FREE BEAUTY CARE TOUCHES HEARTS IN NOTORIOUS SEX TRADE CENTER

THEN, MARCH 1992: Free beauty care for prostitutes in Amsterdam's infamous red light district was proving to be an unlikely key for turning their thoughts towards God.

Women working in the Dutch city's world-renowned sex industry were opening the doors of their canalside "shops" - and their hearts - to a team of young missionaries. Led by a professional manicurist, the Youth With A Mission group visited in pairs, trimming and painting nails and taking the opportunity to talk about their faith and pray for their "clients".

The team of women, calling their outreach The Shining Light, went out once a week into the busy red light district where the prostitutes - several thousand of whom work in the area, which draws tourists from all over Europe - sat semi-naked in small window rooms, "advertising" their services to passers-by.

Touch that came "out of love, not lust" made a big impression on the women, who would talk freely about their lives and problems and asked to be prayed for, said American Alys Blakely, who formerly ran a manicure salon in Modesto, California.

"It provides a wonderful opportunity for us to spend time with them. It is nice that they can close their window curtains to clients and just sit there for an hour with us... Most of the girls have terrible backgrounds. They are much different to what someone might think. They hurt, cry and feel just like anyone else."

NOW: The manicure ministry ended when Blakely returned to the United States, but the effort to befriend "the women in the windows" continues with twice-weekly visits from workers at The Cleft, the YWAM center in the heart of the red light district.

Along with people from other Christian organizations in the city and volunteers from local churches, the YWAM staff take baskets with hot drinks to the windows. "Sometimes we will stay for a minute or so and give them a cup of coffee, sometimes we might be there an hour," said Katie Stokes, a Cleft member for six years.

"We certainly haven't seen multitudes come to Christ, but we have definitely seen some who have come out of it and are back home, and we have seen many more lives touched," she said. "It can get discouraging at times; you need a passion and a heart for them, and a belief that God has not called them to this, that he has a destiny and a plan for their lives."

Workers don't talk about "prostitutes". "We don't seem them that way; we call them 'ladies' or 'women in the windows'. When they become friends of yours you start seeing them as individuals."

Founded almost 20 years ago, The Cleft is located in a narrow townhouse behind the red light district's busiest street, from where workers reach out to the area's many street people and drug addicts, as well as those in the sex industry. The Cleft staff host open afternoons offering sandwiches and coffee, hold Bible studies and a Sunday church service, and talk and pray individually with visitors.

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