#2: Where the Gospel Meets the Sex Industry

#2: Where the Gospel Meets the Sex Industry

Note: The Love Thy Neighborhood podcast is made for the ear, and not the eye. We would encourage you to listen to the audio for the full emotional emphasis of this episode. The following transcription may contain errors. Please refer to the audio before quoting any content from this episode. 

KEVIN JONES: This episode contains mature content that may not be suitable for young listeners. Content may be an emotional trigger for victims of abuse. Listener discretion is advised.

JESSE EUBANKS: Some names in our story have been changed to protect identity. So, here’s the thing. You ever been watching a movie? And you’re at home, you were a teenager, you’re watching this movie, and this movie’s great, it’s fantastic. And then your mom or dad walk in. And when do they walk in? It’s during the only sex scene in the entire movie, and it is so awkward. You’re like, are you kidding me? You could’ve come in at any other moment and there would’ve been no issues. Well, I just want to promise our listeners that you are not going to have that moment today. 

KEVIN JONES: Yeah, this episode is called the sex industry, but we promise we’re not aiming to be awkward or inappropriate or anything like that. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, and in fact, the story you’re about to hear, is actually one of the most unbelievably supernatural stories I have ever heard. And it all starts with a woman named Rachelle Starr.

RACHELLE STARR: I served at everything because I was a pastor’s kid. I led worship, I served in missions trips, I led bible studies, different things like that. So I was always in leadership of some sort.

JESSE EUBANKS: Growing up, Rachelle spent a lot of time in church. But now, as an adult, Rachelle finds herself spending a lot of time inside a very different building. 

RACHELLE STARR: So I found myself on the floor of a strip club washing this woman’s feet that, her feet were cut, they were bruised, they were callused, they were dirty. And I’ll never forget, I looked up at her and she was just weeping.

JESSE EUBANKS: You’re listening to the Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. I’m Jesse Eubanks. 

KEVIN JONES: And I’m Kevin Jones. Every episode, we hear stories of social justice and Christian community. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Today’s episode – where the gospel meets the sex industry. We’re going to hear just what led a pastor’s kid to dedicate spending the rest of her life backstage at strip clubs. Welcome to our corner of the urban universe. In 2014, Christianity Today published an article called “Would Jesus Hang Out in a Strip Club?” And the three writers of that article had mixed answers to that question. But at the heart what they were asking was this – what are the appropriate boundaries of following God?

KEVIN JONES: That’s a question Jesus’ peers even asked themselves when they saw Jesus in flesh and blood. The gospel gives continual accounts of Jesus being questioned for his actions. 

JESSE EUBANKS: One of those accounts is found in the gospel of Mark. Jesus has just called Levi, a tax collector, to follow him. And Levi invites Jesus over to his house, and then Levi in turn invites all of his friends over as well. They have a big party at his place. The Pharisees are offended by this. Chapter 2 verse 16 says, “The scribes and the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’” Turns out, the religious leaders of the day were appalled at Jesus because of who he was spending time with.

KEVIN JONES: And actions like this really didn’t help Jesus’ religious P.R. Jesus was accused of being a drunkard, of being a glutton. It affected his reputation.

JESSE EUBANKS: So why do it? What in the world is to be gained from hanging out with these questionable people? What’s to be gained from pushing the boundary this far? As it turns out, something miraculous. But to get to the miraculous, we have to first begin with the un-miraculous. Which is where we find Rachelle at the start of our story.

RACHELLE STARR: I was working at an advertising marketing agency in Louisville.

JESSE EUBANKS: By most standards, Rachelle’s life was going well. She graduated college, she got married, got a good job. But she was feeling sort of empty.

RACHELLE STARR: I was driving into work and I would pray, God what is the purpose of my life? Why am I here? I wanna know what you wanna use me for.

JOSH STARR: Well, for the previous year or two, Rachelle would come home from work and she would just cry.

JESSE EUBANKS: This is Rachelle’s husband, Josh. 

JOSH STARR: And she would ask the Lord, ‘What is my purpose? I don’t feel like I have a purpose.’

JESSE EUBANKS: Rachelle spent more than a year with this feeling of aimlessness. And then, on a very ordinary day, on her very ordinary commute to work, this thing happened. It seemed very small at first. But it ended up changing the rest of her life. 

