Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1313 | God Called Her to Strip Clubs. What She Saw Changed Her Life | Rachelle Starr

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Starting point is 00:00:46 That's fellowship homelones.com slash alley, term supply, see site for details, fellowship home loans, mortgage lending by the book, nationwide mortgage bankers, DBA Fellowship Home Loans, equal housing lender, NMLS, number 819382. Today's guest was called by God to serve meals at strip clubs, where she has for the past several years gotten to share the gospel in God's love with these women. God is a God of redemption and the testimonies she shares today of how God has saved these women, so many of them, victims of trafficking. It's just incredible.

Starting point is 00:01:22 You are about to cry. Happy, joyful, grateful tears for the next hour if you need to be renewed. in your faith, if you need to be reminded about how powerful God is, how he does what seems like impossible, and how much he loves those in our communities who have never received love before, then you've got to listen to today's episode with Rochelle Starr. She is the founder of a nonprofit organization called Scarlet Hope, and she's got an incredible story to share here today. Also, if you are a Christian woman, make sure that you check out, share that Aeros.com. It is our no-fluff gospel center Christian women's conference. If you want to be encouraged,

Starting point is 00:02:05 taught, equipped, go to share the aeros.com, October 10th, Dallas, Texas, share the aeros.com. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use code alley at checkout. That's good ranchers.com, code alley. Rochelle, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. If you could tell everyone who you are and what you do. Yeah, I'm Rochelle Starr, and thank you for having me. I'm the founder and president of Scarlet Hope, and our mission is to share the hope and love of Jesus with women in the sex industry. Okay, I want you to tell everyone the origin story of Scarlet Hope. Before it even got started, how did you feel God call you into that arena? So I grew up a pastor's kid, so that equals a lot of things, right? But when I got into my early

Starting point is 00:03:01 20s, I was like, you know, my faith is not my dads anymore. And I was starting to ask the Lord what my purpose and the people that God would have me minister to and use my life for. And so I was driving down the road and I, every day into work, I would pass a theater X. And that theater X, I never, I never noticed it. I didn't care really. And May of 2007, the Lord prompted me to look and turn my attention towards that place and said, and I just heard the spirit say, Rochelle go and share my hope and my love with those people. So I started researching about, like, what were those people? Who were they? What do they do? And how was it? No, I had no idea. No, I had no idea. I didn't grow up hearing about the sex industry. Also in 2007, like, anti-trafficking

Starting point is 00:03:54 wasn't spoken of. There weren't marches around, you know, things like that. So when the Lord said that, I was like, well, I guess I'm going to go share the gospel with people in the sex industry. And my husband, I called him and I said, I think the Lord just answered a prayer that I'm going to go share the gospel with people in this theater X. And he was like, that's exactly what Jesus would do. And that really started, really what I would say is a prayer ministry asking God to open doors to bring the light of Christ to the darkness. And I lived in Louisville, Kentucky, and we started researching what did the sex industry look like in Louisville? And ironically, we had the fifth largest sex industry per capita in America with the largest churches in, you know, some of the largest churches in America.

Starting point is 00:04:46 So I did what every pastor's kid would do. I called every church up and I said, do you minister to people in the sex industry? And people unanimously said no. And so fast forward, we prayed and fasted outside of strip clubs and that theater X for, about 18 months, and then I heard the Lord prompt me again and say, it's time to go in. And so in 2008, we prayed and fasted for a couple of days, and the Lord directed us to a particular strip club in Louisville. There were 27, and so he just laid on our hearts, this particular one, and my best friend and I went into that club. We paid $10 to get in the door, and I'll never forget that first experience because I had no idea what would be on the other side of that door. And through a series of conversations with different people, I was prompted again to go talk to a man that I'd never met.

Starting point is 00:05:48 There were about 30 men in the club, and I walked over to the owner of the club. And I held up my hand. I said, hi, my name's Rochelle. I'm here because Jesus sent me here to do something kind and loving for the women in this place. could I bring in a home-cooked meal? And that's really how the whole ministry started. Okay. Did you ever go into that theater X, the original one that you had seen on the side of the highway? So in that 18 months, we learned that there weren't really women working in that theater X, that it was a man that was at more of like a, they sold DVDs and it was a truck stop. So we did go inside there, but we learned that there weren't women working.

Starting point is 00:06:26 But interesting that the Lord used something that was right. front of you to pull you into an entire industry. So after you went into this one particular strip club and you said, okay, I want to serve these women food, tell us what happened from there. So the owner of the club, he ended up telling me his whole story. And, you know, I had been told for 18 months from my church and other churches, like, don't go inside those places. If people want to know about Jesus, they can come to our church. We have a sign outside of our door. And I was like, that's not really what the Lord's leading me to do, or the example that I felt Jesus was giving us in scripture.

Starting point is 00:07:08 And so I decided with this home-cooked meal, we were going to make a home-cooked meal that was excellent and delicious, and we were going to serve it at the same time every single week. The owner gave us permission to come in on a Thursday. That was in September of 2008. And we showed up with a home-cooked meal, like a huge Italian meal.

