“I have been here since I was ten years old.” “Please pray to your God that I could go back home.”
These words and many more like them are statements made to me by women who are slaves in the brothels of Mumbai, India. I want to thank all of you who gave so that I could encourage and train a group of Indian ladies doing evangelistic outreach there. The red light district is huge and stretches for many city blocks. The buildings are 3 to 8 stories high and are filled with darkened narrow hallways, down which are rows of tiny bedrooms. More than 20,000 women and children are locked in and brutally forced to have sexual relations with customers.
Eight women from Hindu backgrounds, believed and prayed to receive Christ as their Savior! I modeled a presentation of the Gospel for the team as we visited the women. The team of Christian ladies that I trained will continue to do follow up and share Bible studies with them. Hopefully one day they will also be able to get them rescued, but in the meantime the enslaved women can get through their sad days through having a relationship with their Savior and the hope of eternal life in their hearts!
The Christian ladies have rented two small rooms near the brothels. One is a drop in center for the women in slavery. Sometimes they have an hour or two free in the early afternoons and they are invited to come and have tea, receive counseling, and learn to sew. After they learn to sew, the team tries to secure a job for them in a factory in another city and they provide transportation for them to flee there. Then local Christian families and churches are partnering to take them in and help them until they get settled into their new job. Last year they helped rescue twenty women!
The other room is a shelter for children of the trafficked women. The children can come and get hot meals, tutoring, and a safe place to sleep at night. 50-60 little kids cram in that small room to sleep on the floor every night. One day we just played with the children and told them Bible stories. There are also three Christian men who hang out at a local train station several nights a week. They watch for traffickers who have stolen little kids from the rural villages. They watch for children who look scared or disoriented and last year they rescued 93 children before they were taken to the brothels! Praise God!
This was an experience I will never forget! Thank you again for making the trip possible and please pray for this team to lead many more to Christ and and also to have success in getting the ladies rescued.