This summer Student.Go personnel have served in 19 locations around the world. Duke Divinity School student, Jeanne Cross, lived and served with CBF field personnel Cindy and Ryan Clark in Baguio City, Philippines.
Through Student.Go, I had the privilege of ministering among those registered to prostitute in Baguio City, Philippines this summer. I received the gift of visiting brothels to befriend the young women there and share about a Christ who loves. Through this opportunity, I was surprised to encounter young woman after young woman who showed interest in attending church to learn more about this Jesus. Disappointingly, some Christians in the surrounding areas did not share the women’s enthusiasm for their prospective church attendance. “These people will just pose a temptation to our husbands and sons,” I was told. “We will be glad to give them our used clothes and items, but having them come here is just too much.” In contrast, other Christians inspired me through their willingness to extend friendship and hospitality to the women and men exploited through prostitution in their city. For these Christians, Jesus’ command to love won, instead of the world’s values of safety, homogeneity, and comfort that reign in our current culture. These Christians reminded me that embodying and proclaiming the countercultural love and salvation of Jesus joins us in God’s work to reconcile, or renew, the world. After all, it is the way of the cross, the way of radical love through faith in Jesus, that wins in the end.
