Amy Dupree

Mike: Amy Dupree is a veteran of the adult entertainment business. To be blunt, Amy was a stripper who performed erotic dances for her male customers. Hearing Amy talk about her childhood, it's easy to understand how she came to such a life.

Amy: I had a rather difficult childhood, a troubled childhood. My mother was married 5 times. I was sexually abused from the ages of 4 to 7. It was just very, very confusing. Through my high school years, eventually, my junior and senior years, I found drugs and alcohol, and I immediately found a friend...and new friends; people that wanted me to be with them. A month before graduation, I quit high school, because I just couldn't get out of bed from doing so many drugs the several weeks before. And that's when a friend of mine introduced me to the adult entertainment business. The promise of money, the promise of prestige and glamour, and once the gentleman walks into the club, you make him feel like he is the most important man...you know it was very difficult, but then again, when I first started doing it, I medicated myself with drugs and alcohol. I don't remember much of the first four years I was there, but, I do know that once I did get up on stage, the lights and having the power, and being able to control my perpetrator once again, it made that little girl not hurt anymore.

Mike: Amy's fiancé, Kyle, was also involved in adult entertainment and drugs. Their lifestyle eventually drove them to desperation, and at their lowest moment, felt themselves touched by God.

Amy: So we sat down and had a heart-to-heart talk about going to God. If he couldn't change us, then nobody could. So we went in search of a church, and eventually we found a church, the minute we walked in that church, we felt overwhelmed with unconditional love. A little old lady came up to us and put her arms around us and said that she was so glad that we were there. That we were beautiful and that God loved us. And we knew immediately that we were home. We started going there to change our relationship, but what ended up happening was, we saved our souls.

Mike: Today, Amy and Kyle no longer frequent the strip clubs. They've married and are recovering from their addictions. What's more, Amy has founded a Christian ministry that reaches out to other women trapped by sex, drugs, or abuse.

Amy: We have such a wonderful program. We have mentors, Christian women who walk alongside the women to help them and guide them in major and minor decisions in their life. We help them and guide them with job skill classes, parenting skill classes, and computer classes, financial budgeting; we even work with other organizations to help clothe them when they are ready to go out for job interviews, and counseling.

Mike: Amy Dupree - touched by God and now reaching out to touch others with the same love, forgiveness, and hope.

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Mission To Russia

Mike: Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, a remarkable number of missionaries have traveled to the former Soviet States. They went to share the Christian message with people who were forbidden to hear that message for more than seventy years. One of the most unusual aspects of this unprecedented campaign was the large number of ordinary Christians who made that journey at their own expense to share the good news. Ken Stone, Chris Coats, plus husband and wife, Peter and Cindy Patton, traveled to Novosibirsk, Russia. Peter said they went there in response to a letter received here at Station KNLS.

Peter: One of these letters was written by a professor from a pedagogical institute in Novosibirsk. His name was Uri Unufrio. Uri wrote that he was teaching a course in the history of religion, and he requested that four or five Bibles to be placed in the school library so that his students could use as a reference an original source, as he put it. We then wrote a letter to Uri explaining that we had a desire to visit him in his city, and that we would bring with us enough New Testaments for each of his 6000 students.

Mike: Cindy Patton was much impressed with the Russians that she met, especially with their interest in spiritual matters.

Cindy: These people are just so eager to learn anything that we can teach them, about God, about Christ. They all, it seemed to me, recognize that there was a higher power, although they didn't realize what it was. Many claimed atheism the way many people in the United States claim Christianity. It was just something to say. In fact, one of our converts claimed to us that she was an atheist. Maybe just because she didn't know what was out there besides atheism. So once we shared with her Christianity, she put on Christ, and it was wonderful to get to witness that.

Mike: Chris Coats says that he was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the questions he was asked by the Russians he spoke to.

Chris: Yes, for people who would receive the Bible, and then two days later, have read it from cover to cover, the questions were very in depth. It shows a great thinking process of a people who very much want to learn. The Russian people are very open, and if you will present your evidence, they will listen to you. There was no one who refused to listen. They would ask you very, very difficult questions. They weren't intended to trap, I don't believe; they were very heartfelt concerns. A question such as we talked earlier, Why Christ had cursed the fig tree. And to a lot of us who have grown up in the church, that's simple, but once you step back, you go, no, no, that's a very thought-provoking question.

Mike: Ken Stone says he has many fond memories of his time in Novosibirsk. But he says he and the entire group were most touched by one young lady in particular.

Ken: There was a translator that we studied with, She was 22 years old. She teaches English in the University as an instructor. She had also been the leader, or President, of the Young Communist League at the university that she graduated from, very active in the roles. She was hired to be an interpreter for us on our trip. She told us early on that she was an atheist, that she would be professional about her duties, but not to expect anything. After we had baptized her, as we were getting ready to leave, she hugged me so tight. It seemed as though the emotion there was one that she knew we had changed her life.

