The 700 Club - Saving Laurie

A number of years ago, I had the privilege of teaching at a school of ministry. My students were hungry for God, and I was constantly searching for ways to challenge them to fall more in love with Jesus and to become voices for revival in the Church. I came across a quote attributed most often to Rev. Sam Pascoe. It is a short version of the history of Christianity, and it goes like this: Christianity started in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise.

Hand raised, Some of the students were only 18 or 19 years old–barely out of diapers–and I wanted them to understand and appreciate the import of the last line, so I clarified it by adding, “An enterprise. That’s a business.” After a few moments Martha, the youngest student in the class, raised her hand. I could not imagine what her question might be. I thought the little vignette was self-explanatory, and that I had performed it brilliantly. Nevertheless, I acknowledged Martha’s raised hand, “Yes, Martha.” She asked such a simple question, “A business? But isn’t it supposed to be a body?” I could not envision where this line of questioning was going, and the only response I could think of was, “Yes.” She continued, “But when a body becomes a business, isn’t that a prostitute?”

The room went dead silent. For several seconds no one moved or spoke. We were stunned, afraid to make a sound because the presence of God had flooded into the room, and we knew we were on holy ground. All I could think in those sacred moments was, “Wow, I wish I’d thought of that.” I didn’t dare express that thought aloud. God had taken over the class.
Martha’s question changed my life. For six months, I thought about her question at least once every day. “When a body becomes a business, isn’t that a prostitute?” There is only one answer to her question. The answer is “Yes.” The American Church, tragically, is heavily populated by people who do not love God. How can we love Him? We don’t even know Him; and I mean really know Him.

What do I mean when I say “really know Him?” Our understanding of knowing and knowledge stems from our western culture (which is based in ancient Greek philosophical thought). We believe we have knowledge (and, by extension, wisdom) when we have collected information. A collection of information is not the same thing as knowledge, especially in the culture of the Bible (which is an eastern, non-Greek, culture). In the eastern culture, all knowledge is experiential. In western/Greek culture, we argue from premise to conclusion without regard for experience–or so we think.

An example might be helpful here. Let us suppose a question based upon the following two premises: First, that wheat does not grow in a cold climate and second, that England has a cold climate. The question: Does wheat grow in England? The vast majority of people from the western/Greek culture would answer, “No. If wheat does not grow in a cold climate and if England has a cold climate, then it follows that wheat does not grow in England.” In the eastern culture, the answer to the same question, based on the same premises, most likely would be, “I don’t know. I’ve never been to England.” We laugh at this thinking, but when I posed the same question to my friends from England, their answer was, “Yes, of course wheat grows in England. We’re from there, and we know wheat grows there.” They overcame their cultural way of thinking because of their life experience. Experience trumps information when it comes to knowledge.

A similar problem exists with our concept of belief. We say we believe something (or someone) apart from personal experience. This definition of belief is not extended to our stockbroker, however. Again, allow me to explain. Suppose my stockbroker phones me and says, “I have a hot tip on a stock that is going to triple in price within the next week. I want your permission to transfer $10,000 from your cash account and buy this stock.” That’s a lot of money for me, so I ask, “Do you really believe this stock will triple in price, and so quickly?” He/she answers, “I sure do.” I say, “That sounds great! How exciting! So how much of your own money have you invested in this stock?” He/she answers, “None.” Does my stockbroker believe? Truly believe? I don’t think so, and suddenly I don’t believe, either. How can we be so discerning in the things of this world, especially when they involve money, and so indiscriminate when it comes to spiritual things? The fact is, we do not know or believe apart from experience. The Bible was written to people who would not understand the concepts of knowledge, belief, and faith apart from experience. I suspect God thinks this way also.

So I stand by my statement that most American Christians do not know God–much less love Him. The root of this condition originates in how we came to God. Most of us came to Him because of what we were told He would do for us. We were promised that He would bless us in life and take us to heaven after death. We married Him for His money, and we don’t care if He lives or dies as long as we can get His stuff. We have made the Kingdom of God into a business, merchandising His anointing. This should not be. We are commanded to love God, and are called to be the Bride of Christ–that’s pretty intimate stuff. We are supposed to be His lovers. How can we love someone we don’t even know? And even if we do know someone, is that a guarantee that we truly love them? Are we lovers or prostitutes?

