“You think we like doing what we do! We hate our lives. Addiction has made us prisoners. Will you please help us? Please open a place just for us, a place where they won’t look at us like we’re scum because of our past.” This plea came from a small group of women who confronted me outside my newly opened home for men in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Because of their addiction, these women had been forced into prostitution to support their habit. It took a lot of courage to ask me for help. They had seen the work I was doing with the male gang members from the neighborhood and wanted the same kind of help I was giving the men.

I first met these women from the night while preaching on the mean streets of Bridgeport. At first, they had little to say, just a simple thanks for the plate of hot food served to them by our volunteers. Once in a while, they would talk to my wife, sharing little hurts and pains, sometimes asking for prayer. For the most part, they ignored me.

Things began to quickly change after I ejected a gang from an old rooming house they were using for drug dealing and prostitution. When I evicted them, I had little sympathy for the men, but I could not bring myself to expel the prostitutes who used the building as a home and a place to conduct their business.

“You can stay for one month while I clean the building, patch the bullet holes, and prepare to open a program for men trapped in addiction. But you must never bring a customer into this house or use drugs in the building, and you must agree to attend any religious services we hold in the building.” Out of desperation, they agreed.

One of the women living in the building was named Vanessa. She was a pitiful, middle-aged woman sick with AIDS and forced to prostitute her body because of her addiction to crack/cocaine. Her life had reached a dead-end, with no place to turn and no hope of escape.

The first service I held in the building had about ten people. Vanessa’s facial expressions suggested that she resented being forced to attend the service. “What could this white preacher say that would have any meaning for her situation?”

About halfway through my sermon, I started talking about God’s grace and his surprising desire to give it away for free. I told the small audience that God had an overwhelming desire to have a relationship with each person in the room. It didn’t matter what they had done, who they had hurt, or how badly they had behaved. And it wasn’t just addicts, gang members, and prostitutes who needed God’s forgiveness to have a relationship with him. Even Billy Graham needed God’s grace.

At that very moment, Vanessa jumped up from her seat.  “Is that true?” she asked.  “Did Billy Graham need forgiveness just like me?”

I told her that Billy Graham, like every person in that room, including myself, needed forgiveness. At the cross, we are all equal. We all need mercy, and God is more than willing to give it to us.

Because we each chose to go our way, we are all deserving of death and permanent exile from God’s presence, yet Jesus paid the price on the cross for each of us, sacrificing his life and bridging the gulf that separated us from God. If we would accept that gift by surrendering our lives to him, he would gladly receive us and take our lives in a new direction, a life he called “abundant.”

Her facial expression changed from hardness and confusion to hope and joy. “I want that. I want to surrender right now.” And that’s what she did—she surrendered her life to Christ.

The next day, she started bringing other prostitutes to my office. “Tell them what you told me,” she excitedly ordered. And that is what I did. I told them all about Christ.

Before long, I knew most of the prostitutes in the neighborhood. God gave me a love for them that was beyond explanation. I was burdened to reach them.  However, for the sake of propriety, I was never alone with any of them. Although none of them ever acted out-of-order with me, I was careful to ensure our ministry was above reproach.

At the end of my conversation with the women who asked for my help, I promised them I would do everything possible to make that happen. I also instructed them to pray for God to lead me to the right place and people to house the program. They wholeheartedly agreed.

My wife was never concerned about my friendships with these women. Tammy knew that I had put the necessary safeguards in place. Before long, she recognized this as a God-thing, something that God was doing in my heart. God loved them, and he sent me to reach them.

At Tammy’s next speaking engagement, she began her talk with these words: “My husband has a thing for prostitutes.” Because she said it, the audience knew it must have been from God.

It took several years, but we eventually opened up a place just for them—a place for prostitutes to connect with God and find healing from their addiction and pain.

Jesus was a friend of prostitutes.