FamilyLife Today®

Dave Wilson: Hey, we just wanted to give you a heads up before you listen to this next program, because today's conversation on FamilyLife covers some pretty sensitive but really important subjects that may not be suitable for younger ears. So just use some discretion when listening to this next broadcast.

Ann Wilson: Oh yeah. And let me add this. If you do listen with your kids, talk about it after with them. Right, this is an important conversation to have with maybe older kids, just depending on what you're thinking, but we just wanted to give you a heads up.

Rochelle Starr: Louisville has seen a 76% decrease in exploitation and human trafficking in strip clubs, and I can say confidently largely due to women who have come to know Christ and have left that life. Strip club owners that have come to know Jesus and put chains on their door and their club is no more. That's the God that we serve.

Ann Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

Dave Wilson: And I'm Dave Wilson, and you can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave Wilson: All right, we've got Rick Altizer back in the studio. I'm not going to hand you a guitar unless you want one. You got another song in your head? You look like me, like you could sing one on the spot. Except you know what Rick is thinking? He's thinking, yeah, Dave, but he's a lot better than you.

Rick Altizer: Don't do this to me. I can write you a song any day, any time, but don't do this to me.

Dave Wilson: But sitting beside you, I can't wait to hear her story because I don't know exactly how you two met, but Rochelle Starr is here.

Ann Wilson: Rick alluded to it and mentioned it. Yesterday, Rick, we talked to you about your new film coming out March 17th and 18th. That's next week, next Tuesday and Wednesday. But it's called *He Calls Me Daughter*. It's about father wounds that we all have, most of us have. Even if you have a good father, you can still have a father wound. Take us back to this journey where you two met because it was accidental.

Rick Altizer: Well, I mean it was God. God closed a door, as we mentioned yesterday. God moves mostly in my life through the closed doors. I had a story in the film that God closed the door on, and so I'm needing another story.

I just happened to be on the phone with someone else who's in the film, her name is Dede Meyer and she's at Pepperdine. She does the Boone Center for Family there. I'd mentioned to her that this story just blew up and it's gone and it's over, and I don't know what to do. She goes, "Well, I know someone in Louisville. Her name is Rochelle Starr, and she has a ministry called Scarlet Hope."

So I'm going to let Rochelle tell the rest of the story, but then she connected us and it was the God-send of the movie because the movie was not quite there. As soon as this came, it's like everything just aligned and it was just that moment of God brought Rochelle to this film and the person that she knew named Priscilla. We're going to hear all about it, but it was a work of the Lord. I'm so glad.

Ann Wilson: Did you call, Rochelle? What was that like, Rochelle? This is out of the blue.

Rochelle Starr: So I'd gotten a message from Dede asking if I would be interested in a call with Rick. I thought this is kind of crazy. I mean, I'm up for anything. So the next thing I know, within minutes really, he's on the phone with me telling me about the film, asking me more about the ministry and how this would relate.

I knew as soon as he told me what it was about, I knew it would be a really cool puzzle piece to his overall story, and I hadn't even heard or seen the movie. So we ended up connecting, he came up to Louisville, we interviewed together, and we committed to being a part of the film.

Dave Wilson: All right, so what's your story? I want to hear this.

Rochelle Starr: Pertaining to the movie, I grew up actually with a father who's got a little slice in the movie, who showed me how to be Jesus with skin on. That was a very different story than what the film was honestly even about. To what you guys have already been talking about yesterday and now is everyone has father wounds, no father is perfect. But my father showed me as a very young child how to love the unlovely and how to be Jesus to people.

Rick Altizer: Which in the film is super inspiring to watch your dad.

Rochelle Starr: He modeled it, I don't want to say perfectly, but he modeled it enough for me to catch on that this would be something I wanted to do with my life. So he was a pastor of really small churches around the country. They would go around and he would pick up homeless people, prostitutes. He would pick up people on the side of the road on Sunday morning.

We would bring donuts to them and we'd say, "Do you want to go to church?" I was like five years old at this time, and my dad would do this on Sunday mornings. There were a number of churches that asked my dad to leave the church because my dad would bring people that were smelly or didn't look like everybody else. I remember being a little girl that wanted to fight for those people that the church cast out.

So then fast forward to my early 20s, I started asking God to give me a people and a purpose for my life. I did not know what that was going to be. I was like, "Send me to India, send me to Thailand, wherever." And it really was actually in my backyard. So I was driving down the road going to work, I'd driven this path hundreds and hundreds of times before, and I passed a Theater X that was a truck stop that also had triple-X peep shows and different things like that.