I was pondering Martha’s question again one day, and considered the question, “What’s the difference between a lover and a prostitute?” I realized that both do many of the same things, but a lover does what she does because she loves. A prostitute pretends to love, but only as long as you pay. Then I asked the question, “What would happen if God stopped paying me?”
For the next several months, I allowed God to search me to uncover my motives for loving and serving Him. Was I really a true lover of God? What would happen if He stopped blessing me? What if He never did another thing for me? Would I still love Him? Please understand, I believe in the promises and blessings of God. The issue here is not whether God blesses His children; the issue is the condition of my heart. Why do I serve Him? Are His blessings in my life the gifts of a loving Father, or are they a wage that I have earned or a bribe/payment to love Him? Do I love God without any conditions? It took several months to work through these questions. Even now I wonder if my desire to love God is always matched by my attitude and behavior. I still catch myself being disappointed with God and angry that He has not met some perceived need in my life. I suspect this is something which is never fully resolved, but I want more than anything else to be a true lover of God.

So what is it going to be? Which are we, lover or prostitute? There are no prostitutes in heaven, or in the Kingdom of God for that matter, but there are plenty of former prostitutes in both places. Take it from a recovering prostitute when I say there is no substitute for unconditional, intimate relationship with God. And I mean there is no palatable substitute available to us (take another look at Matthew 7:21-23 sometime). We must choose.

Please forgive me - I sent out a mass email and blog about needing finances and just found out today by someone who wanted to donate - that my paypal is not on the webite! So… because I am not the website administrator - I don’t know how to access the paypal. Hopefully it will be up again soon…? Please check in another day or two. Please forgive me for the inconvenience.

<editor>I am the web guy and here is the donate button:

Well, we got a late start today - Jen hit traffic on the way to me place. We met D*****, at Kabuki restaurant on Vine and waited for A***, one of her partners. A*** hit traffic as well, so we didn’t get on the road until 2pm.

Because we were running so late, we prayed on the way to the track. We prayed that the Lord would give us divine appointments, for protection, favor, etc.

We got off the freeway and drove down the track. We saw a random girl here and there - maybe two - spread out blocks apart. I wanted us to drive the entire track to get an idea of where most of the girls were before we parked and hit the street.

After we’d covered most of the track, we spotted a girl on a corner and decided to to turn around, park and talk to the her. We circled a couple of blocks and came back around… looking for the girl. Not seeing her on the same corner anymore, we thought that she got picked up by a John… but then A*** and Jen noticed that she was on the ground, being beaten up by a guy!

D***** flipped a u-turn and went back to where the girl was. She was on the ground, the guy standing over her, punching her trying to get her purse. When we pulled over, she was screaming at the guy and he was ANGRY. He yelled some choice words at her and walked away with her purse.

She ran up to D*****’s car yelling for someone to call 911. I got out of the car and ran toward the guy - so I could get a good look at him, but I was only able to see the back of his head and what he was wearing… he was a very angry young man. I saw him put the girls cell phone in his pocket… I didn’t sense that I would be able to talk to him (he was too angry) but I didn’t want to lose sight of him. Jen stayed with the girl (her name was Ta**sha), and I followed the guy… until he disappeared down an alley. I started to follow after him until A*** said, “You don’t want to do that…”

I wasn’t going to try and confront him, I just didn’t want to lose him… but following him down an alley wasn’t wise, but A***’s advice was - especially because Jen told me later that Ta**sha said that they guy was armed. He didn’t seem like the most stable guy. Lol.

Well, while all of this was going on, A*** was on the phone with a dispatcher, Dottie had driven around the block to meet us, Jen was still with Ta**sha, another guy was on his phone with the police and Ta**sha was as well. People started coming around and shortly after, the police showed up… we caught sight of the guy who had on a light brown/beige shirt with an orange, white stripes… he was down the street about three blocks and we told the cops where he was, on the right side of the street…

But then we saw the cops stop another guy - on the left - Jen and I started running down the street, screaming “Go right!!!” then they put their car in reverse and came back and we told them again where we saw him… they took off but it was too late. Bummer.

By this time there were about 10 squad cars - no joke. I have never ever seen so many cops and cop cars in South Central (Daryl and I lived there for a while you know) even when there’s a shooting!!! It was crazy, it must have been a slow day. There had to have been at LEAST 12-15 cops there, plus an ambulance. Ta**sha’s face was pretty messed up, scraped and with a huge swollen bruise on her cheek.

They took Jen and Ta**sha for a ride in the squad car (Jen’s first ride in a cop car :-)) and the other cops went down the alley with guns drawn. Unfortunately, the guy was not caught.

