Strip Clubs & Baptisms

STRIP CLUBS & BAPTISMS…

7 years ago, during Treasures’ first ever Vegas outreach, we met Abby*.  A bright young woman, full of life and personality in spite of having faced some very painful circumstances in her life, she had just entered the sex industry.  

“This is perfect,” I thought.  “Perhaps after meeting the Treasures team, she will decide to leave the industry before she gets too deep into it-- before it gets too deep into her.”  

The journey that has followed has caused me to practice everything I preach—Loving people right where they are at, trusting that God will do a work in their heart as they draw near to Him, knowing that it is His goodness that leads people to change.   

I would ask God, “What do you want me to say to Abby?”

“Nothing.  Just listen,” He would speak to my heart.   

In the past 7 years, there were moments when I had the opportunity to tell her how much God loves her or to pray with her about a challenge she was facing.  I have to admit, there were times when I thought to myself, “Okay God…I know that healing is a journey, and that I am supposed to love people where they are at…but 7 years?” 

He would remind me that His love is unfailing, unchanging, unrelenting, unstoppable, and that I am to love as He does. 

This weekend, God’s work in Abby’s heart had our team in tears.  She let us know that she wasn’t going into work, despite it being a potentially lucrative holiday weekend and that she just wanted to be around us.  So she joined in all of our activities for the weekend.  During our volunteer prayer, she jumped in and asked us to pray for her.  Before we prayed, she turned to me with tears in her eyes and said, “Every night when I show up at work, I pray that ‘the Prince song’ will come on because I want to leave like you did, Harmony.”   

I literally started balling.  I couldn’t even hold back the tears if I wanted to.  Because I know that she was referencing a pivotal moment in my own life when ‘the Prince song’ Purple Rain came on, and I had an encounter with God in the middle of the strip club.  It was at that moment that I left the industry. 

We all cried and prayed with Abby.  We told her that God’s plans for her are good and encouraged her that He would make a way for her, just as He made a way for me. 

The next day, Abby asked us to come to church with her and was delighted to show up with an entourage of girls.  That day, she told us that she wanted to be baptized but had no one to cheer her on they day her church offered baptisms.  She asked if I would be willing to do the honors of baptizing her.  So, with her Treasures family cheering loudly at the hotel pool, Abby was baptized! 

I love that God loves us and meets us right where we are at—in strip clubs and hotel swimming pools, whether we are still dealing with pride or envy…or stripping—He loves us and He always shows up!  He is unrelenting in His pursuit of us and I am honored to witness His pursuit of Abby and the beautiful work He is doing in her life.

Love, Harmony & The Treasures Team

PS. For more Vegas highlights, check out the Twitter highlights!  www.twitter.com/TreasuresLA

And you can watch one of our poolside baptisms here! http://yfrog.com/5j366z

(*Name changed to protect confidentiality)

Chasing other Lovers

A Treasure for You: The Treasures E-Devotional

Chasing other Lovers

I believe that one of the deepest desires of the human heart is for true intimacy. To be fully known and fully loved. Yet in my own life, for so many years, it seemed that the harder I chased after love, the more it eluded me.

My memoir, Scars and Stilettos, tells my story. Growing up, I never had a clear picture of what healthy love looked like. Abandoned by my father before I was a year old, sexually abused at the hands of multiple people—my picture of intimacy was completely skewed. I was so desperate for anything that resembled love, at the young age of 14, I slept with the first boy who came along and told me he loved me. He broke up with me soon after and raped me repeatedly over the course of the next year. Filled with hurt and shame, I remember thinking, “Is this what love looks like? Surely love can’t hurt so bad?”

The next relationship I became involved in quickly became emotionally and physically abusive. Still I stayed. Because “to him who is hungry, even what is bitter tastes sweet” (Proverbs 27:7). Although the relationship was bitter and painful, I preferred it to the alternative—being alone.

It was that relationship that led me into a world of selling myself in strip clubs. So desperate to keep my boyfriend from leaving me, I attempted to buy his love with the money I earned while dancing for other men. Once again, my skewed view of love brought me pain. For the next few years, I lay awake at night hoping, praying even, that if I tried hard enough, if I chased him long enough, he would love me one day.

How could I know what True Love looks like if I had never experienced it? It wasn’t until I began my relationship with God that I began to that it is patient. It is kind. It is not easily angered. True Love always protects.

It is no wonder that we crave intimacy so deeply. We were created for relationship. In Genesis, we learn that it was Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit that brings separation between God and humanity, separation from our perfect intimacy with God. Eve has access to everything she would ever need to fill the longings and desires of her heart, yet she still chooses forbidden fruit. How often do we fall to the same temptation and create fracture in our relationship with God? How often do we try to fill legitimate needs in illegitimate ways?

For years, I chased after men, looking to them to fill me. Nowadays, I tend to turn to chocolate. Just last week I was having a frustrating day and the first thing I did was grab a piece of my favorite, dark organic chocolate. The chocolate was delicious, but it did nothing to ease my pain. My prescription was insufficient.

