2. BrianGoldman
But that’s in a few hours. First they must prepare them-
selves, first they must pack into a makeshift chapel that
is housed, like the rest of Elijah Rising, the crusading
anti-trafficking organization, inside what used to be a
brothel called Angela’s Day Spa.
An hour of singing and fervent prayer ensues, com-
plete with keyboard accompaniment, the music punc-
tuated by volunteers standing and asking for Jesus’s
protection and guidance. Then, the spiritual pep rally
endsandtheroomquietsasthepulpitwelcomesElijah’s
leader—a tattooed woman taller than six feet,her hair in
a spiky silver mohawk. She is aware that for many this
will be their first encounter with the streets, which is
why Cat French’s sermon is delivered as a chilling gut
check to the room.
“Thisisnotforthefaintofheart,”shewarns.“Nobody
haseverbeenhurt,butifwearenotcarefuloutthereand
somebody gets shot,it could be the end of Elijah Rising.”
Sheremindsthecrowdofonerecentincidentinwhich
some group members were forced to bolt out of a can-
tina after encountering unsavory characters who looked
like they might reach for weapons. She reminds them
too that many in the sex trade worship Nuestra Señora
de la Santa Muerte, the folk saint of death venerated by
Mexico’s working classes and outcasts. For French, who
keeps a grainy video on her computer depicting a Santa
Muerte shrine she encountered in a cantina backroom,
it is a not-too-subtle reminder that tonight’s battle is a
spiritual one. She’s prospecting for souls.
French freely confesses to having a low tolerance for
rules, and places few restrictions on those who volun-
moment,whichledElijahworkerstotakehertoa24-hour
emergency dentist, and then a subsequent intervention.
“The landscape out there,” French explains, “is
intensely spiritual.”
It is the mission of the final group—Group Five—that
makes it the most unpredictable and therefore danger-
ous. Ten or so bilingual volunteers—several Hispanic
women in their early 20s, a couple of pastors from
Hispanic congregations, and a smattering of random
young people from all over town—will attempt to pen-
etrate the cantina sex trade. We are in Group Five.
It’s been more than a year since Angela’s Day Spa
was shut down, but the air inside the box-like brothel
at 5818 Southwest Freeway is still heavy, still reeks of
something fetid—visitors describe it as a cross between
incense and sex. Thick screws that once fastened the in-
houseATMarestillvisibleintheconcretefloorbesidethe
front door, as is the pane of Plexiglas that once separated
ahaplessrowofyoung,SoutheastAsianwomenfromthe
men who wanted to rent them out by the hour. Straight
ahead and down a narrow hallway, the windowless com-
plex opens onto a larger, dimly lit chamber lined by pri-
vate showers where, we are told, customers were bathed
at the outset to check for police wires and weapons.
The showers are empty now, almost. Elijah members
have filled one of the darkened tile rooms with
confiscated booty from their raids: high-heels, neon
signs reading MASSAGE, several gallons of lubricant,
lingerie, plastic hand ties, a large glass crack and/or
meth pipe, and, perhaps most disturbingly, multiple
human-size cages. The building is mid-renovation,
and exposed reinforced concrete walls are now vis-
ible where once they were covered with drywall
painted pink, an eerily bright shade reminiscent of a
little girl’s bedroom.
Dottie Laster never thought she’d see the inside
of this building, she tells us. After all, the longtime
human trafficking activist spent nearly a decade
trying to close it down. She never succeeded,
however, as a lengthy Texas Monthly article docu-
mented in 2010. Laster still refers to the building
by its address—5818—betraying a weary familiarity
with her former foe.
"ItwasaconsummateHoustonbrothel,"shesays.
"Therewerebarsonthedoors,cameraseverywhere,
and a chamber inside the front door that you had to
pass through to get to the back. It wasn’t posing as a
cantina or sports bar. It was just a brothel."
