Club 2:
Reporting Jessica L.,
Team: Rachelle, Sarah, Valerie
This week we visited the clubs on Wednesday night, Christmas Eve Eve.
We had some wonderful ladies provide a homemade, delicious Christmas dinner!
Thank you ladies for all your help and support in this ministry! We also packed up our cars with Christmas presents galore for the men and ladies at the clubs plus for their kids This year we were able to provide blankets, baked goods, a bracelet, and a Bible for the ladies.
For the men, we had socks, after shave, Axe deodorant, sunflower seeds, baked goods, and a Bible. For the kids we were blessed for several different items from books, coloring books, crayons, stuffed animals, and so forth. This was a fun and exciting night to be Santa’s elves to these men and ladies. Thanks again to all who helped provide Christmas for this group, it is very much appreciated. After we arrived and got the food organized, Sarah and I walked over to one of the clubs to invite the girls to come over for some food and the bartender was on the phone. We walked back over later to talk to the bartender for a little while. We told her we had all the fixin’s and asked if she wanted a plate. She had already ordered dinner but we asked if she wanted a to go box to take home, she decided that she would rather eat with us and save her order to take home. So we gathered her some food and delivered the presents to the girls. They were all so appreciative of the gifts. After we were done visiting with those girls we went back to help Rachelle and Valerie with the handing out more presents to all the other girls. As we handed the gifts out to the girls, one of them B looked at us and said can I open it now? She was so excited. Later, B walked up to us and asked if we would help her put on her bracelet. We were able to provide the girls with a Psalm 23 bracelet which has a insert explaining the colors and how they apply to the verse. It was so cool to see she was excited to put on the bracelet. I pray the bracelet will bring up more conversations with these girls in the future. Again thank you all for your support in this ministry and providing Christmas to these people, they all were so appreciative and it was wonderful to see so many happy faces. As we walked out, one of the girls I’d never seen before walked up to all of us and gave us all hugs. It’s great to see the response that we did
tonight.
To read more about Scarlet Hope, please see click here.
Here is another update from our partner Scarlet Hope, and what they are doing to reach out to those enslaved by the sex industry.
Mathew 1:21 “She shall bring forth a son. You shall call his name Jesus, for it is He who shall save his people from their sins”
This was our 2nd Christmas in the clubs and God just keeps bringing forth his Love and Power! The broken and ones deemed unlovely cry out for what God sent to seek and save the lost! For he did not send his son for the righteous but for the broken! We are only a mere small portion of the body that God used to bring celebration of the birth of Jesus to these women and men in the clubs. We can’t thank you each enough for your prayers, donations and support that made it possible to bring gifts of Love and a meal to our friends in the clubs this Christmas Season.
Thank you and Many Blessings, Loving Him, Rachelle Starr
Club 1 Hannah D. Reporting
Team: Amy, Brittani, and Kamille
Thank you Lord for giving us Jesus so we can be in a relationship with you. What an incredible Evening! It was a celebration of Christmas and our love for the girls on Wednesday night. We went to the club with cars FULL to the brim with food and presents for our precious ladies. We dinned on Honey glazed ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, carrot sulfate, Corn pudding, coffee and dessert! The love and prayers that go into the food that is prepared for these women blows me away. All the girls presents were packed with a bible, a blanket, a Psalms 23 bracelet, and some yummy baked goods! Every girl got a present and every staff member got a stalking. The women who had children got presents for their kids too.
On this night we stayed at the club for over 2 hours! We just had so many awesome conversations one after another with new and old friends that we’ve met over the past year. A lot of the staff kept speaking of how “they could not believe that we’ve been coming faithfully every week for the past year to the club!” They spoke about last Christmas when we came and brought presents too.” They are all so shocked by what we (God) does every week!