I had never paid attention to it before in my life, and I heard the Holy Spirit say, "I'm sending you there to share my hope and my love." I knew instantly that that was exactly what Jesus would do, would be to go to the people in complete darkness.

Ann Wilson: Wait, wait, wait. First of all, I love that you're like, "Well, of course this is it." There wasn't any hesitation like, "Wait, what? I thought I was going to Africa or India." You knew in your heart, "Well, of course."

Rochelle Starr: I knew that that was the moment God was answering my prayers for sending me to the people that He wanted me to go to.

Rick Altizer: Were you married at the time?

Rochelle Starr: I had just gotten married about a year prior to this, and my husband knew I was longing for this in my heart. I actually worked in corporate America and loved climbing that ladder as well.

Rick Altizer: But did he know you were praying for a people and a purpose?

Rochelle Starr: And he was praying with me. He's a web designer so he could have worked anywhere in the world. He was like, "If God opens a door for India or another country, let's go there." But he didn't. He said right here in your backyard, we're going to go here. So when I called my husband, I said Jesus answered my prayer and he's sending me to the sex industry to share the gospel. My husband said that's exactly what Jesus would do. And God had just lined all of our hearts up.

Rick Altizer: That was his first response.

Rochelle Starr: First response. People, this is why we need to marry a spouse that loves Jesus, that gets it. Amen. I mean, you know when you can see looking back how God has orchestrated so many things for not only my life, but now I can see 19 years later in ministry for thousands of other lives. When we say yes to him, which is all God needs, he just needs us to be obedient and take the first step, then he does the rest and it's pretty incredible to be a part of.

Rick Altizer: So did you walk in that club the next day? What happened?

Rochelle Starr: So after that, the next step that the Lord gave me was to pray outside of that place among others. In Louisville, Kentucky, where I started this ministry called Scarlet Hope, we were the fifth largest sex industry per capita in America.

Rick Altizer: Really?

Rochelle Starr: Yeah, it was honestly alarming because we have some of the largest Christian Baptist churches in our city. So I actually started calling churches and saying, "Hey, are you guys working with anybody in the sex industry or prostitutes?" And unanimously every church would either hang up on me or say there's a sign outside they can come if they want. So for 18 months we prayed and fasted for God to open the doors of these places and allow us to go inside to minister to these people.

Rick Altizer: So you took a year and a half to pray and fast.

Rochelle Starr: Correct. Yes. That just brings tears to my eyes because that's the first move. It was just such a beautiful time in my life because I didn't know the people God was calling me to. I knew where he was calling me to, but I didn't know the people yet.

So I read Francis Chan's book *Crazy Love*. If you remember the first two words of his book, it says "stop praying." I was reading that in August of '08. I had been fasting and praying for 18 months and that hit me like a ton of bricks. I remember looking at my husband, looking at my best friend saying, "It's time to go." So we fasted from a Sunday to a Tuesday and God opened the door on that Tuesday and directed our path to a strip club in Louisville and completely swung open the doors to begin serving home-cooked meals there, and that was in 2008.

Rick Altizer: So you walk in.

Rochelle Starr: Yeah. So we walk in and I had no idea, no experience. I'm not from the industry. I didn't do a lot of Google research on it or anything. But I walk in and it's dark and we pay $10 to get in the door. Quickly I realize we are very out of place. I wore a black turtleneck and you'll appreciate this, no makeup. I was like, I do not want them to think I'm here for a job. Just so silly. I was in my young 20s too.

I just remember God directing our time to this man and I went over to him and I stuck out my hand and I said, "Hi, my name's Rochelle, Jesus sent me here to do something kind and loving for the people in this place. Could I bring in a home-cooked meal?" I love this. And his face, his jaw dropped and he said, "What's the catch?"

In my spirit I was like, "God you better give me the next words." And I said, "There's no catch. I just want to share a meal and tell people Jesus loves them." He had never heard anything in his whole life. For an hour and 45 minutes he told us his whole story and said, "When can you come in?" That was on a Tuesday night. We showed up Thursday with an Italian meal because I'm Italian and I cooked it and my friend helped me and we served a home-cooked meal to about 30 women and we've been doing that every Thursday night since then.

Rick Altizer: What's the first week? Like, there's okay, here's this incredible meal.

Rochelle Starr: So a lot of the women, sadly, because in 2008 this was really kind of before anti-trafficking and human trafficking started becoming awareness and marches and things. The only experience with Christians that people in the industry had had was hate.

Ann Wilson: Judgment.

