A recent update from Dr. Frew Tegene, director of Love Never Fails:

During the past few months, God gave us opportunities to share the gospel with some of the ladies in our project area who live and work as female commercial sex workers. But I found it encouraging that the ladies who have already accepted Christ and no longer practice prostitution tell their friends, neighbors, or family members about Christ. Whenever they get the opportunity, they bring the new women to church. Those who were previously commercial sex workers are now working alongside us to spread the gospel!

Let me share two stories regarding those who have accepted Christ:

Almaz

One of the ladies who has accepted Jesus is called Almaz (translated as “diamond” in English). Almaz comes to church regularly with her daughter, who attends Sunday school. Almaz also comes twice a week to attend prayer programs, and I teach her in a discipleship class once a week. She loves the Lord and has peace and joy in her life. Hopefully, she will be baptized after two months. She used to have sleep problems, but now she sleeps well. She wakes up early in the morning to pray, reads her Bible, and studies her discipleship lessons before she starts preparing her daughter for school. Also, she benefits from our IGA program (income generation). She makes fries and fast foods on the roadside and sells what she makes to people passing by and her neighbors.

Yodit

The other lady who accepted Christ and attends church is Yodit (Judith), a 27-years old young mother with two daughters. Her husband left her for another woman three years back. She tried to cope without the support of her husband for two years, but it became impossible for her to support her daughters. She would lock her daughters in her house all night while drinking liquor. She had girlfriends who influenced her badly, and these women encouraged her to drink and sleep with men. She tried hanging herself with a rope in front of her daughters several times. But now she is a changed woman. She has accepted Christ, stopped sleeping around, quit drinking, and never leaves her daughters unattended.  But after her life changed, her friends and neighbors stopped talking to her and don’t want her or her daughters to spend time with them.

This brings us to one of the challenges these ladies face: the treatment they get from their neighbors and friends when they accept Christ. The society that once accepted them when they were bad, impolite, aggressive when they were working as sex workers, and when they were drunkards now rejects them. When they came to know Christ and became decent and polite, when they started to work and love their neighbors, society started shunning them, saying bad things about them, and rejecting them. This is the work of the devil, who never wants to see good things happening to humans.

Prayer Points:

Please pray for the Lord to help these ladies to stand firm in their faith and never waver in the face of hardships and temptations. Pray for Him to continue to make them satisfied in Him so that they can’t help but share the reason for the hope within them with others.

Pictures of some of the precious ladies who participate in the income-generation program through Love Never Fails: