Outreach is bitter for many reasons. Almost every woman we serve tells us that she desperately wants to leave prostitution, but her and her family’s survival depends on that work. They feel trapped in an economic system where there are more people looking for jobs than there are job opportunities. The available opportunities go to those with the most education, and many of our women still haven’t finished high school. If they do find a job, in most cases it’s not a healthy work environment: they work long hours in poor conditions and still don’t earn enough to live on. For many of them, they make more doing what they currently do and can set their own work schedules.
As hard as that reality is, outreach is also sweet because every time the women we serve see us, their faces light up. They’re happy to see us because “you’re not like the other evangelicals who yell at us and tell us we should leave this work behind, letting our kids starve at home. You actually listen to us and love us.” Because even when we don’t have a solution, we have ears to listen, a smile, a word of encouragement from Scripture, and a hug… we love them like Jesus loves them. Or, as one Amada once told us, “Never change. Never stop coming. Because when you come, you remind me that God exists.”