A stripper and a pastor walk into a… No! This is not the start of a joke. Instead, it’s the beginning of a new friendship.
The unlikely duo both devastated by the images of migrant children separated from their families after an ICE raid in Mississippi this month targeting hundreds of undocumented immigrants, found a solution in each other.
Stripper Dawn Blu McCall said, “We are all sinners and we are all saints. And we can still help our kids because those kids are everybody’s kids.”
McCall said, “I’m not a Christian. I’m not that kind of weird. I’m a different kind of weird, you know what I mean? But my kind of weird supports his kind of weird.”
Clackamas United Church of Christ Pastor Adam Ericksen said, “We can see God working through a burning bush as with Moses. Or we can see God working through strippers. And I say amen to that.”
After connecting on social media, McCall and Pastor Ericksen are working together. “We made $330 in seven minutes last Saturday,” McCall commented.
Pastor Ericksen said, “We pass around the offering plate.”
Donations go to the Mississippi Immigrant’s Rights Alliance.
While they may have very different approaches, their mission in helping kids is the same.
“My congregation is responding really well to it,” Pastor Ericksen said. “They are excited about it. They have the same mission. When you hear Blu talk about her mission with Team Blu, it sounds like church.”
It’s proof that love and faith in humanity is a blessing all its own.
“It’s turned into a giant community-building event,” McCall said. “and I think that that is a blessing, to use his kind of words.”
Pastor Ericksen said, “And we hope that will inspire people in different religions, different backgrounds, can come together for a higher purpose.”
The two gather donations for the same organization in different ways. McCall does not ask Ericksen’s congregation to go to the club. Instead, his congregation donates to the cause at the church.
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