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Few shoppers browsing the furs, jewels and designer clothes along Zurich’s elegant Bahnhofstrasse are aware of the trade going on just a few streets away. Most Swiss regard the sex- and drug-peddling on Langstrasse, or “Long Street,” as an embarrassment, like a stain on the skirt of a beautiful woman.

The Swiss are relocating to suburbs, abandoning the inner city to refugees and immigrants. Now, close to 100 nationalities live within a few square miles of Langstrasse. In some Zurich schools, 80 percent of the children are from other countries. Many come from the Balkans, especially Albania and Kosovo. Others are from Angola and other African countries, Sri Lanka and the Middle East, and Kurds from Turkey.

Until six years ago the vortex of the drug scene was “Needle Park” at the end of Long Street, which drew dealers and users from around the country. When the government finally shut it down, the trade spread. Now officials do what they can to sanitize the area’s image. Police cars keep a visible presence along sex-shop-lined streets. Addicts buy syringes from public vending machines for only two francs. Card-carrying addicts can get free needles and fixes, as well as use of beds, showers and washing machines, in government-renovated buildings.

Philipp Eschbach and Matthias Bommeli of Switzerland began the groundwork for a new Operation Mobilization (OM) team in Zurich’s red light district in 1998. The team began ministry in September 2000 and consists of eight members.

It’s not a ministry that new missionaries can jump into uninitiated. During new team members’ first 10 weeks in Zurich, experienced Christian social workers ground them in “street facts.” After training, they choose a ministry focus, such as children, teens, addicts and alcoholics, or prostitutes.

The OM team’s goal isn’t to plant a church but rather encourage believers and existing churches to get more involved in outreach. The team equips individuals for urban ministry and aims to reflect God’s love and share the gospel with Zurich’s fringe population. By partnering with churches and Christian organizations, the team seeks to spur Swiss believers to work together for evangelism and mission.

Bommeli and his wife, Charlotte, are burdened for immigrant teens. They meet boys on the street through Methodist church-sponsored events and at free Friday spaghetti lunches. The couple often invites them to their home or on day trips to the dairy farm run by Bommeli’s parents. He says that young people like these often suffer most. Their educational level is usually sub-standard. Few black youth are accepted into the apprentice system of part classroom studies and part paid on-the-job training for tradesmen. Commonly they end up on the streets. “If you don’t get a job in Switzerland, you’re nothing,” Bommeli said. “The kids are very cool on the outside, but inside they have so little self-esteem, so much loneliness and confusion. Their greatest need is for love and acceptance.”

The OM team links up with Methodist Church Zurich near Langstrasse, one of the few churches actively reaching out to the area’s socially marginalized residents. Youth worker Markus Giger belongs to a core of committed church members who run clubs for local children and teens: “The red-light district crushes the soul of youth,” Giger said. “I know 15-year-olds who are visiting prostitutes, and 9- to 12-year-olds suffering sexual abuse. Our desire is not only to help socially but to introduce them to Jesus. Kids notice that we love them, and that’s why they come.”

Besides clubs, team members pitch in with practical jobs like dishing up food at a drop-in center or helping at the church’s free weekly luncheon. Once they cleaned blood-spattered phone booths near a syringe-vending machine where addicts shoot drugs into their overstrained veins. In another exercise to help them see prostitutes as real people, they handed each woman a rose.

The experience deeply impacted Henriette Haenggi, a graphic designer who joined the team a few months ago. Growing up in South Africa and Switzerland as a nominal Christian, “I was always very negative about missionaries,” she said. “I always believed they went to places like the Congo and destroyed the culture. I never thought of being one myself.” Now she’s a committed follower of Christ-and much better informed about missions. “I want to do ministry,” she said. “Where God uses me isn’t so important as how. My heart is for the underprivileged.”

As a dual citizen, Haenggi understands what it’s like for newcomers. “Once an auslander [outsider], always an auslander” is an attitude immigrants in Switzerland often face. “Racism does exist, even though the Swiss would be shocked by the accusation,” she said. “Nor do most people here have any conception of the traumas that refugees have been through.”

Several on the team work with “Chrischthüsli,” a drop-in center in the heart of the red-light area backed by many Christian agencies and churches. Chrischthüsli is a warm, safe place to hang out, get a meal or coffee, watch TV or sleep. The meal is important since many addicts and alcoholics are malnourished. Emmanuel Parvaresh-Glauser, an Iranian believer who heads the center with his wife, Hanna, states their first goal is to bring the gospel to people. “Only Jesus can fill the void in their lives,” he said. “And then we help them get out of drugs, provide counseling, redirect them to other organizations.” Parvaresh-Glauser says they have seen many addicts find hope in Jesus during the last 10 years. There has also been discouragement. “But you have to deal with both sides, and trust the Lord.”

Christian workers are keen to create a “street church” or less traditional service, especially for youth. “All that is available for youth is very Western, very Swiss,” Geiger said. “We think God can use music to touch them. We’ve been working on it for the last half year, and the [Methodist] church has already given its blessing.” But those reaching out to the socially sidelined in Zurich stress that it’s not as difficult as many believe. “You don’t have to have a big and expensive program to help people, and you don’t have to be specially gifted,” Bommeli said. “You just have to spend time with people, let them eat a meal with you, give them part of your life. For a lot of refugees, we’re the only Swiss they know.”

The Salvation Army runs another center called Open Heart. “Sometimes you’re tempted to think street people are less than you,” admitted volunteer Andrea Stooss. “But once you get to know them, you don’t think that anymore. The Salvation Army does things in a very simple way, but it works. The challenge is how to integrate street people with other believers.” Open Heart holds Sunday services in English, German and Arabic. Bible study cell groups disciple new converts. “They learn to pray for each other, and build trust.”

August 3, 2001