Laster first tried to close the spa in 2004 when she
was appointed to the then-new Human Trafficking
Rescue Alliance, a task force of federal, state, and
local law enforcement officials created by the US
Attorney’s Office of the Southern District. At that
time, according to her calculations, 330,000 cars
drove by the brothel each day. One of those cars was
Laster’s, and each time she passed she’d curse the
building and make a silent promise to herself to shut
it down. She petitioned local and federal authorities,
pressured media outlets, and wrote grant applica-
tions that ultimately netted thousands of dollars for
the fight against Houston’s sex trade. Still, when it
came to Angela’s, nothing seemed to make a differ-
It’s the fourth Friday of
the month, which means
that in a few hours, several
dozen volunteers of all races
and backgrounds—young
professionals, middle-aged
couples, bearded country
boys in John Deere caps and
cowboy boots—will fan out
into the darkened alleys and
dimly lit cantinas of Houston’s
thriving sex trade. There,
they will confront, face-
to-face, pimps, prostitutes,
and whatever else emerges
from the sordid shadows.
teer on behalf of Elijah Rising. Still, there are limits.
Participants who interact with women in the streets
must pledge to abstain from such things as premarital
sex,pornography,weapons,and judgment.Male volun-
teers,she notes,are particularly vulnerable to flirtatious
advances by women in the trade.
“It’s easy for victims to look to male outreach work-
ers with an unhealthy, erotic admiration, and it’s easy
for the guys to enjoy it,” she tells the crowd, reminding
men to pass victims off to female volunteers as quickly
aspossible.“Ifyoucatchamaleworkerlookingtoolong,
just say, ’Hey bro, you’re ogling. Let’s go have a taco.’”
With that, the volunteers divide into five separate
groups, each with a different destination. Group One
will go to hotels along Highway 59 and pass out infor-
mationaboutsextraffickingtostaffersworkingthefront
desk. Group Two—known as the Pancake group—will
work a strip in southwest Houston known for prostitu-
tion, and hopefully lure a few young women to a nearby
IHOP, where they will stage an intervention.
Inviting unsuspecting sex workers into one’s car does
come with risk, French tells the group.“If you’re caught
in a police sting,”she says,“call Morgan at the office and
Morgan will try to talk the police out of arresting you.”
Group Three will try to make contact with women in
brothels, and Group Four will remain at Elijah Rising’s
offices—MissionControl,theycallit,onnightslikethis—
to field text message updates from volunteers around the
city and give instructions for prayer. The prayer group
at Mission Control might seem like the least exciting to
be drafted into, but it’s considered by everyone involved
to be crucial to a successful fourth Friday. Volunteers in
the field frequently check in with news of miraculous
occurrences: dangers narrowly
averted, random strangers
who suddenly appear offering
assistance. Each instance of
divine providence is logged and
tracked, and miracles are com-
monplace. There was the time
a sex worker came down with
a toothache at just the right
An impromptu
Elijah Rising
prayer meeting
prior to hitting
the streets.
“There
has to be
someone
who
embodies
that
urgency
or it’s
too easy
to look
the other
way.”
3. BrianGoldman
ence, not even the Texas Monthly article containing a photograph
of the brothel and its street address, she says.
I know that I failed, Laster says, looking back. We all did.
But now it doesn’t matter because Cat succeeded.
You get the sense that Cat French minus the mohawk, the tat-
toos,and the towering frame would still be intimidating.A perpetu-
ally tense 54-year-old whose demeanor suggests an incapacity for
levity(thoughthisisnotthecase),sheappearsjustoneleatherjacket
and Harley away from joining a biker gang. She is actually, or was
actually, a professor of sociology at Houston Community College
and Lone Star College. Those were her Marxist days, as she terms
them, before French transitioned out of academic life and began
fighting human trafficking full-time in 2010. Thanks to her passion
for the cause and her imposing figure,she quickly gained a
reputation for ruthlessness among fellow activists, not to
mention Houston’s law enforcement and religious com-
munities, who often criticize her approach as reckless.
