Laurie Ishii

God is so awesome. This will probably (as usual) be long. I have lots to tell. I think I’ll break this up into two emails…

Okay. Last night (this morning) we met at the office and there was six of us, including Daryl and I. After praying, I really felt strongly that we should go to the LB area, so because Daryl was going fishing and had to be back in Hollywood by 5:30 he decided to stay back while we just took one car (a small one) and packed all 5 of us in there.

When we got there, it was pretty dead. it was about 4:20am – and the streets were pretty quiet. We drove around and thought that we saw one girl so we pulled over and walked down the street for a few blocks but didn’t see her. It was me, Fleurette, Rebekah, Fred and Ty. (Ty is a guy) We did see a cop pull someone over in a truck – Fleurette asked if it was normal that the cops pull their guns out when they pull someone over. I laughed, “Where we’re at right now? Yes, it’s very normal!” (We were in a pretty bad area – next to Compton)

So we piled back into the car and drove again. Ty commented that it was pretty late – was that why there was no one out? I told him that if the cops were driving around they may have scared the girls away, but the funny thing was that many times, girls start trickling out between 4:30-5:00am.

Wasn’t too much longer that we saw a girl run across the street to a car parked in a parking lot. We went and parked at a 24 hour burger place. We got out with our bags and walked down the street looking for the girl we saw and didn’t see her, so we went and talked to a young lady who was at the hamburger joint. Her name was Tanya. I won’t go into it, but we gave her a bag – she was either on crack or had mental problems – (or both) but she was very pretty and very troubled. Her reaction to the bag was very – interesting. She said, “God bless you” and she dug through it and asked why we were giving it to her – she really liked the Target gift card though.

Anyway, after we finished talking to her, we noticed two girls down the street (a little after 5am) and so we walked towards them and then we noticed a couple more. One of them was the girl we saw who ran across the street. Her name is Jessica. She remembered me – which was suprising because we haven’t been down there for months – but she let us pray for her, and she’s got the greatest smile.

Another girl we talked to briefly and were going to give a bag to but she didn’t want to carry – so instead we just gave her a Target gift card and one of my tracts.

Then there were a couple of other girls that we weren’t able to talk to but it was because we spent most of our time talking to a girl I’ll call Bree – she’s only 19 – and has been prostituting since she was 17. She looked like she was going to start crying when we started talking to her. Her eyes started watering and she said that she was so ‘done’ prostituting, that she had been working for 10 hours and she hadn’t even made a dime the whole day. I won’t go into the whole conversation but she let us pray for her and she even gave us her cell number so that we can check up on her…

One sad part about this whole thing is that she said that she was trying to make money so that she COULD GET HER HAIR DONE. She said that she knew that it was stupid, but that’s why she was out there – I asked how much her hair cost and she said $60!!! Dear Jesus… You should have seen this girl – she was so pretty! The girls who we meet out on the street are really pretty! Not just average – I mean, sure, some are – but there are some that are really KNOCK OUTS – some that could be models in fashion magazines – it’s crazy.

Fred and Ty stayed nearby (but not too close nearby) and prayed for us as we talked to the girls and prayed and slowed business down quite a bit as the johns saw them standing there…

Anyway, there’s some other stuff that happened but my body is wracking in pain….as I write this in bed, I guess I didn’t get enough sleep (we got close to 7am) and I think the weather changes don’t help because the Fibromyalgia is really KICKING – either that or another new face wash that contains a derivative of propylene glycol (the stuff that I believe made me ILL the last time I started using a new face wash) which is:

Dipropylene Glycol (DPG), a mild lubricant generally used to dilute fragrances. Propylene/Di-Propylene Glycol molecules are very small and can penetrate into human tissue, eventually reaching the blood stream and lymphatic fluids. It is said to destroy human liver and other organs, as well as cause cancer. (Copied from http://www.soap.it/your_skin.html a website in Austrailia what produces natural soaps)

Thankfully, I bought the face wash from Sephora, so I can return it – and buy some Organic stuff that I bought there the other day. It’s crazy though, that DPG is in like almost every expensive face lotion and cream they make these days. I need to remember to always read the labels from now on!!!! Sheesh. I just got it a few days ago, from Lancome – I used Lancome years ago, but not this particular kind of face wash.

But God is good – we may be ‘babysitting’ a minpin (miniature doberman) for a few weeks after church tomorrow. Okay I need to lay down flat. Please pray for the girls we met on outreach! Thanks!!!