RACHELLE STARR: So I was driving down the road, and the Lord spoke to me.

JESSE EUBANKS: She doesn’t mean she heard God’s voice. Not audibly anyway. But somewhere deep inside of her she felt God tell her something very distinct. 

RACHELLE STARR: I was passing a Theater X at the exact time he spoke to me.

JESSE EUBANKS: Theater X is an adult entertainment store. She would pass it every day on her way to work. Outside of the store there are tons of posters of scantily clad women and signs enticing you to come in. And she had passed this building hundreds of times. But this time, God had something to say.

RACHELLE STARR: And he said, I want you to go to women in the sex industry and I want you to go share my love with those ladies. So I immediately called Joshua and said, God has called me to go to women in the sex industry.

JESSE EUBANKS: And not just the sex industry in general. Rachelle felt called specifically to go to women working in strip clubs.

JOSH STARR: So whenever she came to me and asked, what do you think about bringing the gospel into strip clubs? I thought yes, let’s do it. God is giving Rachelle this direction that she has desperately wanted for so long. 

RACHELLE STARR: And he was like, that’s exactly what Jesus would do. 

JESSE EUBANKS: So, her husband was on board. They spoke with some of their friends and they were on board. So, now what? God told her to love the women in the sex industry, but what does that even mean? 

RACHELLE STARR: We had identified the strip clubs in Louisville. We had said, ok this is where they’re at, this is how many there are.

JESSE EUBANKS: Louisville has twenty eight strip clubs, which is the most of any city in Kentucky.

RACHELLE STARR: We had been praying outside them. Just saying, God open the door. We weren’t praying things like shut this building down or any condemnation whatsoever. It was just, open the doors to them and their hearts.

JESSE EUBANKS: Rachelle spent a year preparing and trying to figure out what reaching women in the strip clubs would look like. She gathered information and sought advice.

RACHELLE STARR: I had been researching and studying and praying and trying to figure out, ok God, you called me to this, now what and how do I do it? And I just felt God say, stop. I am with you. I have called you. Now go. 

JESSE EUBANKS: It was time to cross the threshold. If Rachelle was going to reach these women, she had to go where they were. And they weren’t in statistics or research or social media campaigns. They were inside the clubs. But Rachelle knew enough to know she wasn’t going to the strip clubs for fun or recreation. She had a purpose. Which also meant she needed a plan. So, Rachelle and some of her friends decided they would get together, and they would make some meals. And then they would share these meals with the dancers in the clubs. And the hope was that these meals could be a natural way to start getting to know the dancers in the club.

KEVIN JONES: This is weird. Insane. I’m still hung up on the fact that God directly told her to do this. First of all, who in their right mind would go to a strip club? From a moral standpoint, it’s almost something people would call borderline ungodly. And her plan is to walk into the strip club with a bunch of food? I hope it was fried chicken. Like, what in the world? Is that even allowed? Who takes fried chicken and macaroni and cheese into a strip club?

JESSE EUBANKS: I don’t know. Here’s the thing, she didn’t know if she was allowed. There was only one way to find out, and that was to go ask.

KEVIN JONES: Ask? Who is she supposed to ask? Is she supposed to knock on the door and tell security, hey, I have food, can we bring food in? Is she supposed to go to a bouncer and say, excuse me, Mr. Bouncer, me and my Christian friends have food we want to bring into the strip club. Would they let you in? Probably not. 

JESSE EUBANKS: I know, it sounds crazy. But one night Rachelle and her friends piled into a car and, for the first time ever, they went out to a strip club. 

RACHELLE STARR: I had three other friends with me, and on our way to the club we prayed the entire time. Our husbands also went with us to pray out in the parking lot.

JOSH STARR: I was nervous because I didn’t know what would happen. Like I knew they were going in there to say we love you, we love Jesus, we have food. But I didn’t know the outcome of it.

JESSE EUBANKS: Their husbands went along, as a precaution. They were going to wait in the car and pray while Rachelle and her friends went into the club. 

RACHELLE STARR: We get to the club we say goodbye to our husbands, they wait in the car across the parking lot.

