Book Report (kinda)

1 of my 500 million favorite parts of The Midnight Patrol:


Mary Scott (before she started her work on the streets) was living at a Girl's Industrial Home where she was looking after new recruits to the Salvation Army. One of the girls, who grew up with quite a charmed life, came back a complete wreck after spending a week a maternity home for unmarried mothers. She would have nightmares of the idea of even having to go back. She grew up so sheltered from that kind of life that she didn't know to process all of it.

(Now this is when I interject my own thought of throwing the little brat back in there and making her get used to it. This is real life! ...but that's just me).

Mary, having compassion for the girl, went to talk to the Major about the girl:

Ought not young cadets like [her] to be shielded from such knowledge as she had unwillingly gained, from such disillusioning experiences?

Major Grace Jackson was not so sympathetic as might have been expected. Salvation Army officer were not to be shielded from unpleasant things, but exposed to them. At the time Molly [Mary] felt the reply she gave was almost ruthless. But she never forgot it. Down through the years the stern words came to her, reminding her that she had enrolled as a soldier and was engaged in a battle.

...'Scott, you've got to look at sin,' said Major Jackson grimly. 'You've got to look it in the face, stare at it, glare at it. You've got to see it for the awful thing it is. And then you've got to go and do something about it!'

Oops!

Well, as predicted, it's Tuesday and I never did blog about last week's outreach. But here are at least some random thoughts about it... and some random thoughts not about it. Okay okay... so here are some random thoughts about anything.


1. Outreach

Friday night (4/15) was pretty amazing! We had a team of six girls so we were able to split up and each take different sides of the street. There were tons of girls out! Unfortunately we also received a lot of rejections too. A few people were pretty open (including a guy who tried getting into a debate with us. 'The origin of religion is the word horizon which originated with a guy named Horace. It's in the dictionary. Look it up.' - ok guy...) but most of them didn't really want to talk. We think it might have been training night for some of the girls because there were a lot of them standing along who wouldn't even make eye contact with us. You could feel the fear and yet see the stone cold looks on their faces as they tried to be strong. So sad...

2. Connections!

Just earlier that day, Jen C received a pretty amazing phone call which only shows one of the many ways God is moving in the ministry and in the area. But I'll let her tell you the rest of the story...

Update: Oops... her blog is gone! In short, a woman (we refer to her as 'Dana') in our area called a preacher who has a television show in Florida. She has turned to prostitution to support her children and wants prayer to get out. This preacher then found a way to contact Jen, asking her to contact the woman.

We are hoping to go visit Dana this week!

Atop that, Jen has made connections with 'groups' in the area. There is a pregnancy center in the area that is interested in teaming with us. Also, a guy from the church we're connected to just started a Bible study in the area also. He says there are girls who show up to the study too. Jen and I are going to go visit the study this week when we go see Dana. Praise God for divine appointments!

No matter where you live or what your passions are, there are always small (but SO significant!) ways you can team up with this ministry. I'm gonna cheat and link again, but here are ways you can help After Hours Ministry.


3. Latest Read

A few weeks ago, Jen (sometimes I think my readers must think I am talking about myself in third person. Just think 'Jen C' anytime you start to worry!) mentioned on FB a book she was reading. It's called The Midnight Patrol: The story of a Salvation Army lass who patrolled the dark streets of London's West End on a midnight mission of mercy. (I know... long title). I found it on amazon for a few bucks so I figured I would check it out. I kind of assumed it would be about maybe helping the homeless or something at the most. But no! Written in 1974, it's a story of a woman who used to go out to the streets to reach out to the prostitutes! Sweet!

Needless to say, I can't put it down. I was about to blog about one of my many favorite parts, but this post is already too long so I will do that later. But in short, it's really good. I highly recommend, whether you're into reaching out to prostitutes or not ;)


Ok that's all. Random thoughts done!

Last week?

