Laurie Ishii » outreach

Prostitute Outreach Friday 7/3/09

laurie — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:28:52 +0000

Originally we (me, Jen C. and Jen U.) had planned on meeting at our place before 11:30pm, praying and hitting the street after midnight. Turned out that we met earlier, ten thirty. Went to 7-Eleven and prayed in the parking lot (good place to pray) there were LOTS of cops out tonight in Hollywood (South Central too) – we saw one cop (who was wearing a wedding band) looking at a porn mag…sad. We prayed for him…

By the time we finished praying and headed out it was almost midnight. We got off the freeway and onto the track. We drove quite a while before we even saw a single girl. We finally saw a few girls, pulled over and parked. We were only able to talk to one of them, a young lady (she said she was 19 yrs.) named T*z* She was so cute… and very sweet. The other two girls from across the street must have thought we were cops because they took off running.

T*z* even hugged us right away when we introduced ourselves. I asked her how long she’d been working, and she said for about a MONTH. I asked her if she had a pimp, and she said “No, he’s my husband, not a pimp.” I asked if he was watching her nearby, that we didn’t want to get her in trouble – and she asked if we’d walk with her, so we did. After talking to her a bit more, we found out that she had only met her “husband to be” a month earlier – and he had gotten her a wedding ring. She said that he wasn’t a pimp, didn’t hit her – that he was nice and that “you would like him.”

I tried to test the waters and plant seeds of doubt in the relationship without tearing her “husband” down. She let us pray for her and sincerely thanked us.

While we were praying, a cop car pulled up next to us (driving on the wrong side of the street). I told them that we were praying and that we’d pray for them too. He said “We always need prayer out here. We’re gonna pray for you, that the pimps don’t see you out here.”

Then they drove away. We parted ways with T*z* – unfortunately, she didn’t have a phone (she said that her “husband” had it) so I gave her my number and told her to call me if she ever needed to talk…

The next girl we saw was a girl we saw last week – she wouldn’t even give us the time of the day – both myself and Jen tried to approach her and then again, Daryl and Julia tried to approach her. She would not even look at us. Tonight – she ever so briefly looked up at us, and I was able to give her some tracts and a gift bag. She looked like she was trying not to smile, as I handed her each tract individually, one by one.

The hope is that we will see her again, maybe next week – and each time she sees us, she’ll trust us more and more.

Next we saw “T” – she was intoxicated, energetic and very friendly.

We gave her a gift bag and then she crossed the street – a John pulled up and she was in his car window when a squad car pulled up and flashed it’s lights toward the John’s car. T stepped away from the car and the John started to drive away until the cops pulled him over.

Unfortunately, they didn’t take him away, but it at least gave us an opportunity to talk with her some more. She saw my “Devil’s a pimp, don’t be his Ho” shirt and started laughing… said she was gonna tell her pimp about us – and asked if we were trying to recruit! (NOT) She said she’d been with her pimp for two years as she thanked us and walked away.

We drove around some more, stopped to try to catch up with one girl (but not following her when she went down a side street), and drove up and down the track to find more girls.

We saw a girl on a corner and tried to approach her – she wouldn’t even look at us – she looked nervous and scared – and YOUNG. After we walked away, another girl walked up to her and it looked like she may have been ‘schooling’ the scared girl.

When we started to drive away and head back home, we saw a Freemason hall/temple where all these people were filing out of – people who had obviously been partying and dancing. Very strange. Then we saw four YOUNG girls standing on the corner – they just popped out of nowhere – so we pulled over and went to talk to them.

Two weren’t into talking to us – the other two, A*h and Sha*** we gave gift bags to , and after A*h walked away, Jen prayed for Sha***. She warned us that if she saw the cops she was going to run… she also said in response to my question of how old she was (19) and how long she’d been tricking (4 years) if she was sick of it yet – she said that she wasn’t sick of it. Personally, I find that hard to believe…

Okay I’m fading fast… yawn…

Driving away we saw two girls again on a corner. We parked and went to talk with them. One was older, and she was obviously GACKED out. She could hardly talk and could hardly grab a gift bag, she was shaking so much. (Crack). Then we heard a guy say, “Who wants a rock” and then, “Oooh! An Asian!” Lol. I introduced myself and he said thet his name was DiDi. He had obviously been sucking the pipe as well… very trippy guy. Funny – he kept smiling this huge smile… he said that he loved seeing us, that he liked seeing different nationalities in the ghetto and that he didn’t know where we were from but that he was happy to see us… but that he didn’t know if we were cops and he didn’t want to be arrested… then his face switched and he got very serious, and said “You guys need to get off of this block. Seriously. I don’t know if you’re cops or not.” I laughed and said that we were not cops, that I used to be a ho and Jesus set me free, that’s why we were out there showing the love of Jesus…

Then he started laughing again and said he was talented and did some rapping and dancing/popping for us… and we thanked him for his talent and went our way…

The last woman we saw was named Ar**n* – she was very receptive, we were able to give her a gift bag and pray for her. Jen U. prayed for her and when we finished praying, Ar**n*’s face was streaked with tears. She thanked us and said that she had been praying before she’d seen us, that we’d made her night.