Her philosophy is not to tolerate sex trafficking no
matter what, says Laster. She may go into a brothel
and create a disturbance or she might confront a pimp
and, in my opinion, risk a potential reprisal against the
victim. She does things her own way and it rubs some
people the wrong way.
And yet, in only a few short years French has, by her
own count, rescued approximately two dozen or so
victims of the international sex trade and shut down 13
ofwhatsheestimatesarethecity’sroughly300brothels.
(Police estimates generally fall in the 100 to 300 range.)
Among the 13, none was bigger or more notorious than
Angela’s. In one sense, it seems odd that French would choose
to make it Elijah Rising’s home, but in another it seems almost
poeticallyapt.Theplaceisoutsize,imperious,andnotorious—and
so, of course, is French.
Sitting on a folding chair in the building’s front room, the
same place where Thai women could once be purchased by the
hour,Frenchsaysthatwhatshehasdone,essentially,issetupafor-
ward operating base in the heart of enemy territory.The surround-
ing area, just southwest of the Galleria, is littered with businesses
connected to the commercial sex trade. She believes there are 12
separate brothels within just a few blocks of Elijah Rising, some
openly advertising as massage parlors or spas, others disguising
themselves as after-hours nightclubs.
French has one of the latter in her sights, a nondescript, run-
down, two-story townhouse surrounded by mechanic shops and
warehouses just a few blocks away. It’s no secret what’s going on
there.OutfrontareChristmaslightsandapairoflargenudefemale
statues, plus a pair of hulking bouncers near the door. Somehow,
however, the establishment has eluded the authorities anyway.
And that, French says enthusiastically, is exactly why hers is the
perfect location from which to launch an offensive.
There has to be some backstory for people who don’t give a shit
as much as me, she tells us. Just then, French is interrupted by the
arrival of a middle-aged Hispanic man at the door. He awkwardly
peeks inside Elijah Rising,stumbles a moment,and then tells us he is
lookingforamassage.Frenchsendshimaway,andevenasweconfess
tobeingamazedthatthemanhadn’tseenthebigplacardannouncing
thebuilding’snewdirection,Frenchisalreadybackonmessage.“I’m
pretty prepared to defy social convention because I’ve never ben-
efited from social convention,” she continues. “It’s never
favored me, so I don’t owe it anything. That has ruffled
feathers,especially in the church world.”
Though she didn’t start running with Jesus, as
she puts it, until she was nearly 40, French believes she
has been fighting spiritual battles since before birth,
when her mother developed a blood condition that
madeherallergictome.Asaresult,motheranddaugh-
ter never bonded in their Wisconsin home, she says,
and as her father was often on the road for work, young
Catherine grew up without any parental attachment. On
the plus side, her predicament engendered a certain cal-
lousness that permits French to absorb more human suf-
fering than most, or so she believes.
Books were my way of avoiding people, she says of her child-
hood. They were really my only friends at a very young age.
Eventually, they led her to sociology and a temporary career path.
She got her master’s in the subject at UH in 1999 and began teach-
ing it at HCC the same year, taking pleasure in hijacking young
minds. For a time, it seemed like a good fit.
I’ve always been, like, angry, sometimes in a good way, some-
times in not so good ways, she admits. I’ve always taught the
issuesofinjusticeandoppression,thehavesandhave-notsandthe
bloody overthrow of one thing or another.
In 2007, however, after attending a conference on human
trafficking in San Francisco, French began to grow restless.
Trafficking began to dominate her focus and bleed into her
classroom, where surprised students were treated to an
increasingly angry primer on Houston’s commercial sex trade.
“She seems to be in another dimension,” wrote one HCC student
covering, among many other things, that 77 percent of
the businesses weren’t even licensed. More than that,
it was a world of depravity such as she hadn’t seen,
and soon she found herself giving tours of it to friends.
Friends told other friends, and before French knew it
she was acquiring a 15-seat passenger van to keep pace
withdemand.Itwasaroundthistimethatheracademic
career came to a close.
