Am I my sister's keeper?

Saturday night we were open in Night Light Café & welcomed around 40 precious women working in the sex industry at Vesterbro. Some of them work as prostitutes voluntarily but most of them are forced to serve the customers there.

98 % of the street prostitutes in Copenhagen are from Nigeria. They live in a very tough environment with lots of competition about the customers. Competition seems necessary for them to be able to earn the money they need for themselves, their families & their traffickers!

These Nigerian women come from a religious background where it’s not a taboo to talk about God. They believe in a spiritual reality, have an awareness of God & most of them see themselves as believers in Christ.

So, in the middle of the night, we normally have a short devotional & prayer time with the women who want to join which is usually them all.

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I decided to share about the importance of being our sister’s keeper. I heard my pastor, Thomas Hansen, teach this brilliant thought lately to a volunteer training night in my church. Immediately I thought about how ideal it would be to bring this message to my friends caught in the sex trade.

In Genesis 4 (Message Bible), we hear about how Cain kills his brother Abel. The Lord confronts Him with his action in verse 9:

“Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know”, he replied. “Am I my brother’s (sister’s) keeper?”

God’s question imposes that Cain certainly is supposed to be his brother’s keeper. He is supposed to defend, support & encourage his brother.

This is still true today. We are supposed to fight FOR each other, not AGAINST each other! The bible is clear about that God commands a blessing where there is unity.

Despite these women’s horrible circumstances, I wanted to urge them this Saturday night to trust God with their circumstance & live from a kingdom perspective.

Kingdom perspective is not about competition & winners & losers. The kingdom is about completion – bringing the best out in one another. In a beautiful kingdom fellowship, we lend our strengths in areas where our brother or sister is weak, & we lean upon their strengths in areas where we are weak ourselves.

This life is not an independent race but a race where I am responsible to help others cross the line into eternity. While competition destroys trust and creates single thinking, completion is thinking – if you win – I win.

As I shared some of these thoughts with the ladies, I sensed the exact opposite happening in the room. There was a spirit of division among them rather than unity. And it made me realise, once again, the importance of speaking biblical truth & principles over their lives.

Ten minutes before we were closing down for the night, I casually asked a women sitting alone how she was doing. Immediately she began telling me of the sadness of her soul & how lonely she was. She truly needed a ‘sister’s keeper’.

“I come alone to the street. I leave the street alone. I am always alone. I was always alone in Italy too. When you have many friends, you have many problems, that’s life, you know. I don’t trust the other women. They slander me. They don’t help me.”

What she told me showed me that she was truly one of the women who needed this message of fellowship & unity. She needed desperately that the sisters around her would be there for her!

She began telling me how tired she was & how much she wished to have another life.

As I prayed over her, she cried & ended with saying: “I think the solution for me is to go to church with you & get a bible!”

I couldn’t agree with her more & she left the café uplifted and excited for church the following day.

So this Sunday, she went to church with me. Afterwards we drank coffee together where she graciously allowed me to record our conversation so I could remember all the details of her story.

I share some details from the conversation on her permission. It is both her desire and my desire that it will stir you to pray for her! In advance – thank you so much!

This is simply a tiny glimpse into one story in an ocean of similar stories. Stories real people carry. People who are selling their bodies daily at Istedgade.

“I have been in Denmark for one month and two weeks now. When I was in church with you and when I drink coffee with you now, my spirit is happy because I have chosen to be here. But I find it difficult to go with men because I did not choose it to begin with. Since I have been in Denmark I have only been with one customer because I don’t like myself when I am on the street.

I can’t lie to you. I don’t pay my trafficker anymore. When I was kidnapped to work as a prostitute, it took me 6 years to pay off the 40.000 euro they demanded me to pay back. I have paid it now. I don’t know how to go back to Nigeria because I am still in slavery in my mind. It was very terrible to be trafficked. Here are my scars. ”

Then she lifted up her sleeves for me to see the violence that had been done to her.

“I don’t want to remember the past. If I remember, I start crying. Last year was a hell.”

When I asked her about the other women on the street, she said:

“I don’t have any girlfriends…and I can’t do it anymore. I don’t know what to do… The other women working on the street have problems. I don’t want anyone close so they can spoil my dreams, you know.”

When I asked her if she had been involved in voodoo, she answered this:

(Voodoo is a religion that involves black magic & casting spells on people. It is often used to manipulate girls spiritually before they are trafficked to Europe. Voodoo doctors cast spells over a girl so she believes terrible things will happen if she tries to escape her trafficker – for example that her family will be killed.)

“Yes, they tried to cast a spell over me before they trafficked me. I had to obey at that time. But I don’t believe in it. It’s a dirty thing. It does not work. The voodoo doctors are blind to the truth. But I believe the voodoo men and women are created by God. They don’t have the power. God has. When God touches them, they will repent.”

When I asked her how her customers have treated her, she told me:

“They have broken me. They have hit me. They have stolen my money. One time I was cast right in front of a car that was speeding. If it was not for the protection of God, I would have been dead many times.”

When I asked her of her dreams for the future, she explained:

“It’s my dream to buy beautiful stuff from Italy and sell it in Nigeria… and I would like to serve the Lord. I would like to tell people about the goodness of God and the truth of the Bible as you do to me…”

We ended our conversation by talking about how God is a master in turning our stories around for His glory.

I am in close contact with this woman and tomorrow, I am meeting up with her together with my two colleagues to continue ministering to her & help her take the next step towards freedom.

Please pray that these words from Psalm 40 will become this woman’s experience! God is well able.

“I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me & heard my cry. He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.”

God so loves this woman. What He has already done by creating this opportunity for me to meet her is amazing.

Her story is still being written.

Let’s be people who never lose hope for other’s stories…and let’s be people who are being our sister’s and brother’s keeper.

The definition of a keeper is among other things to be:

• A person who guards or watches.
• A person charged with responsibility for something or someone valuable.

Yes. Let’s be those kind of people. <3

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