Loving the ladies.

Sunday 2 October 2011

Today I want to write about today. Today my heart was moved by God’s heart. Moved with God’s heart for the women who live in prostitution here in Belo Horizonte (BH). I’m here for a week and today I participated in a lunch for the ladies which is organized by a team in the city. It really impacted my heart. The past years my eyes and heart have been opened in a greater degree to the lives women in prostitution lead and a desire to speak value and dignity to them and see them encounter the love of Jesus.

The past few days the team had been going out with invitations to lunch today, and so today we went along again, divided into teams, to visit the ladies and invite them (or remind those who were already invited). Here in BH one of the areas of prostitution has many “hotels” where the ladies rent rooms and the men come to them to “buy their services”. The buildings have doormen and it’s a very organized establishment. It really impacted me to enter these building with narrow staircases, and men coming and going. As we entered in we’d hand out invitations to the ladies whose rooms were open and invite them and tell them how valuable they are. Many of them had already been invited, and quite a lot of them affirmed that “yes” they were coming!

One lady who looked older was very open and seemed happy and excited about the lunch. She commented on my hair and said I was beautiful, and I responded by giving her a hug, looking her in the eyes and telling her that she too is so beautiful!

As we were in the buildings inviting the ladies the men caught my attention and it just broke my heart to see the vacant, dead looks in their eyes. My heart was stirred not just for the ladies, but also the men. They are so broken and in need of restoration too!

After inviting the ladies we went back to small indoor shopping gallery where the lunch was to be held in the food court. We sat around and chatted (I had an “açaí na tigela” which is absolutely delicious. It’s the pulp of the açaí berry blended with banana and with granola and nuts on top. It’s just the best!), waiting for the ladies to come. And little by little they started coming in and as they’d come they were greeted and sat at the tables. It was so nice to see the conversations happening and the love and care that was showered on these ladies. I sat down with a lady who was so shy. She was a bit older and it was a lot of work to keep a conversation going, but by the end of it, it felt like we’d connected a little bit at least. I told her about the care of God and how He cares about her dream to work as a hairdresser, and I got to pray for her which was really special.

Another really awesome part was the raffle where each lady was given a number and then there was a raffle. It was so beautiful to see the joy in the faces of the ladies who won as they came forward to receive their gift and get a good, loving hug as well. Of course there were enough gifts for each lady and it made my heart so joyful to see it!

As it was ending I saw the lady I’d called beautiful, and she came over and gave me a huge hug. She introduced me to her friend as “the girl who called me beautiful.” It’s amazing how much of an impact a simple word of encouragement can make.

Another day I’ll write about the other days here, but right now I just want to dwell on God’s beautiful and amazing heart for these women, and pray that the ladies I spoke to will hear their heavenly Father also say to them, “You are beautiful.”