Month two is coming to a close and I’m beginning to miss things like high speed internet, Target, and Kleenex. I also really miss having a job (i.e. having a paycheck). Even though I miss these things something terrible it’s strange how normal my day to day life feels on the race. I find myself in these situations that would make any one of my friends back home uncomfortable or confused and I have to remind myself this isn’t normal.
Piling 14 people in a Hillux (small truck) driving on the interstate isn’t normal. Falling over during prayer isn’t normal. Sharing your heart with people you just met isn’t normal. Eating with your hands isn’t normal. (but so fun!) And yesterday was not normal either. Yesterday Amy and I had the opportunity to do street ministry with one of the staff from MCV.
Catherine, Amy, Tryphina, (Pastor Surprise’s wife) and I drove down to Nelspruit to have church. In a brothel. With prostitutes. In South Africa there isn’t really a red light district because you can find these houses throughout the city. Catherine started a church in one of the houses and just last week three of the women came to church, accepted Jesus, and started Bible School. Crazy right? I guess Jesus doesn’t waste anytime when he pursues his kids.
I have wanted to go into town with Catherine since she got here three weeks ago but she can’t take a lot of people with her but yesterday I had the opportunity to go. I sat in a room in the brothel with eight people and worshipped Jesus, listened to a word shared in Swazi and prayed for these women’s futures.
I saw men walking up and down the hallway just shopping for women as if they were soda. In fact a man barged into our church clutching a beer in hand and realized he had just stumbled into a prayer gathering. What really took me by surprise was how these women had not been trafficked or tricked into this work and yet they were still enslaved to this life. Unrelenting circumstances and lack of opportunities forced these women into this life the same way a masked man with a gun would have. I can’t imagine how these women come together for prayer and hope just to go back to their rooms to wait for a man to use them. How terrible is it that the only way these women can support their families is by moving away to sell themselves over and over again. These women weren’t strung out or kidnapped but completely out of options.
While I was driving back to MCV I also realized that no matter where I am or what I’m doing there will be prostitutes looking for someone to see them as a daughter of the King, someone to tell them that their Father sees them and they are not forgotten. Just like us they need to know that God has a purpose for their life and has plans to prosper them. It is days like this that remind me why I left Target, Internet, and Klenex.
