Rachelle Starr was 21 years old, living a normal life in Southern Indiana with her husband, Josh. As a young follower of Christ, she prayed and asked God to give her a people and a purpose. Rachelle could have never imagined what God’s answer would be. Every day on her way to work, she drove past a Theatre X and never thought much about it until one day God answered her prayer and said, “I’m sending you to share my hope and love with the women in that place.” Rachelle quickly called her husband and told him, “The Lord has called me to serve women in the sex industry!” To her surprise, he replied, “That’s exactly what Jesus would do.” Rachelle knew this was further confirmation of God’s calling and with that, all she knew to do next was to pray.

After 18 months of dedicated prayer and fasting, asking God HOW to reach these women, God said, “Go.” Rachelle with a couple of friends plucked up their courage and went into a strip club they had been praying outside of every week. Paying the $10 cover charge, they took a seat at the bar and ordered cokes. After several minutes, Rachelle was prompted by the Holy Spirit to go up to a man and introduce herself and say, “Jesus sent me here to do something kind and loving for the women in this place. Can I bring in a home-cooked meal? He was the owner of the club and much to her surprise, he said, “YES!” From that moment on, we began serving home-cooked meals in that club and eventually all of the clubs in Louisville every single week.

The everyday miracles of ministry in Louisville are proof enough of God’s great love for women in the adult entertainment industry, but His love knows no bounds. God would lead us to other cities to carry out our mission and today, we call it the Scarlet Hope Network.

Our Network came to be very organically when a couple of our volunteers in Louisville set out to replicate our model in Greater Cincinnati in 2009. They began serving women in the clubs there and became our first Network site. As God grew our ministry, more and more people started coming to us asking for training and help to reach women in their cities. We shared our model, our lessons learned and helped several ministries get started. This inspired a vision to see Scarlet Hope’s model replicated all across the world so that more women may come to know Jesus. 

Today, Scarlet Hope exists in 11 major cities in the United States with a vision to one day reach women in 25 of the most exploitative cities. God’s fingerprints are all over every new site’s founding stories. God continues to answer prayers and call outrageously obedient leaders to love and care for these women because He loves them. We will go wherever God leads and give Him all the glory!