JESSE EUBANKS: Rachelle and her friends pay ten dollars at the door. And then, they walk into the strip club. 

RACHELLE STARR: It’s very dark, and there’s pictures, risque pictures all over the wall, there’s mirrors everywhere. And immediately a bouncer comes up to me and says, ‘Oh, you all probably want drinks.’ So he escorts us through a sex paraphernalia shop into another side of the building.

JESSE EUBANKS: It’s actually against the law to have alcohol and nudity in the same space. So the dancing area is separate from the bar area.

RACHELLE STARR: So they escorted us to the bar side. There’s mirrors all around, it’s very dark and small, there’s booths everywhere, there’s one stage. There’s probably five or six ladies in there plus a bartender and several men around in this part. So we sit down and y’know, from a naivety standpoint, I’m wearing a turtleneck and no makeup, and I wanna be as unassuming as possible, but really we all stood out like sore thumbs. It was awful.

JESSE EUBANKS: I’m just dying at the image of you in the turtleneck. Hey, anybody wanna hit the strip club tonight? I just got a new turtleneck. Thought we’d head out.

Despite Rachelle’s choice of clothing, the woman working at the bar assumes Rachelle and her friends are there looking for a job. Because really, that’s the main reason women ever come into the clubs. So Rachelle tries to explain why they’re there.

RACHELLE STARR: Jesus had sent us to do something kind and loving for the women in the club, could we bring a home cooked meal in? She said, oh no, you guys can’t do that. She thought it was really weird.

JESSE EUBANKS: It is weird. You come in in a turtleneck, and then we’re here to share the love of Jesus and bring food. I mean, she probably thinks you’re insane.

RACHELLE STARR: Pretty much. She was like, these crazy ladies. I was so sure that God was calling us there, it honestly didn’t stop us. So what ended up happening from that point on was we decided go back to other side of the bar, where we actually went in. And that was the dancing side, so there’s multiple stages there’s V.I.P. booths. It’s got lots of lights and loud music, lots of men everywhere.

JESSE EUBANKS: At this point – Rachelle and her friends are hoping for a miracle. And in case you don’t think this whole thing is weird enough, it’s about to get way weirder. In fact, it’s about to get straight up supernatural.

RACHELLE STARR: We went in and we sat at a high top table with four seats. I was sitting across from my friend Sarah, and she was talking to me because we were also trying to act, I hate to say this, but we were trying to not stare at the ladies to be objectifying or anything like that. So we were like, let’s just talk to each other until we figure out a game plan. I don’t know what we were thinking really. She so she’s talking to me about something, life I guess. And I can’t hear her. All I can hear is God saying, get up and go over to this man. In the middle of her sentence, I stand up, I walk straight over to a man I’ve never met in my life. There was dozens of men in the club.

JESSE EUBANKS: This man is sitting at a booth with women on both sides. There’s nothing that’s distinct about this guy from any other guy that’s in the whole club. He looks just like everybody else. But it turns out this is the exact guy Rachelle needs to talk to. 

RACHELLE STARR: And I said, hi I’m Rachelle. I’m not here for a job. I’m here because Jesus sent me to do something kind and loving for the women in this club. Can I bring a home cooked meal in? And his face was so shocked

JESSE EUBANKS: The man opens his mouth and introduces himself. And get this – he’s the owner of the club. We’ll be right back.

COMMERCIAL

KEVIN JONES: You’re listening to the Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. I’m Kevin Jones.

JESSE EUBANKS: And I’m Jesse Eubanks. Today’s episode is where the Gospel meets the sex industry. Rachelle Starr is trying to figure out how to bring the gospel to women in the adult entertainment industry. And right now, she and her friends are inside a strip club for the very first time, and Rachelle has just introduced herself to a man who turned out to be the owner of the club, and asked him if she could bring a meal to the dancers.

RACHELLE STARR: Jesus has sent me here to do something kind and loving for the women in this club. Can I bring a home cooked meal in?

JESSE EUBANKS: And he did not quite know how to receive her request. 

RACHELLE STARR: He was just completely shocked. And instead of just shutting me down and saying, no, that’s crazy, get out of here, he asked me, what’s the catch? And I said there is no catch. I don’t have any other agenda.