Starting point is 00:07:27 I'm Italian, so that's what we mean. made. And when we went inside for that first time, one of the saddest experiences as a Christian that I started to realize was, were that people believed that Christians would come in there and poison them and try to kill them. Why did they believe that? Part of it is up until this point, Christians did stand outside and pick it and protest and try to get strip clubs shut down and all of that stuff. And that's something that actually I didn't know at the time. So their experience with Christians was actually very adversarial. And so I'm here as this 23 old girl like, here's a home cooked meal.

Starting point is 00:08:08 Jesus loves you. And they're like, yeah, I'm not buying it. And so it took about six months to build trust and relationships with each of the women before women started telling us their stories and before they started asking for help. And God just opened one door after another. And between that first time going into the clubs and about six months later, we were already serving around 100 women in three clubs. And God just kept opening doors to eventually all 27 of those clubs.

Starting point is 00:08:44 Okay. This is something that I think a lot of people can relate to, that you feel like God called you to something. And maybe the expectation, I don't know about you is that, okay, if God called me to it, then he's going to basically make it easy. As soon as I walk in and I serve these women, they're all going to be like, well, thank you so much. And then I'm going to share the gospel and we're going to have a revival right there. Same day.

Starting point is 00:09:03 I don't know if that's what you anticipated. But when it didn't go that way, you didn't stop. You kept showing up even against hostility or misconceptions about you and what you were trying to do there. So can you tell us about how you felt about that initial resistance and how you kind of overcame maybe any fear or insecurity? that you may have felt at that time. Yeah. Yeah. You know, what I, I was so clear from the Lord that that's where I was supposed to be that, I mean, we were being, like, insults were being hurled at us. People were saying things that were, eventually I would come to know that those comments were coming from a very hurt place. And that really broke my heart, which caused me to want to do it more

Starting point is 00:09:53 and caused me to really persevere through a lot of that stuff. The owner of the club said something to me one day about several months in, and he said, before you came inside this club, the only thing of Christians we knew were people standing outside of the club. And I want to know about the God you serve. And what he was really saying is that God's different. And I think one of the things that I've come to understand through the purpose, process of persevering is that God is a God who loves these people that are in darkness. That's why he

Starting point is 00:10:31 came, why he sent Jesus, his son. And when we can show up again and again week after week with a home-cooked meal in the face of people saying, did you spit in this? Did you poison this? I'm not going to eat that. And that still happens to this day, even though church ladies in strip clubs are widely known now, it still happens because there's so much church hurt that comes along with this industry, unfortunately. Quick pause to tell you about my first sponsor for the day, and it's Adele Natural Cosmetics. I've been using Adele products for five years now. Can't get enough of them. I cannot live without their essential oil-based cleanser. It was so different the first time I used it because the texture is so unique. It really feels like olive oil, and you might be a little

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Starting point is 00:12:14 You'll save 25% on your first-time purchase. Adele Natural Cosmetics.com, code Allie. Tell me about the name, Scarlet Hope. How did you choose that name? So it was really early on. on in the ministry when my church had come to me and said, you need to just start a nonprofit to do this work. People were writing checks to Rochelle Star Strip clubs and putting them in the offering plate. And I said, well, I don't really want to start a nonprofit. I'm just doing this because God

Starting point is 00:12:46 said to do it. Fast forward, a guy comes up to me, he says, I'm going to pay for your 501c3. I'm going to help you start your nonprofit, but you need a name. So this was on a Sunday morning, Sunday night, I was like, Lord, I know you've just called like me. It's not like this needs to be an organization, but I was reading in Matthew 27 when Jesus was stripped of his clothing and they put a scarlet robe on him. And now at this point, I had already been serving in the strip clips for six months or more. And I had seen a woman be spit on. I had seen a woman who came in completely black and blue, bruised, a woman who had told me she had been beaten the night before. I'd seen all these things. And so as I was reading that scripture, I just felt like God was like, my blood

Starting point is 00:13:38 covers them. Like my blood covers all of this, all the sin that is in this place. And that's the message of hope you need to go tell them. So I called my husband and I said, my husband's actually in branding. And he said, I said, the name's Scarlet Hope. And he said, he said, the name's Scarlet Hope. And he goes, well, let's pray about that. Let's think about it. So fast forward, four days later, Thursday, we're in the club, and I'm just kind of setting up our table. And I see a woman across the bar, and she's got a blue sweater on, and it's kind of hanging off her shoulder with a bag. But I didn't know was she working there, or was she a customer? But I just went straight over to her, and I said, hi, my name's Rochelle. I said, we have some food here. Would you like something to

Starting point is 00:14:22 eat. She said, how much does it cost? I said, it's free. She immediately started to tear up and she said, it's free. I have five kids at home that haven't eaten in a week. And some guy at the gas station told me that I should come up here and strip tonight so that I could provide for my kids. And when I came up here, the owner said, you got to take off all your clothes and interview in front of me. And since I had never done that, he said, why don't you go get drunk and come back and do it? it. So when she had got drunk and she had come back, that's when our lives intersected. And so I said, well, you know what? You don't have to do that. We have food. You can come over here. We'll box some stuff up for your kids. And so we went over and she was hungry herself. And this is a moment in time

