Today was a big day for us in several ways. We had a new volunteer, and so we were glad to have her with us. We also began giving the parlors our prayer/encouragement text number. As simple as the concept is, this really is important. Dallas’ erotic massage parlors are different from other adult businesses. They seem very isolated from the rest of society. There are nonprofits and volunteers that visit the strip clubs, but the erotic massage parlors have been largely overlooked. One reason is that they seem to be staffed by native Koreans, or at least this seems to be true of the ones we visit. There is a significant language barrier that stops nonprofits from visiting them, and we have work
Creating a nonprofit and building it from the ground up can be overwhelming sometimes. It most definitely is not something you can do alone. There have been - and will be - plenty of times that I have wanted to bang my head against a wall and shove it all aside. Sometimes I have taken some time off so that I could just breathe, feel somewhat normal again, and get some much needed perspective. Every time I returned, volunteers were waiting for me. My heartfelt thanks to everyone who has helped me. Our board members have been wonderful. My partner on outreach has been through thick and thin with me, and she has never hesitated to tell me the truth about anything. She has analyzed what we know
What I saw on outreach yesterday was a lot of women desperately in need of respect and love. One woman in particular broke my heart, and I know my partner was moved by her, too. We have had a breakthrough at a parlor we visit. For quite a while, no one would talk to us. Whoever answered the door would just politely "push" us away, and we got nowhere very quickly. We decided to just do dead drops: for maybe four or five months, we quietly entered the lobby, placed our gift by the door, rang the doorbell, and left. We did wonder at the seeming passivity of our approach, but we really didn't know what else to do. Neither one of us was willing to just let this parlor go, so we continued the dead
