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In
January 2007 I sent out an e-mail to all of the people, who had come to
the diaconal day, as well as any other contacts I had gained during
that time. I asked for anyone, who was interested in meeting together
for prayer to come to a meeting at the end of the month. The response
was overwhelming! The first evening 23 people came from about 8 or 9
different churches and organizations across the city. It seemed as if
God had been working in all of their hearts individually and they were
all out there just waiting for someone to say, “Hey, let’s get
together.” We agreed to meet monthly for prayer and seek the Lord’s
will for a possible outreach to the women.
It became clear to me fairly quickly, that although God had chosen me
to begin something, I was not necessary the one to lead the actual
outreach ministry. I kept hearing of a couple, who had a lot of
experience doing street ministry, mainly with drug addicts. Right from
the start Sabine and Andreas Kallauch came on board, and with their
help and experience we were able to begin going out onto the street
almost immediately. In the fall they agreed to lead the ministry and in
March 2008, we were able to hire Sabine for 10 and then 15 hours a
week. We now have been able to take her on for 20 hours and we have
just hired Andreas as well.
Because Vienna is situated very close to the Hungarian and Slovakian
borders, we have quite a few women who commute on a daily basis into
the city. Others have obviously been trafficked in. Most of women we
speak to are from Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria. One of the
saddest situations is the large number of Nigerian women, who are being
trafficked in. As with most trafficked women, they have been promised
wonderful work that pays far more than they could ever have imagined in
their country. Many are Christian. Upon arriving they are required to
work usually for a “madam” until they pay off their “costs.” These
costs usually range from €45 000 - €60 000. They are told if they don’t
pay a certain amount per month, their family in Nigerian will be taken
to the police station and beaten or worse. At least one of the women
goes to choir practice at her church before going out onto the street.
God has laid it on our hearts to take further steps in ministering to
the women holistically. In June we did a trial run for a café/drop-in,
and we are looking into ways of helping women, who want to leave
prostitution. Our greatest hope of course, is that the women we
minister to come to know the unconditional love of the Father and what
Jesus did for them on the cross; that they would experience
forgiveness, transformation and healing. On the other hand, we don’t
want to just say: “Be clothed and fed” without putting feet to our
words.
Our hope and desire is to have the capability of helping women, who
want to leave prostitution. That could mean providing temporary housing
until they are able to either return to their country of origin or get
on their feet. We would like to find companies that would be willing to
sign working papers for the women, so that they can legally be able to
work a regular job. We would also love to see networks among churches
set up in the countries of origin that would provide a net for women
going back and perhaps be able to give micro-loans to the churches to
help them set up small businesses to provide work for the women upon
return. We have already found one church, for example in
Hungary, who has agreed to take in and care for a young pregnant woman,
from their area.
I see Herzwerk as a group of people who have a special burden for
people in prostitution and/or victims of human trafficking. It is our
conviction that God has called His church to go and reach out to all
those in need of Him. It has been a wonderful to see different local
churches in Vienna become involved by setting people free for this type
of ministry, in order that we, as the Church can answer the call and do
together, what would be impossible for one person or local church to do
alone.
You can be in touch with Rachel or myself through my e-mail:
May God Bless you all!
Lauran
Bethell
Rev.
Lauran Bethell serves as Global Consultant, helping Christians to
minister in Christ’s name to victims of human trafficking and
prostitution. She is a missionary with International Ministries ABC/USA, and is based in The Netherlands.
Lauran is writing for News & Views on a regular base to keep us informed.
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