JESSE EUBANKS: Rachelle wanted to give a meal to the dancers and not receive anything in return? Well, this had the owner intrigued. 

RACHELLE STARR: From that it was about an hour and forty five minutes that we talked to him. And spent time getting to know why is he in this business? How many ladies work here? What is this business like?

JESSE EUBANKS: And the whole time, it sort of feels like he’s going to say no at any second. That he’s going to tell Rachelle and her friends to get out of this club and stop wasting his time. But after a long conversation, he finally makes up his mind. 

RACHELLE STARR: Yes. Yeah, you can.

JESSE EUBANKS: So now, once a week, this pastor’s kid was hanging out backstage at a strip club with a home cooked meal for each of the women who worked there.

KEVIN JONES: That’s insane. That’s ridiculous. What did they do backstage? What did the club owner think? What did the bouncers think? What did the dancers think? Tell me what happened.

JESSE EUBANKS: What happened was the dancers didn’t understand why she was there. 

RACHELLE STARR: Are you here to poison us? Are you here to tell us how we’re going to hell? Those were my first conversations in the clubs. I would eat with them to make sure they knew we weren’t poisoning their food. And it was countless times I had to reassure them, no, that’s not why I’m here. And I would say, how are you? And it would be the strangest face back to me, like why are you asking how I am?

JESSE EUBANKS: And the situation wasn’t just odd inside the club. It looked strange from outside the club as well. 

JOSH STARR: This particular night, it was probably 1 or 2 am.

JESSE EUBANKS: That’s Rachelle’s husband Josh again. Remember, he and the other husbands would still drive to the club every week and wait in the car and pray while their wives went inside.

JOSH STARR: And I had to use the restroom really, really bad. And we’re in a parking lot, so there was no where that I could, there’s no restaurant open or whatever. So I went to the side of the building and just peed on the side of the building. Well, apparently the owner of that building thought I was casing the joint to break in or whatever. So I get back in the car and literally twenty minutes later two police officers buzzed on both sides of our car. And they yell at us, get out of the car. So I get out and one of the police officers draws his gun and says, don’t you run, boy. And I thought, I’m not running, I’m standing right here. And we of course explained, hey, our wives are in the strip club, they’re giving a meal to the dancers, we love Jesus, they love Jesus. And the police officers weren’t buying it. So they had to ask me to tell Rachelle to come out and corroborate the story, and they said, if Rachelle comes out and she looks like a dancer, we’re gonna know you’re lying, and we’re taking you to jail. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Thankfully, Rachelle had her cell phone on her. So, Josh called her, she came outside, was not dressed like a dancer, and explained everything to the cops.

KEVIN JONES: She probably had on that turtleneck again. Maybe Jesus should’ve wore a turtleneck all the time too, and maybe people wouldn’t have accused him when he was hanging out with sinners. Maybe the Pharisees would’ve left him alone.

JESSE EUBANKS: So, as if this whole scenario isn’t strange and confusing enough, to make matters worse, some of the dancers flat out did not like Rachelle and her friends.

NATALIE: Did not like them. I felt like they were taking what I knew outta my life, away from me.

JESSE EUBANKS: That’s Natalie, a dancer in the club. She quickly figured out Rachelle and her friends were Christians. And so far, what Natalie had seen of Christians is that they acted fine on Sunday, but lived just like her on Monday.

NATALIE: I would go to church, and they’ll be praising the Lord. Then I see them at night, they’re in the club. And I’m talking about deacons, preachers, ushers, all type of people, and I’m like, I’m sitting here doing wrong, they are too, so what makes it better? 

KEVIN JONES: Hold on, Jesse. Can we back up for a sec? Ok, I know how Rachelle got into the club with her turtleneck and food.  But what brings someone like Natalie into the club? Why is she there in the first place? What led her in her life to end up working at a strip club?

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, that is a great question. And to answer that, what we need to do is, first we need to look at the sex industry as a business. In the United States, the sex industry is a multi-billion dollar business. It makes 3.1 billion dollars per year. That is billion with a “b.” Ok, so Kevin, I want you to guess. How much money do you think a dancer in a club makes each year? Just take a guess.