Starting point is 00:15:12 that has stood still for me because I have never really experienced hunger in my life. My parents have done a wonderful job taking care of me. But here I am in a strip club. And I'm so, serving this girl a meal and she takes the spoon of the mac and cheese and she starts hurling it into her mouth. And she turns and looks at me and my friend said, you might want to take the pan of mac and cheese over to the other table. She might throw up because she was kind of tipsy. Again, this is my first experience with somebody like this. And so I get the pan and she immediately throws up all over me. And I'm like, Lord, you have got to be kidding me. You've got to show me why. Like, why am I here? What am I doing? And she immediately

Starting point is 00:16:01 grabs my hands in the throat and says, will you pray with me? So we start praying. And this is in the middle of the strip club while everything's going on, lights, music. And she drops to her knees. I drop with her. And she starts crying now to Jesus. And she's like, Jesus, I don't want to do this. Save me. Help me. My babies. And as soon as we get on praying, the DJ had turned off the music, the lights had come on. And in my mind, I'm thinking, well, we're about to get kicked out of this club. She stands up and as sober-minded, she looks straight at me and she goes, I think I just met Jesus here tonight. And I'm looking at her and I was like, praise God. Like that's why I'm here.

Starting point is 00:16:45 It's 10 o'clock at night. I'm not here for my health, right? Like I'm here because I want these women to know Jesus. And she looks at me, she goes, I have so much hope. I am not working here. I'm going to leave. And right about that time, the owner of the club came over and tapped her on her shoulder. And he said, you're not going to be able to work here. You're too disruptive. This isn't a place for you. I've called you a cab. You need to go. In the state of Kentucky, if you're tipsy or if you're drunk, the owner has to call you a cab to go home. And so he had done that. So we packed up all of the food that we had made and bagged it up and walked it up.

Starting point is 00:17:19 and walked out to the cab with her and she gets in the cab and I looked at her. I said, hold on, I didn't even get your name. And she looks at me and she said, my name is Scarlett. And she smiles at me and that's it. She drove off in the cab. And my friends, my two friends that were with me were behind me and we stood there for what seemed like forever, but it was just a few seconds. And I remember feeling I am standing on holy ground like God is here. And so all of us well, the name's Scarlet Hope, and here we are. Another pause to tell you about our next sponsor for the day, and that is Legacy Box. 1.5 million families have used Legacy Box to preserve their memories.

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Starting point is 00:19:24 ever interacted with anyone that was a Christian. I immediately thought to myself, how can this even be? We live in America, right? But she grew up in extreme poverty. She grew up with extreme abuse in her family. And one of the things that I learned about her in her world was actually her family was in a cult. And when she turned 18, they not only sold her to an older man, but they also forced her to go into the strip clubs. And so when I was meeting her, she was young, 18 years old. She had just no idea that there was kindness in the world, that there was even a home-cooked meal. So I began just talking to her and getting to know her and showing up in small ways. She would tell us little things like I don't have food for my, she already had a daughter that she had at 16. I don't have food for my daughter. And so we would

Starting point is 00:20:21 show up with food. Eventually, this would lead to her coming to church with me, and she ended up giving her life to the Lord after a few times of attending church getting baptized. Well, that next week, I saw her back in the club. And I will never forget this moment in time because she immediately, as soon as she saw me, she dropped to the floor and covered herself. And when I went over to her, I put my hand on her back and I said, I said, are you okay? Like, what's going on? She goes, for the first time, I actually feel naked.

Starting point is 00:20:56 And she had never connected these, you know, well, first of all, she had a, she was a new baby, baby Christian, right? Because she had just given her life to the Lord on Sunday. That day she walked out of the clubs and left the clubs. And we helped her get into a program, a transitional living program with her daughter. And that was, you know, almost 17 years ago, 17, 18 years ago. And she is now a licensed counselor at a drug treatment facility, now walking alongside other women who have similar stories. Her daughter, who had experienced abuse and all of that, is now, she's in college. She's like not going down that same path.

Starting point is 00:21:43 And it's just this beautiful picture of when God, met her in that strip club. Yeah. Through church ladies and called her out of that darkness what God can do with somebody's life. And it wasn't easy. It was messy. But that was one of my first and first and favorite stories that still continues today. Wow.

Starting point is 00:22:05 And just the presence of the Holy Spirit in her life. And it reminds me so much of Adam and Eve that the knowledge of good and evil can bring like shame of sin. Once you realize there's a difference between right and wrong and you've been been caught in sin. All of us have had that in one way or another. And you realize that what I'm doing is wrong. Like, God can use that conviction and that guilt to change your life. And so what a moment that you got to witness there, just the reality of the Holy Spirit. There's no other explanation for that. Someone who really didn't know anything different into the Holy Spirit came into her life

Starting point is 00:22:37 and then that generational redemption. Was there anyone else that you met in those initial interactions that at first resisted was like, I don't want to talk to these church ladies. You mentioned church hurt. That eventually over time you were able to build a relationship with. I think that can just give us a lesson for all of us who might be in a similar situation. Yeah, absolutely. Another one of my favorite stories is a woman who,

Starting point is 00:23:06 this was one of our clubs that it was like our 10th club that we started serving. and when we first came in, she immediately met us with hostility. And not just any hostility. She was cussing at us. She would tell us how much she hated Christians, how much she did not believe in God because God was a horrible person that, you know, she could never believe in him. This was week after week after week after week this would go on. The owner of the club that led us in, he had heard good things about us. And so he had continued to let us in, even though she would cause a massive amount of disruptions every time we would come in. I would always go up to her and say, do you want something to eat? And she would say, I'm not eating your disgusting food. This would go on for about two years.

Starting point is 00:23:59 And then she got in a fight in the club and got kicked out of the club. I had no contact for her, nothing. And about nine months later, we got a call at our office. And it was her. her. And ironically, her name is Ali. And she said, is Rochelle there? And so I was the one that answered the call. I said, you know, this is Rochelle. She said, you don't probably remember me, but I was the girl that hated you in the club. And I said, oh, I do remember you. And she said, well, guess what? Would you come over for Thanksgiving? I have something to show you. So she invited me to her house for Thanksgiving. I bet you didn't know what to expect. I was like, should I go or should I know? I took one of our staff members with us. And I was like, let's go. Let's see what the Lord could be up to.

Starting point is 00:24:49 So we went over and as soon as we walked in the door, there was scripture all over her walls everywhere. And she sat us down, had prepared a table for us with a Thanksgiving meal. And she said, I've given my life to the Lord. The Lord met me in a dream. And the first, people I thought of was you all, but I couldn't get a hold of you. So I finally got a hold of somebody that knew you. And she said, I want to start serving in your ministry. And so long story short, this woman now is serving in foster care ministry at my church. And she has done several things with us as well. But, you know, one of the things that that always shows me is that I don't always have to be, We planted the seeds, but we're not always going to be present when God brings the harvest. And

Starting point is 00:25:41 it's God's grace that I got to know about Ali's story, and I still do get to know about Ali's story and see her impact other people. Totally. And I've just reminded of that first is like, you prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. And I don't really think that that's exactly what that passage is talking about. And of course, she wasn't your enemy. But at one point, she did perceive you as her enemy. And the Lord just, like, used a feast. I think to me, that's like a foretaste of heaven that he gave you the grace to see that here on this side of eternity. But on the other side of eternity, we're going to sit, I'm going to start crying, but we're going to sit down next to someone like, you know, okay, I can't keep talking about that or I'm going to start crying. It's just

Starting point is 00:26:24 amazing, like what the Lord does to intertwine our testimonies and how so much of the fruit of what is being sewn today won't be seen until heaven. And how good is he that he sometimes lets us see that. Next sponsor is pre-born. Preborn equips pregnancy clinics with the tools that they need to help serve women in crisis. When a pregnant woman walks into a pregnancy center, she might just want some information. But if she's far enough along, she can actually get a free sonogram at these pregnancy centers. And she can see that her baby is not just a clump of cells, as Planned Parenthood has already told her, but this is a real human being with a beating heart, 80% of the time that a woman sees her baby on the sonogram, she chooses life. So when you donate $28 to preborn that then supplies

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Starting point is 00:27:48 Y'all moved on to also serving women in the porn industry. But how exactly do you go about that, since it's not like a tangible place that you can go and meet these women? So in about, you know, I go all the way back to 2010 when the, the, I phone started coming on to the scene really significantly and online exploitation started and pornography started advancing. I started then asking God, will you please provide a way to reach people online? But it would be until 2018 when I was in Seattle where I learned of a software being created by Microsoft called, it was at their tech against trafficking event. And they were going to

Starting point is 00:28:36 creating this software that would identify victims online and allow NGOs and nonprofits to text them and reach them. Well, I immediately walked straight up to the person in charge and I said, you better sign me up for that. And we became their first customer in 2019 and subscribed to this software. And in that first year, we reached 18,000 individuals. So what the software does is there are hundreds and thousands of websites selling illicit services. And the software goes onto those websites, and it finds all of the public identification that's on that site. It then allows us at groups like Scarlet Hope and other nonprofits to identify victims in any zip code in the entire United States and be able to text, bulk text those people.

Starting point is 00:29:35 And it's an incredible technology that, 2019 to 2022, we were expanding it into nine cities around the U.S. And they eventually came to me and said, do you want to acquire the software? Well, I didn't even have to say, I didn't have to think about it. I was like, how much do you want for it? Wow.

Starting point is 00:29:55 God helped us fundraise in three weeks, and we were able to raise the money. needed to acquire the software, and now we operate the full software. And that has opened my eyes to the connection between exploitation, human trafficking, and the pornography industry, and where that's going. And so it is our largest outreach that we have to date. We still go to strip clubs and brothels, but we reached about 120,000 victims last year that are being exploited in traffic. Okay, tell me about the response. Is there one particular story that stands out of someone who responded and then turned away from that? Yes, absolutely. I mean, again, thousands of stories already by God's grace, but one that stands out is a woman we text at 8.30 in the morning.

Starting point is 00:30:49 You would not think that would be a reasonable time to text somebody who's probably working at night. but this woman woke up to our text about five minutes after we sent it and she said, is this real? The text message that we sent said, hey, is there any, do you need any prayer or any resources? We'd love to help. That's as simple as it said. She said, is this real? And our team immediately responded back and said, absolutely, we're a group of women from an

Starting point is 00:31:19 organization and we would love to pray for you. And she said, I almost committed suicide last night, and I prayed that if God was real, he would give me a sign. Within two hours, this victim was sitting in our office. She was just five miles down the street from our office, though we had never met her before. What we learned about her was at 14 years old, she was sex trafficked, and 16 years old, she gets pregnant. Her sex trafficker forces her to have an abortion. By 18, she's full in this industry, addicted to drugs, 18 to 22. She's trafficked all over the country. And at 22, she had gained a lot of weight. And her trafficker kicked her out and said, you're no longer valuable to me. And she became homeless. And so it was very shortly after that that our text had come through to her.

