Record-setting Midnight

We did Midnight Outreach Friday night and we made it back home in record time. That's both good and bad. It's good in that our team of volunteers (who by any standards work well beyond a normal week) got to be home and in bed before Cinderella lost her slipper. The down side though, is that the reason we were finished so quickly is because we saw so many girls.
We usually start out with 8 dozen roses and about a dozen boxes of chocolate. The roses are for the ladies working inside the clubs and the chocolate is for the bouncers who look out for the ladies. We started out at Escapades and then went to Kittens. Typically we would hand out somewhere between 20-30 roses between the 2 clubs. Last night we distributed close to 50. I don't know why there were so many women in the clubs, but I do know they were happy to see us. One of the dancers asked a volunteer, "Hey, are y'all that church from down the road, right there on Highland?" The volunteers smiled and nodded. The dancer continued, "I love that place. You guys are so good to us". I don't know if she's ever been to HPC, but I think she would consider it. She smelled her rose and smiled at us. Pretty cool, eh?
In less than 40 minutes we found almost 100 women who are in or around the sex trade, all within 15 minutes of the doors of our church. I love that our pastors send us out to find them instead of just hoping they eventually come to us. Some of these ladies don't have 'eventually'; their lifestyle doesn't allow it. I'm grateful that HPC is a church that builds for tomorrow but offers hope today...that we get to reach the world by serving one. All glory to God!