PETRA AND STEVE MOVE

Petra LUNA and Pastor Steve BLOMEFIELD were living in Umhlanga in Durban. Umhlanga is 12 kilometers from the beachfront where we do outreach to commercial sex workers. It is also 35 kilometers to the suburb where the rehab center is.

They have now moved into the house and Petra is a mother to the girls, and Steve a father to the girls. There is a resident married couple. Patricia is the house manager, and Peter, her husband is a co-pastor of a church.

Some of the girls are orphans, and others come from homes where they suffered violence and rape. The vast majority of the girls involved in commercial sex work have suffered rape, often repeatedly, and this usually this was first experienced in the home. So home life was one of fear and abuse. Thus at the HOUSE OF LIFE we have to create a family atmosphere of love, acceptance, teaching, discipline, harmony and personal growth. We have to inspire the girls to have vision and to teach them how to grow so as to achieve that vision.

When the girls leave home they come to the city to find work. They often move into a shelter and pay 3 US Dollars per night. There may be 50 people in the shelter, both men and women in bunks in one warehouse style room. They quickly run out of cash and are encouraged by other commercial sex workers in the shelter to learn the trade. Out of desperation they agree. They then seek the protection of a pimp who manipulates them using tools of sex, pseudo love and drugs to enslave them into a new life where they serve him and work only for his prosperity.

At the shelter they have no discipline whatsoever. Because they work late at night they wake up late in the day. If they find food, they guzzzle it down on the spot. Food is obtained by Take-Away Restaurants. Rarely do they cook a meal with proper vegetables and rarely do they buy fruit.

They soon learn that life in the shelter is all about survival, and if this means deceiving, lying, arguing, fighting, dominating others, manipulating others and violence, then this is what they will do. It is all about survival. This lifestyle becomes a habit, a culture.

When they come to Jesus, they have to learn a whole new life. They learn love, forgiveness, kindness, honesty, discipline, order, walking in the light, excellence of work, and most importantly, the Word of God and who Jesus really is. They learn that while man is sinful, Jesus can give him His righteousness by faith.

This is why Petra and Steve have to be in the center. All day there is a continual stream of encouragement, counselling, discipline, teaching, prayer and preaching. By continually focusing the girls on Jesus as they Way, the Truth and the Life, they are continually changed into his likeness.

Now we live in the HOUSE OF LIFE, we can join the pastoral community here. Church women from the community here can teach the girls cooking, sewing, knitting, crochet work, gardening, and other home skills. Supermarkets can provide food. Pastors can come in and teach the girls.

We are beginning to meet local pastors, attend their churches and are inviting them to come and teach in the HOUSE.

I thank God for the way that the ministry is growing. From midnight outreaches to feeding programs and then finally to the establishment of the house, then us moving into the house and establishing links with the local Christian community, we are growing, growing, growing.