In the meantime, I had a great talk with an officer who was getting information from me - when I told him I was from Hollywood he was like “What are you doing here?” Which was a great opportunity to share with him. I told him that we were out there to give gift bags to the girls and “these” (handing him a pimp tract) - and he said, “Oh, a gospel tract?” and I asked him if he was a Christian and he said yes. He kept the tract. In fact most of the cops weren’t interested in any of the other literature except the pimp tracts and a few, of my testimony tract. The cop that said he was a Christian asked what church we went to and I gave him one of the fliers that Melanie made for us with Reality LA’s address on it.

He then proceeded to question D***** and A***, and I went to talk to the other officers. I handed out some more pimp tracts and then gave Ta**sha a gift bag. The police asked us one by one to see if we could identify a guy on the computer (I saw him way too briefly to say for sure if the guy in the photo was him) and Jen couldn’t tell if it was him either. The guy in the photo looked more ‘cleaned up’ than the guy who attacked Ta**sha. He didn’t look like a pimp or a runner - just like a guy who wanted to rob someone. He didn’t look totally unkempt and dirty like he was homeless or anything, but he wasn’t real sharp or crisp either.

D***** and A*** had an appointment at 4 and it was already after 3 - so we decided if the police were done with us, we’d get going. But I wanted to ask Ta**sha if we could pray for her… for some reason, the cops all left at the same time - and Jen and I asked her if she wanted prayer, and she said yes. I asked her (since the cops were gone) if she had been working when the guy attacked her and she said yes, with no hesitation.

Jen and I both prayed and Ta**sha began crying (hard) and we could tell by the way she was praying with us that she knew the Lord (or at least was raised in church). By the time we had just wrapped up praying, all the cops were walking back to where we were. I gave Ta**sha my number and we hugged her and said our goodbye’s.

Again, hopefully Ta**sha will call me… unfortunately, I still haven’t heard from C******, the girl we met two weeks ago - we had been texting back and forth and now her phone is still disconnected. I pray that she’s okay.

I wish there was more that we could do for these girls… but we were blessed working with D***** and A*** and will go on outreach with them again on Friday. They work with sex-trafficking victims and are very successful at what they do.

God is so good - it was NO COINCIDENCE that we were at the right place at the right time - I really don’t think that Ta**sha would have gotten so much help if we hadn’t stopped and if so many people didn’t call 911. A*** was very professional on the phone as well, which makes a big difference - compared to someone screaming, emotional and in a panic.

Please pray that Ta**sha realizes that Jesus was looking out for her today and that He LOVES her!

I’ll try to make this sweet and short (my notes/blogs are sweet maybe, but never short lol).

Jen came over early and helped make up some gift bags. Julia got to our place a bit before 10pm; we loaded the car up and headed for 7-Eleven to get some coffee. Then we prayed… we prayed for divine appointments, sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, protection, spiritual gifts, etc. Geared up with the whole armor of God, we  jumped on the freeway.

When we got on the track, it wasn’t too long before we saw an older prostitute on the east side of the street. Across the street was another, younger girl. Julia parked and she and Daryl headed south, while Jen and I headed north. I made an attempt to talk to the younger prostitute - and she was obviously scared… there was a runner (or pimp in training) who whistled at her, watching from across the street. Daryl and Julia went to go and talk to the runner, while Jen and I went to talk to the older prostitute.

Her name was M******. She must have been in her late 30’s or 40’s (it’s hard to tell sometimes, black people age very well, just like us Asians lol). It was obvious that she had been through some stuff and was a drug addict… it is so sad because I heard this saying and it is so true… “First a girls does drugs to be able to prostitute, later a girl prostitutes so she will be able to do drugs…” This was the case for this woman. When we approached her, I asked her if she was cold (I was, but then I always am) and she said “no” (she had on a spaghetti strap dress/top). She did let us pray for her and although she was pretty distracted, she grabbed her jacket afterward and said that she was going to wear it, thanked us and walked away.

Jen and I met up with Julia and Daryl who was praying for Maurice - a nice looking 23 year old young man. Daryl had a word of knowledge and said that he saw Maurice doing some electrical work - and asked him if he had any interest in that… and Maurice shared laughed and said that he’d actually been to school for it and had even done some work on a building across the street. Daryl encouraged him to keep on striving for that, he felt the Lord really had something for him in that trade. Maurice thanked Daryl and called him “sir” and us women “maam.”

