Snickerdoodles for Strippers

I like to bake cookies for the teachers at my school.
Meg Munoz likes to take cookies to strip clubs.

In doing so, Meg is striving to bring Jesus’ love to a segment of our society with which most of us are unfamiliar. It’s a group with which she can identify. It’s a group that’s hurting and one that needs to be wrapped in the loving arms of the church.

The sex industry employees.

God has called Meg to start a ministry to the sex industry called, Abeni, which in Swahili means, “A girl prayed for.” She gets a little squirmy when the word “ministry” is used. She’d prefer to lose the word altogether. She’s just trying to live out a lifestyle of love and build relationships. Relationships built on trust, commitment, follow-through, availability, and consistency.

Meg is not one to hide her past. Her website (abenionline.org) includes a three-page testimony that at first reads like an episode of A&E’s popular show Intervention. She was drinking by age 7, smoking at 9, and using drugs at 11. The buzz words read like the script for a bad dream: depression, porn, anorexia, bulimia, speed, methamphetamines, physical, verbal, and emotional abuse, beatings, failed rehab, abortions, and attempted suicide. And that’s only page 1.

Page 2 doesn’t get much better. Next came part-time work in the sex industry doing private shows to pay for her drug habits. Later she toured southern California full-time from Ventura to San Diego for five years as an escort. And though the money was good, many of the old buzz words remained, and included their very unfriendly emotional colleagues; scared, unlovable, worthless, ashamed, guilty, degraded, unsafe, used, and rejected.

Before I cheer you up with the good news of page 3, let me hit you with the OMG-statistics of the sex industry:
• It’s an industry that makes 97 billion dollars a year.
• There are 2,700 strip clubs in the United States, more than any other nation. In comparison, there are only 1,724 Target stores in our country.
• Members in the sex industry have a higher rate of substance abuse issues, rape, violent assault, STDs, domestic violence, depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and Dissociative Identity Disorder.
• Commercial sexual exploitation or forced sex work is growing and is about to overtake the illegal drug trade as the largest criminal industry in the world.
• Between 200-300,000 children in the U.S. are at risk for being pimped out this year alone.
• Craiglist.com ads featuring adolescent females yield three times the transactions per ad… meaning that under-aged girls are purchased for sex three times more than adult women.

God’s loving fingers pried Meg from this industry. And now she’s going back in. She and two others from Abeni head out twice a month to visit local strip clubs armed with cookies and gift bags chock full of girly lotions, soaps, and lipsticks. The cookies are for the bouncers and managers of the strip clubs, because what guy can’t pass up a batch homemade cookies. And it helps to be able to get past the muscles at the front door. Just think of what Jesus could have done with cookies. Forget the fish and loaves. Had he been multiplying Snickerdoodles, half of the Roman Empire would have been listening to his sermons.

Anybody who’s been turned off by a Christian witnessing on the street corner probably thinks Meg is also filling her gift bags with evangelistic tracks, or pocket New Testaments. Nope. All that’s included is a simple, artistic card listing her website and email address. Meg doesn’t want the girls in the clubs to feel preached to. She wants them to know that they are amazing and are loved. In a world where everything is a transaction, where every lap dance or striptease comes with a price tag, she wants the girls to know that they’re getting something for nothing.

Abeni is not a new concept, though she is the first to reach out to Orange County’s strip clubs. Other such groups around the country include Hookers for Jesus, JC’s Girls, 4 Sarah, Pink Cross, Silver Braid, and Scarlet Hope. In Los Angeles County there’s Treasures (iamatreasure.com).

But neither is her ministry model new, in fact it goes back a good 2,000 years. However it is something of which I and many other Christians need to be reminded. Jesus lived counter to his culture and spent years tending to the physical and spiritual needs of the outcasts of his day: the lepers, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the blind, and the crippled. Meg’s goal is to be a friend and to be available. Because she knows how these girls live and think, she’s there to help them move to a new apartment or to provide child care. Maybe they just need a cup of coffee or someone to listen to them, understand them, and pray for them.