Kamille and I had had a very interesting conversation with a patron in the hallway. He refused to tell us his name. These are always interesting conversations. We had offered to make a plate of food for a dancer that was sitting next to this patron on the bar side of the club. Well, when Kamille and I went back to make her a plate, the guy fallowed us! He stopped us in the hallway and the first two things out of his mouth were “You guys Church ladies?” You do know that what you are doing here for these women is very strange right??!” Kamille spoke to him for a bit about why we do what we do and explained a little about our church. This guy was sadly very lost and empty. He first said he came to the club because, as he said,” it’s healthy to have fantasies.” Then he went on to tell us he was engaged, Then he went on to explain to us that he knew God and he use to go to a church, but the church turned their back on him and hes fiancé because he is black and she is white. He was obviously very hurt by the church. He told us that he does not know of one church that would ever do what we were doing! Please pray for the seed that was planted with this guy. That God would just intervene in his life. I am so tired of Satan’s control over these women and these men and how he just want to kill their souls and joy! He is in the world But GOD, has overcome the world!!!
One new dancer came up to me with her bracelet already on and said” Thank you ladies so much for what you do! She went on to say how she was so excited when she saw the Bible in there because she had lost hers awhile ago and really wanted to start reading the word again! Praise God!
I met another new dancer named M who is unfortunately another sad story that I hear all too often. M is 21 and has a 14 month old baby boy at home. She’s a single mom. She dropped out of high school and ran away from home when she was 16. Then she got pregnant and her boyfriend left her right after that. I got to talk for quite some time about what she wants to be doing with her life and she explained how she wants to go to school. I gave M a present and a present for her son and she just started tearing up and hugged me for what felt like 10 minutes! It breaks my heart to see the lives that these women have been through. They are so valuable to God and to us and I am just so humbled for every opportunity we get to serve them! Thank you to everyone who donated their time and love into serving these women! God is tearing down walls and bringing them back to Him!
Brittani C, Report
Wednesday night was incredible. That’s really the only way to describe it. First the girls were so psyched about all the food we brought, it was a feast!!! One girl even ordered pizza and put it in the back for later and came and got two plates! It was not only crazy delicious, but it was such a wide variety. The girls loved it. You could tell they had no idea we had anything else for them and they weren’t expecting anything. When I was asking some of the girls if they had any kids and if they were a boy or girl.. you could see their curiosity peak and them begin to get excited. They were saying “why?! What are you girls doing?!?” When we got the gifts out and gave them to the girls, and to them for their kids, their faces and reactions were priceless. One girl almost cried, and just about all of them thanked us several times. I can honestly say I’m not sure my heart has ever been so filled before on Christmas than it was that night. I truly saw God and the heart that he sees in these girls through His eyes. It was incredible. I actually didn’t even sleep that night because I couldn’t stop thinking about how excited they were and some of the conversations I had!
SK- I met SK last night in the club. I hadn’t seen her before but that’s not saying much because I’ve only been going for a while. When we started talking though, this was only her second night there. She’d come from another club in Louisville where she didn’t get along with the girls so she transferred. She is 18. After talking for a while I discovered she has been in foster care since she was 15. Hearing her say that I thought about how hard being 15 was… let alone having to go into foster care. It killed me. She said she resubmitted herself after she was 18 so they’d pay for her schooling. She goes to school for Social Work. She has a little boy and he is currently in foster care because her son’s father isn’t supposed to be around the baby and she let him watch him one night while she worked, the state took him. SK was really upset about this, but was excited because she got to see him on Christmas. When we gave her his gift she was excited to bring it to him. I talked to her on Christmas Eve and wished her a merry Christmas, and she kept saying “thanks again for the gifts”. She’s a sweetheart.
IV- I had never met IV before either, but she actually isn’t new. She just doesn’t work very often so I’d never encountered her. Plus it was a Wed night we went to the club opposed to a Thurs so we had a diff crew. She was very chatty! She was actually talking with Amy when I walked up, and ended up telling us we should all hang out because she doesn’t have any good friends that are good influences on her. She actually said “when I come in here this is this… but when I leave… I’m a totally different person and I don’t like to hang out with these girls” I didn’t really know what to say to that but Amy and I assured her we would all hang out soon!! I talked to her too on Christmas Eve and she was excited to hear from me, and we said we’d talk again soon to make plans to hang out.
