Ministering to Pimps and Prostitutes…
It’s New Years day, and myspace is down (I can’t log in) and I’ve caught up with all of my e-mails on Yahoo since early this morning. So…I have decided to write a bit about ministering to the pimps and prostitutes.
This year my heart is to share more about the outreaches and less about my personal life. This web site has been more like a journal than anything else, although the last couple of years I have shared a lot about the prostitute outreach. Unfortunately, because of¬ a couple of people getting offended by some of the things I shared, I deleted everything and started all over. Originally I saved it all on my computer – but a couple of months ago I accidentally deleted everything I saved!!! (Don’t ask)
The thing about deleting everything was very impulsive on my part, and I know that the enemy was rejoicing over it. I didn’t write anything that wasn’t the plain simple truth, I never used any names and my intentions were definitely NOT to hurt anyone’s feelings.
But just because my life is very transparent, I can’t expect everyone elses to be. When someone I knew basically ripped on me, twisted what I wrote and took everything personal when it wasn’t – I felt horrible and deleted everything. It broke my heart to hurt anyone…although I’m starting to realize that we definitely can’t please everyone.
So anyways, that’s over. The reason I was explaining all that was because I regret getting rid of a lot of tht stuff, especially the stuff I wrote about the outreach. But oh well. This a new year, a new chapter and I’ll just start where I’m at…from the beginning!
It has been almost four years now that I have been reaching out to both pimps and prostitutes. For the first few months I went out, my good friend Nadar led the outreach, and pretty much ‘trained’ me to do things a certain way. Before the outreach, he’d go over all of the important stuff, like how we approach the women, to be sensitive when physical contact like when we are going to pray for a lady (I’m gonna say lady instead of prostitute, it’s shorter to type) by asking permission to put a hand on their shoulder or hold their hand, because many don’t care to be touched.
The risks of going out on the outreach – the pimps are usually armed, it is likely to hear some pretty graphic language or violent behavior towards the ladies. After leading the outreach for years now, I just tell people that want to come out with us that they must be willing to get hurt or even die out there, because that’s always a possibility. It’s no joke out there, we don’t play around – if someone is just going to be a ‘looky loo’ or just want to say that they went on the outreach, they should just stay home. We want people who are CALLED to go on the outreach, have a heart for prostitutes, people in general, and LOVE Jesus most of all.
We would not take anyone on the outreach who was under 21 – but if I had my way, it would have been 25 or older! I had one Short Term Mission’s trip who was over 21 go out with me and one of the pimps was cussing at the girls and marched past us and told us he didn’t want us talking to him. She started shaking and crying, saying that fear was coming over her. I rebuked that spirit of fear and told her that she needed to get a hold of herself. Greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world! For God did not give us a spirit of fear but of love, power and self control, no one can touch us without our Dad’s permission! She straightened up.
We were told not to tell anyone where we were from, just that we were a Christian organization, because he didn’t want the pimps to find out where we were from in case we ‘rescued’ a lady and took her back to the Dream Center with us. Nadar wasn’t too keen on the pimps, and he didn’t talk to them. He shared with me that he had a hard time with them because of how they treated the ladies… actually, quite a few men had that same problem with the pimps.
On the other hand, I had no problem with them at all. Nadar was amazing with the hookers, he is such an awesome man of God and you can just see Jesus all over him. His group of three or four people would lead two other groups of three or four people, walking behind eachother with about a three cars length distance between each group.
Because we are all individuals, God deals with us individually, and uses us in different ways. I didn’t have much of a problem ministering to the ladies, but my approach to them was different than Nadar’s, being that I came from a very similar lifestyle. I suppose I’m a little more calloused, too. I knew from talking to many that they were out there by choice. But there were also many out there because their ‘boyfriend’ who became their pimp put them out on the street, beating them into submission.
The pimps would (and still do) continually call the ladies vulgar, degrading names, to strip away any confidence they may have had before, to brain wash them into believing they were worthless and good for nothing except making money by selling their bodies, thus making them eventually become totally dependent on the pimp.
Nadar and his group lead the rest of us, so usually they would get a chance to talk to the ladies first and by the time we came across them they’d already been talked to. This was fine, because like I said, Nadar was great with the ladies. He prayed with a number of them to receive the Lord. But I began to get frustrated, because I saw the fear of the ladies with the pimps all around cussing and tearing them down. They were too scared to talk to any of us for long.
I started asking Nadar if he’d mind if my group stayed behind and talked to the pimps, who hung out at the donut shop. He looked at me crazy at first, but let me – just so I didn’t take too long and keep the group waiting. Staying together and keeping track of where everybody’s at is important.