KEVIN JONES: Club dancer? In a year? $35,000.

JESSE EUBANKS: That is totally possible. It is also possible to make more than that. So, guess again.

KEVIN JONES: 55. School teacher salary. 55.

JESSE EUBANKS: More.

KEVIN JONES: $75,000.

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay, so if we go and we type in “stripper” on payscale.com’s salary calculator, earnings in the United States can range from $20,000 all the way up to more than $100,000. To put that in perspective, that is the same average salary of a computer programmer or a nuclear engineer.

KEVIN JONES: That’s insane. If you didn’t know the Lord and were desperate for money, that’d be pretty difficult to turn down. 

JESSE EUBANKS: You’ve got to imagine, these ladies are coming in, often times they’re just teenagers, and they look around their neighborhoods and their families and they know, they’re probably never going to make 6 figures. They’re probably never going to get the opportunity to get higher education. And then, all of a sudden, somebody comes along and gives them a job opportunity where they can make as much money as somebody that went to Stanford. That is enticing. And that is exactly what got Natalie into the clubs. When Natalie was just 13 years old, her grandma got diagnosed with cancer. And the medicine the doctor prescribed was expensive. Natalie’s family didn’t have the money to buy it. Natalie loved her grandmother and hated seeing her sick. So, Natalie found out how to make some money.

NATALIE: So I end up calling a couple of my friends to see if I could get an ID that said I was 18 to go to the strip club, ‘cause that’s where I knew I was gonna make the most money.

JESSE EUBANKS: Natalie started dancing as a means to pay for her grandma’s medicine. But as time went on, Natalie had a child. Then another. Eventually, she had four kids to provide for. And as any parent knows, raising kids is expensive. So Natalie kept dancing.

NATALIE: I’ve been dancing 18 years. And no kidding, I was a legend in the club. I mean, I danced 3 generations, so you gotta think that I danced with people that’s now 50 and 60, and turn around, and I’m dancing with their kids. Then I turn around and start dancing with their grandkids. I have been in jail over 43 times. Attempted murder, robbery, kidnapping. It was hard. I was a single mother. No income. No nothing. My income was my body. That was it. That was my income. If I sell myself, I will make money. If I go work real hard at dancing, I will make money. And I felt like that’s all I was good for. 

JESSE EUBANKS: One of the realities for these women working in the clubs is the message they hear their whole life. And they either hear it directly from men or it’s just kind of implicit in the culture around them. And that is that their worth is found only in their physical body and that is their only contribution to society. This was certainly true for Larissa, another worker in the sex industry.

LARISSA: I was young. I was 16. I had a boyfriend that was encouraging me to do it.

JESSE EUBANKS: When Larissa was a teenager, one day her and her boyfriend are hanging out in the parking lot of this hotel. And this guy pulls up, and it’s a friend of theirs. And he ends up making this really odd proposal. Hey, Larissa, you’re really pretty, y’know, occasionally if you would have sex with guys, they would pay you for it. And Larissa’s boyfriend thinks, well, we’re broke, we should do this. Larissa wants to make her boyfriend happy, so she agrees and goes along with it.

LARISSA: At the time I had an alter ego. I would not go by my name, I went by a different name.

JESSE EUBANKS: In the adult entertainment industry, women take on these names that are not their actual names. And it’s equal parts marketing, but it’s also a persona. They go to work, and they put on these personas, like a costume. They’re trying to have some psychological defense against these terrible things that they are engaging in on a daily basis.  

LARISSA: I would associate myself with that. When I was doing that, I was in, like, my glamorous mode. I was just a different person. And at other times I was the mom, y’know. It was two totally different people.

JESSE EUBANKS: Eventually, she ends up getting pregnant by her boyfriend, and even though they break up, she now has a baby to provide for. She’s a mom. And as she looked around, the only job she knew how to do was this one. 

LARISSA: It is a lot to process because you’re dealing with multiple different men, and some of the things these guys say and ask you to do. And they’re married, it’s just a nasty world.

JESSE EUBANKS: And, just like Natalie, Larissa believed her body was the only thing she was good for.