To read more about Scarlet Hope, please see click here.
Scarlet Hope is doing some amazing things in our community and we thought it would be cool to give you a glimpse into what their ministry looks like on a weekly basis. We think you’ll enjoy!
-Lee
Scarlet Hope – Journal Entry
Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?” That’s exactly what Jesus did. He didn’t make it easy for himself by avoiding people’s troubles, but waded right in and helped out. “I took on the troubles of the troubled,” is the way Scripture puts it. Even if it was written in Scripture long ago, you can be sure it’s written for us.
Romans 15 1-6 (The Message)
Club 1
Reporting: Rachelle S.
Team: Valerie S and Brittani C.
Guys filled Club 1 Thursday night. There weren’t a ton of girls working, but even though their were men in the club, the girls mostly complained that they weren’t making any money because the guys weren’t spending any money.
We had delicious, warming home feeling potato soup with rolls, cookies and brownies for dessert. When there are new girls in the club we always get that vibe of “who in the world are you..” but once the regular girls start to eat they quickly file in line and are very excited that we have come.
I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a first time dancer and in such a dark atmosphere at the end of your rope and then a bunch of ladies come in to “serve dinner”. I hope and pray that it gives them a glimpse of Light that shows them they are worth more than what this world tells them they are.
As I sat down at one of the tables in the club to have a bowl of soup with one of the dancers, FA a new dancer I had never met came and sat right by us. She is 23 and has a little girl that is 5. I began to ask FA questions. Did she have any kids, how long had she been doing this, on and on….her answers were all very short and to the point, but then something just went off and she started sharing a lot of different aspects of her life. I listened and she talked and talked, when she got done talking she sighed a huge sigh and said “wow, that felt so good to get off my chest”.
FA has been in the industry for about 6 months and got into a car accident not to long ago and totaled her car. She is trying to save up money while taking car of her daughter to get another car. She talked of how she has contemplated prostituting herself out for more money because when she goes home at night and looks in her cupboards to eat she has only oatmeal and a cans of tomato sauce. She said that’s what her and her daughter have been eating. She told me that the club penalizes you when you leave early and she said several times she has to go take care of her daughter and they have fined her over $150.00. This week she has worked every day and only made $50.00 total. This is the life these women become sucked into. They tell you you can pay off your fines if you stay there and work extra etc. etc. We talked about this idea of her prostituting herself out and she said with her own lips, I can not, do not want to do that. And I made sure she knew that there would be no way she would ever have to get to that point and how it is not worth anything in this life to do that… God will provide a way out.
Towards the end of our conversation she told me that her daughter talks about how much she is excited for Christmas because all of the kids she knows gets presents, so she is so sad that she can’t provide a Christmas for her daughter. She said she went down to sign up for the Angel tree the other day and they told her she was too late. After listening, and praying while listening to her, the Holy Spirit prompted me to tell her we will find a way to help her for the holidays. Praise the Lord, we have a family that is willing to sponsor a family for the holidays and God is going to provide for that need.
Before she had to go back up on stage to dance she asked me the question…..I get so excited about “why do you all do this?” I got to share Jesus with her. I told her because we loved her and wanted her to know that there is a God that created her and that loves her more than she will ever know. Jesus! She looked me straight in the eye for the first time at that point and said “I don’t know what to say….that is the coolest thing I’ve ever heard…”
I wish I could say she turned around and walked out of that club that second, but God planted a seed that night and he will water and grow that seed, I know.
It’s so awesome to see how God works in these women’s lives and in the life of this ministry! We are never without, because he provides the way.
Club 2:
Reporting Kamille B.
Team: Hannah D., Natalie G., Mandy L.
Club 2 had an eerie feeling about it Thursday night. We kept trying to bring the dancers cookies and food, but they all were very busy and seemed to want their privacy. We would give them plates of food smile and go to the other side.
