Baking Cookies for Prostitutes

Tony Campolo once threw a surprise birthday party for a prostitute he'd never met. At the end of the celebration, standing on a chair in a hole-in-the-wall greasy spoon in Honolulu he prayed for her. The owner of the diner's response appeared somewhat betrayed, "Hey, you never told me you was a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to anyway?"

In one of those moments when just the right words came, Tony answers him quietly, "I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for prostitutes at 3:30 in the morning."

Harry thinks for a moment, and in a mocking way says, "No you don't. There ain't no church like that."

My heart quickens with excitement every time I hear this story, my heart was overjoyed when Carl shared it at a launch meeting this summer in reference to Mosaic's future as a church that could throw birthday parties for prostitutes, and my heart was in awe as I experienced this concept lived out yesterday through Bethel Church's HOPE Ministry.

In an area of Southwest Baltimore where nearly 90% of the residents have a crack and/or heroin addiction, the women support their $100/day habit by turning cheap tricks. I had heard about the HOPE ministry a couple weeks ago and waited eagerly to join them on their next outreach to these women, assuming that I had full knowledge of what I would experience.

What I had heard about the girls and the situations had been true. The women ranged from teenagers to grandmothers. They were almost all visibly high. They walked the streets in a bit of a daze and approached our van as we offered them a gift. We gave them a bag with a hamburger and drink, some homemade chocolate chip cookies, some toiletries, and some literature on recovery centers and safe places. We listened to them, prayed with them, cried with them, hugged them, and shared Christ's love with them.

But no amount of head-knowledge could have prepared me for what I experienced. I had been warned that they might jump in the next man's car that drove by as soon as we walked back to the van, but when it happened the first time it knocked the wind out of me. I knew they might be strung-out and aged far beyond their years, but I think in the back of my mind I still held a somewhat glamorous, Pretty Woman, idea of prostitution. There was no glamour, there were no red lights, there was barely makeup, barely shoes. There was no shortage however, of hurting women who knew they had a problem and desperately wanted to fix it.

I prayed, and continue to plead with God to release them from this bondage, and allow them to return to their estranged children, their sobriety, and their dignity. But I have no illusions that God doesn't want His church to be involved with their healing, and I look forward to my next encounter with my new friends, and the block party where maybe Mosaic will take its moonbounce and snowcone machine to share with God's precious children in the streets of Southwest Baltimore.