Durban, South Africa

I have (im)patiently waited 8 years to go on another mission trip and I am thrilled to announce that I am going to Durban, South Africa this summer. My last trip was in 2002, when I built houses (the size of garden sheds) in a dirt field in Mexico. The year before that I went to the Blossom Garden Children's Home in Jamaica and saw true orphans for the first time in my life. Both of those trips changed me significantly. I am expecting no less from my trip to Durban.

We have the huge honor of helping out a local church with their street outreaches to victims of human trafficking. The sex industry is booming and that means men, women and children are being forced to prostitute themselves to stay alive.

As many of you know, I have been involved with anti-human trafficking efforts for several years here in the US. We now have the opportunity to take what we have learned and equip like-minded churches in their cities. Our desire is to bring light to the darkness and hope to the hopeless. I am humbled to be included in such an important mission.

I love that my church has a heart for the lost and broken, here and around the world. My prayer is that I will represent Jesus and Healing Place well. Please be praying that I will be a good paper plate; serving up Jesus to all who are hungry.

If you are interested in learning more about this trip you can click here to visit my Durban website. Your prayers and support are greatly appreciated. I will do my best to keep you updated as we prepare for this great adventure. All glory to God!

Mercy and Joy

The streets of North Baton Rouge are typically pretty busy but last Friday night things were quiet. Earlier in the evening three people had been shot between Plank Road and Choctaw so anybody who could stay inside did. As usual, our ICU (Inner City Unit) team thought it was a perfect night for outreach.

Although we didn’t see a lot of people, God gave us some very cool connections. We got to visit with a prostitute who has been sporadically attending Sunday service at Baton Rouge Dream Center. She may not have been quite as excited to see us as we were to see her, but God knows what He’s doing. Although we always intend our roses to bring joy, they occasionally bring conviction. We just trust God to work it out.

At the Top 10 Social Club we handed out roses and chatted with the patrons. For any of you who haven’t been, the Top 10 is an interesting club on Choctaw with some of the biggest bouncers I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure what all goes on in that place, but I suspect the people aren’t there just for the music.

On Sunday morning a woman showed up at Healing Place on Highland Road. Pastor Dino said hello and asked how we could help her. She burst into tears and couldn’t answer. We eventually learned that she had been at the Top 10 Friday night when we handed out roses. She looked at the rose, read the card and told her friend that they had to leave. She said, “If God sent the church up into this club, He’s trying to tell us something.” That’s how she landed in service Sunday morning, listening to Pastor Dino teach on joy.

This woman is not some horrible sinner that spends all of her time drinking in bars. She used to go to church and read her bible, but then something happened that just got her off track…she called it a downward spiral. I understand the downward spiral. I understand how things can get fuzzy; the lines between right and wrong get blurred by pain, circumstance and pressure. Bad decisions pile on top of each other until we forget that there’s a God who loves us jealously. We forget His mercy until He sends an outreach team into the very bar we’re sitting in; they smile, hand us a rose and tell us we’re not forgotten.

I am so grateful for God’s mercy. I’m grateful that His arm is not too short to save nor His ear too dull to hear. I’m grateful that, in the same way He reached into the pit and snatched me out, He is still snatching people into freedom today. And we get to be a part of it.

All glory to God!

A stroll thru Sodom

Last Friday we did Midnight Outreach in New Orleans. It was great...we got to train some more people, share our passion with them and get them lit up for the cause of Human Trafficking. After we did the training we helped prep the roses and then headed to Bourbon Street. Say it with me, "OFF THE CHAIN".

I've been on Bourbon Street before but this time it was different. For some reason, I couldn't stop looking into the eyes of the people on the street. They were walking aimlessly, beads around their necks, drinks in hand; but their eyes seemed so lifeless. And it wasn't just a few of them...it was the two Hispanic gentlemen sitting on the curb, it was the gaggle of scantily-dressed teenage girls on the corner, it was the quiet homeless woman that asked me for money, the tourists in their souvenir t-shirts...it seemed like all of them were desperately lost. Some were falling-down drunk, some were catching beads from the second story bars and some were just standing and staring; drinking in the scene of perversion around them.

Usually when I'm on Bourbon Street I am going into the clubs to give roses to the ladies. Since we didn't have as many volunteers as we usually do, I stayed on the street to help watch over our group. I have to say, I think it's less offensive to be in the strip clubs. I was trying to explain the scene to my sister and she said, "It sounds like Sodom and Gomorrah". That was exactly it, she nailed it. On the drive home I was thinking about the scripture where the angels are going to destroy Sodom for its sin. I thought about Bourbon Street and the people of New Orleans. I thought about the hundreds of thousands of people who come from around the world to be a part of the debauchery. I wondered, if the angels came tonight, would New Orleans would burn?

I am so grateful for places like the New Orleans Dream Center and Church of the King. I'm so glad Pastor Dino and DeLynn let us go and be a part of reaching into the darkness. Please pray for New Orleans; for the city, for the people and for God's mercy to cover all of us. All glory to Him!

11-4 and lovin it!