All in all, it was a blessed night – we were able to talk to a number of girls who thought that we were nuts for being out on the street. It’s all because of the love for Jesus and love for these women that we go out there. Thank you so much for your prayers… man I’m getting pretty delirious. Going to bed now… Thank You Jesus…

Last Night's Prostitute Outreach

laurie — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 03:53:20 +0000

PROSTITUTE OUTREACH, AMAZING!!!

Today at 5:48am

I want to write this all out before I forget – not feeling well all day yesterday then remembered outreach at night. (Never feel good the day of outreach) Didn’t get to sleep before the outreach except for maybe 1/2 hour – got a text from a woman who had said that she wanted to go on outreach days previous and when I text to tell her when and what time to show up she text me like an hour 1/2 before outreach and said she wasn’t coming. In my half asleep/dazed state I thought that the text was from Jen, my ride – so I text her “Kind of glad you canceled, don’t feel well” then changed, washed my face and was getting back into the bed when I realized the text was not from Jen. I got back up, changed and got ready to leave just in time. I text the other woman and told her of my mistake and said that with all the crazy stuff happening all day the enemy must not want us to go out so now I was going and excited about it.

Jen picked me up and we went to 7-Eleven to get coffee and something to eat (when I don’t sleep I seem to get HUNGRY to compensate) and when I paid for my food the guy at the register gave me $5.00 change back from my debit card… I had noticed that 2 cups of coffee and some sushi (yes, sushi) was over $11.00 and I was wondering why it was so expensive but he said I must have accidentally asked for $5.00? When we walked back to the car and this homeless guy named Gerry was asking for money and I asked Jesus if He had me get that extra five bucks out to give the homeless guy and I felt like He said yes and that we were supposed to go and talk to Gerry. We got out of the car and started talking to Gerry, long story short, ended up giving him the money and praying with him…

As we were praying/talking with Gerry an unmarked car of three police officers pulled up and went into 7-Eleven. We waited for them to come out so we could ask them if they knew where the hookers were since they were scaring them all away… they asked us if we wanted to see a tourist attraction lol and we said no and explained why we were out there. Well it was cool cause they did tell us a couple of new areas and asked for our contact info and told us to be careful. Awesome.

We went back in the car and started to pray that Jesus would show us where to go, where the girls were etc. and saw a pimp SUV, black Escalade with bling bling rims pull into the 7-Eleven parking lot. We had seen a girl earlier walking around and she didn’t look “typical” of the girls out there but when the pimps pulled out of the parking lot, we followed them. They were following the girl! We saw them stop and one of them got out of the car – the Escalade drove away… Jen and I parked and got out of the car to follow the girl… the pimp (runner – young guy) was walking toward us and I introduced myself and gave him a pimp tract… he said his name was “Michael” (later found out his real name was “Noah”)…

Jen and I almost ran to catch up to the girl and when we finally did, we introduced ourselves and just asked straight out how long she’d been out there and she was pretty shaken up – earlier a trick had robbed her with a sawed off shot gun and took all her money – her pimp got in a car accident and couldn’t pick her up, then those guys in the SUV were harassing her, trying to break her… long story short we asked her if there was anything we could do to help her or if she needed a ride and she said she did… she was not too far away so we took her to where she wanted to go (we thought we were taking her home but she actually took us to another track, yay!) and we were able to talk to her the entire time… she was pretty receptive because even though she was shaken up she still wasn’t willing to give up the lifestyle… but it was great her name is H**** and she was a Jehovah’s witness (did not have a relationship with Jesus)… we were able to pray for her and tell her that she could have a personal relationship with Him…

Okay (back track) while we were getting into the car to take H**** to where she wanted to get dropped off – “Michael” comes over and starts saying stuff about how H**** was this and that and that we were taking her away (the whole time he was talking he had this weird fake smile – honestly he looked like he had “visitors on board” if you know what I mean) and when I mentioned the name JESUS his whole smiley demeanor changed and he said, “Jesus is in all of us, even me” and that his real name was Noah… he kept trying to stick his face in the car and I just said “God bless you goodbye…” (smile)

