Tuesday, May 27, 2008

The man on the corner

I had an interesting encounter last night as i dropped home one of the youth from a small group course we are running on Monday nights teaching our young men about sexual purity. I picked him up at about 5:45pm and noticed as i turned off the main road an Asian man standing on the corner opposite the deli/takeaway store of the road i turned into to, didn't seem unusual apart from that it was raining, but he had a jacket on, didn't really take much notice.
It was about 7:30pm when i was dropping the boy home again, with another in the back seat i was dropping off somewhere else smsing his girlfriend totally distracted by her. As we turned off the main road onto the street to where he is living, we both said to each other, "hey that guy is still there", and as we drove by him he put his hand in the air signalling to us. I kept going and dropped the boy home.
As I was driving back out to the main road I couldn't help but wonder why this Asian man was standing there in the rain for so long, so with the boy in the back seat still focused on his girlfriend's txt message, i stopped as i was turning out of the street and wound down the window on the other side to see if this guy was alright, as I was about to ask if he was alright i noticed it was a lady in jeans and a warm jacket with short black hair and before i said anything she said "I'm working" to which i kindly wound back up the window and drove off.
I didn't even think about where I was, the suburb I was in is of quite bad reputation, and the Asian man on the corner was actually a female prostitute working the corner.

I felt a bit silly and naive for not recognising what she was there for. As I drove away i couldn't help but feel terribly sorry for her. I don't imagine she was there because she wanted to be, but rather that this is the way she gets money to live, for the lack of other means. It also made me think this morning of some of the girls we have come through the youth and children's communities of our church from this and other nearby areas. Are they going to grow up to sell their bodies to make a living? If they don't find hope and love here is this where they will end up, on a street corner in the rain at night waiting to sell their bodies and souls?
Who is going to love that lady on the corner?
Where is God in this?
I hope she will see his love, although I don't know how.