The real trouble comes when our prescriptions become our addictions. It’s when that piece of chocolate leads to binge eating, leads to obesity and compromised health. It’s when social drinking becomes I-just-need-a-glass-of-wine-to-take-the-edge-off, becomes excessive drinking, becomes alcoholism. It’s when a full social calendar becomes a lifestyle so bogged down with running from one appointment to another that we barely have a moment to catch our breath. Our prescriptions for our pain can become our addictions.

Ultimately, it is these insufficient prescriptions and addictions that stand in the way of the one thing that can truly satisfy—an authentic, unhindered relationship with our Creator. I believe that God is calling each of us to surrender the fragmented pieces of ourselves so we can experience true intimacy and love.

God is wooing you and I— hoping that we will give up our other lovers—whether they be man, woman, food, money, sex, busyness, beauty or something else. He knows the hollow end of those affairs. He knows that none of it will fill you like He can. The deepest longings of our hearts can only be truly satisfied by being fully known and fully loved by Him. There is no substitute—there is no filler—there is no other lover worth chasing.

Love, Harmony
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PS. You can order my new memoir, Scars and Stilettos at www.iamatreasure.com/store

love perseveres

November Outreach Update

On Friday night, we visited 10 clubs in Hawthorne and Inglewood, CA and gave gifts to women working there. At one club, a manager welcomed us in and said, “What’s it been? At least four or five years now you have been coming.”

Actually, next month is Treasures’ 6-year anniversary! And from the day we started, I knew that building relationships with the clubs was an endeavor that would take time and consistency. The manager’s acknowledgement of the longevity of this outreach was affirming.

Unfortunately, there are three clubs on this route, all owned by the same person that were less welcoming. We haven’t been able to connect with the owner on a personal level to address any concerns she may have and she has directed her staff not to let us give out gifts. At one of her clubs, the girls found out we were outside and came running to the door, trying to push past security, clamoring for gift bags. Our hearts broke to have to turn away without giving them gifts out of respect for the manager’s wishes. One girl ran out of the club and took one from us saying, “I don’t care what they say, and I’m not going to let them stop me!”

Despite the challenges at those clubs, it was a night of breakthrough in other respects. We were able to hand-deliver gifts at one of the clubs I used to work at for the first time since we started going there! It was incredible to think that I used to walk those floors prowling for customers and Friday night, I walked the same ground for an entirely different purpose!

When we visited another club I used to work for, I found out that one of my old co-workers is still there. At the mention of her name, my eyes welled with tears. She is a woman with whom I always felt a special bond. I could always find comfort in her kind and knowing eyes. And when I left the business, she cheered me on.

It has been 11 years since I last saw her, but when she walked in the room, she recognized me immediately and called me by my real name. It touched me to know that she remembered me after all of this time. For the past 6 years, she has been receiving our little pink gift bags. It felt so good to see her face and to wrap my arms around her. It was worth the wait!

In 1 Corinthians 13, the bible paints a picture of what love looks like saying that “It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” Hugging my friend in that special moment was the fruit of perseverance. When I think of the women in the clubs that we were not able to reach, my hope is in knowing that God’s love for them perseveres. And because of His great love, so will we.


Love,

Harmony
www.iamatreasure.com
www.myspace.com/treasuresnonprofit

Love Painted

Treasures Outreach Update October 2008

Friday night was the first outreach I have attended since having my precious daughter in July. Running a ministry and raising a beautiful baby girl is teaching me a lot about surrender. Let’s be honest, my tendency towards being Type A can get me bogged down in details and day planners until my head spins. But I am learning that after a reasonable amount of prayer and planning, the best that I can do is show up and trust that God will move. And that is exactly what He has been doing. Funny enough, as I am releasing more and more to Him, it seems that MORE, not less, is being accomplished. John the Baptist was right when he said, “He must become greater; I must become less.” John 3:30

When I showed up for the outreach, volunteers arrived in such record numbers that we were able to split up our Hollywood route between two groups! Thanks to the welcoming managers and door guys, women in every single club we visited received a gift bag.

We were also joined by new friends from Connecticut and Oregon who came along to get some hands on training in order to take the Treasures vision home with them.

At one club, we handed out a gift to a woman who was running out the door in tears telling management she needed a minute to herself. We hope and pray that in that time she spent alone, she opened the gift and took the message to heart. She is so deeply loved.

Later that night, we had the honor of accompanying a young woman on her first trip back to the club she used to work at. Her old co-workers greeted her with welcoming arms. A talented artist, she painted a stunning portrait of a mighty angel for the girls to put up in the dressing room.

A bouncer studied her work with heartfelt appreciation. “What’s it called?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you name it?” she replied.

He stood back and examined it intently. “Gabriel. It should be called ‘Gabriel’” he nodded with certainty.

She painted her love for the women in that club with each stroke of her brush. And from what I could tell, the message was well received.

Thank you for your prayers and support!

Love,
Harmony
www.iamatreasure.com
Treasures Myspace