I want you to meet three moth­ers. Yoyo has two sons aged ten and four­teen.1 She works day and night and is exhausted most of the time.  I asked why she was work­ing so hard and sug­gested that she con­sider tak­ing a vaca­tion. Yoyo replied that she could not stop because she needed to save for her son’s edu­ca­tion and her retire­ment. Linda has been in Canada for almost a year now.  She works in a resort area but does not have time to do sight­see­ing because she is prepar­ing for her boy’s arrival in Canada.  When I inquired if she needed any­thing, Linda indi­cated that all she needed was to find a good high school for her child. Mag­gie thanked God that she had a job and that she and her son were able stay in Canada with­out hav­ing to rely on any­body else. While giv­ing thanks she paused, looked at me and asked, “Will God for­give me?”

From this account you can tell that Yoyo, Linda and Mag­gie are sin­gle par­ents strug­gling to make a liv­ing. We read their sto­ries and can iden­tify with their need to pro­vide for their chil­dren and their retire­ment. They are dri­ven by the same desires that com­pel many of us to work non-​​stop in order to con­form to the social con­structs of afflu­ence prop­a­gated by the media and a con­sumer based econ­omy.2 When we hear that Yoyo, Linda and Mag­gie are Chi­nese sex work­ers in Toronto we are tempted to think that we no longer have any­thing in com­mon with them. They have cho­sen their trade and we have respectable jobs. The bible how­ever, tells a dif­fer­ent story. In scrip­ture pros­ti­tu­tion is a metaphor for unfaith­ful­ness to God (Hos 4:10–18; 5:4,7), which encom­passes the spec­trum of chas­ing after the lusts of our hearts (Judg 15:39) and wor­ship­ping the idols of the cul­ture around us (Deut 31:16) to enter­ing into alliances with oppres­sive power struc­tures in order to secure our future rather than trust­ing God to pro­vide for us (Ezek 16:23–29; 23:1–49). While we may not sell our bod­ies, we often engage in metaphor­i­cal pros­ti­tu­tion to sat­isfy our crav­ings for mate­r­ial secu­rity and gain.

My con­nec­tion with these women started dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with my hair­styl­ist who told me about the cir­cum­stances and lives of the sex trade work­ers who fre­quent his salon. Many of the women are sin­gle moms who are poorly edu­cated. Because they are the sole bread­win­ners of their fam­i­lies they view sell­ing their bod­ies as their only means of earn­ing a liv­ing.  The women are incred­i­bly vul­ner­a­ble and live in con­stant fear. They are con­cerned that their fam­i­lies will find out what they do and are afraid that police will raid their homes and arrest them. They are defence­less against rob­bers who con­sider them easy prey since they dare not call the police. Thugs beat and rape them with­out being brought to account. The women feel alone, unpro­tected, unloved and have no one to trust. They believe that money is their pass­port to friend­ship and a bet­ter life, yet they are often exploited as peo­ple befriend them in order to get access to their cash.

After the con­ver­sa­tion with my hair­styl­ist I was plagued by the women’s plight. My heart was drawn toward them and I expe­ri­enced a strong prompt­ing to help them. I remem­bered that Jesus befriended sin­ners and pros­ti­tutes and I recalled his love for them. I wanted the women know Jesus, but many Chris­tians dis­cour­aged me from pur­su­ing such a call­ing. They told me that these women were dif­fi­cult and dan­ger­ous. God, how­ever, made a way through CARE Inc. (Chris­t­ian Aid and Rela­tional Evan­ge­lism Inc.), which was will­ing to sup­port the min­istry. In Sep­tem­ber the Toronto Police  intro­duced me to sev­eral Chi­nese women who work in a mas­sage par­lour and I started vis­it­ing them. Over the past num­ber of months I have spent time with the women, help­ing them with the tasks of liv­ing while pray­ing for them and intro­duc­ing Jesus to them when­ever the oppor­tu­nity arises. In this incon­spic­u­ous way Rahab min­istries were born.

