Dear friends,

Last month, I was catching up with a friend associated to Miqlat over a cup of tea in a café. Our conversation started with my friend asking me “why” and “what” in regard to the work I do. My friend thinks I did not make a wise choice in choosing to work with rescuing and empowering of women in the sex trade. My friend is right in his own way, and I realize there’s no point arguing trying to let him know how noble is the work I am involved with. It was above his head to understand and see my heart and passion for the work I do. My friend was not willing to side with me, yet he was not even giving up the conversation in relation to my work. I then narrated to him about the story of a young woman who challenged me to take a step further. This young woman pushed me to consider business as mission, and forced me to see Miqlat not only as a “spiritual/religious organization” (whatever people call it), but see it as an established business set up to provide better alternatives for girls/women in need of help.

On this particular night, as usual I was out for outreach. A young woman standing in a little dark corner waiting for someone to take her for the night caught my attention. I stood in another corner and was just watching her. Then in few minutes time, three drunken men came in a cab, and they wanted to take her. As I listen to their conversation, I realized this young woman asked for 300 Rupees ($6) for three men, but to my amazement, these three men started to bargain. I watched them in disbelief. How can they even dare to bargain again? After a while, the woman was almost ready to get into the cab with the three men. I couldn’t hold myself anymore, and so I went and grabbed the woman and shouted at her, “Sister, are you out of your mind! Why are you giving yourself away just like this to men who are not going to have sex with you, but will rape you!” I continued yelling even as the three men approached, charging at me for trying to reason with their prospective client. Later on, the woman held my hand and said in a weak voice , “Sister, I know what I am going to do is not right, but I have no other choice. If I don’t pay my son’s school fee tomorrow, he will be kicked out of the school.“ As I listened to her, I stood there speechless. Maybe I can pay her son’s school fee for a month, I can ask someone to pay for another month, and then another, but what about the following month, the following year? Who will pay? This young woman has to keep coming back to the same place every night to cover her son’s school fee, to meet the basic needs of her family. This particular night, I realized if Miqlat is to really help the women, just offering counseling and prayer is not enough. We have to offer them an alternative to make a living, and that is only through business.

Many of the women I’ve come across are involved in the sex business not because they make a lot of money, but for survival. For them, it is sex for food, sex for clothes, sex for education, sex for survival. And these are the women Miqlat ministry is reaching out to. These are the women we target to provide better alternatives, offer complete healing through Jesus Christ, and once again raise in them the hope to live a better dignified life. This is the story of Miqlat. Changes and transformation are very slow. It takes a long, long time, and many times we run out of patience, but today as I see the fruit of the hard work and long wait, there’s no greater joy other than seeing a person’s life transformed, getting to see a complete new person today because “you and I” took interest in her and invested in her.

For many people, the work we do sounds baseless and a waste of time, and I won’t even try to justify. But I can proudly say that because we chose to spend our time in the lives of these women, we see lives transformed, and these transformed lives again contributing to our society, and transforming lives again. This is also my answer to the “why" and "what” many people have in mind about my dedication to Miqlat.

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