Mike: As often happens, both teacher and student deeply moved by the saving power of Jesus Christ. Both equally touched by God.

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Across American On A Motorcycle

Mike: Husband and wife, David and Kathy recently traveled together across the United States on a Harley motorcycle. Twelve thousand miles, fifty-five cities, beginning on the west coast in Washington state, and finishing on the east coast in Washington, D.C. Along the way, David spoke to audience all across the country about how his life was touched by God.

David: Before the Lord found me back in my younger days, I was involved in a lot of drugs, and different dealings that weren't good. Even as Kathy and I got married and continued on with our life and with our family, I was drinking and doing a lot of things that I shouldn't be doing.

Mike: At one point during those early troubled years, David crashed his motorcycle and nearly lost his left leg. Recovery took more than a year. That accident, and the love of a good wife, eventually caused David to question the direction his life was taking.

David: I had come home from work one day and I could feel the Lord really tugging at my heart, and actually, I didn't know it was the Lord at the time, but I could feel something really pressing, really tugging on my heart that I had to share a lot of things with Kathy and really come clean on a lot of things. I went to her one morning when I came home from work and told her I needed to talk to her, and I began to share with her events that weren't good, and during the process of all of that, she took me out in the back yard and prayed for me, and that day I thought, 'I want this. I want whatever it is she's got, this love and compassion she has in her heart…I want this.' And I just began from that day forward to seek it out; it began by a lot of prayer. I really believed in God at that point. I saw his power work that day, and I wanted it, so I just began to pray and read the word and the Bible just became life to me. My prayer life and the words of God in the Bible just became life to me.

Mike Kathy says that one of the highlights of the couple's motorcycle tour has been the chance to meet fellow Christians all across the United States and feel that immediate kinship in Christ.

Kathy: One thing we've seen that's been very awesome is the people we've met. There is a true brotherhood and sisterhood in them immediately. It's like you've known them your whole life. It's just amazing to me, because we've never traveled like this, for three months across the United States. And they just welcome you with open arms, and when we depart, its, 'If we don't see each other here on earth, we will meet again, we will see each other again. It's really neat, and we've made some lifelong friends.

Mike: David and Kathy Armstrong wrapped up their tour of the country leading a large procession of Christian friends, all on motorcycles, into the nation's capital. Before heading back home, the group took time to pray for the nation, and to thank God for touching their lives.

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A Jew Finds Jesus

Mike: Like many of us, Richard Friedan has long been searching for the meaning of life. Some find the answers quickly and easily, but the search took Richard more than 30 years.

Richard: My background, I come from a Jewish home, I was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. I had a good upbringing, I had a great family, my mother and father are wonderful people, great brothers and sister, but I had an internal hunger. I was like a merchant who went into different marketplaces looking in the wrong places for what was right. So I was a martial artist and trained for many years in Japanese karate and studied Chinese dawism, as well as meditation, vegetarianism, yoga, you name it, I tried it, to find this God that could fill a need in my life, a spiritual need, a spiritual hunger. Of course, that also included my experimentation with certain kinds of drugs, again to really find out what is the truth I'm seeking. What is this hunger? Who holds the key to unlock my soul, or the bars that cage my soul? If I feel a hunger, and if I feel that my soul really is not free, then who holds that key to unlock it? And I somehow felt that as a young teenager.

Mike: Still searching and restless, Richard immigrated to Israel as a young adult. And it was there that he finally found his answers more than a decade later.

Richard: The thing that really moved and changed my heart was reading from the word of God on a particular Sabbath morning while I was alone in the northern part of Israel on a kibbutz. And this was a Sabbath morning, and I went to the book of Matthew and read the chapter that deals with issues concerning the Sabbath. It was actually that chapter, verses 6,7, and 8 when Jesus says, 'Had you only known what this meant. I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the innocent; for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.' It was those verses that ended one journey of darkness and literally saved my life. It was then that I recognized that the Son of Man, Jesus the Christ is my Messiah. Yeshuah is my Lord and Savior. It was that revelation, he goes on to say that something greater than the temple is here. And then I read this at a time of my personal history that I so needed to hear. That Jesus is the one who sanctifies me. He delivers me and gives me rest for my soul, which is the essence of the Sabbath. My soul was definitely in bondage, and I was definitely in sin and darkness and it was Jesus, the light of the world, that revealed himself to me.

Mike: Having accepted Christ as the Messiah, Richard was eager to share the Good News with other Jews, but evangelism in Israel can be a dangerous undertaking. Richard has endured much persecution, but one incident stands out in his mind.

Richard: I was assaulted, beaten and assaulted, by fifteen religious guys. A devastating experience. It took me awhile to deal with the personal aspects of it, but 'Praise the Lord' I came through it, and really feel a deeper passion and love for God, and also a deeper compassion for those that claim to know God, but don't really know God. My heart does grieve, and desperately want to see these guys, and secular Israelis, we want then to find out what true spirituality is, what the truth is, what love is, so that can liberate them from violent acts and just senseless hatred.

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