I chose the name Rahab because the Canaan­ite pros­ti­tute whose story is nar­rated in Joshua 2 and 6 embod­ies the hope that I have for these women. In the bib­li­cal account Rahab is con­fronted with a choice when the agents of two king­doms knocked on her door. The spies sent by Joshua rep­re­sented Yah­weh who by his mighty deeds demon­strated his lord­ship over nature and human his­tory. The king of Jeri­cho epit­o­mized Canaan and the estab­lished world order of which Canaan was a part includ­ing its reli­gions, power sys­tems and lifestyles. Rahab believed the accounts she had heard about Yah­weh and responded by trans­fer­ring her alle­giance to him, mak­ing the choice to turn from her Canaan­ite iden­tity, com­mu­nity, and ways of life to seek inclu­sion among the peo­ple of God (Stek, “Rahab of Canaan”, 48).This deci­sion ren­dered her imme­di­ate exis­tence in Jeri­cho per­ilous but it ensured her and her fam­ily of future preser­va­tion (Rhee, “Chi­asm and the Con­cept of Faith” , 38). For this rea­son the let­ter to the Hebrews includes Rahab among the exem­plars of faith (Heb 11:31) and she is com­mended as right­eous in the book of James (James 2:25–26). 

My mis­sion at Rahab min­istries is to be the agent who extends God’s offer of for­give­ness and accep­tance to the women who like Yoyo, Linda and Mag­gie are bound by the shame and guilt of a pro­fes­sion they chose in order to buy accep­tance in a cul­ture dri­ven by the pur­suit of money and mate­r­ial well being. My prayer is for a present day Rahab who will hear of the great deed God accom­plished in the death and res­ur­rec­tion of his Son Jesus Christ and that she too will place her trust in God and turn her back on the idols of money and lux­ury despite the hard­ship it might cause in the present. Like Rahab she will be saved from destruc­tion while being assured of life in God’s pres­ence, avail­able through faith in the present and by sight after the return of Christ to those who remain faith­ful to him. It is my hope that this women will in turn become the mes­sen­ger through whom God draws oth­ers from the sex trade to himself.

• 1 The women’s names have been altered to pro­tect their identity.
• 2 In his book Child Pros­ti­tu­tion in Thai­land, Siroj Sora­j­jakool men­tions that high school and college-​​aged women in Thai­land vol­un­tar­ily engage in pros­ti­tu­tion in order to pur­sue their dreams, sup­port their lifestyles and their fam­i­lies or fund their school­ing. Sora­j­jakool ascribes these desires to social con­structs prop­a­gated by the media. He also points out that as money became the mea­sure of progress in Thai­land, it grew to be the stan­dard for moral­ity and mean­ing. While he described the sit­u­a­tion in Thai­land the same social con­structs are oper­at­ing in Canada. Pro­fess­ing Chris­tians who espouse con­sumerism unwit­tingly prop­a­gate these val­ues and I find it dif­fi­cult to con­vince the woman I am work­ing with to turn their back on cul­tural ideals when the peo­ple who call them­selves by God’s name do not demon­strate that they are will­ing to do so.

Bib­li­og­ra­phy

• Beard­s­ley, L. “Child Pros­ti­tu­tion in Thai­land: Lis­ten­ing to Rahab.” Jour­nal of Pas­toral Care & Coun­sel­ing 58 (2004): 280 –281.
• Camp­bell, K. “Rahab’s covenant : a short note on Joshua 2:9–21.” Vetus Tes­ta­men­tum 22 (1972): 243–490.
• Rhee, V. “Chi­asm and the Con­cept of Faith in Hebrews 11.” Bib­lio­theca Sacra 155 (1998): 327–345.
• Sora­j­jakool, S. Child Pros­ti­tu­tion in Thai­land: Lis­ten­ing to Rahab. Bing­ham­ton, NY: Haworth Press Inc., 2003.
• Stek, J. “Rahab of Canaan and Israel: The Mean­ing of Joshua 2.” Calvin The­o­log­i­cal Jour­nal 37 (2002): 28–48.