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– HOW IT BEGAN
Heather was born out of wedlock to a 17-year-old mother who never married her father. She lived with her mother at her grandmother's home in a bad environment in California– it was a poor neighborhood with drugs and crime. Growing up, Heather was not very popular and teased because she was skinny. Later, Heather's mother was in a relationship and became pregnant again. She gave birth to Heather's sister who was severely mentally and physically disabled. At 14, she was left alone a lot because her mother spent her time at the hospital taking care of her sister. During this time, her mother and Heather attended church briefly. One day Heather was walking to school by herself and a handsome man in a nice car drove up to her and asked her if she wanted a ride. Naively, she said yes and was raped by him. This opened the door to sexual promiscuity for Heather. When Heather was 16, she went to a party and was raped again. At this time, she totally gave up on self respect and didn't deny sex to any one. At 17, Heather became pregnant and soon after, the father of the baby left. She had the baby and later ended up marrying someone else at the age of 20. She had two restaurant jobs and was the sole bread winner for the family. She found out her husband was stealing her money so she took her son and left him.
DIRTY DANCING
Heather moved to San Francisco with no money and just the clothes on her back. She was desperate for work being a single mother. She found out that a place was hiring for go-go dancers so she took the job. Heather says that it was a gradual progression, the deception of Satan. She says the lure for her as a dancer was that for the first time, Heather felt people liked her. She was the cool one. She got money and attention. Six months went by; she moved back to the southern part of California with her family and got a job at a bikini bar. The gradual decline continued. She started doing lap dances at the bikini bar, which she didn't like. What started as a need for attention became the motivation for money. Heather was starting to feel bad about what she was doing, but she needed the money and continued. The bikini bar soon had the women wear pasties and then went topless. She heard she could make more in Las Vegas, so she would work there on weekends and go back to Southern California during the week. She justified it by saying she could spend more time with her son. For the four years Heather did this, she drank heavily throughout. She asked herself why she was doing this.
FULL CONVERSION
In 1999, Heather heard rumors of the Millennium being the end of the world or that something terrible was going to happen and she was petrified to die. She thought if the "God stuff" she heard about was true she was in trouble. She started to talk and bargain with Him and asked Him not to let her die. She put herself through beauty school and got out of the sex industry one year after that. She lived with her boyfriend, John, and knew God wouldn't be pleased, so she wanted to get married to her boyfriend. They decided to get married on a cruise. She prayed that they would have a Christian pastor on the ship to marry them. Her prayer was answered and they were married by a Christian pastor. It was the first day Heather and John prayed together. The pastor told them that they needed to find a church and change their lifestyle. When they returned home, they were in a coffee house and they overheard attractive girls talking about their church. Heather wished that the girls would come and talk to them, but thought the girls might have felt intimidated by the way they looked. This incident inspires Heather not to be intimidated to talk to people. Heather and John ended up visiting the girls' church. The first time Heather went to church, she stepped in the door and cried. She had a full conversion experience and committed her life to the Lord right there. She felt the peace of God and felt completely freed from her old life.
That's not the end of the story. Read about J.C.'s Girls, Heather's ministry to strippers.
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