Her Name is Faith.

For privacy purposes, we’ll call her “Faith”. She is a stripper, and here’s the part of her story I know:

It’s Friday night, and it’s late. Later than I stay up any other time except this night, Outreach Night. It comes once every few months.

This particular outreach has been a long time coming. We tried to hit these clubs back in December, but sickness stopped it. We tried to his these clubs last week, but weather prevented it.

So, Friday night, we are all on high alert. We know that somewhere, in one of these strip clubs, a divine appointment is waiting to be had.

I guess I should explain.

Outreach is one of my two favorite side hustles with Jesus, and by “side hustles” I mean ministry that happens in non-traditional, non-churchy places, i.e. strip clubs. Can’t get more non-traditional than that.

Our teams deliver 1,500 gifts to 40-some-odd adult entertainment clubs in our city on a single night, each gift going to a dancer. That’s 1,500 girls – strong, beautiful, capable women – getting a gift with a handwritten note, some lip gloss, some jewelry, etc, while on shift at a job they don’t want but either need or don’t know a way out of.

Outreach nights are the best, as is the organization I do this through. They do a whole lot more than club outreach, that’s just the portion I’m involved in. But in this small portion…well, if you had about 7, maybe 8, hours to spare, I could tell you some of the coolest stories you’ve ever heard.

Hug situations you never thought you’d find yourself in but suddenly become your favorite hug experience of all time.

Intimate, up-close knowledge about body piercings in places you’ve only heard rumors of because the girl who just got it is so excited to show it off and you’re so excited to listen.

Hope given in the form of support: “We have a safe house, no questions asked.” “Many of our own women have been in this industry. Come to our support groups. You are welcome, no judgment.”

It’s Jesus, showing up in adult entertainment clubs.

It’s Jesus, showing up to valets and bouncers, house moms and dancers, managers and bar tenders, security and patrons.

It’s a thing. I’ve seen it.

So last Friday night. Our outreach had been delayed enough that I knew there was a specific story unfolding, whether I was ever made privy to it or not.

My pregame worship consisted of listening to Lauren Daigle’s “Rescue” 28 times in a row. It’s a great song, but listen to it on a night like this and it’ll take weeks for the chills on your arm to subside.

You are not hidden
There’s never been a moment
You were forgotten
You are not hopeless
Though you have been broken
Your innocence stolen

I hear you whisper underneath your breath
I hear your SOS, your SOS

I will send out an army to find you
In the middle of the darkest night
It’s true, I will rescue you

Lauren Daigle, “Rescue”

Imagine a God who loves his daughters so much, he sends out an army in the middle of the darkest strip club to find them and show kindness to them with no money or strings attached.

Imagine a God good and gracious enough to send an army into a world where protection comes by concealing your true identity – by only bearing the name the DJ announces as he calls you to a stage with a pole in the middle of it…a God good and gracious enough to send his soldiers to look those daughters in the eyes and remind them they are still seen and they are still known and they are still worth fighting for.

He so desperately wants to call them by their real name, not their stage one.

And so, Friday night.

En route to our first club of the evening, our team driver says, “Hey, I need you guys to be on the lookout for someone when you go in. During our prayer time, God showed me her face. She’s dark, petite, wearing colorful makeup…I also see the color purple…and maybe the word ‘Faith’.”

“We can work with that.” someone else said. “Also, I didn’t know you got visions like that. That’s awesome.”

“This is actually my first one.” she replied.

Pretty awesomely specific for the first time with that gift, I think. Can’t wait to see this puppy honed.

A few clubs in to the night, I saw two dancers standing on the floor and my spiritual spidey senses went off. I took a gamble.

“Hey…Faith workin’ tonight?” I asked.

They paused for a second, confusion clouding their faces, before the first girl says, “Ohhh she mean ‘Diamond’ and yes, but she comin’ in later.”

Bingo.

“Tell her we left a gift for her, would you?” I replied. They agreed.

We finished up in the club and headed back to the car.

“I found our girl.” I said, getting in. “I didn’t get to meet her, but get this – Faith was her real name.”

Her real name.

Her friends barely even knew it. They know her as Diamond.

We certainly shouldn’t have known it. We’ve never met her before.

But God.

God knew it.

And late on a Friday night, when a girl everyone knows as ‘Diamond’ started her shift at a place she didn’t want to be at being paid to do things she didn’t want to be doing, her friends would have approached her and said something like, “Some rando white ladies were just in here looking for you. They asked for you by name.”

And Faith, the soul hidden behind Diamond, would have found a gift just for her, with a word of encouragement just for her, and she would have felt special – and, let’s be honest, even confused and potentially creeped out……but also undeniably seen and known.

I’ve been smiling about it for 3 days straight even though I only know the smallest fraction of her story because that, my friends, is God.

That is how He does. That is where He will go. How He can use his people.

Someone asked me recently what my “ministry passion” is, and it’s this: to use my stories and my words and my life and my doubts and my experiences to show people on the fringe, people who think they’re “too far gone”, people who’ve given up on faith or church or God or Christians, people who are skeptics at heart like me that all of it is true.

It is true, and He is worth it.

He knows your name. He knows your heart. And he will stop at nothing to find you, to rescue you, and to remind you of how very much he loves the real you.

Just like our girl Faith.

I can’t WAIT to meet her and hear the rest of her story one day.

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