Well, as soon as we finished praying with H****, guess who pulled up? The Escalade/SUV. Noah was hanging outside the window and he yelled, “That’s the Jehovah’s witnesses that took that H****!” I turned around and said, “JEHOVAH’s WITNESSES??????? Where did you get that from? We aren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses!!! We are born again Christians!!!” Then he said that he was a Baptist… I forgot the drivers name but he called us over and started asking us questions – he even asked me if I used to be a ho and I said yes and he was totally respectful (I know that sounds contradictory but seriously, I took no offense when he asked me if I used to be a ho cause he didn’t say it in a demeaning tone or anything) and then he asked for one of my tracts and said “God bless, be careful out here” and left.

By this time there were pimps and girls everywhere, girls all over the street, pimps driving in their bling bling cars up and down the track flipping u-turns… Johns everywhere… ugh. Jen an I got out of the car and started handing out gift bags and one of the girl recognized us from another track we go to. One girl on a bike asked me if we were lost because we looked so out of place – another car full of pimps said, “Look at the couple of ‘squares’” (people who aren’t in the game).The cops came out (but didn’t stop any of the girls – pulled over cars) – girls were running around down side streets and a helicopter was flying around – two tricks tried to get me and Jen’s attention and I let them know that we weren’t working and that we were out there for the girls and Jesus… there were literally cars and vans pulled over on the side streets (one van parked behind us – oh man I did not need the visual – ugh) and it was just a crazy immoral frenzy of perversion out there.

On the way home we ran across a VERY drunk guy in the middle of the street with his bicycle all bent in the street – we pulled over and I asked him if he needed help… he was SO DRUNK and I helped him get his bike out from the middle of the street…

Okay I’m fading fast and need some sleep… all in all the night was amazing, H**** and I exchanged numbers and she said that she was going to call me for sure (they all say that so we’ll see) but I have her number too so I’ll call her too… I LOVE IT when it’s crazy like that on the streets. It’s a rush. God is so faithful – He totally answered our prayers for divine appointments and He led us to where there were TONS of girls!!! I wish it was like that every night we go on outreach – these kinds of nights are what I live for… I mean this is what I LOVE!!! It was an amazing, awesome night!!! Praise Jesus!!!

Prayer for Prostitute Outreach/Ministry…

laurie — Sat, 30 May 2009 22:35:35 +0000

There are a lot of prayer requests I have here…

Well, Julia and I are usually the only two people who consistently go on outreach to the pimps and prostitutes, along with a few other women who come out with us whenever they are able to and we are SO GRATEFUL for them!

Earlier today, Julia text me to let me know that she couldn’t come out tonight… and I felt a little relieved. Then I struggled… I have a tendency to feel “guilty” whenever I don’t go out… (which is just me – condemnation is not from God)…

I’m sharing my heart here – I LOVE the men and women we reach out to. There is so much more that I wish I could do to help them… if I had my way, I’d go out every night… but that isn’t practical and I know that it isn’t what God called me to do. Going out at 3 in the morning really takes a lot out of a person, even if they don’t have a bunch of medical problems. I feel like all my years of drinking, drugging and abusing my body is finally catching up with me!!!

Ideally, I would love to have enough trained leaders to alternate going out on the street every other week. There are so few people that are willing to commit to go out with us on a regular, consistent basis… not too many people want to go out at 3 in the morning (not to mention, go to the ghetto at 3 in the morning). Of course we don’t always go to South Central LA or Compton – but that’s where we can pretty much count on regularly seeing girls.

We have a number of people who hear what we do and they get all excited and seemed passionate about reaching out to the prostitutes (not so much the pimps – but we make it clear that we reach out to BOTH the prostitutes AND the pimps) and they want to know how they can help, or they say that they want to start coming out on outreach with us… but things don’t ever seem to pan out. Or they go out with us one or two times and because it is rare that we see immediate “fruit,” salvation, and changed lives they decide not to come out on outreach again.

We are not quick to pray the “sinners prayer” with prostitutes, because we do not want to turn them into Christian hookers – give them a false sense of assurance that they’ll go to heaven when they’re still living like hell. There have been a number of times where the Lord has prompted us to lead girls to the Lord but most times we never even see them after that.