Starting point is 00:32:16 And she said, I just had gotten to the end of my rope, that there was no hope, that there was nobody to help. My family had disowned me, yet no one knew what was going on in my life for so many years. And so we were able to get her into a long-term treatment facility that would walk alongside her and get her, you know, to a healthy place. But that right there showed the power of technology, number one, using it for good, and that a simple text can really change and save a life. Totally. Oh, my goodness. I mean, again, just the redemption and how God works. I think I've been holding back tears this entire episode. You mentioned earlier this commonality of church hurt that a lot of these women in this

Starting point is 00:33:02 industry have. What is another characteristic that you seem to see in story after story of these women that you interact with? You know, and I know we're going to talk about this in a little bit about the movie, but it's this wound of not having a father. Or, you know, in some cases a mother. It was very early on when I was sharing the gospel with one of the women, and she said to me this phrase that I'll really know, it's like burned in my memory, how could I ever believe in God as a father if my own father raped me and abused me?

Starting point is 00:33:42 And to this day, it's still something that's so hard to sit with somebody in. but I knew God would never want that for her or we would never say that that was caused by God or any of that. And so I sat with her in this for a really long time and I learned that that same storyline is in many of these women. And I think that is another commonality and another thing that our ministry has to really work through and overcome and show them.

Starting point is 00:34:19 I say it a lot of times Jesus was skin on so that they can actually start to experience the hands and feet of Jesus first before we are actually preaching at them or telling them, you know, what they should believe, which we never do. But we want to show them what God is like as a father and as a good God before we often get to, you know, the misconceptions about God or what they, they, they, have always believed. Right. And it's combating, like with grace, truth, and time, that's our recipe that we believe wholeheartedly in. With those three things operating, we've seen God change so many lives. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:35:05 And when you say that you're not telling them what to believe, I just want to clarify for people, you are unapologetically sharing the gospel with them, telling them about the truth of God's love and the truth of Christ and all of that. But what you mean is that when they come to you about misconceptions about God or whatever false beliefs they have, you're not sitting there and saying, well, let me give you a theology lesson right now. This is why you're wrong. It's like you're loving them. You're ingratiating yourself to them through the Holy Spirit, through that relationship. And when the time comes, you're there and ready.

Starting point is 00:35:39 Well, this is why I love you. This is why I'm here to share the truth of the gospel. Next sponsor is Patriot Mobile. Patriot Mobile offers prioritized premium access on all three major U.S. networks, giving you the same or better coverage than the main carriers. This means fast speeds and dependable nationwide coverage backed by 100% U.S.-based customer service support. Plus, when you switch to Patriot Mobile, you don't have to worry about your dollars being donated to Democrat politicians or to Planned Parenthood or any of these other entities that fight against the values that we believe in. because Patriot Mobile is in lockstep with us in this audience. They believe in the sanctity of life.

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Starting point is 00:36:39 Go to PatriotMobil.com slash Allie. You'll get a free month of service. PatriotMobile.com slash Allie. A lot of people also don't realize. The trafficking that's happening, like right beneath our noses, especially when it comes to these, like, major events. I remember learning it a couple of years ago that the Super Bowl is a time when a lot of trafficking, a lot of prostitution happens. And it's also events like the World Cup, but I've heard you talk about this. The World Cup is coming up in June.

Starting point is 00:37:11 And that's a high trafficking event. So what does that even mean? And how are you involved in combating that? any sporting event is going to raise, you know, tourism. It's going to raise any industry that's in a city where it's held. It just so happens to also raise exploitation and trafficking. Why we're focused on the World Cup is there's an estimated 8 million visitors coming from other countries to the United States. And, you know, the World Cup is happening in 11 major cities and those cities, all of that will increase. And so what we've done in the past is for several Super Bowls now, we have sent teams to do on the ground missions, where we're reaching people not only digitally and online, but we're also reaching people on the street and in clubs. So for the World Cup, we are estimating actually in the month of June to come into contact and reach 30,000 women. And could those be a lot of women that are already residing here? Absolutely. But all of that will be a lot of women. increase as well as we'll see human trafficking increase during that time. So we're focusing right now

Starting point is 00:38:26 on Dallas, Atlanta, Miami, and L.A. as the major cities that will send teams to and have a response for victims when they need it. What exactly does that look like? The response. Yeah. So when we do digital outreach, we will reach at, for example, the Super Bowl this year, we reach 2,500 people. and several victims that were being trafficked reached out to our lines that we were texting them on and told us they needed help. So our team went and met them in a secure location, and we were able to provide services to where they were able to get out of that situation. And so that's what it looks like on sort of the rescue side of things. But it also looks like showing up on the streets where women are working and meeting them with a gift and some food and a rose. And that's

Starting point is 00:39:21 one of my favorite outreaches we do during sporting events because, believe it or not, there's all sorts of people walking around the stadiums and the different neighborhoods nearby. And so that's always a beautiful way to meet people right where they're at. What else do you wish people new, either about trafficking or women who are just working in the sex industry? Man, I wish they knew a lot of things, really. You know, there's always, I'm always told, like, those people or them. Why do you go to them? And one of the things that I've always taught is, at the foot of the cross, we are all the same.