Yeah, I can teach Marx’s Das Kapital and advo-
cate for extreme social change, but what am I actually
doing? she remembers thinking. I decided, no more
theory.It’sentirelytootheoreticalforme—it’sbullshit.
These days it’s mostly suburban church ladies who
takeFrench’svantour,a90-minutetripthatleavesthem
with a kicked-in-the-stomach feeling, she says. Such
tours,which French estimates she has given to more than
5,000 people in the past six years,have been criticized by
public officials. But Angela’s Day Spa might still be open
today if not for them. French stopped her van in front of
thespafortwosolidyears,eventape-recordedaconfron-
tation with the landlord. In the recording, she says, he
admitted to knowing about the illegal activity going on in
hisbuilding,butwasloathtogiveupthe$10,000thatthe
spa paid to him in cash each month.
French always names names on her tour, and last
spring one of her passengers recognized a landlord as a
close relative of someone with whom she was about to
sign a building contract. The woman promptly canceled
the contract, and shortly thereafter, French says, a defa-
mation of character lawsuit from the landlord arrived in
hermailbox.Itwaslikegettingagift.Thesuitallowedher
to draw media attention to her cause and again confront
the landlord.This time the man claimed to be ignorant of
the goings-on in the spa, at which time French reminded
him that she had him on tape admitting otherwise.
“Atthatpoint,it’swhoeverblinksfirstloses,shesays.
The landlord abandoned his pursuit of legal action,
instead offering to close down Angela’s and lease the
property to Elijah Rising, which French had founded a
year prior. The monthly rent he was asking, less than
$4,000, was low, so she jumped at the opportunity.
French likes to point out, with no small amount of irony,
that not only is Houston home to North America’s two largest
churches—Second Baptist and Lakewood—it also played host to
the two largest cantina and brothel raids ever conducted. The first,
in 2005, targeted a strip mall bar in northwest Houston, ultimately
freeing120traffickingvictimsandcapturingkingpinMaximino“El
Chimino” Mondragon. The second, the Gerardo “El Gallo” Salazar
case, freed dozens more after authorities raided multiple cantinas
and an apartment complex along the Gulf Freeway that same year.
These realities don’t compute,and both of these churches have
carefully avoided officially jumping into the [Elijah Rising] mis-
sion, she says. But there’s a very robust underground at both
places that supports us.
Theopinionthatthecity’schurcheshavebeentoocautiouswhen
it comes to fighting human trafficking is common among Elijah
Rising’s seven-person staff, who see themselves as following their
namesake,theprophetwhowarnedtheIsraelitestomendtheirways
lest God descend from the heavens and wreak havoc. Most echo the
sentiments of Sam Hernandez, a vivacious 24-year-old Houston
Baptist University graduate who does community outreach and PR
forElijahRising.Shesaysshe’dgrowntiredoffellowChristianstell-
ing her she needed to calm down about the sex trade.
They’d say, ’I know you believe that the Bible says this or that,
but we have to leave that to the police and other organizations,’
she says. When I saw Cat foaming at the mouth about this stuff,
it was a huge relief. Like, great, I’m not that weird. Other people
tried to put out my fire. She put gasoline on my fire.
Elijah Rising’s strength, staffers say, is its aggressiveness,which
can include everything from approaching prostitutes and their
pimps directly on the street or in a cantina to performing under-
A few minutes after French dismisses them on Fourth
Friday,GroupFivepacksintoalargewhitevanandheadstowardthe
Houston Ship Channel. The mood is undeniably tense as we head
east on I-10, and members of the group begin taking turns praying
aloud. A middle-aged woman starts speaking in tongues, but the
surrounding prayers have grown louder, so no one seems to notice.
It is just after 10 p.m. when the van exits at McCarty Drive, lum-
beringpasttruckingcompaniesandnamelessindustriallotsbefore
finally reaching a windowless, one-story brick building painted
bright orange. Bar Caliente it is called, and the thumping beat of
conjunto music pours out into a potholed parking lot packed with
dusty pickup trucks.