LARISSA: Because that was put in my head by pimps and guys, that this is all men will ever want from you. Either you’re gonna give it away for free, or you’re gonna get paid for it.

KEVIN JONES: Y’know Jesse, as I listen to Natalie and Larissa, I can’t help but think about my own daughters. You’ve got daughters too, right?

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, I have one daughter, and she’s nine years old.

KEVIN JONES: I have an eight year old and a three year old. I’m sitting here thinking – if Kennedy or Carson said, ‘Hey dad, I want to sell my body, all I’m worth is selling my body.’ That’s despicable. It’s unbelievable. It’s unimaginable. So what do you do with a young lady who, all she’s ever heard, from 10 on up, her early teen years on up, is ‘you’re so beautiful, your body’s so fine.’ And then, couple that with the need for money, coupled with enticement by boyfriend or other guy friends or other female friends. You got the perfect storm, man. So now, the question is, what do you do for a woman in that spot? 

JESSE EUBANKS: That is a great question, Kevin.

KEVIN JONES: So, Rachelle and her friends, they have warm meals, which is good. Everybody needs sustenance for the body. But how is Rachelle and her friends going to actually give them the sustenance they really need to get out of the strip club?

JESSE EUBANKS: When we come back, we’re going to hear from one of Rachelle’s volunteers. And she was wondering the exact same thing.

ALI: If you’ve got somebody that is so blind that they want to be in a strip club, what in the world do you tell them?

JESSE EUBANKS: Stay with us.

COMMERCIAL

JESSE EUBANKS: Welcome back to the Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. I’m Jesse Eubanks.

KEVIN JONES: And I’m Kevin Jones. Today’s story – where the Gospel meets the sex industry.

JESSE EUBANKS: We’re about to hear from one of the volunteers who goes into the clubs to find out, how in the world do you help these ladies? But before we do that, we’re going to fast forward through time. So, here’s where we are right now – Rachelle and her friends are just going into one club once a week. Well, word gets out and over the years, more and more ladies want to join Rachelle in her efforts. So, they get more and more volunteers. Which means they can visit more and more clubs in Louisville. Eventually, Rachelle gives this whole operation a name. She calls it Scarlet Hope. And Scarlet Hope becomes one of the ministry partners to Love Thy Neighborhood. And this is where Ali comes in. Ali served with Scarlet Hope for a summer through Love Thy Neighborhood. Ali had been a college student, and all throughout college she had heard about the atrocities of sex trafficking and the sex industry, and she wanted to do something about it. The problem was that Ali didn’t realize what she had just gotten herself into.

ALI: This is a good thing to take note of – Scarlet Hope goes to strip clubs. I actually didn’t realize that before I got here. But I went to this club and came back and hated it.

JESSE EUBANKS: Ali is about to have her first outreach experience in the club. And she quickly realized, she was not at all qualified for this environment.

ALI: This was surreal. This girl comes in, she’s a tall girl, she’s built like a swimmer, I mean big girl, very toned. She comes in and goes, I need anger management.

JESSE EUBANKS: So you’ve gotta imagine, Ali’s never been to strip club before. Now here she is backstage at one. It is a small room with a bunch of girls getting ready to go out and dance. A bunch of volunteers from Scarlet Hope. There’s cigarette smoke. There’s obscenities flying everywhere. Not exactly a ministry moment you want to write home to grandma about.

ALI: So, I start to walk over there to try to talk to her, and there’s 15 girls in this dressing room that’s maybe 10×10 feet, it’s tiny. All of a sudden, every expletive you can think of is coming out of her mouth, and she is furious. So at this point I stop because she’s upset, and I don’t know her, I don’t know how she’s gonna feel, I don’t know if she’s intoxicated or not at this point, I’m just a little wary of it. So she starts saying, I’m gonna punch somebody in their face, I’m so sick of this.

JESSE EUBANKS: Ali was at a loss. She was able to figure out why this girl was upset, but that was about the best she could do.

