Source: Godreports, March 4, 2015
One day about two years ago, a lady who had heard of Maria’s ministry through her sister invited her to come and start a church in her village. “I did not know what type of people would come,” Maria remembers. “Some of the people we started to have were a few pimps and prostitutes.”
But Maria was not shocked. In fact, she had come in contact with a pimp in this village before. For a while, Maria had led a Bible study at his house, and he had asked her to pray for his business—but when she discovered what it was, she instead prayed for God to change his business. After a lot of arguments and prayers, he agreed to change jobs as long as he could earn enough money to provide for his family. Maria helped him secure a loan to start a livestock project and he is now happily employed in honest labor.
Since Maria had witnessed the change in this man’s life, she wasn’t shocked when she found out who made up her new congregation. “I just looked at them as normal people, people with messed-up lives—as almost all people have.”
Maria knew that most of her parishioners were men and women with no work and no education who got involved in this type of business because it was the easiest way to find money for their families and feed their children.