So every week, I’d make a conscious effort to talk to every single one of the pimps. Even if it was just a “Hi, I’m Laurie” putting out my hand to shake. Most of the time, the fact that I was even talking to the pimps seemed strange to them – it almost seemed like they were shocked, and they just looked at me weird.
Because the game out there is all about fear and intimidation – I wanted the pimps to see that we weren’t afraid of them. At least I wasn’t – they really reminded me of my ‘homeboys’ I used to hang out with when I was in a gang… I feel like I can relate to them, and I definitely know that God has a calling on their lives and once they submit their lives to Him they are going to be awesome men of God! The pimps are just people, in spite of the fact that some of them behave like animals or and most are predators.
It took probably at least a year before they started to respond when I would talk to them. Six months after I started going out with Nadar, his year commitment at the Dream Center was up, so I began to lead the outreach.
I kept most of the ‘rules’ from when Nadar led the outreach, the only things I changed were not telling people where we were from. My rationale in this was prayerful, and also street wisdom. See, I believe that people want the truth, even if it hurts. I mean, when I was on the street (and even more so now) I could tell when someone was lying to me or wasn’t being straight, which automatically cause me to be suspicious of their motives.
Why not tell them where we were from? Wasn’t (isn’t) God bigger than the pimps? If a girl wanted to get off the street, depending on the situation – I’d most likely want to just straight out talk to her pimp and tell him that she wanted out. Again, I said depending on the situation. Every situation is different, we NEVER knew or even now know what to expect. This is why PRAYER is the most important thing above everything, and to be so sensitive to the Holy Spirits leading. To pray before, during and after they outreach – the most ideal situation is to have a group of people praying for the outreach the entire time we’re out on the streets.
I have encountered many different situations where we could have been hurt, and where I’ve seen ladies get hurt or beat up. There have been situations where I’ve been cussed out yelled at and hit on. I’ve had one pimp come right in my face and tell me that “Once a whore, always a whore” after I told a group of the pimps that I used to be one. The other pimps actually stood up for me, and the guy who got in my face apologized!
God has given me so much FAVOR out there, especially with the pimps! Consistency and persistence pay off. I now have a relationship with a number of them – this week I’ve had two call me. A few of them I talk to regularly, and even have their ADDRESSES! I mail them cards and tracts, books and recently even a New Testament that our friend Bobby bought for one of the pimps he met.
Knowing who we are in Christ is SO important as a Christian. Being confident in HIM, dying to self daily, letting Jesus work through us and getting over any fears we may have. The pimps are predators. They can smell fear, just like an animal can. They are so good at seeing through people, they can size someone up in minutes. If you aren’t real with them, they’ll know it. Much of what they do is practice witchcraft (whether they know it or not) everything they do is manipulation and control. That’s how they get the ladies out there – they are so smooth and have such finesse – most of them can charm any woman, especially if they are weak and vulnerable. They can spot a ‘victim’ from a mile away.
Many of the pimps first get a woman’s heart so that they think that they love him and that he’s their boyfriend. He buys them things, and if they want to continue to get that stuff, they have to sell their bodies. Or, they put them on the street by force. They are very organized – have so many connections – worldwide.
There’s a lot more that I could share but my wrists and fingers are cramping up! I’ll continue to share more every week. PLEASE pray for this ministry. I try to tell as many Christians as possible to please pray for us. We are continually attacked, the enemy never takes a break, and he is ruthless! Both my husband and I (who started coming out with me about two years ago) are continually attacked physically. Our health, our bodies…he knows that we are not, by the grace of God – ever going back to our old lifestyle. So he is constantly attacking both of our health.
But God is good, so faithful and true! In spite of the attacks, He gives us the grace to do what He’s called us to do…
February 27th, 2009 at 2:37 am
Hi Laurie, I don’t know if you still check this site as this was written way back in 2007. It is so good to read what you wrote and helpful for me as someone who is just starting to reachout to sex workers. Please if you get this can you email me so I can ask more questions. Thank you very much, God bless, Tom from UK.
April 2nd, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Hi,
Below is my testimony and I am starting an outreach to help women that have been in a hurtful lifestyle. I would also like to start a network of like minded Christian’s who are in this type of ministry, to gain insight and knowledge from. It is my heart to see many hurting women come to the knowledge of Christ.
Feel free to contact me anytime.
God bless,
Jennifer Delacruz
Testimony
I would like to share with you a testimony that has changed my life. I would like you to understand that this is a story of how the addiction of co-dependency and drugs nearly destroyed my life. I pray that this will be a blessing and encouragement to you.
I want you to know that you are very important to God; nothing you have ever done can ever separate you from the love of God. It does not mater where you have been but it’s where you are going that will make the difference. I am writing this because; I want you to know that if I can make it out of the pit of hell SO CAN YOU!