Rochelle Starr: Judgment. I was physically in a strip club when a group of people from a church nearby set a box of Bibles on the front doorstep of the club and they wrote on the box of Bibles that they were delivering "repent or go to hell." I was physically in the club serving a meal to these people telling them about the same God that that Bible speaks of.

So I just had to sit for a long time and learn what was so harming to these people. It was that the God that they understood was harsh. The father that they understood was harsh and harmful and there was no way they were going to connect God as father. We spent about a decade building trust with each individual person in all of these places across the nation telling them that Jesus loves them, that I'm sorry Christians have hurt them, but that is not the God that we serve. God has changed thousands of lives through that.

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Ann Wilson: Yeah, but it's a cruise with a purpose. You get to work on your marriage, you've got Christian bands on board, you've got speakers, you've got workshops, you've got the whole boat is FamilyLife. It's pretty remarkable and there's nothing quite like it.

Dave Wilson: Yeah, and there's a sale going on right now through the 17th of March and I'm telling you what, you want to get in on this sale. The cruise is February 13th through the 20th in 2027 and it will fill up quick. Just go to familylifetoday.com and click on the banner for the Love Like You Mean It cruise and go get a tan with us.

Rick Altizer: I think my favorite character and story in the film is Priscilla. This is the story, I mean, what an amazing ministry that Rochelle has done. I just want you to notice too, she had a father who was modeling Christ. He wasn't just talking about, "I'm going to go to church," he was showing her what Jesus looked like.

Look at her, look at what she's doing. This is the power of a godly father for the young men who might be young fathers. You have such an influence and an impact on your children. And so for those who don't, like you said, I would just go, right? Because that's your go-to. That's how you learn. I got to do. But she was able to pray because her identity was set because she had a godly father who modeled Christ to her. So I wanted the good father story as well where it's not just the story, "my father threw my head into the table and broke my nose." That's a powerful emotional part of the film, but I wanted some good stories.

Ann Wilson: There was hope.

Rick Altizer: So one of the women who for four years Rochelle spoke with and discipled and spent time with, this is how you do this, week after week, and then her heart changes and then she comes to the Lord. We get this amazing story in the film. Tell me about the way had I called you a year and a half earlier, we wouldn't have been able to talk to Priscilla. Explain that.

Rochelle Starr: So Priscilla in the movie is just such a- first of all, she's such a beautiful person in general. I mean, I just love that God put our paths together. But a year before Rick came to me, Priscilla really didn't believe in Christ. She really absolutely could not believe in a man named Jesus, let alone somebody that I call Father. So I would just sit with her for dinners and coffee and any chance I got and just listen and ask questions.

Then a couple nights later after this happened, I fell into a deep sleep in my basement on the couch watching a movie. This never happens. She called my phone 10, 12 times and I never answered. Well, the next morning I wake up and all my text messages say is "I called you to tell you I gave my life to Jesus." I could get emotional about it because I knew what she had gone through to get to this place. That she had to truly surrender everything that she knew about the absence and lack thereof of an earthly father to throw herself into the arms of a heavenly father. There just is nothing better than getting to witness that here on this earth and I'm very grateful to the Lord for that.

Rick Altizer: Which is so amazing too because you could have given up. She mentions that whenever you came on Thursdays to bring a meal, she would be sure she wasn't working then because she didn't want to be around these God followers or Christ followers. I also remember vividly you just asking her the question, "How are you?" She said, "I can't remember when someone has asked me that genuinely." She said, "I could tell she was really asking because she wanted to know." And so for you to come in to meet those needs, to show the love of the Father and then to introduce her to Jesus, wow.

Rick Altizer: So you're saying, Rick, that story couldn't have taken place. No. When I was doing the film, had I called Rochelle then, she wouldn't have been in the film. I had to go through this step of this thing happening, this thing blowing up, God shutting that door to direct me here. And now this amazing story, her testimony, it's in my opinion the highlight of the film when she just shares how she came to Christ and how in the shower she asked God to come into her life because she can't do it anymore. She needs him and began to see him as a father. The freedom that the gospel brings was so powerful. It's just my favorite- I can't say my favorite story in the film, but it kind of is. There's a lot of them.

Ann Wilson: Yeah, there's more than one and that's powerful.

Dave Wilson: I mean, what do you say to the people like that put the Bible there that says "repent, you're going to hell" and they want them to take a Bible and read it? Some of our listeners or watchers may be like, "Yeah, well, I wouldn't go that far, but I don't think going into a strip club where these women are is what Jesus would do." Again, I'm just playing devil's advocate to the ones that are like, "I'm not sure." What do you say to that, either one of you?