Meg is open to whatever God wants to do with Abeni. She hopes for a prayer team, she senses extending Abeni’s reach into the Riverside area. She dreams of a scholarship fund and a transitional living facility. But, she also has great desires for the church to be different, to be more Christ-like; and less critical, judgmental, and exclusive. She wants Christians to stop grading sin and to study Jesus’ life and not let theology get in the way of bringing a love like his to their neighbors, because in her words, “The state of the world depends upon it.”

After talking with Meg you can’t help but come away encouraged, and also with a feeling that she deeply cares for the women in these clubs. And I’ve got to believe it’s because of page 3. It tells how God led her out of “the industry,” helped her gain sobriety, and walked with her down the path to freedom from the enemies of our souls – shame, guilt, fear, self-loathing, and rejection.

I am reminded of the story in Luke 7 in which a ‘sinful’ woman anoints Jesus with kisses, tears, and perfume. A Pharisee named Simon is aghast that Jesus is letting the woman touch him. It’s an incredible picture of Jesus’ heart. He doesn’t judge the woman or rebuke Simon. He calmly tells a story of two men, one with a larger debt than the other, who both have their debts canceled by a moneylender. He asks Simon which man will love the moneylender more? The one with the bigger debt, of course, is Simon’s answer. Jesus agrees and then goes on to contrast the woman’s grand gesture of love to Simon’s indifference.

Spiritually speaking, can one man owe a larger debt to God than another? In Matthew chapter 18, Jesus tells a story of a king’s servant who owes his master ten thousand talents, a sum equal to 2,000 years wages. In the story, the king forgives the debt. Translated into a spiritual context, the sum represents the magnitude of our sin-debt before God. I can imagine that at one point Meg thought her debt of sin was too much to be forgiven. But, in reality, her debt is no greater than yours or mine. The story of Simon and the sinful woman shows us how two different people view themselves and respond to the expansive covering of Jesus’ forgiveness of our sin: One is poor in heart; the other self-righteous.

You’ve seen what Meg’s response has been. What will yours be? Mine?
I know I’d like to be more loving to the people in my sphere of influence. And, perhaps, it’s also time to start baking some Snickerdoodles.

Muskets and Meatballs

The Redcoats are coming, the Redcoats are coming!
Calling all Durbins, the Redcoats are coming!
Janine, make like Paul Revere and ride, ride, ride.
Christy, keep your eyes peeled on the Old North Church.
Marybeth, grab your medical gear and prepare to treat the wounded.
Mariah, survey the battlefield.
Jeff, Bill, David, Brian and Jimmy don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.
Trish, start sewing uniforms and flags.
Kayla and Angie, prepare the soldier’s meals.
Denise, get General Washington’s teeth.
Jenny, find your fife and drum.

I recently learned that an ancestor on my mother’s side of the family fought in the Revolutionary War. This makes my sisters, female cousins, and aunts Daughters of the Revolution. I am ready to sign up to be a member of the Sons of the Revolution. But why the segregation? This is 2010. It’s time for a new club. Beware King George, here come the Durbins of the Revolution!

I have always been proud of my father’s Italian heritage. I find it glamorous. We have DiMaggio, Pacino, DeNiro, and the Corleones. There’s calzones, gelato, and cannolis. Italy has so much history and culture. There’s Rome, Pisa, Florence, and Venice; Michelangelo, Pavarotti, Botticelli. I love my grandma’s powerful maiden name: Zanzano. The Gervase and Zanzano history is easily traceable back to the turn of the century when my great-grandparents passed through Ellis Island, settled in Buffalo, NY and set up shop running booze from Canada during prohibition. But we Italians are better lovers than fighters. My dad always said the thinnest book in the library is titled, “Italian War Heroes”. When it comes to the battlefield, it’s a bit of a bummer to be related to the bad guys in WWII.

My mother’s branch of the family tree is a little more nebulous. I’ve been told that I’m part English and Irish. When did my ancestors arrive on the continent? Sometime after 1620 I presume. Cities in my mom’s history are Detroit and Paducah, Kentucky. Not exactly Naples and Sicily. I’ve never thought of my mother’s lineage as all that exciting. That is until I learned about John Goatley; Revolutionary War Private John Goatley.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Carolyn Kiesling, a relative and the resident genealogy guru of my mother’s family. My great-grandfather, Ivo Goatley had three wives. From wife number two came my grandma, Ruby Goatley. Her husband and my grandfather was Lloyd Durbin. Carolyn hails from Ivo’s third wife. She has been bombarding me with documents, photos, and historical records. Working backwards Ivo’s dad was Thomas Peter, who was the son of William, the son of Peter, the son of John, born in 1752 in Monroe, Virginia.

John was 24-years-old when the war for independence began. According to one of Carolyn’s documents, John signed up in 1776 and served under Captain John Allison in the Third Virginia Regiment. Apparently, private Goatley also served in the Corps of Horses under Colonel William Washington. He was taken prisoner by the British, tried to escape, and was wounded. He was sent to Richmond where he remained unfit for duty until the end of the war.

The Third Virginia Regiment was quite active in the war. It took part in the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth. One of its commanders was Thomas Marshall, the father of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall, who served in the regiment alongside Lieutenant James Madison. The regiment was also holed up during the siege of Charleston that occurred from March to May of 1780. Following the siege, much of the regiment was captured by the British. My research also turned up a mounted unit led by William Washington known as the Light Dragoons, which went up against Lord Cornwallis in the Carolinas.

I can only guess at the details of private Goatley’s wartime action. But the battles of Trenton and Princeton immediately followed George Washington’s famous crossing of the Delaware. Did John ride in the boat with the general? The battles of Brandywine and Germantown occurred in the fall of 1777, after the treacherous six-month stay in Valley Forge. Did John shiver and starve for liberty in that small Pennsylvanian village? Was he captured along with the rest of the Third Virginia after the siege of Charleston? Did he chat with Marshall and Madison about trial procedures or a certain woman named Dolly? I am anxious to work alongside Carolyn to see if more details can be discovered.

John Goatley’s involvement in the war explains some genetic characteristics of the Durbin clan. They are a very hardworking, resilient, and feisty bunch. My own dear mother probably would have fired the shot heard ‘round the world if she’d had the chance. Her mother Ruby was a born minute-woman. She would have kept the cleanest mess hall in the entire army, all the while serving the best cold ham and green beans in the outfit. I can see my Aunt Betty heading up the Continental Navy. My aunt Shirley, a talented letter-writer and a former nun, would have been at home issuing Last Rites and notifying the next of kin.

While my dad’s family is known for crafting the tastiest meatballs this side of the Trevi Fountain, I am proud that my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was active in firing musketballs at the Redcoats. Both sides of my heritage are wonderful and something for which I am thankful. I think the two are best summed up by the famous words, “Give me lasagna or give me death.”

Coming to America

Neil Diamond sang about it in 1980.
Eddie Murphy made a movie about it in 1988.
In 2010, Talgat Abuov is living it. He’s Coming to America.

I first met Talgat during a 1995 church trip to his native Kazakhstan. Myself and two comrades stayed in a flat with he and his mother in Aktau, a former Soviet industrial town on the shores of the Caspian Sea.

Aktau in August was as hot as the engine of a Russian Mig. I haven’t sweated as much in the 15 years since that trip as I did that month in Kazakhstan. Talgat’s second-floor apartment was often without running water, let alone air conditioning. We “flushed” the toilet by pouring a bucket of water into the bowl. On days when the pipes were flowing like a rock hit by Moses, water couldn’t be wasted with showers. I remember Talgat’s mother helping me wash my hair by dowsing me with water from a sauce pan. She was a generous host and treated us like kings, making sure our tea cups were filled with chai and our plates full of arbuz, the Russian word for ‘watermelon’.