We got into the car and drove some more. We saw another girl, who called herself “Lovely” - it was so sad, she said that she was 22, but she looked so young… and she looked so unhealthy… she looked sad too. She said that she was hustling and she also asked if we had any money - I told her that we didn’t have any money to give her but that we wanted to give her a gift bag. She was surprised and said that she couldn’t pay for it - and we told her that we were just giving it to her. She thanked us… I asked her if she had a pimp and she said no, just a “boyfriend” (that would be her pimp). She looked SO SAD!!! She said that she wanted to get out of the life but that she needed money… I asked if we could pray for her and she said to pray for her later (when she was gone)… she just looked so sad…

We drove around some more and saw a girl and John pulled over by the police. We watched as the cops let the John go and then talked to the girl for a pretty long time. We waited for a while and then decided to drive some more and come back - it’s great when we can talk to a girl right after the cops just cut her loose, especially if she’s shaken up a bit.

By the time we came back to see if they were still there, the cops and the girl were gone. But then we saw two more girls. Jen and I got out of the car and talked to another girl named K*****, 23 years old. She said that she didn’t have a pimp, that she worked alone. When I asked her if we could pray for her, she said that she didn’t want to get emotional. I told her that my number was on the matchbook in the bag we gave her and asked for her number, for her to call me if she ever wanted prayer.

Ran into another older woman with a glass eye, named A**** - she admitted that she was working and she thanked us for the gift bag.

Drove around some more, saw another girl who we discovered on closer examination was a young man (he looked pretty good though) and we were able to talk to him a bit and by the time Julia dropped us off at home, he called to find out more about what we do. He had said that his cousin had been murdered by the “Grim Sleeper” (serial killer) a few years back…

The last girl we talked to was talking to a John - who ended up driving away. When she saw Jen and I she was obviously scared - I was able to give her a gift bag and that was about it - a car slowed down and two guys were in it. They said something and then kept driving - then a black car flashed it’s headlights at us a couple of times… I think it may have been the girls pimp and he was trying to let her know that he didn’t want her to talk to us, so we left. No sooner had we walked away then the cops swooped - not on us (although I wished they had - we could’ve given them our tracts and told them about the ministry) but they seemed to stop to get the girl (and hopefully, her pimp). She was scared. Her eyes showed fear.

Anyway, we left after that. I could have gone all night if I didn’t have to pee and if we weren’t all pretty sleepy. All in all, it was a pretty fruitful night! Praise Jesus! It’s crazy cause I had never met any of these girls before - there must be SO MANY prostitutes working out there - it is SO RARE that I have met the same girl more than twice - over a five year period. SAD!!!

Please pray for these women, our hearts are broken for them and Jesus’ so much more! Thank you so much!

Greetings!

This is tough economic time for everyone and we realize that - so when you are praying for yourselves, please pray for us too!!!

It has been said that if we need something, we should ask… (”You have not because you ask not” James 4:2b).

Well, we are in need, so we are asking!  We have paid the IRS the $750 to process the paperwork for the 501c3 (and they didn’t waste any time cashing the check lol). We were already getting down to the nitty gritty before we sent the check to the IRS and I probably should have sent this out months ago but I didn’t.

People have been so gracious to give us things for gift bags which is awesome and we are SO GRATEFUL!!! We do need cash as well - even just $20-$50 a month would help out a lot and we will be able to give a tax receipt for everything people give to After Hours Ministry now, from the date we sent the final paperwork to the IRS.

Everything (including internet/phone - which is about $250 a month - we have three phones and 3,000 anytime minutes and I do a LOT of ministry on the phone as well as Melisa being on our plan), electricity $100+ mo., even rent $1250 mo. (because we do all of our ministry/business out of our apartment we are able to pay half out of the After Hours account - if there’s money in it), printing costs (we need to print more brochures/tracts $500+), gas (thankfully Jen and Julia have been driving on outreach the last few times), we also got hit (of course, all at once) with a big electric bill, and annual car insurance payment, as well as doctor, phone and water bills! Ugh!

Whenever we have no money in the After Hours account - whatever we need to pay for comes out of our personal savings account - which is what’s going on right now!!!

Yes, we are confident that the Jesus will provide for our needs, but we are also asking for our brothers and sisters to PRAY and when God leads - give financially to support what God is doing on the streets of LA!!

Thank you so so much for all of your pray and financial support, and encouraging words!

Make checks payable to:
After Hours Ministry
P.O. Box 93275
Los Angeles, CA. 90093

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!