ALI: From best I understood, there was too many girls on the floor, and she was on the stage and felt like she wasn’t making money on the stage because of all the people on the floor. So for me, in that moment, number one I really did think she was gonna hit somebody in the face, and I was very close so… But also, the first thing that came to mind was, I don’t know how to make this girl feel better about this because, y’know, I think it’s a problem that this is how she’s making money, and I don’t wanna encourage her and be like, you still made such and such money tonight. So, it’s a very odd situation because you’re sitting there like, you are so blind that you are in a strip club, and this is the only money you’re making, and there’s these sick guys out there, and you and them might be on drugs right now, but the only thing you can think about is you didn’t think you made enough money that night.

JESSE EUBANKS: So not even a week into her internship, and Ali was at a total loss. This club was no place for her. She had no words of wisdom for these dancers. She felt completely out of place. And there was no way she could endure wondering if she would get punched in the face on a weekly basis. 

ALI: Any negative emotion you can feel, I think I felt that night at that club. So I get back, and I told my teammates I was never going back to the club, that it was awful, and I never wanted to do outreach ever again, it was awful.

JESSE EUBANKS: So Ali did what any of us do when faced with that much brokenness and hopelessness. She cried. And then she prayed.

ALI: So, I prayed a lot about it and cried a lot about it. It was crazy, literally three days later the Lord was like, that’s where I want you to go back. And I was like, you have got to be freaking kidding me.

JESSE EUBANKS: What was God’s grand solution to Ali’s problem? Do it again. Show up. And then keep showing up. So, out of obedience, that’s exactly what Ali did. She actually ended up going back to that club several more times. 

KEVIN JONES: And did she ever get punched in the face?

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah. She did. 

KEVIN JONES: Sorry to hear that.

JESSE EUBANKS: I’m just kidding, she didn’t get punched. So, no surprise, she didn’t end up connecting with that dancer again. But she did actually get to know another dancer really well.

ALI: She was kind of saying she missed church, but she didn’t know where to go because she’s really had it rough. She got pregnant when she was 18, when she turned 19 she had the twins, and they died a couple days later. Now she’s working in a strip club. Her mom doesn’t actually know.

JESSE EUBANKS: And because she had been obedient and shown up, Ali and the other Scarlet Hope volunteers were able to invite this dancer to church.

ALI: So she was like, yeah, I’ll go. And I was like, ok. And honestly, I didn’t believe her. I thought she was just being polite. I thought she was just being nice. So, the next Sunday, I call her, she doesn’t come. I was like, ok I expected that, but I’m glad I called, glad I connected with her. The next Friday, I texted her and said, are you coming? She didn’t respond. So I was like, ok I won’t bother her about it again, obviously she doesn’t want to come. Well then, that Sunday I get a call from her. She’s like, hey, what’s the address? My mom and my sister are on the way too.

JESSE EUBANKS: So that Sunday, a strip club dancer and her entire family, surrounded by God’s people, came and heard the message of Jesus proclaimed. 

KEVIN JONES: Maybe that’s the answer. Just keep showing up. Like Jesus eating with the sinners. Go to the places that make us cry. Go to the places that bring us to our knees. That’s the Gospel delivered, and that’s exactly what Jesus would’ve done and what it said in scripture that he did do.

JESSE EUBANKS: Here’s Rachelle again.

RACHELLE STARR: Whenever I began to really know who Jesus was and understand him, he sat with people, he walked with people. I mean, his approach to people that were prostitutes was very unconventional.

JESSE EUBANKS: And she says this  is exactly what keeps her going back to the clubs. A common thing in the industry is for women to leave because it’s such a terrible industry to work in, only to come back later because they needed the money.  And Natalie had actually left the industry several times before this, but like many other women, she would end up going back when things got hard.

NATALIE: There was just one night I was in the club. I had went back because we needed $1,500 to get my car out of repo. And my husband was so mad at me because I had gone back to the strip club. And he was like, I’m gonna leave you, this is not right, you’re not doing godly things.

JESSE EUBANKS: Over time, this is what the Scarlet Hope ladies have found. When they go in, and they build relationships with these women and show they genuinely love them and genuinely care, these women begin to believe that maybe God loves them too. And some of them start to leave the industry for good. 

NATALIE: I was making plenty of money, plenty of it. But it was just something saying, get out, it’s time to go. And I just remember running out the door with my stripper clothes on, my stripper heels. And there was people yelling, Sassy, Sassy, where are you going? I didn’t even look back. When I busted out the door, it was just like freedom.

