Then He said, "Go out, and stand on the mountain before the LORD." And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, butthe Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. 1 Kings 19:11,12
Less than a week after our last training class, the three of us on the outreach team who were there, were fired up. All week I was looking forward to outreach and then I remembered, "ugh...it's Memorial Day Weekend, every one will be out of town". Even still I asked if anyone could make it... Brad was in and so was Jen as long as we went early. Katie really wanted to come out but could only go late and decided she wouldn't join us.
The morning of, Jen text me to say she couldn't make it...we needed at least three to go out. I didn't want to give up so I asked Katie again, "if we go late, can you make it?" She was in!
I'm so thankful for God's provision and for that still, small voice that said, "don't give up, I have something for this evening".
So the three of us met up at 11:30pm to pray and hit the track around 12:30am.
The first girl we saw was A*****, she was very open and talked with us for a good length of time. She didn't live in the area and only worked on weekends because she liked the money. She did a lot of research at home about prostitution and even articulated that she was an example of a very typical story of girls who work in prostitution... a runaway foster child who had been molested. I had never heard a girl put that together before, at least not verbally. She was very smart, very concerned with being judged, and completely lost. She actually said she read her Bible and gave us some pretty good reason to believe that she did. She also prayed, she knew it was important to spend time with God. But she didn't know how valuable she was, she didn't know or at any rate believe that God had created her for so much more. As much as she made the connection to the wounds of her past she didn't see a need for healing and a new direction. We tried to encourage her and let her know she could call anytime, even if she just needed a friend (she really has no family) and then we headed on our way. Oh, she also taught us a few things.... "put the tax on it" if I'm correct means to collect the money from a trick up front. And she told us about "vice night" I guess there are specific nights the vice are out arresting girls, so many of them just avoid going out on those nights (doesn't seem like the best plan to me?)
Next we saw a very young girl wearing a blonde wig, she was moving very fast and while she took a gift bag she didn't stop to talk.
Then there was M******, a very sweet and genuine woman. She looked uncomfortable but didn't mind us stopping to talk. She like A, had already prayed on her own and didn't need us to pray. I wonder if they refuse our prayer because they know that the Holy Spirit will convict them? They know they aren't doing the right thing and they don't want to face it especially with the Lord.
We headed on from there and ran into N*****, she told us that she was there because she had gotten pregnant by her "boyfriend" who told her if she wanted him to take care of her and the baby she had to prostitute herself. She has a one year old daughter. She said she wanted to get out but needed protection and a home for her and her daughter. We gave her our info. in case she wanted to talk more about getting out and how we could help. While we were talking to her F**** (a guy) walked up, he was most likely a runner for her pimp. He said he just got out of prison and was excited because he got a job at Jack in the box and asked for prayer that he could do well there and keep his job. We prayed for both of them.
Of course there were the two girls who looked at each other and said, "just take the bag so they'll go" and the one we had to run to catch up to that turned around and said, "you'all don't have to chase me".... not every interaction is successful, but we will be there next week.
As expected, it was a great night. God gave us a lot of opportunities for conversation and I trust that He is working in the hearts of the men and women that we met.