They ate their plates fast with some sincere thankfulness. The bartender V looked terrible. She talked to Hannah briefly and told her about some troubles with her kids. There weren’t a lot of girls working this night and the abundance of customers kept the girls very busy and unable to talk.
I did get to talk with, R. She said the food was delicious and the warm soup hit the spot on this cold night. She lives with her brother and his family, but feels she needs to support herself. She has worked there for years on and off…this was the first time I had met R.
J the DJ has become increasingly more talkative when we are around. J has been coming to service at NCC off and on and he has been helping serve by cooking every now and then. The first two songs J played once we got there were dedicated to us. One was “son of a preacher man…” he came over and told us he did that for us. We weren’t to sure what to say, but thank you.
I watched for H the dancer, but she has moved to be one of the daytime bartenders and we won’t be seeing her very much anymore. She needs some special prayer regarding her family, relationship stress. She is a single mother who is financially struggling and her car was impounded. Please pray for H.
The girls have come to trust us little by little and they know we are true to our word by just showing up every week and fulfilling our commitment of showing them love every week.
Trusting and Loving Him,
Rachelle & The Scarlet Hope Team
We could not get ahold of one of our Free Shirts for a Year contest winners… so we are going to give this another try!
The winner is….
Matt Bratcher!
Congratulations Matt… hope to hear from you so you can win your prize!
Turn The Lights Off.
First some statistics:
30 million-the amount of people enslaved in the world
2.8 million-the number of children a year trafficked into the sex trade
9-the average age of a sex worker
3 million-the number of sex slaves in India alone
80%-how many of the 30 million slaves are female
70%-how many of the 30 million slaves are in the sex industry
50%-how many of the 30 million slaves are children
In the simplest terms, Resc\You wants to turn the lights out. In some way, through empowering men and women, educating them, and rebuilding communities by turning off the lights in red light districts across the world. We’re starting in India.
Resc\you met in India, well actually New York City, in December of 2008. We bonded on a trip to India, traveling and meeting the wonderful people that inhabited the towns we visited. One common thread among us was that part of us was left in that country.
Resc\You was started because I want to help Bittu, a boy I met while visiting the shelter in Khidderpore. He has a smile that I will never forget and laughter that’s better than any song on the planet. We drew pictures together, he stole my camera and a big piece of my heart.
What bothered me about Bittu is that as I was leaving the shelter, so was he. I was returning to my flat across town and he was returning to a brothel. He played in the street littered with johns and decorated with girls awaiting them.
Resc\You began for the sex worker who offered me her child through the taxi window. I do not have children, but it’s a dream of mine. The opportunity for a great life is more likely with me in her eyes, than in her own. Hope has not been closed out from my life. The want to provide and care for a child is ingrained in a lot of women and you can see in her eyes that she wanted that too. To know that her baby girl was cared for, loved and safe was more important than keeping that child. Saying no to her was so painful; how long would it be before this girl was being forced to have sex?
Resc\You exists because I remember every face I looked into as the taxi rolled down the broken road through the red light district. Their skin reflecting the red glow of the lights in the stalls. Girls as young as 7 or 8, awaiting the men they would have to entertain. Women leaning against the walls, tired already.
Women should not have to be valued solely for their sexuality. The kids of the red light districts should not have to live in fear. Slavery affects everyone, you and me as well. It affects us because we know about it, we see it and we have the ability to do something about it.
Resc\You had to happen because we see a need and are willing to fill it. We have the talents, we have the ability; to whom much is given, much is expected. We do not take the burden we’ve been given lightly.
We’re all friends who met in India and going back to help them because we love them so much. We remember their laughs, smiles and the freedom they show when they dance. We want them to be able to feel that way everyday.
We want you to know the people we met in the districts as well, and you will as Resc\You progresses. You will know the facts that we know and together we will radically change the statistics. Actually, not just the statistics..the people behind those statistics.
-Amy Turner
Please click here to find out more about the partnership between Resc\You and Spendyourself
Thanks to everybody for participating!
For those of you who didn’t win, take comfort in the fact that this month you will be able to buy really sweet shirts as Christmas presents here at the Spendyourself store ON SALE! Sale coming soon.
