FINALLY! Yes, finally, we took a team back to Toronto for the “Everything To Do With Sex” show… We had been praying for a team to step forward and finally a great crew of women from Southbrook church courargeously drove from Indiana to spearhead this ministry. Hear about the show straight from them:
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I absolutely loved being part of this outreach. I loved the confusion on people’s faces as they tried to reconcile talk of Jesus in a porn convention. I loved the message that no matter what, no matter who, Jesus loves you, and watching that sink in. Such a gap has formed between typical culture and the church, and bridging that gap in 2 minute conversations was exhilarating for me.
Many conversations were brief, many actually delved into faith and spirituality. Almost all were positive. I particularly will remember Mark, the spiritualist, who believes he’s moved beyond Jesus, but really listened to my faith. I hope the fire in my soul will make him rethink and restudy his beliefs. I will also remember the few people who seemed have to been led by the hand of God to us. They desperately needed to talk to someone and find hope in what we had. I know we planted a ton of seeds that weekend, and it’s exciting to give it to God now.
~Amanda
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Before the trip, I didn’t have many expectations about what would happen while we were at the Porn Convention. On the first day I was astonished with how many people were so happy we were there. I loved telling people that Jesus loved them, and that there was nothing they could do to make Him love them more or less. One lady opened the bible and it was on a page that said “you are important.” She pointed at it and turned to her husband and said “I really needed to hear that today.” I told her that she was so important and completely loved. My favorite part was being able to walk around and talk to the industry girls. They were all humbled that we cared so much about them, and then offered food and drinks. As many people at the show might have treated them as goddesses, we treated them like they were our sisters. It was interesting that a lot of people thought XXXChurch was a joke, trying to be funny. Some people even thought it was blasphemous. But when we explained who we were and why we were there, they were shocked and most of them were amazed. One of the industry girls even asked “why did you come here, to judge us?” I answered, “why would I spend $800 to come here and judge you? Why would I drive 8.5 hours to judge you? It just doesn’t make sense, does it?” Then they asked “you love Jesus so much, that you would spend a lot of money and time to come to this porn convention?” Yes we do!! There was another lady named Christine Kelly, and she was the #1 plus size model in Toronto. I was able to sit down with her and talk for a while. She loved the Lord and was very involved in her church. We are now facebook friends, and plan on getting to know each other better. She’s super excited about sharing XXXChurch with other people she knows. Another younger girl that was their with her named Zee was the sweetest ever. She couldn’t believe that someone actually cared that much about her. I gave her a bible on friday, and the next day she had already started reading it. Zee grow up muslim without a father figure, but her family somewhat shunned her because of her work in the industry. She is also my facebook friend, and I can’t wait to get to know her more. I was glad we could be there to love her! My other favorite was a guy named Joel. He came to the convention just to see us! He’s very active in his church, and always tries to talk to his friends about the Lord. His friends were with him that day. I thought it was so cool that he was such a great testimony. I asked if I could pray for him, and he gratefully accepted. He stuck around our booth for a long time, actually praying for our leaders, Tim and Sandra! What a cool guy. Another random guy came over and said we had the most amazing both in the whole place and that he loved what we were doing.
~Allison
The trip to the Toronto Porn Convention was amazing. We got to hand out 2200 Bibles and let more than that know that Jesus Loves Everyone! The best part was seeing people’s faces light up as they understood that Jesus Loves Porn Stars and Loves them too. There is nothing better than that!
~Tim