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Girls standing
by the roads waiting for business. My mind is swarming with
questions, expressions of sympathy and even feelings of condemnation
while I am gazing at them from the window of my car driving
along the road fast. I have been seeing them along a certain
section of the road for the last few months. My children asked,
"Mum, who are these people and what are they doing here
by the road in the middle of nothing?" It would have
been easy to avoid answering, "Well, well..." But
I knew that I mustn't be judgemental. I told my children the
truth, that these girls were prostitutes... But what is the
truth?
The truth is
that what they are doing is sin but Christ died for them just
as much as for us. There is grace and a chance for them to
start a new life in Christ. How? I started to pray for these
girls and also for a clear way from God in the issue and he
was not late to answer: through Isaiah 42:18-21. The feeling
was getting stronger in me that there should be a new mission
toward them. I still didn't know how and in what way this
would start but I stood upon the promise of God that he would
prepare a way in the widerness and give rivers in the desert.
Gates and doors
have been opening since, I just need to notice them and enter.
Often the gate means, "Go and pray along the road where
the girls stand and work every morning." "Take those
by the hand whom God also called to do this work, this ministry."
And this is exactly what we are doing. Prayer, petition and
crying out to God. I am touched by an intensive experience
of the presence of God every morning. Me and all of us feel
His presence nearly physically as we pass by the ashes of
the campfires by the road which remind, for the moment, of
the power of satan, the presence of demons, of adultery and
sin.
But we do know
that God is able to force these demonic powers to flee and
by the power of the Holy Spirit to command the heavenly host
representing His justice to this fight. He is ready to save
the Rahabs of our cities. Rahab is a prophetic message. The
harlot of Jericho is one of those hungry souls who live in
your city and search for the truth. "Rahab" is a
name of Hebrew origin, and it means spacy place, wide meadow.
It stands for the empty heart which opens wide before anything
that can bring life to it. Although she was a prostitute when
the Israeli spies went to her house, Rahab was the first to
acknowledge their God was more powerful than anyone else.
While she was living in the trap of her sins, she was open
to the fact that there was someone, a greater God, the Living
God who is better than anything else she had known before.
Rahab was saved by her openness but she was also taken into
an amazing story, the family line of the ancestors of Jesus.
(Matthew 1:5).
How many people
do you think there are in your city who are just as open as
Rahab was and if prayer demolished the walls surrounding them,
they would recognise the truth and follow Jesus?
Beside the
prayers, we have more and more opportunity to actually meet
the girls and pray for them. It is shocking to catch a glimpse
of the fear and pain in their eyes. I remember Julie who was
looking at me in desperation and when I took her hand she
wrapped herself up in my shoulders like a child. We stood
there for a moment, like a mother holding her daughter. I
was crying and I knew exactly that the that the love I felt,
the love that I received from my God, was starting to act.
Even the tried
and skilled streetwalker could perceive this, as she just
stood there speechless, with her head bowed and she was just
looking at the ground in front of her. Then she looked up
and said: "I have never let anyone take my hand and embrace
me". She turned and left but I knew that something has
changed; and not only in her but in me also. I discovered
that it's much easier to love and accept a sinner than I would
have thought before. What I experienced was unconditional
love.
I pondered.
The attitude of Jesus was before me as he was talking to the
Samaritan woman. He did not condemn but uncovered the sin
and started the healing process. He talked with people whose
company was avoided by others. Hetalked about themes no one
would have dared to encounter. He uncovered wounds that cut
people off from normal life, from freedom. Jesus was the wounded
healer. "And by his wouds we are healed." (Isaiah
53:5) To the Samaritan woman he offered the living water welling
up to life.
This brought
me peace. If Jesus could see in an adulterous woman the possibility
of being born again and a change of life, how could I do otherwise?
Katalin
Szenczy
katalin@hbaid.org
"RAHAB
TEAM"- a workshop set up by the Hungarian Baptist Aid
for the assistance of prostitutes, homosexuals and the victims
of slave trade, and for the establishment and running of a
"Shelter House", with the Word of God at the centre....
www.hbaid.org
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