JESSE EUBANKS: At the beginning of our story, Rachelle went from church building to strip club. And Natalie? She’s gone from strip club to joining a church.

NATALIE: I thought the whole time you had to be perfect. Nothing’s wrong with you. I got tired of going into churches where everybody’s going, I’m doing well, and I’m doing ok, and I’m doing this. I got tired of seeing that. I need to go to a church where people are hurting, they need God, they’re broken.

JESSE EUBANKS: Life isn’t easy for Natalie now that she’s left the club. 

NATALIE: I’m living a sober life. I’ve never been sober before because my whole life I’ve been on drugs. And coming off of it, they said, is like coming off of heroin. I’m throwing up, I’m nauseated, can’t sleep, can’t eat. But I’m sober now. 

JESSE EUBANKS: God hasn’t given her answers to all her problems. But he’s given her people to help her through.

NATALIE: My husband came along, and I would never thought, never thought me, the lady who sold her body to any person, would ever get married. I just thought my body was done, useless. I mean, I couldn’t ask for a better husband, y’know.

JESSE EUBANKS: And with the Scarlet Hope ladies, her church and her family around her, Natalie knows it’s all worth it.

NATALIE: I take it one day at a time. As long as I keep looking up and tell God, help me, help me, I know it’s gonna get better.

KEVIN JONES: Amen to that. What about that other girl we talked about? What about Larissa?

JESSE EUBANKS: She has also left the industry. And she credits that to people continuing to love her.

LARISSA: It takes love. It took love for me to stop. It took love for somebody telling me, you’re better than this, y’know, can I pray with you? These girls don’t have any love. When you’re in society, and you don’t have the things that are considered normal to society, your clothes aren’t clean, or you don’t have this level of education. you’re not accepted by society. And I think that people need to love these girls. It’s not an easy pill to swallow or accept, but these girls need love to help them.

KEVIN JONES: Y’know Jesse, at the end of that story in Mark’s gospel that you talked about earlier, where all the religious folks are complaining about Jesus eating with sinners? Jesus actually responds to them in a striking way. He says to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

JESSE EUBANKS: It’s those of us that are sick and those of us that are in need, we get to experience God’s grace. If we have it all together, and we have a perfect life, what do we need God for? We don’t need God for anything. And Rachelle knows this. And this is the very reason that women keep responding to her.

RACHELLE STARR: This woman reached out to us on our website, and she wrote us a huge, long email saying, you don’t see me, but I see you. I’m afraid to come out when you come in  because I am so dirty and I’m totally unlovable. She said, but I see how you come in every single week with a smile on your face, and you’re just coming in to love us. And she’s like, I desperately want to reach out to you. And we were like, this is why we do this.

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JESSE EUBANKS: If you would like to learn more about Scarlet Hope, you can visit their website, scarlethope.org. If you’d like more resources on how you can help women in the sex industry with the Gospel, you can visit our website at lovethyneighborhood.org/podcast. Special thank you to our interviewees for this episode — Rachelle Starr, Josh Starr, Ali Holcomb and the brave women of Scarlet Hope, Larissa and Natalie. So, we’re happy to report, since we did these interviews with these ladies, both Larissa and Natalie are continuing to do very well. In fact, both ladies were pregnant when we were interviewing them, and they both have gone on to have healthy babies. Natalie was able to experience her first drug-free pregnancy. And they’re still plugged in with Scarlet Hope even now.

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KEVIN JONES: Our senior producer and host is Jesse Eubanks.

JESSE EUBANKS: Our co-host is the Dr. Kevin Jones.

KEVIN JONES: And our producer, technical director and editor is Rachel Szabo.

JESSE EUBANKS: Additional reporting from Tabitha Mead. Music for today’s episode comes from Lee Rosevere and Wooden Axle.

KEVIN JONES: Apply for your social justice internship, supported by Christian community, by visiting lovethyneighborhood.org. Serve for a summer or a year. Grow in your faith and life skills.

JESSE EUBANKS: Which of these was a neighbor to the man in need? The one who showed mercy. Jesus tells us, ‘Go, and do likewise.’