I thought, “She is me. Well, sort of.”
The differences between us were obvious. She was ten years younger than I, Indian and dressed in a vibrant fuchsia dress, a gold ring in her nose; she was certainly a far cry from my pasty-white, plaid-shirted self of that day and definitely of the Abby who once wore Doc Martens and her hair to her waist. But there I was, in the middle of a tribal village in God- Knows-Where, India, sharing a wordless conversation with a girl so much like the Me of only a few years ago.
Nearly one year ago (gosh, it feels like only yesterday) I traveled to southeast India with Faceless International, a non-profit dedicated to promoting awareness and combating human trafficking. This particular day was spent visiting a small impoverished village hours from the closest city. It was here that many women and youth were at high risk of falling into trafficking because of the extremely limited, opportunities for education and employment. We were there to establish relationships, spread cheer and harmony. To help people know they were loved and valued as human beings.
The Faceless Team was ushered through the village by a small man beating a drum like an Indian Pied-Piper, beckoning us through the dusty streets. Women surrounded me, smiled and giggled, whispered greetings, “Namaste,” with their hands pressed together at their chests. The entire village danced and sang together to the rhythms our friend Kris’ guitar and that one little drum. Amidst this beautiful chaos, a small girl hid behind a doorway, watching all that was in front of her. I turned in her direction and for a moment our eyes met. She shrank behind the door for a moment and then reappeared. She smiled. I smiled in return, only to frighten her away once again.
The party turned to ceremony. We listened to Vijay, our project counterpart from St. Joseph’s Welfare Association, as he addressed us and the villagers. I tried to pay attention to his words despite the assault on all of my senses- food cooking, children laughing, colorful saris sweeping across a backdrop of shabby huts and dirt.
And then, I felt a timid, unsure touch on my shoulder. I turned and there she was, the same girl from moments before standing next to me with a hand extended. She opened her palm and offered a small green bean. I, of course, accepted the gift and whispered, “thank you,” with a smile. She smiled back, but her eyes were riddled with uncertainty and fear. She shrank away with no words and it was then I thought, “you are me.”
Once upon a time, I never would have dreamed I would be on a volunteer trip in India. As a teen, I suffered from debilitating shyness. Protected but encouraged by my parents, it took years for me to overcome my social anxieties . . . and now I was here in India to encourage and support strangers who spoke a language I didn’t understand with twenty-four teammates I had never met before a week prior. I was a world away (figuratively and geographically) from the girl I had once been.
The evils of this world prey upon the innocents, people who only want to improve their circumstances with honest work and pay. Girls who are forced into trafficking never enter that world of their own free will; they’re lured by the lies and the promise of a better life. For this young girl I met that day, becoming a young woman was a dangerous and uncertain life. I felt like I understood her in so many ways and yet I knew (and still recognize) that I have little idea of the challenges that stood before her then and now.
I watched that little girl throughout the day. She slowly edged towards our group of Americans and children playing games and snapping pictures together. She even jumped into a few frames; she didn’t smile at first, but by the end of the day, she grinned and held my hand as we walked through the streets. Her shell melted away during those short hours and though I will probably never see her again, I would like to think that maybe she is still learning and trying to share her heart with others and remaining safe from predators who might break her innocence.
With a simple twist of fate, I could easily have grown up in that small Indian village or into a Kolkota brothel. But I wasn’t. Though we seem so different and separated from our brothers and sisters who suffer lives of oppression, we are all connected. I share something with that young girl I met in India. I share something with the children who are brought up in the red light districts and the women forced into the sex trade. The threads of humanity bind us together and bridge the disparities that divide us. I hope when people give to Resc\You, they understand they’re investing in a life that is just like theirs, just as valuable, indeed distinctive, but so very much the same.
-Abby
Please click here to find out more about the partnership between Resc\You and Spendyourself.