MarlonSanchez,a 38-year-oldElijah Rising stafferandtheleader
of tonight’s expedition, selects four volunteers—two men and two
women—to enter the darkened building, take a seat, and survey
the scene. They do so, awkwardly making their way to a table near
the corner of the room. There are maybe 15 other people in the bar,
mostlyblue-collarmeninjeansandbaseballcaps,alongwithscant-
ily-clad young Hispanic women in skirts and high-heels, sitting on
stools at the bar. Each immediately cranes her neck backwards to
take in the painfully out-of-place newcomers, all of whom are too
scaredtoapproachthebarandtalktothem.Fourminutesintoit,the
mission is scuttled,and everyone is back in the van feeling defeated.
By11:30,thegrouphasdriventotwomorecantinasbutstillfailed
to make a single intervention. In fact, they have spent three times
as much time in the van praying for safety than the 15 minutes total
they’ve spent inside the cantinas. Every place they go, the regulars
appear puzzled by the group’s sudden arrival, but otherwise nei-
ther concerned nor interested.
And then we come upon La Estrella.
on the website ratemypro-
fessors.com. “I learned a
lot about the world in this
class, not too much about
sociology, though,” wrote
another. “I LOVED HER,”
someone else added. “Sure,
you don’t learn anything
other than human traffick-
ing, but you haven’t gone to
college until you have had
her.She’ssuperfunny,awe-
some, awkward, and fun all
together. I didn’t want to
miss a class.”
Around the same time,
she was asked to document
Houston’s sex industry for
a nonprofit organization,
one whose name French
refuses to give, citing pos-
sible reprisals from law
enforcement. During that
period, she visited more
than 200 massage parlors
and spas around town, dis-
“This is
not for
the faint
of heart.”
“At the end of the day, we are all working toward
the same mission: to end human trafficking.”
Visit Houstoniamag.
com/trafficobjects
to see a photo essay
by Brian Goldman
on Houston’s sex-
trafficking trade.
⊕
4. BrianGoldman
cover operations, such as using a multi-person team (including a
formerMarine)tolureaprostitutefromanonlineadtoahotelroom
foranintervention.(Accordingtothegroup’swebsite,thefirsttype
is moderately risky, while the latter is high risk.)
We deploy people into places that don’t lend themselves to
handing out a gift package, but we do it because the Gospel obli-
gates us to, says Morgan Goatley, the woman French tells volun-
teers to call if they get caught in a police sting. She tried working
for several secular anti-trafficking groups but joined Elijah Rising
because of its commitment to victims no matter where they are.
Like their leader, French’s staffers tend to be Christians of an
apocalyptic sort. They believe, as she does, that these are The Last
Days,and that saving the enslaved is of utmost importance.For her
part, French says she is an unapologetic member of the Apostolic-
Prophetic Movement, a Pentecostal offshoot.
I’m not an end-times wacko, but I do believe we are in the end
times and I believe that this is the battlefront, she says, casting
hereyesatthepinkandgreywallssurroundingher.Itdoesprovide
a sense of urgency about our fight and it informs a sense of—oh,
shall we say— martyrdom.
Theirs is a battle so fraught with pain and danger, staffers say, it
can only be effectively fought if one is empowered by Jesus, whose
nameisthrownaroundtheofficelikethatofafriendlyrelativenoone
has actually met. This shared sense of desperation is what attracts
staffers to French and her commanding presence, Goatley says.
She’sanintensepersonality,andshe’soneofthepeoplewhosays
the emperor has no clothes, and ’how can this be going on and you
look the other way?’ There has to be someone who embodies that
urgency in this line of work, or it’s too easy to look the other way.
People look at her, and they think she’s just crazy or just bold,
and that’s not the truth, adds Hernandez. But the reason that
she’s effective is that she’s bold and she’s crazy.
French says she doesn’t mind being called crazy. People willing
to risk their lives for a cause have always been labeled thus.