Starting point is 00:40:02 All of our sin put Jesus on the cross. And so I wish that there were more Christians that had a heart that broke for what God's heartbreaks for. and saw people in this, you know, saw the people in the industry not for maybe what they do, but who they were supposed to be, they were created in God's image. And that's the message that we share over and over again is that these women are created in God's image, that Christ died for them and rose for them, and that there is hope in his blood. And over and over again, women in the sex industry are finding hope in that message. What is the connection between pornography and the sex industry strip clubs?

Starting point is 00:40:54 Because I think a lot of people think of that as separate. They even think of it as separate from trafficking. But all of those things really work together, right? Yeah. I mean, pornography has been stated as a gateway entryway to like physical commercial sex industry establishments. Oftentimes, as we already know, pornography is a very prevalent issue in our world, not just with men, but also with women now. And it always typically leads to then the acceptance of going to a strip club, going to an illegal massage brothel. And we haven't even talked about that,

Starting point is 00:41:35 because that is one of the fastest growing areas in exploitation right now is Asian massage parlors. And so pornography is a gateway to those things. They also go hand in hand where we have met somebody online. She also works in a strip club. And she might also work in a brothel. And so I think with the online industry growing at such a rapid rate and there's, so we've identified 3.2 million victims that are online where there's an estimated 480,000 independent workers in strip clubs.

Starting point is 00:42:10 So, and there's quite a few of those are overlapping. So it really just all is this ecosystem of evil and darkness that needs to be reached. Okay, tell us more about the Asian massage parlors because I had heard of that, but more like, okay, that's like a one-off thing that might happen in a sketchy area in Chinatown or something. But you said that it's fast growing. This is something that's happening like prevalently across the country. In Dallas, there's 202 known illicit massage brothels that are actively selling illicit services. And that's in like comparison to about 33 strip clubs. So, and then the online industry in Dallas has about 13,000 unique, what we would call unique victims in it.

Starting point is 00:43:02 So there's the quick picture of the industry. When we have, we're not, you know, we don't have numbers on individuals. working in those 202 Asia massage parlors because it changes and fluctuates. But I work with companies that are actively trying to shut those down and trying to rescue the victims that are in there. Yeah. And are those women always being trafficked? Or, I mean, do they, through a series of circumstances, just find themselves there? Are there any women who sign up for that? I mean, what does that look like? So what I've come to learn, so, we do, our model is very similar in the illicit massage parlors as it is in the strip club. So we bring

Starting point is 00:43:45 home-cooked meals to the illicit massage brothels that allow us to come in. But what I have learned about the Asian massage parlors are, all of those people are either sex trafficked or labor trafficked. Wow. And so they're not necessarily here by their choice. They came to America because they thought they were going to get something better. And when that didn't, you know, when they got here and there's all sorts of systems and very corrupt systems that are bringing these people here, they get trapped in these places. We also have a ministry that we've worked with and we've trained that they've sat with about five different Asian massage parlors.

Starting point is 00:44:24 And the women that are in there are in their culture. They believe this is acceptable, that this isn't actually wrong. And so when they're given an opportunity, like when we work alongside sting operations to at illicit massage brothels, they oftentimes don't choose to get help. And that's for either fear of their life or because they don't think that inherently they're doing anything wrong or that anything wrong is being done to them. Do you ever get pushed back from people who say, because what I've talked about, the dangers of pornography and, you know, how I think our laws need to change because it's a legal

Starting point is 00:45:06 loophole for sex trafficking all of this. It's, well, these women are doing this consensually. This is the choice that they're making. You don't have to agree with it, but they're not all victims. I wonder if you ever get people saying that, why do you call them all victims? Maybe they feel empowered by their only fans or by their Instagram account where they're, you know, getting paid money for sex and things like that. How do you see that? I get that a lot. I get that. And I'm sure we're going to get that from this. Yes, there are women absolutely in the industry that tell us they are there because it is women's empowerment that they are working in that industry and they're taking back their rights and all of these things. But I have talked to

Starting point is 00:45:50 tens of thousands of women in 19 years. And even the women that say that have some sort of vulnerability that happened a long time ago, potentially, that led them there or led them to the storyline of their life that believes that that is empowering. And again, one of the things I always try to train our volunteers on is we should not be surprised that that is something that they, especially if they're not a Christian. And if they are not a believer, why would they believe anything different than what the world has told them or what they believe is powerful and impactful for them. And so we treat those women exactly the same way. And we love them. We show up and time and time again when they tell me why I like doing this. I don't want anything to do with

Starting point is 00:46:42 the church ladies. You know, we just stay steady and maintain the truth of the word and tell them that we love them, that the same message we're giving to everybody else is the same message for them. And I've actually seen a couple of those women come to know the Lord. A woman who has been a very prolific prostitute escort, she's been in the porn industry, has actually given her life to the Lord very recently. And her story has every facet of abuse in it, every facet of glamour in it. And yet at the end of the day, what she would tell me before she would give her life to the Lord is I am so empty I want to die. And that's what she would tell me over and over and over again. And eventually there was a window of time. Something happened in her life that was scary that

