I was on my way home from the prayer meeting, but my heart was heavy. Nothing was working – I was in need of encouragement. The No. 7 bus was winding its way onto the Buda side. All of a sudden we stopped. We were broken down! “I can’t believe this!”

I rushed like mad to catch the tram at Gellért tér. Then a woman, she was probably in her 30s, came up to me, and told me that she knew me. I just stared at her... she was a complete stranger. But she didn’t give up. She kept insisting that we had met before. And then she said quietly, “You know me.... you know me from out there...” Then it all made sense. But let’s go back to the very beginning.

In 2000, prostitution became legal in Hungary, and prostitutes were allowed to carry out their money-making activities in the so-called “designated zones”. The staff of YWAM then began a ministry to reach-out to these embattled women. Their prayer was that God would call Hungarian servants to the battlefield.

At the time I was living in the United States, in the Los Angeles area. It was a year-long assignment, a time in which I was constantly praying that God would show me the direction He had for my life by the time I had to return home. I had earlier received prophecies about a special ministry of sharing the gospel with a certain group of people. I have always had a heart for people who are socially excluded. Then one morning, as I woke up, God spoke to me. It became amazingly clear that I would minister towards prostitutes, although I had no clue of where to begin.

This is how my conversation with the leader of the Table 22 ministry began. And then she continued, recounting many of the fascinating and exciting stories that she had encountered during her time in the ministry.

Table 22 is made up of seven or eight volunteers, including the drivers. They know the girls, the “field” and the world in which they operate. Because indeed, it is a very special world.

The pimps have divided the streets of the city between themselves, every single street. Many girls don’t even know who is watching them and from which corner.

The prostitutes are aged between eighteen and forty-something, however, a girl who is 18 may already have been in the business for as many as five years. That’s the sad reality.

Before Christmas, we decided to focus on the highway area, and we were hoping that the spirit of the season would make the girls more open, more receptive, and this would help in sharing Christ. Well, this is what happened... Two girls were waiting for clients on the roadside, and the pimp’s car was parked a little way off but within sight. When we got out of the van the two girls yelled at us to get out of their territory. That was something we didn’t expect.  We were taken aback, so we just signaled to our driver to turn around – it was time to leave.

But as the van turned, the wheels became stuck in the snow. They were just spinning around, digging deeper and deeper into the snow. The situation was getting really awkward. Us, not being able to leave the spot, the two girls in mini skirts, stockings and thigh-boots yelling at us, and the pimps watching from their Mercedes. The situation seemed hopeless, and then one of the pimps got out of the car and began walking towards us. He was built like a truck. He was actually though quite open and friendly, and tried to explain how to get the car back onto the road. Soon he also realized it was no use. So then he just began to talk, and he began to share stories with us. They were stories mainly about his child, who was six years old.

We then began to tell him how angry the girls had been towards us, and how they had refused to take the books we had wanted to give them. To our great surprise he offered to talk to them for us and give them the books. Hardly had we handed over the small book-pack to him, that suddenly the engine of the van came to life, and the wheels were free. It was back on the road. It was as though these events had all been arranged for the sake of the conversation with this one man.

Never do we try to be overbearing. Being gentle and friendly are the best ways to minister. We’ve also found it useful to ask the pimps for  “permission” when we want to chat a little with the girls. Then, if they become interested, they join in. Also we give them a book or send something to their children.

We met a woman once at the Danube Walk. She told us she had four children. She had had a strange dream and she was wondering about its meaning. She could not get it out of her mind. She had seen Jesus in a garden and a black horseman waiting for something behind him. We explained to her what had happened in the Garden of Gethsemane and shared Christ. It almost brought her to tears. She knew she was a sinner and that the way in which she was making her living was not acceptable to God. She promised she would quit. We believe that she did because we haven’t seen her since.

We once gave a Life of Jesus video to a girl. She took it home to her parents who lived somewhere in the countryside. She told us how half of the whole community saw it, because her parents had passed it on to their neighbors and the neighbors to their neighbors and so on.

Some of the Danube Walk is the territory of the male prostitutes. There are 20-25 guys, most of them from Romania who don’t speak English or Hungarian. They are picked up by homosexual men usually, but they don’t mind girls either. I remember one day we went there on a prayer walk. We asked the Lord that he would call Hungarian ministers to reach-out to these men.

A few weeks later we were getting ready to go there again. Then on a Wednesday night, two guys from a bible college in Cluj, Romania, came to our church. They had come to Budapest for 3 days and decided to attend one of our services. They wanted to launch a ministry towards male prostitutes in their own town, but they couldn't yet figure out how to start.

At this Wednesday night Bible study, our ministry was briefly mentioned, and those few words hit them right in the heart. After the service they walked to the front and asked if they could join us. That night God worked amazing things at the Danube Walk. About fifteen of the prostitutes were out “looking for business” – this in itself is a miracle, as they are sometimes gone for weeks. 5 or 6 of them gathered around the two guys from Cluj, who were able to share their faith and the gospel. Slowly the prostitutes opened-up, and began to share how miserable and aimless their lives were. As we watched in the background, we could hardly grasp what an awesome and faithful God we have.

And I was just staring at her... she was a complete stranger to me... Finally, it all made sense. I had met her before. We had spoken for two years. She had been a pleasant person to talk to, however sometimes she had been reluctant. She had realized that her “business” was down after talking to me.

But now she shared with me how she had got fed up with her “career” and quit. She has became a whole new person. She now has a good job, her daughter is doing well at school. She had been trying to find me for a year, going from church to church looking for me. She wanted to encourage me to persevere and not to give up, to carry on doing the ministry, because it is worth it...