“India is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Internal forced labor may constitute India’s largest trafficking problem; men, women, and children in debt bondage are forced to work in industries such as brick kilns, rice mills, agriculture, embroidery factories, and brothel houses. Although no comprehensive study of forced and bonded labor has been carried out, some NGOs estimate this problem affects tens of millions of Indians. Those from India’s most disadvantaged social economic strata are particularly vulnerable to forced or bonded labor and sex trafficking. Women and girls are trafficked within the country for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage. Children are also subjected to forced labor as factory workers, domestic servants, beggars, and agricultural workers.” – U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009
In December 08, a group of us met at the JFK Airport in New York, in transit to Hyderabad, India. There we spent time observing, loving, serving and learning about human trafficking, debt bondage and slavery in the majority of the Indian provinces. The term “out of sight out of mind” kept hitting me right in the middle of my forehead. “How could I have not known that TENS OF MILLIONS of Indian inhabitants are enslaved!” … the thoughts that each person I pass is a potential slave, a sex working, a life begging for the hope of freedom and a life worth living were the most frequent and the most echoed thoughts as we returned home.
But first … Her name was Axshmia, she was the youngest in her family, her mother and father had died, and she lived with her uncle in the Vishakhapatnam province. She was what the Hindu Caste System calls the Shudras or Untouchables. The Untouchables were literally social outcasts, to the point where after tea they were ordered to break the tea cup they drank from so no one else would drink from it. Axshmia, as we were visiting her village, was the “Belle of the Ball”. With a smile that would steal even the hardest heart and eyes that would make anyone gaze longer. Her family is of the poorest in Vishakhapatnam, her mother and father gone and her only guardian is an uncle who has his family to provide for as well as Axshmia.
With all of the variables … the probability of Axshmia being sold into forced labor and or sex trafficking is sky ward.
Resc/You exists because of Axshmia, and the innocent, beautiful and destitute children she stands for.
Resc/You has to happen to see change in not only the lives of the ones who are held in bondage, but also to see change in the hearts of the ones who bind.
-Kris Byerly
Please click here to find out more about the partnership between Resc/You and Spendyourself.
It’s been a great year for Spendyourself, and without all of you, this would still be nothing more than a dream.
As our way to give you all a big THANK YOU for all of your support over the last year, we’ve decided to give two people free shirts for a year!
What exactly does this mean? For each new shirt project we create over the next year, Spendyourself will be shipping you your very own shirt, and it’s all free.
In conjunction with the Resc/You project, we’ve come up with several different ways for you to enter the contest and raise awareness for human trafficking at the same time. Do as many of the following as you like and you’ll get an entry for each one!
The contest ends November 30th… so start spreading the word!
Ways to enter:
1 . Leave a comment on our blog on human trafficking (facts, useful links, etc.)
2. Retweet the following message: Win free clothes for a year! http://tiny.cc/d8m6V @spendyourself
3. Send us a picture of you wearing any Spendyourself shirt: jessica@spendyourself.net
4. Buy any Spendyourself shirt (counts as two entries)
5. Put a link to spendyourself.net on your blog and email us to let us know
6. Visit us at the GMHC, 11/12 – 11/14
7.Tell someone the story behind your Spendyourself shirt and email us
8. Make this your profile picture for a day or more, and post it on the Spendyourself Facebook page
9. Perform any random act of kindness, just let us know!
Questions? lee@spendyourself.net
This post is long overdue, but we just have to share these pictures!
Dave Barnes and Jon McLaughlin put on an awesome show in Louisville a few weeks back, and we were thrilled to be able to set up a table to sell some shirts. Dave and friends do some incredible things in Africa through their organization, Mocha Club. Lee wore a Mocha Club shirt (one that reads “I need Africa more than Africa needs me. Yeah. Chew on that.) And I was wearing a Spendyourself shirt, which unfortunately got cut off in the picture, but thought we had to get our picture with the man himself, Dave Barnes!
Also, we have to give a shout out to our awesome friends, Amy Turner and Nichole Hutchins for workin and rockin the table that night!
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Stop human trafficking. Provide education for children of sex workers in India. Read More
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