Saturday Night Lights

When I was Minister of Family Services at our church, I would oversee several different areas of ministry. One of these was the women’s ministry. I was always seeking new ways to reach out to women who were not a part of any church and actually, just not wanting much to do with God. This included not only the homeless, but those who made a “living” on the streets of the city.

What could we do that would even make these women be interested in having anything to do with us? I had no idea that those in authority in our church would agree to the idea that I truly believed God had given me. But, obviously, God had arranged that too—isn’t that just like Him?—because they were in agreement with our new project.

We chose a certain Saturday in the month and advertised by putting out colorful flyers in certain areas downtown. We went to several of the businesses around town that had anything to do with making ladies look and feel better. We asked if they would consider bringing their business into the church and setting up in a designated area. I thought that might be quite a chore since they would make no money and many beauty, nail, makeup, skin and spa salons do a lot of their business on Saturdays. It was amazing how all of these things fell right into place. Most every business we asked was willing to give its all. We even had a “clothes closet” set up in one of our rooms with some fabulous donated clothes that the ladies were allowed to pick two outfits from at no cost. There were even glamour shots taken of the finished product!

We cleaned out our sanctuary of chairs and began setting up for the extreme makeovers! It was really exciting to watch this huge room fill with people who were willing to give their time to help others! But, I was really overwhelmed after we sent two of the church vans downtown to the designated pickup spots to bring those who showed up back to the church.

“Would they come?” I wondered.

When the vans came back there were 21 ladies who stepped out, some with a look of “I don’t know why in the world I am here, but hey, I’ll try anything once!”

It is hard to describe how some of them looked; many had given up on themselves and others long ago. One of the things we had asked them to do, if at all possible, was to bathe and wash their hair before coming. Regardless, they were welcomed by our ladies with a hug and kind words of how happy we were to have them with us.

We had not only prepared lunch for them but also a very moving testimony by one of our mothers who, at the end of her talk, gave a salvation call, and five of these ladies came forward and received Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Some renewed a long lost relationship with God. We urged all of them to get into a Bible based church. One thing for sure, they knew they had been treated with love and had been made to know that they are somebody, a King’s kid. They looked fantastic.

When the day was over and our new friends had been taken back downtown, some of us were just going over the results of the day. Some ladies were very teary eyed and in awe at what God had done.

“If some of these ladies decide to go back into their business downtown,” I said, “Saturday night will never have looked as good as it will tonight!”

We all had to have a laugh at that. Hey, God has a sense of humor. He chose me didn’t He?