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Just before dusk, Elis Mendoza and Liliana Palomeque set out for a street lined with bars and pay-by-the-half-hour hotels. Their aim: to rescue teen prostitutes from the sex industry that preys on poor, vulnerable girls—and even some boys.

They see two beautiful girls with long braids and short shorts, waiting in the doorway of a bar. Neither looks older than 15. Liliana, Bible in hand, greets them: “You know something? Christ loves you. You are a very special person for him.”

The women are volunteer evangelists with Restaurando a Colombia (Restoring Colombia), a Medellín girls’ home that rescues adolescents ages 12 to 17 from prostitution and intervenes in the lives of others at risk of getting sucked into the sex trade.

Tonight they share the gospel with Paola, Luz and Mary, girls displaced by Colombia’s war. Like thousands of others, they survive any way they can on the streets of Medellín. Within 20 minutes, all three pray to receive Christ.

“God put in my heart to pick up diamonds from the trash heaps,” says the ministry’s founder, Marta Estrada. Estrada, a former narco-trafficker who got saved in a New York jail in 1983, returned to Colombia and planted the non-denominational Medellín church called “House of Prayer for All the Nations.”

Ministry Born in Amsterdam In 1995, Estrada began her involvement with prostitutes after meeting a Colombian woman, Talijah*, living in Holland, who had returned to visit her homeland. After that, Talijah returned to Europe and collected money from her former co-workers in Amsterdam to send Estrada a plane ticket to minister to them, too.

When Estrada arrived in Amsterdam, she was surprised to learn that Talijah had been a prostitute. Many Amsterdam prostitutes Estrada met in brothels along the city’s canals were Latinas from Santo Domingo, Panama and Ecuador, but she was astounded that most of them were Colombian. Estrada began a door-to-door campaign knocking on the women’s doors, and led 30 to Christ.

It didn’t take much imagination to figure out why so many were Colombians. Most of the women had been born poor and had grade-school educations. They had fled unemployment, lack of opportunity and the nation’s 40-year-old civil war to be prostitutes in this anything-goes European country famed for legalized drugs and sex workers. A few, however, had university degrees and had gotten involved in prostitution because they liked the good money.

Estrada heard their stories, and her heart melted not only for them but for hundreds of other girls still in Colombia who would be destined to follow them to Spain, Italy, Germany and Holland—if nothing were done to intervene.

One Life at a Time That’s how Restoring Colombia was born in 1999. Ministry volunteers go to places where young prostitutes hang out and develop friendships with them. “We talk to them about Christ and offer them options to leave prostitution and drug addiction,” Estrada said. At the Restoring Colombia girls’ home, the girls—both former sex workers and girls at risk—receive counseling and support in leaving their former lifestyles. Two social workers and a psychologist guide them as they get a fresh start in life through the program.

Why call it Restoring Colombia? “The life of a nation changes by changing the individuals in it,” Estrada said. “You can’t change everybody, but one person at a time as they find Christ. I see the plan of God in process with them. I love them where they are.”

Two years ago the Restoring Colombia program included a residence home, but lack of funding forced its closure. Now the girls return to their families—and neighborhoods—at night. Estrada says the silver lining in the “Plan B” setup is that the girls learn daily how to resist the daily temptations of drugs and sin that permeate their neighborhoods.

The girls’ days at the House of Prayer home begin with a devotional. Their mornings are centered around academic studies. Afternoons they’re engaged in learning trades that equip them with skills such as cooking, hairdressing, craftmaking and dressmaking. These skills not only develop their talents but also provide them with a source of income—and a source of pride.

Estrada wants to reach even more prostitutes with the gospel. To that end, she moved to Pennsylvania, where she coordinates the Medellín ministry and reaches out to Latina sex workers in Lancaster. She aims to expand the ministry to more countries.

Meanwhile, back in Medellín, Mendoza and Palomeque go out Monday nights to share the gospel in the hardscrabble, Veracruz red-light district near downtown. Among those they’ve led to Christ is Jorge, a teen transvestite prostitute with whom they maintain regular contact. The women say that other male sex workers have been receptive to the gospel as well.

Tonight the volunteers give Paola, Luz and Mary each a tract and a Bible and say they will keep in contact. They tell them about House of Prayer as a way to leave drugs and prostitution. Mendoza and Palomeque, who have shared the gospel with the young women of Veracruz for several years, believe that at least two of the three made sincere conversions. As the Christians shared the gospel, Paola and Luz each waved away men—in effect, turning down income.

Not every try at reaching prostitutes is as successful. “It’s a hard ministry because they reject God so much,” Palomeque says. “They blame God for their circumstance. Sometimes they insult us. But we continue in Jesus’ name.” * a pseudonym