Thanks to the internet and Facebook, I reconnected with my Kazakh friend before he arrived in America. Since our first meeting, Talgat, now 34, completed his education and earned a MBA at the Kazakh American Free University. He also relocated to Ust-Kamenogorsk in 2000, a beautiful but factory-filled city in eastern Kazakhstan. There he became a skilled translator and started his own Russian-English translation business.

Talgat arrived in America in June, after winning a green card in a lottery. Here we try to win concert tickets in radio-station giveaways. In Kazakhstan, you get to win a chance at a better life.

Growing up behind the iron curtain, Talgat said his impressions of America were formed by the government and the media. In school he regularly took Political Information classes. The Soviet TV news programs and the newspaper Pravda (Truth) portrayed America as an “imperialistic aggressor who intervenes everywhere around the world.”

Western influences began pouring into Kazakhstan after the USSR crumbled in 1991. Talgat began to see America through the eyes of Hollywood. With Stalone and Schwarzenegger leading the way, he saw America as a “pretty cool country.”

Perhaps the best way to learn about a country is to get to know its people. During the 90s more and more Americans visited Aktau. Talgat began to see America not so much as the world’s big bully, or the land of Rocky and the Terminator, but as a “rich country, full of opportunities, with a different culture, better supplies, and promising salaries.”

Spiritually speaking, Aktau under the Soviet rule was as lively as Lenin’s tomb. He said that he never heard about God and that people lived without prayer and without the Bible. “We believed in Lenin, in Communism. They were our gods.” Sure the Russian Orthodox Church was present, as was Islam. But Talgat said nominalism was the liturgy of the day. He said the protestant church was hiding underground and that slanderous rumors about such religious sects kept people away.

In the book, “What’s so Great about America,” author Dinesh D’Sousa devotes a chapter to the magnetism of the American ideal. Obviously, money is a main factor. D’Sousa spends a few pages highlighting the differences between the USA and Third World nations. America is a country where even the “poor people are fat.” But a lot of countries have rich people, not just America, and in those other places the rich are treated like kings. The difference is that while the wealthy in other lands may enjoy the “pleasures of aristocracy,” in America, somebody like Bill Gates isn’t fundamentally any better than you or me. “America is the only country where we call the waiter, ‘Sir,’ as if he were a knight,” writes D’Sousa.

And yet, socio-economic status is not the only pillar of appeal for the American Ideal. Here in America we get to blindly map out our own lives. My college, career, and spouse were not hand-picked for me. In most of the world, this is not the case. We are “architects of our own destiny”. D’Sousa says that the founding fathers captured this notion perfectly with the phrase, “the pursuit of happiness.”

The author writes that the founders primarily succeeded in meeting their goals. Ever been to New York City? Ever seen tribal or religious battles there? But have you seen white and African-Americans lunching together? How ‘bout Jews and Palestinians, Hindus and Muslims, Serbs and Croats, Turks and Armenians, Irish Catholics and British Protestants all working, eating, dreaming, and playing chess in the park together. In New York, and America, every immigrant is competing to “get ahead,” to “hit it big,” to strike it rich. “And even as they compete, people recognize that somehow they are all in this together, in pursuit of some great, elusive American dream.”

“The founders invented a new regime in which citizens would enjoy a wide berth of freedom – economic freedom, political freedom, and freedom of speech and religion – in order to shape their own lives and pursue happiness … the American founders created a rich, dynamic, and tolerant society that is now the hope of countless immigrants and a magnet for the world,” said D’Sousa.

Which brings us back to Talgat. He left his home and came here without a job or a car or even a driver’s license. He’s found his own church and is making his own friends. He loves peanut butter and fresh orange juice. He’s amazed at Downtown Disney, but even more by the produce aisle at Albertson’s. He’s pursuing happiness, reaching for the American dream. He’s attacking it like a child eating arbuz at a Fourth of July picnic. He said, “while I’m here, I’m going to suck out all the juices of America.”
Isn’t that just what the founders had in mind?