Prostitution

An Austin man is facing felony charges after two women said he forced them into prostitution, according to an arrest affidavit. Chris Edward Dancer, 34, has been charged with compelling prostitution and aggravated promotion of prostitution, the affidavit said...Officers responded to a disturbance Tuesday at the Ramada Limited motel at 9121 N. Interstate 35 near Rundberg Lane, where they met with a 24-year-old woman who said she met Dancer two weeks ago near a women’s shelter in Killeen, according to the affidavit.She left with Dancer after he offered to find a way to help her get home but eventually learned he wanted her to work in prostitution, the document said. Published: September 27, 2012 Austin American Statesman

“Shawna” showed up at church a little over a year ago. She showed up with a man that gave everyone the creeps.  We were fairly certain that Shawna was turning tricks in our neighborhood. While we had her here we gave her good, honest work, and worked alongside her.  We praised her work ethic as we washed dishes together and we reminded her that God loved her and wanted for her a future with hope.  Without shaming her we acknowledged that the way she was surviving wasn’t actually giving her life.  Less than a week later we were not surprised to hear from her male “friend” that she had been arrested.  He was asking us for money for her bail.  We saw this as, perhaps, one of her few routes to escape him.  We didn’t give him money because we knew (by checking the arrest record) that she couldn’t be released anyway.  He was going to pocket any money he could get.  Since we met her we have been praying for her and the hundreds of women throughout this city who get trapped in a cycle of prostitution.  Most prostitutes were sexually abused as a child.  They are used to being used.  Often their “handlers” will provide drugs to help dull their pain and then they find themselves trapped in a cycle of abuse and the drug use doesn’t help.  Most of them have learned to do what they need to do to survive.  Most of them have had to just get by. We pray daily for a future and a hope for these women.  And so we were not surprised when Shawna showed up at our door early having been released from prison less than 24 hours earlier.  Which was odd because we had prayed for her, specifically, less than two hours before she showed up.  Talking to and praying with a convicted prostitute just released from prison wasn’t on our “to do” list for that day.  There were other, more mundane things on our list -- like printing bulletins and planning for Fat Tuesday pancake dinners.  It would be so much easier if we didn’t receive folks with desperate stories that are going to be messy and unresolved for months or years to come.  It would be so much easier if we were in a neighborhood where running the church like a business was possible.  It would be so much easier if the most desperate thing we had to worry about was our attendance numbers.  But in our neighborhood “church” is an outpost for the desperate and lost.  In our neighborhood “church” is the place where you can catch a glimpse of yourself the way God intended you to be.  In our neighborhood, “church” sees us as we are, and sees how God can transform us.  Many churches in the city choose not to provide “direct services.”  They feel that there are social service agencies that are tasked with taking care of needs and they are really in the business of saving souls.  That is the business of the church to be certain.  And, in our neighborhood it’s not enough to offer Jesus without also being willing to walk with folks who assume they are forever condemned to darkness.  And so we will continue to listen.  To thank God for the volunteers that work so hard to get the “regular” church business done to free us all to do the business of witnessing to and loving Jesus.  If you want to find out more about how Parker Lane is helping our neighbors meet these challenges you can read more at www.parkerlane.org.  If you’d like to support the work of the church you can donate on line at that same website.