Newsletter 4/17/05

Rahab's Rope Store Front:
1062 Thompson Court
Gainesville, Ga. 30501

Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 907308
Gainesville, GA 30501

Rahab's Rope Update
April 17, 2005

Hello Everyone,

I hope you and your family are doing well. I thought I would give you and update on how things are going at Rahab's Rope Women's Center. Many exciting things are happening, daily it seems. Of course things started slow but it now appears as though it is picking up very fast as word is getting out of our work. Of course not as fast or as smoothly as we would like to see. However we know God's timing is perfect and we are trusting Him. And we definately know this is His plan not ours. It's just hard for us to wait sometimes. I will be in India from June 3 - 27, two different teams will be coming during that time. The first team will be from June 3 - 12 and they are all from Riverbend at this point, someone from NC may join us. The second group (June 20 - 26) is a group of 6 women from Rome, Ga. they are mostly Christian counselors and will be doing a seminar called "Beauty for Ashes". The following is from an email I received yesterday from the couple (David and Shoba Dass) who are doing the day to day work in Bangalore. Please lift them up in prayer as you will see constant prayer coverage is very important. The letters csw's stands for commercial sex workers, as they are called there and RH stands for Rahab's Home.

RAHAB HOME
April 14, 2005

Dear Vicki,

THANK YOU for your two emails. We are excited to know that you all will be here from the June 5th. We are also excited to know that David and Jennifer will be joining you in this trip.

Even though I have too many things to share about the Rahab Home, I will try to share some of the high lights, disappointments and challenges…

Myself, Shoba, Arlina and Lilly went to the streets, Prayer walking. Unfortunately, Arlina and Lilly can’t speak the local language since they hail from northeast India, but, they understand some of the things, they know little Hindi language…. finally, it is me and Shoba started talking with the csws, we did more of field work, mobilized contacts. Physically and emotionally, we’re almost worn out, but we faced the challenges and developed new contacts. Even though our children were in need of us most, we couldn’t give enough time for them.

We visited VANITHA SAHAYA VANI, (the women’s help line) at the police commissioner’s office and explained to the main person Mrs. Hema Deshpande. Since we are already initiated child line in Bangalore, they know us of our service to the public. I had three hours discussion with the officials, now, guess what, they want us to be their official advisors for their department. Every day they get around 120 women who visit VSV, most of them are Muslim women, they are in need of professional counseling team, even though they are secular in nature, but, they have great respect for the Christian missionaries.

In the process of my discussion with VSV, I have requested them to send the women those who are from csw background or the women those who are raped or sexually abused. Now they have agreed to network with us, they have great respect for our kind of ministry. Now on they will refer women to our center. Very soon they will visit us and get more info about our activity at Rahab Home.

When I shared about the team (JANE PHILLIPS & TEAM), which will be coming with you in the month of June, they wanted to know whether your team could conduct one day training on counseling for the women police and other field workers in Bangalore. If you agree for this proposal I can work on the date and further arrangements can be made, please, find out from your team, will they be interested to impart training for the police department staffs and volunteers for one day in Bangalore. They would prefer the training should be more into secular than Evangelical in its nature, we should be sensitive and careful, since we will be having working partnership with the government department, but, we can always share from the Christian ethics and world view, without offending them. This approach will enable us to create the pre-evangelistic platform, let us think long term.

Yesterday we received a new lady to Rahab, her name is SAYEEDA, she is referred by VSV, police commissioners office, (a Muslim women) who is sexually abused by several people, her husband forced her to sleep with his friends, who is an alcoholic, now she is divorced, they have two children. Mentally she is haunted with fear and psychological dis-order, she is yet to get way from the traumatic experience. Sayeeda says that she is educated, she is fluent in English, yesterday from evening 5PM till 10 PM we all were at RH, we comforted, counseled shared the New Hope through Christ. We continue to share the Love and compassion of Jesus to Sayeeda. Our two staffs are really taking care of her.

Now we have another new field worker, who has long years of experience in serving the csws. His name is Mr. Umanath Shetty, who has degree in social work, MSW (master of social work) and LLB degree in Law. Even though he is not a believer, but he is a good asset to our project, I trust and pray that one day he will get to know the Lord personally. Past two weeks I have been interacting with him, sharing our goal and objective. Shetty has rich knowledge in working for CSWS, has seven years experience. Even though he has other commitments, but, he felt that project such, as RH is very vital in the lives of csws; they can find new Hope in their lives.

Shetty, and myself together we happen to meet over 50 csws. Past several days, tomorrow we are bringing 45 csws at our RH, for the whole day, some of them would like to stay back, at this point we don’t know how many will stay, but at least, five or more will stay back.

Ravi Kumar have given ten case histories of csws, (he wrote all the case histories in Kannada language, we need to translate that into English) whom he personally met and invited them to join at RH, among them, today evening, two of them have come and visited the RH, SULTHANA AND FATHIMA, both are Muslim women, as they were narrating their heart breaking story, Shoba and myself couldn’t control our tears, we wept. The case histories were written when Shoba translated to Arlina. Tomorrow they are bringing couple of their csw friends. On the way back home, we’re thanking and Praising the Lord for your vision of Rahab, with out your Prayer and financial support, I don’t think that we could have carried on this ministry, now we are counting the days for June to arrive…

Pastor Venkatarayappa visited some of the villages last week, today he brought couple of believers from that village, one is a medical doctor, and other person is a social worker. This place is between Karnataka and Andra State border, Ballesy. This is a community called DEVADASI, that means, temple prostitutes, when young girls attain puberty, they are dedicated to the Goddess YELLAMMA, the temple priest will have first intercourse with these young girls, even they are in the age of 12- 13 years old. Later they become regular CSWS, they may migrate to cities or become keep for the village rich people. Now they have rescued 5-7 of the Davidasis from these villages. Within five days they are bringing them in order to admit at RH.

Even though we are eager to see that RH is filled with rescued csws, in spite of all our sincere effort, Lord has His timing and will. Past weeks, it was emotional strain for Shoba and me, this is the first time we are handling project of this nature. But, now on we see the ray of sunshine, He is still in control of everything. Past two days we could able to relax without much anxiety. Your Prayer is vital in our ministry here in Bangalore

Now we can’t wait to meet all the csws at RH tomorrow, we will be spending the entire day there. We will counsel, motivate, and share New Hope in Christ. Five more northeast friends are coming to sing for them and entertain all of them. Please, uphold 14th in your PRAYERS, if you can, please, call some of your PRAYER WARRIORS who can pray for the transformation of several csws tomorrow.

We are filing all the case histories, when you are here, you can read everything and you can take the photocopies of the same. We are also planning to take photos of each inmate and document it in case if there is any legal constrains, we may not know how some of the pimps and rowdies will create problem. Already we heard couple of stories about this issue.

I will write to you tomorrow again, if possible, since we spend more time directly in the field, other than our regular on going ministry here. We have two challenges, one is to train and teach our existing staffs, since for them also it is first time, they are handling project of this nature, second, we ourselves are directly involved in the field work contacting the csws, except sleeping time we are totally occupied with out reach work for the csws. As a matter of fact, most of the csws are not willing to be confined within a building for whole day, since they have the habit of wandering, watching movies, staying in different hotels, every day they see money, at least 200 to 400 rupees and consume alcohol every day, etc…it is a process, the first stage for them is to come and see our home by themselves, they should develop the confidence, suddenly for them to quit their habits is not easy. We do lot of talking, the process of counseling is long and sometimes we are also emotionally dry after a long day of work. I think within a month we might have attained our target number.