Yeah, we might die in this fight, she says. We know that,
because the Bible says it.
Meddling in the affairs of human traffickers is an unques-
tionably dangerous undertaking. A criminal industry that generates
billions of dollars in profit every year, the brutish criminal under-
world that traffickers and their victims inhabit is complicated and
unpredictable, says Misa Nguyen, the deputy director of United
Against Human Trafficking, a coalition of Houston-area nonprofits
thatworkscloselywithlawenforcementtofighttrafficking.Nguyen
saysherteamdoesnotadvocateanyonestagingFrench-stylebrothel
interventions unless they’re working with law enforcement.
“These aren’t teddy bears—these people have guns,” she says of
the traffickers.“There is a high level of danger and complex trauma
issues inherent in the crime of human trafficking and its victims
that private citizens are not equipped to investigate and serve.”
Anotherreasontoinvolvelawenforcement,Nguyensays,isthatit
remains the only entity capable of investigating crimes and building
casesthatnotonlyrescuevictims,butprosecutetraffickers.Ifmem-
bersofthepublicwanttofighttrafficking,shesays,theyshouldstart
by raising awareness or supporting organizations involved in the
struggle already. And yet, Nguyen says, she isn’t willing to criticize
another group’s approach, Elijah Rising’s included.
“At the end of the day,” she says,“we are all working towards the
same mission: to end human trafficking.”
When the van parks inLaEstrella’slot,someonesuggestsbuy-
ing alcohol when they go in, which might help the group blend in
with their surroundings. It is a good idea, but one that the volun-
teers greet with uncertainty. Most of them don’t even drink alco-
hol.Theydecidetopretendforthesakeofthecause,atwhichpoint
Group Five enters yet another run-down one-story building with
pickuptrucksoutfront.Thedancefloorisbathedincolorful,spin-
ning lights and loud Mexican pop,but lies mostly empty.Men of all
ages,some in Wrangler jeans and cowboy hats,others tattooed and
wearing baggy shorts, play pool, sit at the bar, or gather in groups
in the shadows.
Unlike the young women at the other bars the group has visited
this evening, those in La Estrella make their pres-
ence felt. At least a dozen of them hover around the
bar in short, thigh-clinging skirts, low-cut tops and
glossy high-heels. They stumble from one group of
men to the next like waitresses without trays of food,
their eyes glassy and their steps uneasy, until all at
once a stranger grabs one of them by the waist, pulls
her close, and drunkenly leads her to the dance floor.
Occasionally,theyoungwomaninhighheelsisactu-
ally a young man,which nobody but Group Five seems
to notice.They look at each other,eyebrows raised.
The volunteers take their seats at a table near the
entranceandtheusualstaresensue,butatLaEstrella
the dizzying lights and dark shadows provide more
cover. After several minutes, two male members of
the group get up the nerve to push through the crowd
andordersomebeersatthebar.Momentslater,three
scantily dressed women approach and ask in bro-
ken English if the men will buy them a couple of Bud
Lights. Wearing woozy smiles, two of the women
explain that they are originally from Mexico, have
children, and frequent La Estrella regularly. Then,
without missing a beat,the oldest of the three points
to the bartender.
“Youpayhim$20now,”thewoman,whoappearsto
be in her late 30s, yells over the music. The bartender
nods.“Then you and me—we—you know—talk.”
It is the first step in what promises to be a series of
cash transactions, each successive exchange leading
to a new level of talking. But before any money can
trade hands, three female members of Elijah Rising
appear from behind, encircling the young women
and introducing themselves in Spanish. The trio of
apparent sex workers looks confused, but remains
temporarily cooperative as the male volunteers peel
away, retreating to the sidelines to avoid temptation
and keep an eye out for trouble. Despite the music,
To see more
of this story,
tune into
on CW39,
Feb. 26
and Mar. 1.
