Bucharest congregation integrates trafficking survivors into the life of the church

By Gina Grate Pottenger
Reprinted from Engage Magazine

Open Door – a shelter for trafficked young women in Romania – opened a year ago, through the leadership of Monica, a Nazarene church leader in Bucharest. The new shelter is currently home to five women in their 20s, all Romanian. The team is also assisting two others who aren’t living at the shelter. Monica would say that she’s learning as she goes along. But so far she’s already learned quite a bit.

We sat down with Monica to find out how the shelter works, what services are offered to the women, and most importantly, how the local Nazarene church is integrating these women into the life and love of the congregation.

Engage: How did you prepare the congregation to receive these women?

Monica: I’ve asked the church to pray for these girls months before we even opened the shelter. I told them the vision I had and I told them that I know that as a church we have so much to give these women. Initially they were very rejecting toward the idea of having them in the church. It wasn’t from everybody, it was from a small group of women. I challenged them but I know God was the one who turned their hearts around. Months later they came to me and said, “What can we do? How can we help?”

When they [the survivors] come to church, I’ll introduce them as, “This is my friend such and such.” And nothing else. There is a very small group of women in church that pray constantly … and [are] very trustworthy and they know these are the girls from the shelter and the main reason they know is they would pray more specifically for them and interact more specifically with them. Some may guess they’re from the shelter.

Engage: How do you invite the women to the church?

Monica: We tell them everybody here goes to church on Sunday and it’s not mandatory for them to go, but we would be more than happy to have them with us. We realize that God had prepared their hearts and minds even before they got to us because they all say the same thing: “Do you think I can come? Is it OK if I come?”

It has to be their own choice.

Engage: What kind of activities do you involve them with at the church?

Monica: When they come to prayer group on Wednesday night, this is when we split in small groups. Men have their own separate group.

Since they’re all in their early 20s we integrate them into the youth group as well. The youth group from our church has been very involved in the work at the shelter. Some are hired at the shelter, some are volunteers. The youth group are [age] 17-24. They take [the women] out to a movie or go eat together after church service on Sunday; they play games, they have a karaoke night.

[One young woman] helps pick music for youth night and sang in church at Christmas, and she wants to sing again.

Engage: What does the local church receive from integrating these women in the life of the church?

Monica: The greatest thing our church receives from them is their need to be loved and by this our church learns how to just love a broken person.  I’ve seen a lack of gossip and more sensibility. They’re much more sensitive to emotions than they used to [be] or feelings. And a lack of judgment. When this gal brought her testimony on Christmas day in church, they were all in pieces crying their eyes out.

Engage: What are some of the challenges you deal with in ministering to these women?

Monica: I told everybody to expect the unexpected. They live the life of lies, terror, manipulation. Are we surprised that they lie, or steal or break the rules?
God does discipline, but it’s still in a loving way, and so that is exactly what we’re trying with them.

They have been hardened by the punishments they got for looking the wrong direction or looking the right way or not guessing what the other person is thinking. I’m talking about physical torture, flogging. This girl, my daughter and I took her to see The Hunger Games [movie]. At some point one of the young guys [who] was up against the system is caught by the law enforcement guys and is being flogged. And just like that, she looked for a nest in me and said “Moni, I can’t look at that because that’s exactly what he was doing to me when he was flogging me.”

Engage: Your team has worked to help the women at your shelter find real jobs. What happened?

Monica: Starbucks agreed to be our partner, and they held up their side by interviewing three of our girls for jobs. When it was their first day to go to work, all three of them flipped out. We still don’t know why. We are trying to figure this out. We know they deal with feelings of failure, they say, “I’m no good, I’m a failure.” But it’s deeper than that and we’re trying to understand what’s going on.

Engage: Would you share the story of one of the young women at your shelter?

Monica: So far most of them -- the vast majority -- come from broken families; probably a higher number from rural areas, but broken dysfunctional families with at least one parent out of the picture.

We’ve had a case of a girl, she was a runaway, moved to another town, living on her own. She had a group of friends and they were all going out. She noticed night after night this guy watching her, not saying anything. Suddenly he approached her one night and said, “I’ve been looking at you. You’re so pretty. I got up the guts to come talk to you.” She opened up, they became good friends, they even kissed. He would call her every morning and say, “Did you eat breakfast?” By bedtime, he called and said, “Are you OK? Honey, sleep well. Don’t forget I love you.” For eight months, he bought her little trinkets.

Suddenly he offers her a job prospect as a babysitter. He even brings in a woman who told the girl she lives in the U.K., she has two little kids, here’s a picture. The girl trusts everybody 100 percent. This guy wasn’t even 18. He tells her, go with my friend [to the U.K.] and I’ll turn 18 in a few days, I’ll come after you.

She takes off with this other guy, they get to a hotel and they rent a room. She asks, “Why only one room? I’m expecting to see my boyfriend.” The guy says, “Are you serious? I just bought you for 5,000 Euros. You’re mine. He just sold you to me. He didn’t tell you this?” The entire universe collapsed within seconds. Then he says, “By the way, you start working tonight. Your first client comes in an hour.”

Engage: How can Christians get involved in this fight against slavery?

Monica: In order for us to find out about these cases, we need to build relationships with these people. As part of the church we can’t be spectators. We cannot be just observers. Contact people, make relationships, get involved.