My story started about 6 ½ to 7 years ago when I lived in Plattsburgh, New York. I was a mother of three children and I moved in with a man named Mark (now legally my husband) and his son.
Mark was a good man who was a recovering addict and had about 6-7 months clean when I met him. He had a nice home, boat and his own contracting business. When we first met it was like a match made in heaven. We had everything that we needed and was very happy together.
After we were together for about 7 months or so Mark had relapsed. He would take off and use drugs for a few days and then be clean for a few months, this would go on for about a year. I would become very angry with him and I called him all kind of names when he would use. I would chase him all over town to try to stop him and at that time I could not understand how he could do this to us.
I also had a problem of my own, (A BIG PROBLEM) it was with co-dependency but at the time I did not know that I had a problem. I was a very jealous woman and I would not let Mark go to the AA/NA meetings. At that time I had no understanding what addiction really was. All I knew was I thought that I could fix him and when I couldn’t I blamed myself for his addiction. I always thought that if I somehow could be a better person, or meet his needs better then he would not use drugs.
One day on New Years Day I had severe back pain so I went to the local hospital and they gave me some pain medication. I sent the bottle next door to his mother’s house because I could not keep pain medication in the house with his addiction. The next day I took a nap and he had his son go to his mother’s house and get my medication. When I found out I became so angry and at that point something started to change within me. I had this sick thought that if I took more of the pills then there would be fewer pills for him to take.
At this point I then started to realize that if I took the drugs with him that I no longer had to chase him all over town when he would relapse. Now that I used with him I would know where he was at all times and be in control (so I thought).
I now started to take more pills then I should have, and found myself going from one hospital to another to get more. That only lasted until they caught on. Now I was becoming physically addicted to pain pills. The pain pills were no longer strong enough and one day Mark came home with heroin. I allowed him to shot my arm up with that poison. Within a month in a half Mark was up to 30 bags of heroin a day and I was up to 15 bags of heroin a day. Now the heroin that we got from upstate New York was a very strong grade of heroin. I have to say that it is a miracle of God that neither one of us had died from an over dose.
Over the next few months we went through all our savings and we had to start selling heroin from time to time to support our $600.00-$700.00 a day habit. I no longer wanted to use this drug anymore but it was too hard to stop because I would get deathly sick without it. We wanted to wean ourselves off the drug and we decided to move to Florida for a fresh start.
We sold our home and packed up what was left of our belongings onto our pickup truck with a small trailer towed behind it. I drove the truck and Mark drove the motor home. We had to stop at every major city on our way to find heroin; when we did not have it we would be stuck in bed in the motor home so sick that we could not move. It took us two months to make it from New York to Florida.
We now made it to Florida but we lost most of our personal belongings somewhere in Georgia when the trailer tipped over and went into a ditch. Now that we were in Florida we were somewhat weaned off the heroin but not totally. We found it hard to find any heroin in the Ft. Pierce area so we turned to crack. At this point I could no longer take care of the kids so my parents’ temporality took them in.
We had our Motor home parked at a local camp ground and we would drive to Alphabet City (Center of Ft. Pierce Fl) for crack in the pickup truck. We had no money so I started to write a lot of bad checks to Publix for cash. Writing bad checks only lasted for a short time until it hit there system and they caught on.
When I no longer could write bad checks, I then started to panhandle and that worked out good for a while because I was a woman and I was more believable then a man. Now the worse that I started looking the harder it was for me to panhandle. I have to say I hated panhandling and lying to people to get money. I can look back now and see that when these people gave me money in good faith and out of their heart; they were not giving it to me but they were giving it to God. So I was not stealing from those people I was stealing from God.
When we had the truck we would play this dangerous game called snatch and grab. We would roll up a small piece of newspaper and hand it out of the truck and grab the crack and take off. We made many enemies out in the street by doing that.
We decided to sell the pickup truck for an $800.00 crack cookie. Mark and I smoked that all night until we got to the middle of it and it was no longer crack but Ambosol. That burned my lungs for about 3 days and I could not breathe right because of it. Once the truck was gone we then removed the motor home from the campground and drove around Alphabet City in Fort Pierce, FL full time in the old broken down motor home. Most of the time we were out of gas and we would have to push it all over Ft. Pierce.
I was now numb at this point and I truly hated to panhandle for money. I was then forced to prostitute myself on the streets of Ft. Pierce. I still at times have nightmares of some of the stuff that happened to me out there but it was only by Gods grace that I have been able to get through it. I was raped, I was beaten, mistreated and forced to do things that I would never have done in my straight mind. As for me I can honestly say that every gas station, parking lot, back ally and street in Ft. Pierce, Fl has a story attached to it.
