God Visits the Prostitutes
Ruth Johnson

The building we walked into early that Sunday morning in Kampala was dark. Prostitutes were waiting for customers. Rough looking young men were drinking and talking crudely as they lurked in the shadows. Then they played a loud game of pool. Beer signs covered the walls and the raunchy dirt floor was filthy with what we could only imagine was vomit and human waste. The owner was clearly waiting for the night to come so that this bar could be used for his attempts at money making.

It was Easter Sunday.

This was the place we were going to minister because the meeting place that had been planned for a small, humble church had been closed to them unexpectedly that very morning.

“What is God going to do?” Barry and I silently wondered as we set up the harp and I prepared to preach.

“Let us gather together in a circle,” I told the small group of people when the service was turned over to us. “Jesus was born in a humble stable with the smells and filth of animals all around Him. He could have chosen a fancy place to be born. But He didn’t. He chose a place that was lowly, just like this run down bar. And Jesus was criticized for spending time with the prostitutes and sinners. Yet He went to those who knew they were lost and brought the love of His Father to them. So it is an honor to come into this place on Easter Sunday morning because Jesus is happy we are here.”

Most of the people in the circle stared at me in disbelief. Several were glaring at me. The pastor and his wife looked horrified that this is where we were ministering for Easter, contrary to all their plans for a beautiful service in a lovely meeting room.

“The Father is smiling down on us,” I vehemently continued, ignoring the stubborn looks on many of the staunchly resistant faces. “And on this dirty floor we are going to bow down and worship Him who died and rose from the dead. What a fitting place to humble ourselves before the Lord to adore Him."

Everyone looked shocked.

“Yeah right, lady,” many seemed to be saying to me through their mocking smirks as they glared back at me.

Then a miracle happened.

The sound of heaven rushed into that haven of prostitutes and drunkards and the visitation from God was immediate.

All quickly fell to their knees and bowed low before Him as His holy presence enveloped us. Not one person was still standing when a tender worship gently filled the building.

Throughout the sermon, the sound of pool balls being hit punctuated what was being said. The low-lying roof was made of metal sheeting. Consequently on this squelching hot day, the temperature in the room went well past a hundred degrees. People squirmed restlessly in their chairs and looked anxious for the sermon to be over.

I was grateful when the service ended.

“Go to those young men playing pool,” the Father instructed me when the closing prayer finished. “Go and bring My love to them.”

The second I walked up to them, they respectfully stopped their game. When I hugged them as if they were my sons, broad, grateful smiles lit up their faces at being treated with kindness. Then one by one, some with tears in their eyes, they shared how the service had touched them.

Yet moments later, as I walked away from them and into the glaring sunlight, I thought to myself…

“What happened in there? What did God do? What was that all about?”

“I don’t know what happened,” Barry later assured me, “but I know God did something powerful.”

“Those are the worst kind of troublemakers here in Kampala,” Joseph explained to me as we traveled back to our compound. “It is amazing that they talked to you like that and they were so affected by what took place.”

We all nodded in agreement.

“There is no way they would ever go to church,” Joseph added with a broad grin, “so this morning God came to them!”

Two weeks went by. By now, so many dangers had occurred in our lives in Seguku Village that we had completely forgotten the Easter service.

Then I heard a knock on our gate as I sat in our small office.

The pastor over that Easter service had just arrived.

“I have many breakthroughs to tell you,” he quickly announced. “After you left that Sunday morning, two prostitutes who were in the back asked my wife and I how they could be born again. We led them to the Lord through their many tears.

The owner of the bar is a Christian and so is his wife. She had been warning her husband for a long time that they were being cursed financially because they owned that bar. Then when she heard that God came to the bar and there was a church service there, she warned him again about the seriousness of what he was doing.

So from the Sunday morning you were there, the husband feared to use that building for a bar. Instead he has turned it over to me so that it now can only be used as a church.”

His face glowed with excitement.

“Already the church is growing,” he added. "New people are coming in. The man and his wife who owned the bar also now come to our church because the husband said, ‘I saw God there that morning.’”

When he left us, Barry and I sat stunned.

“Just think,” Barry exclaimed with wonderment in his eyes. “Look what God can do when you don’t even think anything is happening!”