Starting point is 00:47:40 caused her to call me one night. And she was scared for her life. That if she really did die, where would she go? What would that look like? And the Lord met her in that moment. And she gave her life to the Lord. And it's not pretty. There's a lot of things that have to change in her life in order to completely get out of that lifestyle. But now the Lord has opened her eyes. And now she can begin to journey with him. Last sponsor for the day is NetSuite by Oracle. If this is a business owner, this is for you. They help make your business as efficient as possible. NetSuite is the number one AI, cloud ERP, trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It's a unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into a single source of truth. That connected data

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Starting point is 00:49:22 can bring an increased rate of poverty and desperation and all of that. that can also contribute to these women ending up where they are. You were part of a documentary that really honed in on fatherlessness and the damage that it causes. Can you talk more about that? Yeah, the documentary is called, He Calls Me Daughter. And when Rick Altizer, the director, called me about a year and a half ago to be a part of it, I heard his pitch and I immediately was like, I mean, this is what I hear every single day. Is, they, may not be able to directly identify that it's a father wound. But ultimately, anything that takes away the ability for us to see God as a father is tied to

Starting point is 00:50:13 some sort of wound or father wound, as we've come to know. So this documentary explores five different people, one of which came from our ministry named Priscilla, it explores their father wounds and what that did and what that led them to do, whether it was overachieving or working, you know, really hard to earn favor or approval or validation. And then it explores the turn where God met them and they were able to surrender and accept, you know, and learn that God was their father, their heavenly father that loved them perfectly. And the process of being a part of this documentary has been really, really beautiful because I've gotten to know more and more women's stories. And even several of them have had their eyes open to, you know, I never really could put my finger on it.

Starting point is 00:51:10 But now that I'm seeing this documentary and I'm more aware of it, then I can name it and I can give it over to the Lord and he can begin to heal that. And so that's what the movie's about. And it's coming out March 17th and 18th. Okay, good. I really want everyone to watch it. It comes out in theaters, right? Limited release. So people need to go online.

Starting point is 00:51:33 He calls me daughter. Yep. And get their tickets. Go support it. And you never know. Also, this could be like a gospel sharing opportunity for someone in your life, whether or not they have a background of fatherlessness, pointing to God the father is just a way to reach out to them.

Starting point is 00:51:50 And how do we talk to someone who says, you know, what she said, someone said earlier, well, my dad assaulted me. My dad was terrible. Why would I want to turn to a father? Of all things, I could turn to so many other things. Why would I want to turn to a father? What is the message that we have for this woman? I think the message is, what does it look like?

Starting point is 00:52:12 What does it look like to surrender to a deeper relationship with Christ? because, and I can use Priscilla, for example, she's in the movie and she's, I've been disciplining her for a very long time. She said to me, way before this movie ever came into our world, that she would never believe, she could believe in God, but she would not believe in Jesus as a man. And that, that was it. She was not going to go any further. But one of the things that I said to her, and I would say to any woman, listening to this, is what is the enemy trying to keep you from? And that day that Priscilla and I had this conversation, I said, what if the Lord has something deeper and better and more intimate for you? And the enemy is trying

Starting point is 00:53:05 to create a barrier there. And that, like, stayed in her heart and her mind. And so then when this, you know, her journey is so beautiful, you see it in the movie. But God did, um, reveal himself to her in a closer way. And she did eventually come to know Jesus as her Savior. But she eventually realized that the enemy was trying to really destroy her intimacy with God and cause her to still strive and work towards him loving her when God was like, I love you perfectly, just the way that you are. Yeah. Gosh, such an important message. And how good is God that he presents himself as father, knowing that that's such a deep need that all of us have and that this fatherlessness causes a vulnerability that only he can really rescue everyone from. And he's just so good in that way.

Starting point is 00:53:59 I want to round out the conversation with a message specifically to parents because I'm sure you've learned a lot about the sophisticated methods that are used to present kids and young people with pornography to kind of groom them into being okay with the sexualization and objectification of their bodies, but also just like the outright outreach used through Instagram and TikTok and some of these games and things online of these traffickers to exploit young people. So just so parents are aware, especially those of teens, to know how this works. Talk about some of those methods that traffickers use. Absolutely. I think it is parents reach out to make.

Starting point is 00:54:42 to me and our ministry a lot asking these questions. So I'm going to start with a quick story here. There were a couple of young teenagers that met a guy through Instagram when they were 16. And this guy had picked up and noticed that they were seeking attention, right, like most young girls are. And he portrayed himself as also a 16-year-old man. And eventually when they turned 18, he had built trust with them so significantly that by the time they were 18 and they could do, make their own choices, he had promised them a modeling gig in Atlanta, Georgia. And so her and her friend and she got another friend to go down to Atlanta, Georgia and go to this big mansion where many women were living. And all of a sudden they found themselves in what I call a modeling trafficking scam. where they were not modeling.