The motor home finally broke down and we found someone to buy it for a hunting camp. So we took that money and got a motel for 3 days, a small bucket of KFC Chicken, a bottle of Pepsi, a few packs of cigarettes and of course crack. When the motel was gone we were then homeless in the heart of Ft. Pierce.
My whole life I always had a heart for the homeless but I never had a clue what it was like to have no home. Every morning after chasing the night life I would sit at the park off US1 near the Dollar Tree and just want to cry. I had no rest and no place to lay my head down to sleep. My feet were so infected by such large blisters that I could hardly walk. I was hungry and thirsty and just plain tired.
I remember one day Mark fell a sleep behind the CITGO Gas Station where we kept a few of our things. I walked away and a man off the streets had a room off US1 in Fort Pierce and he was extremely kind to me. He bought me a loaf of bread, bologna and some soda. He let me take a shower and he left so I could have privacy and then I took a nap; I left before he came back. Later that night I went back there and he opened the door and I laid down for a few minutes. This man tried nothing with me and he hardly said a word but I remember there was Christian Gospel Music playing in the background and I felt such a peace in that room; until Mark showed up and dragged me out of there because he thought that I was doing something wrong. I can look back now and see that even at the worst point of my life the Lord was there with me, even when I was not with Him; God still had His hand on me.
After about two and half weeks homeless and on the streets, Mark and I were waiting at Save-A-Lot food store for my parents to bring me a check. All of a sudden we were surrounded by Sheriff Cars and my parents had got a court order to have me baker acted. They arrested me and took me to the mental hospital. Mark was left on the streets to fend for himself. I believe that if I was not pulled off those streets that night I would have been killed.
That night Mark ran into some of the people that we played snatch and grab with. Mark was able to run and get away from them but if I was still out there I would not have been able to run from them. My feet had large blisters that I had a hard time even walking, and I was so tired that I would not have been able to get away that night. I believe with all my heart that if I was not pulled off those streets that night, I would have been dead. I can look back now and see that God did have his hand upon me.
Well finally I ended up at my parent’s house truly disgusted with myself. All of a sudden it was like a light switch going off saying to me, OK now you can return to God. See when I was in my early 20’s I walked with God and I lived a Christian life. I was mentored for about three years by a strong no non-sense Christian woman. I do thank God for that strong foundation back then in my life. If I did not have that foundation back then I don’t think I could have handled the days, weeks and years ahead of me.
I did make a decision to give my whole heart, and everything to God. I ended up in a church that helped give me some emotional support and get me back on my feet. I now was in my own apartment and Mark ended up having to go to prison for some things that he did on the streets. This point of my life was probably the hardest times I ever had, because I had to face everything that I had done and everything that had happened to me with a straight mind.
The first year off the streets was the hardest, my kids were living with me and I honestly don’t think I was ready for them. I had really bad bouts with depression. It was so bad that I had days that I was in bed for two to three days and could not stop crying. I could not work or even function. All I could do was crawl out of bed and cry out to God. Thank God for knees because I can honestly say that I used them.
Six years ago God had given me a large vision and I knew that He has a large call on my life. I was determined that I would never end up back on those streets no matter what the cost. I was now led to a new church that was a training ministry and I trained for almost two years. I was then referred to a chaplain ministry for receiving a chaplain license. After two years of being off the streets I was a chaplain and only God could do that. It was a hard struggle and I could have easily have given up but I didn’t because I knew that God had something better for me.
Throughout the past six years I have had my ups and downs, and my struggles. Things have not always been perfect; but God has always been faithful. Just remember that no matter what you have done in your life Jesus loves you and is ready to forgive you. I will be honest with you that getting off the streets and out of that lifestyle was not easy, but it is possible. If I can make it out of the pit of hell, SO CAN YOU! All you have to do is call upon the name of Jesus and He will hear your prayers and direct your path.
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:31 am
Hello, my name is Whitney Schlosser and I work for The Documentary Channel. I wanted to let you know about an amazing film called Chances: The Women of Magdalene. The film takes an inside look at what happens when a group of drug-addicted prostitutes get a second chance. The film can be viewed online at:http://beta.sling.com/video/show/133996/51/Chances%3A-The-Women-of-Magdalene .
Please contact me with any questions or feedback, and feel free to include this link on your site or in your newsletter. Thank you very much for your time and I hope you get a chance to experience Chances: The Women of Magdalene.
Sincerely,
Whitney Schlosser
Marketing Consultant
The Documentary Channel
142 Rosa Parks Blvd.
Nashville, TN 37215
Tel: 615-514-2110
wschlosser@documentarychannel.com