by Ricky Doc Sauceda
Exodus 3:2
There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.
In 2010 I learned of a Christian ministry named Hookers For Jesus. Annie Lobert bravely heads an organization in Las Vegas, Nevada to combat sex trafficking/prostitution. She is a former hooker. She found Jesus and stayed in his light.
I followed all of the posts on Facebook and promoted them on my pages. I believe in their cause and I support Annie's efforts. Another ministry was led by Shelley Lubben, Pink Cross Foundation. I still have the CD she recorded during her strong days with the Lord.
All of that information had to be explained in order to discuss my eventual girlfriend who was also following these ministries. Jenifer was a prostitute in Las Vegas for a spell. The money was good, she had a network of friends and she attended many parties.
She had a powerful experience one night while parked in front of a convenience store. She was eating a snack and had a drink and was relaxing. All of a sudden the trash can in front of her car exploded and a ball of fire rose up. She could see and angel and heard a voice proclaiming to her of the need to seek salvation.
Jeremiah 2:2
“Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem: “This is what the LORD says: “’I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the wilderness, through a land not sown.
From that very moment she believed in God strongly. She turned away from her life in Las Vegas and moved to Phoenix, Arizona where her grandma, mom and siblings were living. She bought a home and delved into ministry and became an avid Bible reader.
She noticed me on Facebook due to the supportive comments I was making on the account pages of Annie and Shelley. As I said Annie was once a hooker. Shelley was from adult film industry. Both of their ministries were making strides in helping women turn from dark lives to one of light and peace.
Jenifer sent me a Facebook friend request. I accepted her. In time we began to chat, a lot. One day I posted a song video on my account page that helped her to decide to leave her difficult relationship. She had been living in the mountain town of Payson, Arizona and was living with a trash truck driver whom she had met through her ex-husband. She packed up and drove to Phoenix.
She told me what she was doing and said that we would begin talking soon. After about a month of exchanging messages, she provided her phone number to me so that we could talk. It was around September of 2010.
She was stunned when hearing my country twang. We began a series of daily calls and would Bible study on the phone. We discovered how much that we had in common and became strongly attached to each other. She was like a dream come true for me due to her being so beautiful and having a strong love for Christ.
She was planning to come to Texas to be with me. I ended up blowing the whole deal due to my shakiness about my new job at a driver license office in Texas. The pay was very low and I had only applied for it due to the advertisement stating that the starting salary was $41K but it was really $25K. I found out the actual salary on my first day and was emotionally floored. Human Resources was contacted about the salary disparity and discovered the job ad had a typo. They basically told me to take it or leave it.
For nine months on unemployment I lived on small checks and was barely getting by. Now to have a job that paid the same as I was getting from unemployment caused me to be upset and angry. As I told Jenifer about this situation, she scolded me. She said, "Trust God with what he's blessing you with! Don't spit in His face!"
Jenifer was very deep in her walk with Christ and it was stronger than mine. This gap in faith is what caused our undoing. She went back to her old boyfriend and married him. She told me, "I may as well face the fact that I'll never meet someone who will truly fit me. At least he is happy with his life and goes to church."
The truck driver was a grungy, grumpy man who would argue with her to the point of telling her to move out. He would place her things in the hallway and shut the bedroom door. She would go sleep in the living room. This treatment was routine. That is why she left him. The were not harmonious and he was way one-sided about how things should be.
What caused me to write about Jenifer is a conversation I had with a pastor this week. I was going over how the job was very hard to endure in the beginning. He had asked me how long I've been working for the driver license office. It has been thirteen years this month, and it was on Halloween night that Jenifer went back to the truck driver who had driven from Payson to where she was in Phoenix.
Since that time I have grown up a lot in maturity and faith. I would be better suited for her now...thirteen years too late. Talk about not being ready for someone perfect for me. Only I had a lot of work to do on me. It is sad for me.
The pastor at the office was curious about what ministry had brought us into contact with each other. I told him, "Hookers For Jesus." He was stunned. He actually sat back in his chair and gawked at me. He hadn't seen that one coming.
Isaiah 1:18
“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
I told him that God doesn't give us all the same assignments in life. That we are all sent out in various directions to serve our LORD. He relaxed, nodded and agreed with me. I am however grateful for my encounter with Jenifer. She helped me to focus on trusting God more than I understood, which I thought I did. Until I was put to the test and found out I was lacking maturity.
1 Corinthians 12:27-30
The Greater Gifts
Now you are the body of Christ, and each of you is a member of it. And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, and those with gifts of healing, helping, administration, and various tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But eagerly desire the greater gifts.
I am sixty-one years old now, Jenifer is somewhere around fifty-one at this point in time. I haven't spoken to her in over a decade and that is good because she has a different path and purpose in life. We were not ever going to be a fit but we could have made good friends. That is what I told the pastor.
(Annie's ministry Hookers For Jesus is still going strong. Shelley's Pink Cross Foundation no longer exists and she is dead after going back to her former life and drug use.)
Luke 9:62
Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
(In my first year with my new job, my car was repoed due to back payments, I had to finish paying out a judgement for a car accident that I had been in and learned to live on a low income. I had to walk and ride a bike for five months until a nice married couple at my church gave me a 1973 Volkswagen Super Beetle.)
Job 23:10
But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.