So much Hope.

Continued...

Oasis is located in the heart of the red light district, so we only had to walk two minutes to get to the brothel. Zeba, Kaitlyn, and I climbed a flight of stairs into just one of the hundreds of brothels. Women with faces painted--pink lipstick, black eyebrows, eyes smothered in eye-liner--welcomed us. Zeba smiled and laughed--I'm pretty sure I looked completely horrified. After meeting the first 5 or so women, one woman asked for prayer. I asked her her name and prayed that she would know her worth. That Jesus would show Himself to her as the one and only God. As soon as I said "Amen", I asked Zeba to tell her she's beautiful in Hindi. The woman looked me in the eyes, and I held her cheeks--just like Jesus had done to me earlier--and I smiled a teary-eyed smile. Then, I hugged her and held her. The Lord was giving me strength. I looked each woman in the eyes and tried to make sure that they knew I cared deeply--that Jesus cared and loved them deeply.

As we walked on, we stopped in many rooms, sat with women on their beds and prayed. We prayed for Jesus to rule and reign in that brothel. For the women to know Him as their King, their Dad, their Good Shepherd. Many of the women giggled and smiled, while others looked hardened and cold. We prayed for husbands, for health, for relief of pain, for coming babies, for separated families, for sick mothers. At one point, we prayed for a woman in her room while her roommate took a customer on the other side of a curtain. That's when a disgusting reality hit me, and hit me hard. These women sleep in the place that they work. They sleep on the beds that they are abused on. Their kids sleep underneath. Some rooms had four women in a room the size of my bathroom. Rooms adorned with false Hindu Gods and patrolled by "madams" who were sure to keep a close eye on their "employees." Men walked around--some smoking, some on boxers, some flirting with the girls. That one brothel was the most hell that I had seen on earth in my entire life. And that was just one of them.

Situation after situation, I learned to love like Jesus loved. Every time that Jesus felt for people with deep compassion, He healed, and cleared up misconceptions that people had about Himself by sharing with them true love. I prayed that my lamp would burn brightly in that dark place, and that I could be a true display of Christ-like love.

Zeba, Kaitlyn, and I climbed at least 6 floors of women all living lives of disaster, of destruction, of pain. And I left knowing not what to do. Feeling nothing, but wanting so badly to feel something. I was mad but not furious; sad but not in despair. I was literally in shock, and it took days for my heart to catch up with what my eyes had seen.

We got back to Oasis, and Zeba, the 95 pound power-woman who commanded traffic and fearlessly entered the brothels, shared with me her story. She was orphaned at the age of five after her parents were poisoned and killed. Her and her sister were taken care of by a Muslim family down the road. They were beaten with rods often, so she hid in the cabinets from them. They were both eventually sold into marriage for 50,000 Roopies. All she wanted to do was play, she said, because she had no idea what it meant to be a bride! So she ran away, and was met by a man that told her he would offer her a job in design if she didn't tell her sister where she was going. So she id. Before she knew it, she was being drugged into obedience. Until she was 15 years old, Zeba was used as an underage sex slave. She tried to run away 7 times, but was caught and electrocuted each time. But on the eighth time that she ran away, she met a man from Oasis who paid (?) for her to escape and took her to church camp. She was free, and confessed her trust in Jesus Christ as her personal Lord and Savior. Now, 11 years later, she speaks through her scars to women whose pain is fresh, proclaiming that by Christ's wounds she is healed. Zeba is now married and I found out in the car that both she and her husband are HIV positive. A woman who awaits a sure death, but who lives with such extreme joy gives me hope. She is living proof that you don't need to be "strong" to have eternal victory because we have a God that fights for us--we need only to be still.

So my first experience in the brothels was without a doubt one of my greatest storms, and I was changed; my insides were ravaged. I left feeling nauseated by the validation of sin, but I was not in despair, no. There is hope. One woman had a smile that painted over her pain. She giggled and smiled, and was genuinely beautiful. I prayed for her in my mind as I talked with her in her broken English. I felt like I needed to tell her that Jesus loved her. So I knelt down at her feet, looked her steadily in the eyes, and told her in the most genuine way that Jesus loved her a lot. "I know," she responded. "You do?" I asked to make sure. "Yes," she said, her eyes welling up with tears and shooting to the ground. Zeba noticed her reaction, and began speaking to her in Hindi. Zeba told me as we walked home that the woman was educated, and had a degree in commerce, but wanted nothing more to do with prostitution anymore. She wanted out. Zeba and the woman exchanged numbers, and Zeba encouraged her to go to Oasis. Zeba seemed excited, and so was I. Jesus is giving this woman the courage to stand up to her oppressors and to leave the work that sucks away her dignity and her life.

My Jesus' arm is not too short to save, and He saves. That gives hope, in the places that seem so hopeless. For He is hope. So I grip tightly to the truth that Jesus is the God of this city, and He is jealous over the hearts of these girls and women. May we begin to see heaven breaking through in the brothels on the streets of Mumbai, and Jesus ruling and reigning in victory over the thick evil that coats the walls of these buildings and the hearts of the lost.