With the lights down low at The Pony in East Cape Girardeau, Ill., men of all ages sip their drinks and focus their attention on the woman dancing on the main stage.

The woman focuses on the music and on picking up the cash at her heels.

Shivering outside in the glow of The Pony sign, Carolyn Knight and Sun Stevens -- both of Marble Hill, Mo. -- focus on bringing light to a place they feel is a place of darkness in the community.

Knight and Stevens lead an outreach ministry called Light in Darkness, which they're eager to build up in Southern Illinois and Southeast Missouri. And with up to 30 women working nightly at The Pony and the Hushpuppy Saloon, a nude club in McClure, Ill., they feel like there's a lot of good that can be done in helping the women find a better way of life.

"We want to help people; we're not there to judge," Stevens said. "We have compassion, and there's just a better way."

Knight and Stevens believe the better path is one that includes God. By building relationships with the dancers, as well as other women in the community working in the business, they hope to show them how that can happen.

Stevens and Knight start slow.

They'll hand the dancers, and sometimes the patrons, a small booklet containing Scripture and testimony about how other people were saved by God. On holidays Knight and Stevens will go into the clubs, mostly without opposition, and offer the performers small gifts to let them know they're cared about.

Knight said she and Stevens want to help the women build up their self-esteem and they want them, eventually -- even if it takes years -- to become a Christian.

"I've been in strip clubs now for five years. The girls are treated like objects to be used and disposed of. It's a degrading atmosphere for women, and I'm opposed to it," said Knight, a longtime evangelist who spent 10 years as a missionary in Africa. "I'm a Christian, and I make no bones about it."

With the help of seminary students and other missionaries, Knight launched Light in Darkness around five years ago in Jackson, Miss., after she said God gave her instructions to help dancers, prostitutes and other women in need. They'd do many of the same outreach activities, including standing outside clubs, sharing testimony and praying -- a lot and out loud -- for the dancers and the owners. After spending time with women who'd want to hear more from them, Light in Darkness, a 501(c)3 organization, would offer assistance, such as helping them find a different job or furniture for their residence.

Stevens, a missionary to the United States from South Korea, met Knight at a women's conference in Tennessee last fall and joined the Light in Darkness ministry soon after.

Many of the women Knight met in Mississippi, she said, had grown up in a dysfunctional or abusive home. Some are trapped in a bad relationship when she meets them, Knight said, suffer from drug addiction or simply don't know any other way to bring home a paycheck.

"A lot of times they're overlooked members of our society that people don't think about," Knight said. "It's almost always about the money, and they almost always have low self-esteem and they really don't think they can do something else."

According to the Coalition Against Trafficking of Women, an organization that promotes women's human rights, 92 percent of women engaged in prostitution said in a study they wanted to leave their job but couldn't due to the lack of services, such as job training, health care and treatment for addiction.

"We just want to reach out little by little," Stevens said. "There's so many dark places in this world and there's hope for them. We like the people to see there's a freedom they can have with Jesus Christ."

Reaching out to the women at the clubs, however, isn't always easy to do. Knight said she and the rest of her Jackson ministry had several close calls.

One time one of the seminary students got punched in the face while praying at a location and another time an owner ordered his German shepherd to attack them.

"We just froze, we couldn't move, so, we prayed silently for God to help us," Knight said. "He got about seven, eight feet in front of them and just stopped short and sat down."

All the opposition Knight and Stevens have faced locally, so far, is an employee at the Hushpuppy Saloon asking them to not enter the establishment again.

Church organizations popping into the club isn't uncommon at The Pony, according to a daytime manager who didn't want to be identified.

"As long as they are not trying to make the girls feel like they're degrading themselves, we don't have a problem with them being here," the manager said.

The manager did say a bouncer, around Christmastime, asked a few people to leave who were telling the dancers they are better than their profession. The manager said she didn't know if it was Knight and Stevens.

Economic reasons

The manager said it's the unpredictable economy that brings the girls to work at The Pony.

"They can't find another job. It's not a choice, it's that it's the only way they know how to make money," the manager said.

Knight and Stevens hope by befriending the women -- they've met three dancers locally so far -- that they can show them there are better paths to take. The women they've known for only about a month, she said, all live in the same apartment complex and none has finished high school.

When Knight first stopped to visit them, the girls were living without electricity and furniture. She said she helped them collect a few things for their living space.

"I checked back on them and they had gotten electricity turned on, and I'll keep checking back with them," she said. "All they had was each other, and they're just trying to live."

As the pair continues to reach out to young women working as exotic dancers or prostitutes, they're also speaking in churches, visiting area organizations -- like the Safe House for Women in Cape Girardeau -- in an attempt to get people to join them in their outreach activities. They hope to gather more people who'll help offer support to the women, including local businesses that may like to give them a second chance.

"In Jackson I had some relationships built up with places that would give a girl a chance with some employment. That's the goal ... to see them in a happier place, in a better place," Knight said.

Offering help to struggling women isn't anything new for Linda Garner, Safe House's director, who had recent contact with Knight.

Garner said the help Knight offers may be the right resource for some of the women she sees come into the shelter.

"We have a directory here that we keep a lot of faith-based resources in, and for some women it's a really good thing," Garner said. "[Knight[']s] very persevering, and she believes in it. I think it takes a lot of courage."

ehevern@semissourian.com

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