At God’s Relay Race this November, the Saturday morning prayer group got the privilege to be invited by the Barnabas Group to an open house showcasing Christine’s Place which is a ministry of Relentless Pursuit. Relentless Pursuit is a ministry that is confronting human trafficking and giving prostitutes who are working on Independence Avenue a place to drop in as well as providing additional opportunity to get help. It was an eye opening experience!
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Show Notes
Relentless Pursuit and Christine’s Place
https://www.rpor.org
https://www.rpor.org/christines-place-drop-in-center/
Barnabas Group
https://www.barnabasgroupkc.org/
God’s Relay Race is a workplace prayer gathering that meets on the second Saturday every month at the Plexpod in Wesport.
GRR Prayer Group: You’re invited the Second Saturday of every month from 8-10am at the Westport Plexpod.
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You’re invited to pray with other business leaders!
For more information go to – www.kcpray.com
Transcript
Nathan Sack 00:15
Welcome to another Faith Horizons Kingdom brief. These are short podcast between 5 and 10 minutes. The purpose of a kingdom brief is to share highlights from ongoing Kingdom activities and announce events in Kansas City. At God’s Relay Race this November the Saturday morning prayer group got the privilege of being invited by the Barnabas group to an open house, showcasing Christine’s Place, which is a ministry of Relentless Pursuit. Relentless Pursuit is confronting human trafficking in giving prostitutes who are working on Independence Avenue, a place to drop in, as well as providing additional opportunity to get help. It was an eye-opening experience. Here is my conversation with Scott Stanger. So one of the things that happened this last God’s Relay Race, which was really cool was you got an invite from the Barnabas Group to attend an open house which was at Christine’s Place, which is at 5108 Independence Avenue. We had an incredible time I got to go. And it is just an incredible ministry that they’re doing down there.
Scott Stanger 01:20
It was extraordinary. You know, we have, we have over 300 businesses that we pray for, as part of God’s Relay Race. And sometimes, you know, we’ll emphasize certain ones or other business connected ministries, such as the Barnabas Group is one that brings together executives and CEOs and business owners from around the city to help ministries in our city flourish, to scale and to grow and to fulfill their purpose. And so Barnabas Group was hosting a, an open house over Christine’s Place, which is, you know, the best way I describe it as maybe called a women’s shelter for women who are victims of human trafficking, prostitution. But it’s far more than just that. I mean, they would call themselves right now their stage that they’re in, they’re a drop-in center. But when this city block that they’ve bought this storefront, when it’s fully developed, it’s going to have retail there, and it’s going to have job placement, and it’s going to have training. It’s going to have housing, rehabilitation, medical, I mean, everything that you can imagine. It’s very unique. And anyway, we went over there after God’s Relay Race on Saturday, six or eight of us, I invited say, Hey, anybody wants to come over and see this? Come on? And we went over to this open house, and wow, was it powerful. Not only is Christine McDonald, who is a former prostitute, who is now blind, she was beaten so badly by her pimp, that she’s permanently blind. She was over there, and she did a presentation, as well as this leader of another ministry. That’s called Relentless Pursuit. And basically Christine’s Place and Relentless Pursuit are teamed up together. And Barnabas Group helps to just create awareness and help them to grow and to flourish. And so these two ministries over there doing this open house with Barnabas Group. And they gave us a tour after tour of the facility. And we met some of the women who are being cared for there. And it was just I mean, it’s hard to describe how powerful it was to see firsthand what God is doing in our city, through businesses, through ministries, and through prayer and intercession and the people, both the boots on the ground, the people who are providing the ministry, as well as those who are the beneficiaries of it were so touched, and we were so touched, because all we were just some business people who are praying to come over and to see the fruits of our prayer labors. And it was just astounding, very, very inspiring for sure.
Nathan Sack 04:10
One of the things that I noticed about that ministry was is that it had the correct leadership. I mean, you could not ask for a better leader of a ministry.
Scott Stanger 04:22
Oh my gosh, yes, this former blind prostitute there so she can relate to what these women are traumatized women are going through every day.
And then this man, Lee Gibson, who he’s a special forces, and CIA, co-ops and extracting people in fact, he just he and some of his on the on the ground. Co-op leaders just extracted a family of 19 from Afghanistan, and secured housing for them here in the US, and I mean, it’s just this guy is the real deal. He’s actually heads up a task force by the government, for victims of human trafficking. And so this fits right in what he’s doing over there with this ministry fits right in with what he’s paid, and trained to do, and helping our government, you know, crack down on the human trafficking and find aid and care for the victims of it. So it was amazing.
Nathan Sack 05:27
It’s almost like the kingdom of God. Not only does this person, a part of the Kingdom of God, but he’s also a part of the world’s Special Forces. But now he gets to be the special forces inside the kingdom of God.
Scott Stanger 05:43
Yeah, exactly. Well put, Nathan, obviously, I mean, he’s been in law enforcement and military special ops for years and years and years, and he’s got all the resources and the training. And, you know, he totally, he’s a humble man, and he totally understates his skills and so on. But he is there with a very clear strategic plan, put in place of how you go in and you rescue victims, you rescue victims of terror, you rescue victims of human trafficking, and how you put a plan together and you got to be resourceful, and nimble and agile, be able to turn on a dime and he’s God’s perfect leader for something like this. It’s teamed up with a blind prostitute. Wow.
Nathan Sack 06:33
Yes. And then also it really kind of goes to the point of the people that God is bringing forth and the different unique ministries, businesses and street smarts that God is bringing together uniting like you’re talking about the streams uniting, bringing together at a time like this to begin to bring about the greatest wave or the movement of God that’s going forth today is to bring in the harvest and to heal the people to heal the city.
Scott Stanger 07:04
Yes, so here’s an example. Barnabas Group exists. It’s once a quarter, we come together executives and ministries from all over the city. And we do a shark tank like brainstorming session to help them solve a strategic problem. It’s not about fundraising I mean, it’s not that these ministries don’t need more fundraising, of course, they do. But we’re there specifically as problem solvers as leaders, to help them develop a plan to scale their business to solve some kind of strategic problem that’s on their plate at the time. And a month or so ago, a couple of months ago, actually, we sat down with Relentless Pursuit and Christine’s Place, and we did some brainstorming. And so they’ve got this storefront property, and they’re going to develop businesses in there that can employ these women who are being taken off the street, and they’ve got to have a way to support themselves. So there’s all sorts of ideas right now that are being incubated of maybe a dog grooming or yoga facility or pottery, you know, any number of things, and they’ve got the property, they’re doing all the construction build out. And that’s part of this brainstorming of the Barnabas Group, as well as the prayers and the intercession for God’s Relay Race, and just streaming all these things together and seeing boots on the ground, impact people’s lives right down there and in Independence Avenue, which they call the blade. In other words, it’s the cutting edge place where women are trafficked, all the way down to 11 years of age, there are young girls that are coming in there that are on the street, out there selling their bodies for exploitation, and it’s a terrible tragedy. But God’s got a different story going forward for these women.
