Exodus Cry - The Prayer Movement to End Slavery

When Dave Fiquette first came to Tel Aviv, all he wanted to do was shine the light of Jesus on broken people by passing out a few thermoses of coffee and tea to the city’s population of drug addicts and dealers.  At that time, there was no ministry, organization, or outreach, government sponsored or otherwise, to help street women. It wasn’t long before the street women found him, knocking on his door and asking for simple things like a bite to eat or a new pair of shoes. They didn’t even seem to notice he was a man, gladly napping on his couch.  That was years ago.

His current ministry is the Door of Hope, a homeless mission in the basement of a building located in the heart of Tel Aviv’s red light district, home to 200 houses of prostitution. The men and women that live here live a jungle-existence, focused simply on survival.    It’s one thing to know that current trafficking trends are characterized by Israeli women lured into drug addictions and debt bondage, but its another thing to visit the Door of Hope in Tel Aviv and see it played out before your very eyes. But it is fully another thing to live, eat, breathe, and sleep the reality of the door of hope like Dave does.

Craig Gross' new book rebrands the most powerful message: the Gospel
by, Bret Mavrich

If Craig Gross has a bumper sticker, it probably reads, “I’d rather be debating porn stars.” Let me explain.

Craig has a ministry that is the quintessence of “edgy.” He regularly attends pornography conventions. His ministry hands out special bibles with the message “Jesus Loves Porn Stars” printed on the cover. His church, positioned on the main drag of Las Vegas, is called The Strip Church.  His ministry targets prostitutes and members of the porn industry. He travels around the country in a tour bus debating the famed pornographer Ron Jeremy. Craig boasts that he's got dozens of porn-star contacts in his phone, and few "ministry" contacts.  Like I said, he’s edgy.

And it’s no mystery why he tends to be a lightening rod for the debate over modern missions and presentations of the gospel.  He gets blasted by critics for watering down the gospel so much that people don't  forsake sin in order to get saved.  And people in Craig's camp fire shots back at Christians who are too concerned with hell and damnation to actually love people out of it.

To misunderstand prostitution is to misunderstand the nature of the commercial sex industry.
by, JB Mavrich

This month at ExodusCry we're featuring Bangkok, Thailand as our City-in-Focus. Bangkok is famous for the commercial sex trade, but that also means it is rife with misunderstanding, even within the church in the west. In this three part series, I'm uncovering 3 wrong ideas about the sex trade in Bangkok in an effort to shed sensational ideas of the sex trade, and get the heart of Jesus. Helping me is Annie Dieselberg, half missionary (in Bangkok's Nana Sukhumvit district) , half CEO (of NightLight Designs), but entirely on the front lines of the war to save women's souls and bodies from the commercial sex trade. This is part two in the series.

MYTH #2: Women who are are prostitutes by choice are not enslaved.

Most of the women Annie ministers to are prostituting themselves in the commercial sex district, in clubs and bars. That means they go home every night instead of being locked in a room. It means they collect a paycheck that dwarfs the salary of college graduates in the country. It means that they were probably trafficked, but migrated to the city from the country in search of work, or that if they were trafficked, they have since accepted their fate and chosen to remain a prostitute. To the degree we're disappointed to hear that, or that these women claim a dubious victim-status, that is the degree to which have a sensational understanding of the issues.

Sex slavery is as grisly a reality as anyone could imagine. But, believe it or not, it can be exaggerated.
by, JB Mavrich

When it comes to commercial sex trade, the church is extremely vulnerable to sensationalism. Sensationalism is when we take the most scintillating aspects of sex trade-- the stuff that would make for a really good movie-- and present it out of proportion to other facts. In this three part series, I want to address some of the distortions that keep us from really feeling the Lord's heart for victims in the commercial sex trade. I asked Annie Dieselberg, CEO of NightLight ministries, what are some of the worst misconceptions that the church has about the the commercial sex trade in Bangkok. After all, she's on the front lines, walking the streets of Bangkok's sex-tourism districts (namely, Nana Sukhumvit) and reaching out to some of the most forgotten and marginalized women in the world.

MISCONCEPTION #1 Bangkok is full of trafficked children in cages.

It takes the power of God to free a woman enslaved, body soul and spirit.
by, JB Mavrich

Annie Dieselberg is the CEO of NightLight Designs, a jewelry company based in Bangkok, Thailand. In the world of the corporate take-over, this is one of the most recognizable titles: Chief Executive Officer. But Annie’s company isn’t an ordinary company. To start with, all of her employees are former sex workers, rescued from a life of few-if-any-options, prostituted in Bangkok’s clubs and bars. And with this kind of resumé comes a particular kind of baggage, which is why, in Annie’s world, CEO has a double meaning: Chief Exorcist Officer.