📺
stops to listen to him. She is very young, with long brown hair, and
wears tight black pants and a low-cut top. From the Elijah van it
is impossible to hear what the pastor is saying, but after a minute
or two the woman’s smile fades and her head begins to droop. She
nods, and then, moments later, begins sobbing and shaking her
head. Soon, the woman’s companions have driven off in the mini-
van and she finds herself surrounded by the pastor and two more
volunteers. They form a circle around her, closing their eyes and
prayingandplacingtheirhandsonherhead.Thegroup’sbodiesare
pressed together so tightly, the young woman seems to disappear
completely into the prayer huddle.
A few minutes later they coax her into the Elijah van and we learn
thathernameisAnna.Sheis25andoriginallyfromMexico,asingle
motherwithafive-year-olddaughter.Byday,sheworksasasecre-
tary,she says,but sometimes on the weekends,when she needs the
money, she comes with her sister to the bar to meet men. She does
not tell the group what she does in exchange for cash, only that she
does not enjoy herself while she’s doing it.
“No, no, no, that’s not me,” she says, her words slightly slurred.
“I just go there because I need the money.”
Is Anna a trafficking victim? That’s unclear. Is she not a victim
but rather an agent, a woman who has chosen to work as a pros-
titute? Perhaps. Is she at risk and in need of help? Probably. Was
anyone else going to help her tonight? Of course not.
The group gives Anna a ride home to her apartment complex in
southeast Houston, praying for several more minutes before the
young woman departs, thanking Elijah Rising for its support. She
isobviouslyoverwhelmedandembarrassedbyalltheattention,but
also seems to appreciate the group of strangers that latched onto
her and is now praying for her salvation. She trades contact infor-
mation with the pastor she first spoke with, then gingerly exits the
van in her heels and slips back into the night.
“We will be praying for you,” someone says.
“Thank you,” Anna replies. “I need it.”
the dancing, and the swirling crowd, the entire sequence unfolds
in plain sight next to the bar, and some in the crowd appear to be
aware that La Estrella has been infiltrated by some sort of network.
From that point on, a sense of uneasiness seems to descend on
the bar. The faces of Elijah members, but also bar-goers, register a
vagueterror,asifsomethingterriblemighthappenatanymoment.
Whatkindofsomething?NooneinLaEstrellaseemstobesure.All
anyone can do is read nods and glances, look for patterns in body
language that may or may not exist. The patrons wonder if the
stone-faced men watching from the shadows pose a threat, if the
suburban Christians milling about their bar are tolerable oddities.
Elijah Rising’s members wonder too, if the young women before
them are indeed victims of traffickers, or if perhaps they’re will-
ing participants in a larger scheme to rob their male clientele. It’s
close to midnight now, and nobody can be sure of anything, except
of course for that one thing—that La Estrella is becoming a more
dangerous place with each passing moment.
The conversation comes to an end,and the volunteers hand each
ofthethreewomenacardwithahelplinenumber.Thisisthesignal
that their fellow volunteers have been waiting for, the signal that
it’s time to depart. Group Five’s stint at La Estrella has been longer
than anywhere else, about an hour by now, though once again they
have little to show for their efforts. Outside, the feeling of being
liberated from the dingy cantina is almost palpable. You can’t help
but wonder if on some level the volunteers are relieved not to have
foundawillingconvert,ifonlybecausetheydidn’thavetoconfront
a nasty pimp or ascertain the truth about the woman’s situation.
Backatthevan,whichhasbeenidlingatanadjacentgasstationall
this time, the group is preparing to head home when suddenly they
spot the three women from the cantina. They are walking toward
them across the bar’s gravel parking lot. After a moment of hesita-
tion, one of the pastors hops out of the van and approaches them.
“Can I talk to you all?” he asks.
“You want to talk to us about Jesus?” one woman replies, nearly
laughing, and the trio walk right past him toward a beat-up mini-
van, the pastor in hot pursuit. Two get inside the van, but a third
“How can this
be going on and
you look the
other way?”
“The landscape out
there is intensely
spiritual.”