Last week we did a 'Lewis and Clark' outreach. (For non-history buffs like myself, Lewis and Clark were explorers that went into the unknown in search of new frontiers. I only know that because I lived in St Louis for a while and they were popular there, although I still don't know why.) So last Friday a group of us met at 11pm at a bowling alley (yep, that's just how we roll) and went in search of new people to serve. We walked through bushes, climbed under overpasses and searched the levee looking for someone with whom to share the love of Christ.
I got home about 4am. I was tired, dirty and wet. My jeans were soaked up to my knees and my shoes were covered in mud. In the five hours we were out there I only talked to one person. A young woman, probably early twenties, was working in front of a motel on Airline. She was a little nervous and more than a little high. It was clear by the way she dressed that she was selling herself. She wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't take a card and didn't want anything that I tried to offer her. All she wanted was to be away from us. I wished her a good night and watched her disappear into the shadows. As she walked away I prayed that she wouldn't get beat for me talking to her. Prostitution is a brutal business.
One of the volunteers asked me what we do now. I told him we pray...and that we keep coming back. Eventually she will talk; or at least let us feed her. It's always a process, and it's always slower than I would like it to be.
Riding on the shuttle I was thinking about our team. I realized that on our team, at 2am, there were people from 4 different grants. We had Aaron from Victims Services, Charity and Jillian from Street Outreach Program, Joey from Prisoner Re-entry and Miss Alliece from Human Trafficking Coalition. It made me think about God's creativity and how He has positioned Church United and Healing Place Church for such a time as this. On our team we had people searching for victims, homeless youth, ex-prisoners and prostitutes. It made me wonder how many other organizations were searching for those particular people.
I am so glad that Pastors Dino and Delynn allow us to go into the streets in the middle of night to seek that which is lost. I believe, with everything in me, that's what Jesus would have us do. Sometimes on outreach we see miraculous healings and salvation. Sometimes we get home, at 4am covered in filth, and wonder if we made a difference. I don't know if we touched anyone's heart on Friday night but I believe God will honor our effort. And, if nothing else, I got to spend the night with some of the coolest people on earth, doing exactly what I love to do. I love my life, I love my church and I love my God. All glory to Him!

Right here, right now

Last night we got to do Midnight Outreach and it was FABULOUS. For those of you who don’t know, Midnight is an awesome outreach we do where we go to the clubs, bars and streets late at night to remind people that they are not forgotten. We typically take roses to ladies dancing at strip clubs, chocolate to the bouncers, and snacks to the people we find trolling the streets. It’s always exciting and God always shows up. Last night we had some really cool experiences.

Sometimes it’s just the regular crew of HPC volunteers that head out into the night, but last night we had the privilege of being joined by a mission team from Washington, DC. They are a great group of young people from Mark Batterson’s church and they are spending a few days with us at the Baton Rouge Dream Center learning how we do outreach at HPC. Our goal is to reach the world by serving one; and one of the best ways to do that is to equip other churches so they can replicate these outreaches in their own cities. It’s a cool opportunity to pass on the DNA of Healing Place.

So this is pretty much the highlight reel of last night:

Strip clubs:
• Gave out roses and chocolate at 3 south side clubs
• Favorite moment: seeing one of our volunteers crying in the parking lot, unable to express her gratitude for God delivering her from that life. Before Christ, she had been a stripper for 10 years. She knew everyone in the club, and last night she was able to walk in, hand out roses, and be a light of hope in that very dark place.

Top 10 Social Club:
• Handed out roses, chocolate, lip balm with hotline number and gifts for patrons to take home to their children.
• Favorite moment: a man standing in the parking lot, surrounded by team members praying for him, at midnight. He said that something had told him to go stand “right here, right now”. Our team leader told him that something had told us to go “right here, right now’. Cool God moment.

Street corner:
• Favorite moment: watching a prostitute take a rose from the hand of a volunteer. When we pulled up she started to run away…she said we scared her…then she took the rose and thanked us.

The Alamo:
• Handed out roses, chocolate and lip balm to people who were hanging around outside at this by-the-hour motel.
• Prayed for people who are lost, hurting and desperate for change.
• Dean got to talk to the owner and he said we could hang up a poster in the office letting people know what we do. This is extra cool because earlier in the week the same guy threw out one of our outreach teams off the property. Another God-connection.
• Favorite moment: meeting Brian. He was standing outside his room with Don and Monica, barbecuing in the back of their pick-up. They had a small charcoal grill, a plastic fork and some pork chops. We walked up and offered them chocolate. They took it and thanked us. We happened to have charcoal in the shuttle (thanks to Vince) so we offered them that too. Brian looked at me and asked why we were being so nice. I told them we were with Healing Place Church, and we were just out reminding people that they weren’t forgotten. “For real?” was his response. Monica said, “Sometimes it feels like we’re forgot”. We got to pray for them and invite them to church. Just before I got back onto the shuttle Brian crossed the parking lot with a Styrofoam tray full of pork chops. He offered it to me. I said, “Oh Brian, thank you so much but I can’t take your dinner.” He put it into my hands and said, “Ma’am, you can’t not take.”

I have been offered all kinds of things, from all kinds of people, in all kinds of situations. I have rarely been so humbled by someone’s generosity. Brian, Monica and Don were cooking their meal in the back of a pick-up truck in the middle of the night because their room doesn’t have a stove and they have nothing else to cook with. They had no plates, a plastic fork from a take-out place and no knife. And they gave their dinner to us. They fed the thirty-plus volunteers who were willing to show up at midnight and let them know that God loves them. After we prayed at I looked at Brian and said, “God is after you, Brian. You know that, right?” He dropped his head and nodded. He looked back at me and said, “Yes, I know that.” I believe God grabbed hold of his heart last night. I know He grabbed mine.

All glory to Him!

P.S.
I go to the coolest church in the world!!! Can you even believe we get to do this??? Thank you, Pastors Dino and DeLynn for allowing us to do this. Thank you for caring more about souls than about public opinion. Thank you for sending us to the least of these. God bless you.

Matthew 25:40
The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.