March 18, 2002

Ministry provides 'new friends' for women in need
___By George Henson
___Staff Writer
___DALLAS--Lisa Brookshire eagerly awaits her income tax refund. That's when her boys' mattresses will rest on something besides the floor.
___One step at a time, she is building a better life for herself and her children.
___Helping her take those steps is the ministry New Friends New Life. New Friends, formerly known as Amy's Friends, is a ministry that helps women who want to leave sexually oriented businesses. It started helping Brookshire May 23, 2001.
___Twice divorced and a survivor of numerous abusive relationships, Brookshire moved from a small East Texas community to Dallas to escape an abusive relationship. In Dallas, however, she found herself in the company of the same types of men.
___She finally decided to get out on her own but discovered her job skills gave her few alternatives. Soon she was waiting tables in a topless bar. While she was wearing more than the dancers in the club, the experience was more than her Southern Baptist roots could take.
___"I would go in my room and put on my work clothes and cover them up in a pair of sweats and cry all the way to work and all the way home because of what I was doing," she recalled. "I was just so ashamed."
___While Brookshire's story is similar to many others New Friends Director Carolyn Pool has heard, in one way it is different. As bad as Brookshire's life was, most of the women Pool sees don't quit until their lives are much worse.
___Most of the women who come to New Friends are either drug addicts or alcoholics, and they have become either prostitutes or dancers in men's clubs.
___"We get most of our referrals from these women's parents, friends or from women we have helped in the past," Pool said. "When people get to the bottom of the barrel, they just seem to find us."
___Referrals also come from jails and other judicial agencies, and Pool expects that number to increase as more people within the legal system become aware of the ministry's work.
___A referral as part of a legal agreement is not what the ministry is looking for, however. They believe the women involved must want to change.
___"The woman who does the best in our program is the one who is broken," Pool said. "The one who doesn't want to live the life she has been living for one more day. We're most malleable to God when we're in that shape."
___Women who come to New Friends are put through an initial assessment of personal, financial and health information. The "protégés," as the women are called, then are interviewed by Jan Dunn, a family therapist. She seeks to establish what kind of support system--family, friends or acquaintances--each woman has to lean on. Most of them have no one to turn to.
___Most of the women also have either a drug or alchol dependency. "If they're not clean, the first order of business is to get into a program and get them that way. If they are not clean and sober, there is no way they can hold a job."
___Drugs and alcohol are "almost always a part of the issue," Pool said. "The women can pretty much be put into two categories--the prostitutes usually had a drug habit, usually cocaine, they couldn't support so they started prostituting themselves. The girls who work in the clubs go there because they get into some kind of financial bind and go to work dancing. The bar owners give them free shots, which make the girls looser, which the men like. The girls drink because they are self-medicating because what they are doing is so degrading."
___The drugs and alcohol always damage relationships with family members, including children, Pool said.
___"I don't feel like I've done much if I've just gotten a dancer off a stage, but if we can get them to where their family relationships begin to heal and mend those relationships, that's what it is all about."
___Most of the women suffer with self-esteem issues that stem from sexual, physical or verbal abuse as a child, as well as neglect, she reported.
___Education is a big part of what most of the women need. El Centro Community College in Dallas has agreed to provide educational assessments for women in the program.
___After the initial assessment, the women receive three weeks to accomplish a laundry list of steps necessary to enter the program as a protégé. For many, that list includes getting rent up-to-date. For others, it might be registering to begin work on securing a general equivalency diploma. Almost universally, entering a counseling program is a requirement. The women also are invited to attend weekly support-group meetings.
___Pool acknowledges the list is hard for many to accomplish.
___"It is hard to do, but I think that is why we're so successful," she said. "If women can get through those three weeks and get things in order the way we ask them to, they have a much better chance at success."
___Brookshire works in the business office of Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas.
___While New Friends does help Brookshire financially with a subsidy, the friendship is more important, she said.
___"Sometimes I have a problem I need to talk to someone about, and sometimes I just want to talk to a friend like everybody does. One day, LeAnne (her protégé advocate at New Friends) called just to say she loved me. She tells me a lot that she's proud of me. That always makes me cry."
___Such relationships communicate the love of Christ. And participants must make spiritual changes, Pool said.
___"What makes a difference in all these women, and what has made a difference in Lisa, is when they make a spiritual change," Pool explained. "The changes can't just be exterior. They can't just stop doing certain types of behavior. They have to allow God to take over if they are going to really change their lives."
___Brookshire agrees. "It's been hard, and sometimes I get lonely. My boyfriend who abused me said no one would want me--I was too old, too ugly, too skinny and had too many kids. Now I know someone does want me. Right now, it might only be God, but he's the only man I need in my life right now."?
___For more information, call (214) 965-0935.

Send this story to a friend


Get printer-friendly version of this story

News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.

---

Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!/ Signup for FirstLook