culture (most were Asian) didn’t understand this concept. “Do you want to learn English?” “Can we fix anything for you (mowing, painting, cleaning)?” I mean, we went in for months and said just about everything. All the practical things didn’t work. We got rejected every time. But that just made us even more bold. We were getting comfortable being rejected!
One day after many months of failure, as we were praying, 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 was like, “yea right, that is gonna work (sarcastically)!” We had tried everything practical, but God wanted us to do it His way. Believe me, I didn’t believe His way would work.
So, we got some tubs and towels and went to the brothels. Our team of girls walked in and something funny happened. They didn’t come out! I was starting to worry. I just prayed in the car. A little while later I received a text that things were going great inside, so I just continued to pray in the car.
THREE hours later they came out, and they had washed the women’s feet! They prayed for the women and loved them. Just like Jesus did with prostitutes in the Bible. I was completely shocked.
That same day, we went to the next place and guess what. The same thing happened. I couldn’t believe it. We were truly experiencing a miracle. What a cool feeling, to be right in the middle of a miracle. We were 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 friends feet and pray for them. There were many tears. A few times the girls from the brothels even invited us into the brothels for dinner! Crazy stuff.
Over time doors started to close. “Management” changes a lot in these places. But we know God has another way and we look forward to what He has planned.
Because these doors started to close, our team started going into strip clubs and doing the same thing with the same results. Our team of girls even started giving the women free pedicures. Managers would just let us in. We told them our crazy idea and they would let us do it! Now these were low-income strip clubs, not that high-end stuff. 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.
One last story. One time we prayed over the strip club manager because he was having a lot of pain in his body for weeks. Another day as our team of girls was praying with the women in the dressing room of the strip-club, he barged in and said “get these people to pray for you!” He said this because the pain had left him.
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FYI- In the pics, you can see gift bags which is what we brought the women for Christmas.
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This sounds amazing! When is the next training?