Rochelle Starr: Well, what I would say is we all have to look at ourselves first. No one is without sin. We all have received mercy that we should not that we don't deserve. And so going into the darkness, people used to tell me, "Oh, you're going to become like them." I mean, let's not get into a theology lesson here, but just because I go minister to them does not make me going to become a stripper or become a prostitute or whatever.

Rick Altizer: Yeah, you don't lose your light.

Rochelle Starr: Right. And that too is the motivation behind why I'm going because Jesus said to go. So I just say to people all the time, unless you know them, unless you have gotten to literally know them, there is no place for judgment. And then after you know them, you certainly are not going to judge them. And so the command from Jesus is to get the plank out of our own eye and to really look to him first, look examine ourselves second, and then go.

I have a couple of examples of organizations that were Christian organizations raising millions of dollars to bring law enforcement against the strip clubs in our city where we started. They meant very well, and that's at the time all they knew that they did. But they called me up after I started going to strip clubs and they asked me to meet. So I'll never forget it, we go to a restaurant, we sit down, and they said, "What are you doing? Do you claim to be a Christian?"

I said, "Absolutely, I wouldn't be in a strip club if I wasn't trying to bring the gospel." They said, "Well, we're raising money to try to shut all these clubs down." And I asked the people that I was sitting across the table, they had raised millions of dollars to try to shut the clubs down and I said, "In your effort to shut them down, has anyone come to know Christ?" And all of the people around the table, now mind you, I'm 23, they're like in their 40s and 50s and they look at me and one of the leaders that was on the board said, "No, we've never heard of anyone in our efforts."

It wasn't but six months later that they dissolved that organization and said we have been doing this wrong. Now I can say to you today, here we are 19 almost 19 years later, and Louisville has seen a 76% decrease in exploitation and human trafficking in strip clubs. And I can say confidently largely due to women who have come to know Christ and have left that life. Strip club owners that have come to know Jesus and put chains on their door and their club is no more. That's the God that we serve. That's the Father that loves his daughters and will do anything to go after them.

Dave Wilson: Golly, that's preach- I mean, when you were saying that I thought of, and I'm sure you've connected the same dots, Luke 15 where Jesus is sitting with tax collectors and sinners. It says all the tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to him. Whenever I preach on this, I'm like, "How many non-Christians like to hang out with you folks?" Usually church people repel non-Christians. They don't want to be around us because they feel judged.

And yet they wanted to be around Jesus, these scum of their culture. And then the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, which is another Christian thing we do really well: grumble, grumble, grumble, saying this man receives sinners and eats with them. I'm not the biggest Bible scholar, but I think what happens next is because of what they said about Jesus. This man receives sinners and even eats with them.

You know what he does? The only time he did this, three stories about the same point: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, the prodigal son. All are making a point. I think, and this is how I preach it, it's like Jesus is like, "You do not understand the heart of my father."

Rick Altizer: Yes, so this is something that God put on her heart and did and she's been prepared for this. You see it. You see how God's been preparing her for this from the beginning, from the day she was born. When did your dad get saved?

Rochelle Starr: The year I was born.

Rick Altizer: When she was born. You see, God's preparing her for this. And what an amazing God we serve.

Ann Wilson: A couple things that have struck me is one, Rick, you said God closed the door. So often when we feel like God closed the door, we get discouraged or we give up. We're not thinking like, "Oh, what's next, God? You closed that door on purpose for another purpose." So I love your tenacity of not getting discouraged but knowing that God would show up.

Rick Altizer: Well, that father wound. "You shut the door on me. You're not there for me. Once again you're disappointing me, once again, God," right? It's that same father wound we're projecting that onto God instead of going, "You're leading me, you're guiding me because because you want what's best for me, because you love me, because you're good and you're going to work out good in me." That's the faith, that's the belief, that's the work. That's that ongoing sanctifying work that we're all on that train.

Dave Wilson: That is a powerful conversation with Rick and Rochelle.

Ann Wilson: It's inspiring, isn't it?

Dave Wilson: And I hope a lot of people go to the movie *He Calls Me Daughter* because it's going to literally change lives.

Ann Wilson: It will.

Dave Wilson: Yeah, get the link in the show notes, familylifetoday.com. The movie's going to be out next Tuesday and Wednesday. And I'd say get a group of friends and go.

Ann Wilson: All right, let me just say this. We know life is full of challenges and families today need biblical truth more than ever. Isn't that true?

Dave Wilson: That is true.

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Dave Wilson: So let's make a lasting difference together. Become a partner today. Just go to familylifetoday.com and click the donate button.

Dave Wilson: FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife, a Cru ministry. 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.