Holy hottie

I blogged a little while ago about a former stripper called Heather Veitch who has now started a ministry to girls working in the sex industry. The other day I read an interesting article about her in the 'Observer', which, for those of you who don't know, is the sister Sunday paper to the 'Guardian', sharing its secular, liberal world view. Given the organ publishing the report I wouldn't have been surprised if it turned out to be a hatchet job. After all, born-again Evangelical Christians are not exactly a favoured victim group there. And indeed, during the course of the report we do learn that the reporter is an atheist. However, it's fascinating to read under the surface of the page: I suspect that the journalist found herself admiring Mrs Veitch and her two co-workers far more than she ever expected to.

Speaking to her over the course of the weekend, it becomes clear that Heather has lived through a catalogue of catastrophes you'd be hard pressed to fit into the most tear-jerking of airport fiction. She recounts it all in a voice whose sweetness never breaks, and whose light and even tone might send you into a trance if it weren't for the horrors enveloped in it.

Let's begin with the terminal illnesses: her husband, with whom she has a young daughter and with whom she has brought up a teenage son from a previous relationship, is dying of brain cancer. She cares for him - and provides an income from hairdressing and from the church, where she is about to go on staff - just as she once cared for the sister who was born with heart disease and part of her brain missing when Heather was 14. 'I take care of sick people,' she says. 'That's my thing. It seems to follow me around.'

It's worth reading the whole report, but be warned that it contains both bad language and some descriptions of sexual acts. The link is here.

Comments

[Sharon]

We have a similar story here in Australia - Western Australia to be exact.

In 1997 Linda Watson took stock of her life and decided to give up her lucrative escort business in Perth. As a former prostitute, she was determined to help other women 'get off the game' and escape the cycle of exploitation, drugs and abuse which she'd known first hand over a 20 year career in the sex industry.

She found an unexpected friend and benefactor in Perth's Catholic Archbishop Barry Hickey, and so Linda's "House of Hope" was born.

[Albertus Minimus]

I tend to think that former workers in that 'industry' make by far the most effective evangelists to it. Anyone else would find it difficult to escape the accusation that they are doing it for kicks.