This past Friday was my first "official" day of ministry work. I've been doing some ministry where I can among my classmates and other places, but this was my first work in a specific location with a scheduled start and end time. And it was the beginning of what brought me to Berlin in the first place: ministry with prostitutes and trafficked women. Let me tell you about my first day.
My shift was scheduled to begin at 8 PM and wrap up around 1 AM. From 8-9 would be setting up the cafe, and from midnight-1 would be cleaning up. For clarification I am volunteering at Neustart Cafe, which is called a cafe but it is not open to the public and exists only as a point to meet and serve women involved in the sex trade. As I was a bit nervous and didn't want to be late on my first day, I got on the U-Bahn (underground metro) at 7:20, and arrived around 7:45. Of course it is better to be safe than sorry, but perhaps this Friday I will allow myself to leave a bit later.
I left the station, and began walking down the street Neustart is on. Neustart is located right in the midst of Berlin's Red Light district, in order to serve the women right where they are. And so to get to the Cafe, one must pass many women who are out there selling their bodies for money. These women are not difficult to spot. It is Winter so they are wearing winter coats, but the rest of their outfits may be similar to how you have seen sex workers dressed in movies or TV shows. I do not want to generalize though, as you can see women dressed in many different kinds of outfits. The women also tend to stand in open parking spaces, waiting for someone who is looking for their services to drive up to them. I had just barely exited the station when the first woman on my side of the street came walking straight up to me and said "Hast du Lust?" ("Do you have lust?")
She was a beautiful blonde-haired woman, in her early 20's, and about my height. She got close to me, although not uncomfortably so. I was able to look right into her eyes, which I believe were blue although to be honest I can't recall exactly. In response to her question I replied "Nein, Danke." ("No, Thanks.") I assumed this would settle the matter and I would move on, but I was quite a bit thrown when she asked me "Warum Nicht?" ("Why Not?") She asked very politely, perhaps even sweetly. My German is good enough to understand the question and probably to respond in German, but I was so surprised that she asked that I had trouble formulating any kind of response. For one thing, this whole situation went far beyond how I had seen prostitutes working the previous two times I had been on that street. Most of the women I have seen have generally been walking back and forth in their parking space or leaning against a building. I'm not sure I had seen a woman go out of their way to walk up to someone. But also, explaining why you aren't interested in having sex with a beautiful woman who is offering it to you (for money of course) is surprisingly difficult. In fact, I think it defies every piece of conventional logic in the universe when it comes to heterosexual men.
She noticed my struggle to answer and took this as a lack of ability to speak German (not entirely wrong) and so she asked me "Would English be better?" I responded that it would. Then she asked again, in English, "Why not?" I mumbled something about being too busy, still quite a bit surprised by this situation and thus unable to summon the brain capacity to put together a good answer. She then went on to briefly describe exactly what it was she was offering, where we could go, etc. (I'll spare you the exact details). Her English was exceptional by the way. She spoke very clearly and annunciated properly, with very little of an accent. I don't know exactly where she was from. The women from different countries operate different sections of the street and the area, but I don't recall which nationality operates on that part of the street. But she was Eastern European. Once she was done, I again politely declined. She asked again "Why not?" This time I was a bit more prepared, sort of. I said, "Well, I'm not interested in having sex with anyone actually, because I am a Christian, and we don't have sex outside of marriage, and I am not married." I don't know exactly what she thought about this. Her face didn't betray any emotion or response that I could pick up on. But either way, this seemed to convince her that it wasn't worth pursuing. She turned around and walked away and wished me a good evening, and I wished her the same.
Briefly I will say, I am not too sure how I feel about my explanation of why I turned her down. Certainly it is technically correct. I am committed to only having sex within marriage, I am not married, and she is not my wife. These are all true statements. But that's about as compelling as reading a statute from the Legal Code of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It's like she asked a police officer why he doesn't steal, and his response was that it is against the law. But the questions remains, "Why?" I find it to be a very unsatisfactory answer. Looking back I would have loved to have given some grand statements about how valuable she is, and how she's a child of God, and how she is far too precious for me to treat as a waste receptacle. And all of that would also be true. Ultimately, I find it hard to beat myself up too much though. I was very surprised by the whole situation, and maybe I opened her eyes to something about Christians that she didn't know before. Either that they aren't supposed to have sex outside of marriage, or that some Christians take this seriously. But either way I learned that I need to be ready for all kinds of situations. My work doesn't begin when I clock into the Cafe, it begins when I step foot on the street.
After this I entered Neustart and helped set up. We prepared brotchen (small breads) with veggies and various spreads for the women. We also prepared tea and coffee. I met two of the volunteers I had never met before, and also greeted Prisca who I had met the previous evening at a night of prayer for women in the sex trade. We opened the doors at 9, and a few women entered. Throughout the 3 hours I would estimate that maybe around 20-25 women came in at one time or another. I later asked one of the other volunteers, and she said that this was slightly less than usual. For awhile at the beginning I mainly just sat in a chair and sipped tea. There were often as many volunteers as women in the cafe, and the other three spoke much better German than I, so for the most part I sat back and let them engage in conversation with the women. I am also a man and it was my first time volunteering, so I didn't want to try to force conversations. I wanted the women to get used to my presence a little bit first. We will see how this attitude develops over time. Don't expect me to be mute though, I will definitely try to engage in conversation. But for now I don't plan to push too hard and try to make conversation happen.
In the middle of the evening, Prisca called me over and said that one of the women wanted to play a game with me. The game was "Vier Gewinnt (Connect Four). I said "Yes, of course," excited for something relational to do. Plus I love games almost as much as Smeagol. We didn't engage much in conversation, but we did exchange basic information (She's 59). We also talked a little about my age (23) and my German classes. She thought my German was very good for only 3 months of study. I would back this up later when we played trivia (auf Deutsch) on her phone for about an hour. I got maybe 10 or 15 right. Also, it turns out that she is a Connect Four wizard. We played roughly 20 games, I won 2. She ended up leaving around the time the cafe closed. I really regret not getting her name. This may seem strange, but we were more focused on our games then on talking at times. I thank God for games, they cross language barriers. Anyway, I am looking forward to my next shift this Friday evening. I hope to engage more in conversation, meet some people, maybe hear some stories. And I hope to play more games with that woman. I'll make sure to get her name this time.
God Bless,
Robby