New Life

On Thursday night I went out with a ministry called New Life, whose work is amongst the prostitutes and transvestites of Athens. It was an interesting evening to say the least. Our night started at 22:30 down at New Life’s office, in the shady part of down town Athens, Omonia. We started with some orientation as we, Sarah Wheway, our friend Ioanna and myself, had never done this before. There we had a chance to learn a little bit more about the trafficking trade of Greece and the women involved. I was shocked to learn what I did. The women are told upon arrival that when they’ve earned 50-60.000€ they’ll be released. To my great surprise the pimps and madams actually do release them. Most women though, upon release, keep selling themselves. They’re logic is that since they’re bodies were sold for somebody else it might as well be sold for their own benefit. Upon being asked if they would have known then, i.e. prior to coming, what they knew now, would they still have come? Their answer is invariably yes. They’re situation here, although not the greatest, is still far better than what they had back home, and so they would still have come. I couldn’t believe my ears. If prostitution is better than home, how bad is home? Coming from my little bubble of protected Europe I can’t even begin to imagine what these women have gone through. The longer I work with the mercy ministries the more I realize that we in the West are the privileged few. After orientation we were told that, since it was Thursday, we would not be going to the prostitutes, as on these nights they minister to the transvestites. We had a time of prayer and worship, to prepare our hearts for what was to come and then we were split into three teams. I was glad to hear that my team was being sent to Sygrou Avenue. Now Sygrou is an avenue that I travel through every day on my way to the office. My eyes have been opened to how dark that place is as on every block there is a strip club. The Lord placed it on my heart, a year and a half ago, to pray for this place, which I do every time I travel through it. Part of my prayer has been “Lord, if it is Your will, use me directly to minister to these women” well, to my great joy, my prayer was answered... sort of. I had an opportunity to minister to those who walk that street but they were not women, they were men dressed as women, transvestites. We drove down the avenue and when we located one or two guys, we drove a little farther down and parked. Then two out of the group, typically women, went out to these guys with coffee & tea to talk to them, while the rest of us stayed back in the car and prayed for the encounter. By the way, in each team there is always one man for security purposes, in case things get heated. So at any given time there are two ladies talking to the guys, with at least two people praying for them in the car. To my surprise, quite a few of these men are Greeks who do this by choice. One man we encountered, who has been a friend of the ministry for three years now, supports his family this way. He has a wife and a daughter and, as far as I can tell, leads a regular life by day, although he doesn’t have a 9-5 job. Still now I can hardly believe it. What baffled me also was the amount of men that solicit their services! I will never understand this world.

Was I shocked to see what I did? I wasn’t as shocked as I could, or even should have been. I don’t know why. Maybe I’ve been habituated to this world by TV and movies, but the site of a man dressed as a woman didn’t shock or repulse me. I just felt a great swell of pity for them. It must be terrible to be so unsatisfied with oneself that one feels the need to dress up as the opposite sex and even to go to such lengths as to have an operation to become that opposite sex.

Well, all we can do is pray for them and continue to develop those relationships that hopefully will lead them to Christ. It was an eye opening experience for me and I sincerely hope that I’ll be able to go back and minister to these men again.