From Darkness to Light

Five-month-old Erick cries from a corner of the dimly lit room. No one comes to check on him; no one pays attention to his tears. He has not had a bath or change of clothes in days. He lies in his filth and his hungry sobs eventually subside into sleep. Erick’s mom ignores her baby because she is working. She has had a steady flow of customers in and out of her bed all night. The brothel that serves as her house is always busy. She does not have time for the cries of a newborn.

In a country where more than 70 percent of the people live below the poverty line, prostitution, sexual exploitation and sex trafficking are all too common. Casa Alianza, an international, non-governmental organization dedicated to aid street children of Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico and Guatemala, found in a 2003 survey that more than 10,000 children are being prostituted across the 20 largest cities in Honduras. In another Casa Alianza study, the organization found that many “homeless girls in Honduras, who engage in ‘survival sex’ in exchange for basic necessities, were initially victims of sexual abuse in their homes.”

In the capital city of Tegucigalpa, where Erick’s mom works, an estimated 2,280 children were sexually exploited in 2003. Three years later, Honduran government authorities estimated 15,000 children were trafficked across the border in a year for purposes related to sexual exploitation. Esteban Elvir, executive director of Point of Impact, said these numbers have only gotten worse with time. I wish I had known these facts before I visited Honduras in the summer of 2009. In my mind, prostitution was a sinful lifestyle chosen by women desperate for money and willing to perform whatever to get it.

I had heard stories such as Jenifer Gabriela, a 9-year-old girl, living in a gang-infested neighborhood in the heart of Tegucigalpa. She stayed with her grandmother and four cousins in a one-room house with dirt for floors, cracked wood for walls and an outhouse for a bathroom. They all survived on about $2 a day. Jenifer Gabriela’s mother died of AIDS and her father left her to live with another family. Oh, he came back to check up on her occasionally. But only when he felt the sick desire to sexually abuse the daughter he so willingly abandoned.

I knew those stories – the ones about innocent children. But I never realized that oftentimes it was these same girls, abused from an early age, who grew up to walk the streets at night, dressed in tight mini-skirts, stilettos, low-cut blouses and fish-net hose. The same ones who stepped into sleek, black cars to voluntarily sell their bodies night after night were the very ones who were involuntarily abused by the one man who was supposed to take care of them – their father.

On a warm June night in 2009, I had not thought of any of this. All I knew was my church group was about to serve dinner to 12‑15 prostitutes and homosexual cross-dressers who usually solicited business on a nearby street corner. As a 20-year-old who has been in church all her life, I knew what my response should be when told I was about to hang out with prostitutes for a couple hours: “Jesus hung out with the tax collectors and sinners when he was on the earth. I should follow his example and not be scared or freaked out by this.”

But I live in the 21st century in the U.S. “Bible belt.” My church does not typically take service groups to have a chat with the local prostitutes walking the strip. We usually just go to a public school and plant flowers. Needless to say, I was outside my comfort zone when I hopped in a white, 16-passenger van to go pick up our dinner guests. It’s not that I did not want to serve them dinner; I just didn’t know how. My nervous heartbeat whispered, “What will I say? How should I act?”

Suddenly, I find myself sitting at the dinner table next to a woman wearing a Honduran soccer jersey. Her long, dark hair is pulled halfway back in a ponytail and when she smiles (which is often), she reveals several golden-capped teeth. Her simple beauty shines through her thorough application of blush, lipstick and eyeliner. As I begin to speak to her through broken Spanish, I think to myself, “This is not at all what I expected.” Rosalina’s kind eyes look right into mine as she listens to me try to tell her about my family. She says she has a son at home and she likes to watch the World Cup. She’s 22 years old. From the lines on her face caused by the cares of the world, I would have guessed she was at least 30. Her raspy voice betrays her smoking habit, but it is caring and interested.

“How did she end up like this?” I wonder. Everything in me wants to tell her there is a better life. She has a choice, a way out. As all these thoughts rush through my head, I look up to see another young mother sitting across from me. Her body tremors constantly and at times violently jolts. She’s having strong withdrawal symptoms from the drugs she’s been abusing. She’s holding a baby. Everyone at the table wants to take turns holding the precious little boy – partly because of his cuteness, but partly to rescue him from his spastic mother. I found out later his name is Erick.

As the dinner concludes, I assume the women and homosexual men will leave as soon as they get the chance. Instead, they linger. I watch as some begin a game of pickup basketball with a handful of team members, while others gather around a guitar to sing songs about Jesus. The majority of the mission group is younger than me and has had little exposure to “these sorts” of people. By these sorts I mean the outcasts of society, the “unlovables,” the rejects, the “sinners.” But instead of shying away from them or hurrying them out the door, the team members are hugging them, taking pictures, exchanging stories and laughing together without hesitation. The men and women realize through these actions we did not invite them to dinner to take advantage of them or to judge. They feel safe with us and do not want to leave. After spending two and a half hours with us, they walk away with Bibles and more food in hand. Sadly, they are walking back into the darkness.

As I sat at the table and watched our team in action, I realized I was seeing a clear picture of how Jesus would act had he been with us in-person. I did not need the right words to say. I just needed to love them without condemnation. As Elvir said, “We hate their sin, but we love them.” When Christ left his disciples behind on earth, he did so with the purpose that they act as his hands and feet. We, as the body of Christ, are called to love the unlovable and accept the unaccepted. I never fully understood what that meant until that night.

Two years later, the dinner has had lasting effects on not just me, but a little boy named Erick – the same one from the beginning of the story. His mother, Doris, grew up in San Pedro Sula, a Honduran city with the worst prostitution population. Her father sexually abused her while she was growing up. She fled to the capital city in response to a job offer. The employer had lied to her, though. When she arrived in Tegucigalpa, he told her she would have to sell her body for money. Once she got pregnant with Erick, she was already infected with HIV/AIDS. Doris neglected to feed, wash or take care of him and continued prostituting herself with baby Erick in the room. When she came to the dinner we served, he was 7 months old, malnourished and infected with escabiosis – a parasite commonly found in dirty beds. Doris brought him back two weeks later and asked POI to take him into their “HouseHome.”

Erick became the newest addition to the orphanage. At first, he cried whenever anyone tried to hold him and the house mom said he had a sad look in his eye. Two years later, he is a healthy, happy, walking toddler with a bright future ahead of him. When POI took him in, the staff’s biggest concern was that Erick was infected with HIV/AIDS like his mother. After several thorough tests, they praised God for a miracle: Erick was negative! A husband and wife on POI’s staff who cannot have children of their own are now in the process of legally adopting him.

Because the body of Christ was willing to extend the love and acceptance Jesus showed while he was on the earth, Erick will grow up in a home away from abuse. He will hear the gospel of Christ and be taken care of by those who love him. Because I, by the grace of God, was able to overcome my hesitations and fears, Rosalina left that night knowing someone loved her. She hugged me goodnight through tears and told me she wanted to come back to the ministry and see me again. I was able to share with Rosalina that Jesus loved her. We left her with a Bible marked with $10 in the book of John. I will never forget her face or her smile. And I will never forget how I – a part of the body of Christ – am called to act to “the least of these.”