Starting point is 00:55:44 That was not at all what it was going to be, but they were going to be for weeks and weeks and weeks dropped off at strip clubs at 18 years old, forced to bring a certain amount of money home. And when they didn't bring a certain amount of money home, they were beat and they were all sorts of horrible things. Well, we met them in the strip club. And so we're learning this story. This was several years ago of how this started.

Starting point is 00:56:08 And so I started, you know, just talking to different organizations. and trying to figure out this was the method that a lot of traffickers are using, a lot of pimps are using. And so what I would tell parents is there's a couple of things. One is we need to teach our kids where they get their validation and affirmation from. We cannot be apathetic parents. We have to be involved in their lives. We cannot give them full access and carte blanche to every social media platform, it is dangerous. And it is something that the traffickers know very well how to spot a young girl or even a young boy that needs attention. Maybe a kid, you know, video games is now one of those areas that traffickers and groomers are getting involved in and they know what to look for.

Starting point is 00:57:05 Kids that are always online, you know, young boys that are always online. And so these things are going They're very smart. And I think as parents, we don't know what to do. And the pressure of like young teenagers needing to be on social media and needing to have a phone is very real. And so I understand all of those pressures. But I think if I was to say one thing is don't be apathetic. Be involved. Pay attention.

Starting point is 00:57:34 Know the signs. Understand what your daughter and land or son is dressing. seen like and, you know, what signs and signals are they giving to the outside world and really pay attention to those things. Yeah. My opinion is that no one needs to have access to, like, unfettered, unsupervised access to these smart devices, whether it be a tablet or a TV or a phone, especially not alone, not in their room. I don't think before the age of 18 years old. And any access to technology that our kids have has to be highly supervised, but even then realizing that our kids will outsmart us when it comes to technology, those of us who still consider

Starting point is 00:58:22 ourselves, I'm like, oh no, I'm so savvy, but you even see little kids being able to, you know, swipe through a phone so quickly, it's so instinctive for them that you could see how they could easily outsmart you. And so it is a level of discipline and self-control and effort. And really on the side of the parent, even more than on the side of the child, to make sure that they're protected in that way. But that piece that you said even before that and beyond that I think is so important that first and foremost, they need to know where their worth comes from and get the kind of healthy affirmation that they need so that they are not constantly desperate for something because all of us, we want affection. We want affection. We want affirmation.

Starting point is 00:59:10 We want validation. We want to know that we're loved, that we're good enough by someone. And having good parents obviously doesn't necessarily prevent every bad thing from happening or every bad choice that your child is going to make. But it sounds like what you've found is that that is what is missing in the lives of so many of these women who are being exploited. And I also just one thing that I just want to like make sure that people understand because I think a lot of people hear this stuff that you're talking about.

Starting point is 00:59:38 And they're like, well, that only happens to see. cede women in seedy parts of town, like my kid goes to a private Christian school, that would never, that would just never happen. Like, we're wealthy. We live in a good neighborhood or whatever. I just want parents to hear that that is not the right mentality, right? No, that is not the right mentality. If, and even more so today, there is no, like, trafficking does not discriminate. Yeah. I know stories of pastors, daughters, that have been trafficked. And it actually started on social media.

Starting point is 01:00:15 And so if your kid, no matter who you are, if you're Uber wealthy or, you know, what you feel like is just a common person that this would never happen to, that's not the truth anymore. It does not discriminate age. It does not discriminate wealth. And or area of town either.

Starting point is 01:00:39 Yeah. And I would actually argue that this day and age, unfortunately, the wealthier, the girls coming from upbringings where they're wealthy and they have access to a lot are actually what the pimps and traffickers are looking for. And so I just, I really just think, I'm with you, like no kid under 18 really should have access to these things. I mean, your brain's not even formed. So it's hard to teach that.

Starting point is 01:01:14 But to go back just really quickly, again, is validation and affirmation are very powerful currencies. And traffickers know that. And so if we, if our children are finding that belonging in their home, then they will know the difference when something like that comes their way. They won't be seeking it out because it'll already be fulfilled. And yes, there is no right parent. There's no perfect father. There's no perfect mother.

Starting point is 01:01:46 But it's something we need to pay attention to. If people are listening to this, watching this, and they're like, okay, wow, I feel convicted. I want to help Scarlet Hope or I want to be involved somehow. Where would you encourage them to go first? You can visit scarlethop.org. That would be the best place to go. You can find out World Cup information and the mission trips. there and then of course he calls me daughter.org about the movie. Perfect. Well, thank you so much

Starting point is 01:02:12 and thank you just for your faithfulness and for your response to God's call and maybe just this conversation will make our hearts sensitive to what God may be calling us to. I just see so many patterns of God's character in your testimony that like when Jesus was with his disciples so often, the ministry moment that they were called to was on the way to doing something else that wasn't their plan or schedule or goal for the day, but God called him on what looked like a detour that was actually his ultimate goal. And so I think we just have to be open to that, that it could be on the side of the road literally or metaphorically, but like God's will is always the goal.

Starting point is 01:02:54 So just thank you so much for being an example of that to us. And I really do encourage people to look at the documentary, to look up your organization, to support it and get involved however you can. Rochelle, thank you so much. Thank you, Raleigh.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1313 | God Called Her to Strip Clubs. What She Saw Changed Her Life | Rachelle Starr

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