I should have blogged about last week's outreach after it happened. I really should have because it was pretty amazing. But now? Now I can't remember all the details. Ask me to quote you Seinfeld or tell you about a vendor I paid two years ago at work and I will tell you check number, amount, and date. But what did I eat for lunch yesterday? ::shrug:: Gotta love memory.

So the most I can hand you about last week's outreach is that we ran into Gary Chapman and he sang for us.

No... not THAT Gary Chapman! Silly.

...And there you go.

But I'll say this: If you prayed for us, Thank you! Your prayers were felt and answered :)

We're going back out at 1am tonight. Let's hope I'll remember to blog this time. Prayers appreciated!

SO obvious...

BF says I never gave him any indication in the past that I was interested. Looks like SOMEBODY needs to learn how to read the signs! Sheesh! ;)

Thanks Abe

Prostitute Outreach - 4/1/11 (by Jen C)

To start off, if you were wondering just how nutty/bad at making decisions I am, check this out:

Friday night we already had the plan of meeting at 1am for outreach. Given that the round trip back home and back to LA later wouldn't be worth the time (plus gas is killing us all these days) I had made plans to take a nap at Julia's before outreach. Pretty smart, right?

Then comes my dear Jen C. A bad influence, in the best way possible, convinces me to skip the nap and go to a Dodger game with her instead. So from the time that I got out of bed Friday morning, went to work, enjoyed the game, did outreach, and then drove home, I was pretty close to 24 hours without sleep.

And so was Jen when she wrote this blog... (and yet was still able to write a fantastic update!) ;)

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Dear friends,

A lot is happening and it is hard for me to find time or I guess the level of concentration needed to write. So, here goes nothin!

In the last few weeks we noticed that there weren't many girls out on the track when we would do outreach and we began to pray about possibly changing the time and or location of our outreach.
The first thing we did was decide to go out later or should I say "earlier"...the last 2 weeks we have met at 1am to pray and hit the track at about 2.

The first week, we still didn't see a lot of girls, though more than usual. We ran into a guy who runs a local liquor store that I have talked to on several occasions and asked him what was going on. He said the cops were doing a lot of undercover busts (we happened to meet a few several weeks before) and that girls were getting arrested and the track was quieting down. So I asked him where the girls were and he gave us a location just a couple of miles from our normal track. At the end of the night we went to check it out and just as he had said we saw several girls in the first couple of blocks. We decided that the following week (last night) we would go to the new track.

Back up a few minutes.... while on the old track (confused yet? ;) ) we met two sisters who were a very sweet and very broken pair. They had been working for over 30 years and they were eager to hear how we might help them change their lives. We tried to connect them with a home that night but weren't able to make the connection, so we gave them our number and took theirs and prayed with them. We weren't able to connect with them this week, but I am still hopeful that we will soon. As we were talking with them, I remembered that I had one scarf left that my sister had made for the girls and thought it would bless them, we encouraged them to remember that God was pursuing them and had good things for them when they looked at the scarf. Will you please pray with us for these two sisters?

This last week I was still in prayer about the track and where we should be and one afternoon, while thinking of all the events of the last week I realized God had already answered. In one week, the Lord connected me to a pregnancy clinic, a newly formed Bible study and a Young Life group in the exact area where we minister. Wow! Surely God is working in this area and bringing His people together, with all different gifts to reach His people. I am so blessed by the connections that have been made and excited to see how God will use the various ministries to draw the lost to Himself.

This Friday night we had enough people for two teams so we split up, one team went to the old track and one to the "new". Both of us met a lot of girls and gave out several gift bags. One thing we would ask you to pray for is the openness of the girls, that they will trust us and receive us as we seek to reach out to them. It seems that with the increased police activity, the girls are less likely to stop and talk with us and apparently we all look like cops :p

We absolutely covet your prayers for this ministry, we trust that the Lord is leading us and that He has us and we are so thankful for your partnership in prayer. For the most part we go on outreach on Friday nights, but our team needs prayer coverage all throughout the week!

In His grace,
Jen C
http://www.afterhoursministry.org/