Let me just say that this is a LONG SUFFERING ministry. It requires consistency, love and relationship skills. We require that people attend a mandatory class before they go on outreach with us… and I believe that actually discourages many people from coming out – having the class is good to “weed out” people who may just want to go “sight seeing.”

We ask that people PRAY and ask the Lord if he is calling them to go on outreach with us. They do NOT have to have a background of something crazy like prostitution or drug abuse to come out with us. The only thing we ask is that they have a deep LOVE and COMMITMENT for JESUS CHRIST, because He will take care of the rest. We do encourage people to come out with us at least two times to get a “feel” for what we do. Unfortunately, every week we go out is totally different and unpredictable. One week there may only be one prostitute out on the street, another only homeless people. Another there may be pimps and prostitutes everywhere – or like last week – see a half naked man hitchhiking.

After attending our class, many people seem to be a bit intimidated. That is not our intention… but we do take this ministry very, very seriously. We want to train people, raise people up into passionate leaders… reaching out to prostitutes and pimps is somewhat different from doing your typical street ministry, which is why we teach people about the Game and about the relationship between the pimp and the prostitute.

It is so important that people realize that we are representing JESUS and we want to make sure to give people an accurate example of who HE is. This is why we are STRICT about men not coming out with us if they have a bad attitude toward the pimps. We do not need “bodyguards” when we are out there. We need (and have) the Holy Spirit and His power, not the power of any man of flesh and blood. Unless a man is able to set his ego aside and truly LOVE the pimps on the street – we’d rather just have them they stay at home. They don’t realize that they can do more harm than good if they don’t know about the Game and the street dynamics.

We also ask that people who go out with us have a clean heart before the Lord, for: For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places, EPH 6:12

We ask that “compromising” Christians who go out partying like a rock star in public places and sleep around (even if you are “engaged”) really stop and think about the way they are living before they decide to come out with us. If I sense that someone is living in un-confessed sin, I do not have a problem coming out and asking – and I expect that someone would do the same to me if things were the other way around. We need to hold each other accountable. Because we are working with people in the sex industry – it is SO important that those who go on outreach with us do not have (an active) problem with pornography or who is compromising in the area of sex.

I probably sound like a real hard a** but I do always try to err on the side of grace. I believe with all my heart that God will bring the right people He wants to work with us, in His time. I care more about the people we are reaching out to then compromising and “settling” – working with people just because we don’t have any other choice. There are lives that are at stake. The people we reach out to are precious to us and even more precious to God.

MY PRAYER IS THAT THE LORD WILL GIVE US MORE OPPORTUNITIES TO SPEAK – AT CHURCHES, SCHOOLS, EVEN THE POLICE STATIONS – TO EDUCATE PEOPLE AND POSSIBLY INSPIRE THEM TO LEARN MORE AND EVEN COME ON OUTREACH WITH US.

WE WILL BE SENDING IN $750 TO THE IRS FOR OUR 501C3 AS SOON AS WE GET ONE MORE FORM FROM THEM IN THE MAIL WHICH SHOULD ARRIVE WITHIN THE WEEK. WE ALSO ALWAYS NEED FINANCES, FOR GAS, GIFT BAGS, ETC.

PLEASE PRAY FOR WISDOM, DIRECTION, FAITHFUL WORKERS AND CHURCHES TO PARTNER WITH US.

Ministry to Pimps and Prostitutes

laurie — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 05:36:01 +0000

Tomorrow is another class “Reaching out to Pimps and Prostitutes” – which we hold the last Sunday of every month. I didn’t ‘advertise’ tomorrow’s class because of the weather and because Daryl and I have been getting over the flu for the past two weeks… I didn’t know if we’d feel well enough to have the class and I didn’t want to have to cancel it if a whole bunch of people were planning on attending. I usually ask that people RSVP before coming, but I didn’t do that this time – so I don’t know if anyone or who will show up tomorrow.

This month we have been working on completing the paperwork for our 501c3. Lord willing, we should have 501c3 status within a few months.

So much has been going on since I returned from Bangkok – time is going by so fast. I feel that this year we really need to step things up… there are so many things that we want to do to help the men and women we reach out to – hopefully after we get our 501c3 status we’ll be able to raise some funds to do some of the things we’d like to do. Sometimes it feels like we’re moving so slow, not even making an impact…

We really need volunteers and we’d love it if we can get to a place where we can pay a salary to those who work with us.

Anyway, I’m about ready to go to bed. I really need to start (and finish) writing my book SOON… I pulled it up again and realized that I’m about 1/3 done… I need a lot of prayer and motivation to get it finished. I really feel like it’s vital.