I have discovered the answer to one of my biggest questions: What about the pimps?
As this year has unfolded I have developed a burning passion to reach and rescue the trafficked and the abused. I have acquired an unfathomable burden for the broken men and women trapped in the grips of sexual exploitation. But still with this pressing burden for their liberation I have refused to accept this as apart of my calling. I keep saying “this is too much” and “I’m just not made for this kind of ministry.” Because in reality, this is just hard. My pride and my selfish flesh continue to speak to me, begging me to run far away from liberation because the outcome often dismisses the effort, and being let down isn’t worth the slight possibility of being fulfilled.
I have only worked briefly in Thailand teaching art therapy to women and children rescued from this heartwretching act of evil, and since my time there in April I have continued to love, miss, and pray for the ones that impacted me so deeply, however I continued to believe that I am just not called to fight for them outside of prayer. That is, until I came to Ecuador. I reached the jungle just over a month ago and my heart has exploded with a burning fire and passion to share the gospel of freedom with the women stuck working the streets every night here in the small, primitive city of Puyo. Through the relationships I have built with these girls I can no longer choose to dismiss it. I can no longer choose to stay home and fight in prayer instead of fighting in person. I have used prayer as a cop-out for far too long now- allowing it to replace the very real burden with a very fake and selfish prayer. Who am I to say I am not called? Who am I to ignore the reality of pain plaguing the streets I live in? I can no longer use distance or time or money as an excuse to avoid the brokenness surround me. This fiery flame of selfish desire and self-destruction lives in Ecuador. It has made a home in the streets of New York and Los Angles. It has consumed the culture of India and swallowed whole the people of Thailand. It has become something so obvious and made itself known to all people. Yet still so many, including myself, have chosen to walk passively by with a quick little prayer just to avoid getting licked up by the destruction it demands.
But this is my declaration of saying Im here, and Im here to stay. I will fight, speak, scream, pray, love, teach, and give all that I am in the name of the Father who’s love is far more consuming than the self-loathing and insecurity masked as fabricated love. His love is far deeper, far more satisfying, cooling the souls consumed and melting the hardened hearts with holy fire. I will speak with love on my lips to the women and men being enslaved, and I will speak with grace in my soul to the ones enslaving. For the love of Jesus is not just for the prostitutes, but for the pimps. I have learned this with time and with experience. To fight for love it to fight for all. To fight for freedom is to fight for both the slaves and the owners. Or in other words- the broken and the broken. Who am I to determine who hears about the love of the all-forgiving, all-consuming, gracious Father? If I am to go into all the world I am to go into all the hearts, whether deemed evil or innocent by the eyes of the current culture. He loves them both, and so I love them both as well.
Friday nights are a norm of grace and freedom around here. Puyo gets flooded with the love of Jesus from 9pm to 12am. Hearts are being broken and remolded in the hands of the potter, and darkness is being cast out. That one street corner once filled with evil is becoming a refuge of joy and hope where the gospel is being made known to both the prostitutes and the pimps together, and that I believe is the most real representation of the great commission I have ever experienced. There is unity and there is light, and I believe that soon there will be freedom and liberation for all in the name of Jesus. Pray for Puyo, pray for my friend E who is so close to finding the very real and spiritual liberation from both prostitution and from sin. Pray for her pimp, J, who is also hearing the good news and allowing us to stay on his territory into all hours of the night. The spirit is blowing through the streets of Puyo and I long to see it reclaimed in the name of love. I believing it is coming, please believe with me.
So what about the pimps? As much as my flesh screams “No! They are not deserving. Look at what they have done, look at the pain they are causing for so many innocent people!” My heavenly father who is both just and gracious at the same time whispers to my disbelieving and prideful heart- “They too, are called worthy.”
