Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to the iWork4Him PowerPod. I'm Michael Miracle producer for iWork4Him, the voice of the faith and work movement. We are on mission to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. Each quick listening PowerPod is designed with you in mind and jam packed with Kingdom resources to help you connect your faith and work.

How will this impact your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: Every day we get on the air, we're always trying to capture stories that are amazing, that are moving everybody's heart. We wanna just capture what's God doing in the marketplace, what's God doing in the hearts and minds of Christ followers in their workplace?

And it is such an honor that we get to do this. And today's show is brought to you by a partnership that we've got between iWork4Him and the iWork4Him board member Mollie Yoder, and along with the Pocket Testament League.

The Pocket Testament League makes it easy for you and me to get the word of God into the hands of coworkers, employees, neighbors, and [00:01:00] friends. Check 'em out online. ptl.org. ptl.org. Mollie Yoder, you brought us here to Lynchburg, Virginia. What's going on? Why are we here?

Mollie Yoder: Yes. Well, I'm so excited for you to meet my friend Salem Hicks and hear what God's been doing in her life. She's got a pretty incredible story. Was called to really step into some broken places in Haiti, and now has been called back into the marketplace, still on the same mission. But just taking a little bit of a different approach to helping women who are walking out of prostitution in Haiti. So she's gonna get into it with us, and I know you are gonna just love spending some time with Salem.

Jim: Hair. Some have it on their heads and some don't. But all of us know how it shapes how we feel about ourselves. On so many shows, we highlight the stories of people working with papers and computers. But on today's show, we're gonna focus on the life of the hairstyle artist, who's also a business person. Who's also running a biznistry in [00:02:00] Haiti to women. So much to talk about and so little time.

Salem Hicks is the business owner of Bloom Studio in Lynchburg, Virginia. Salem's here to tell her story and the story of so many others. Salem Hicks, welcome to iWork4Him. When did you realize that you had a gift for bringing out the best in others through the work you do at Bloom Studio salon?

Salem Hicks: You know, I honestly, even when I was like really, really young, I really loved people. I always wanted to have friends, really relational and then always had this artistic side. So I can still remember the time that I was, you know, five, six years old coloring my Barbie's hair with markers and being like so into that.

I had no idea even what it would look like to be a hairdresser. You know, then when I was in high school, I had finished all of my classes and it was, you know, just, oh, there's this makeup class. You should sign up for it. So I did, having no idea. I signed up for Beauty School and then went to the interview and they're like, oh, you get a scholarship, here's this. You're gonna start beauty school.

So I really feel like the Lord knew from a very young age what he [00:03:00] would do with it now. So and then, you know, going through all of that, I recognize after graduating and being in a salon. Oh my gosh. Like this encompasses everything I love. Art, relationships you know, all of it. It's really, really, it's been a blast really.

Jim: But you've just recently started this biznistry, as we like to call it. You got a business that's a ministry that you call Bloom Studios. Just you've been open only three months.

Salem Hicks: Yes, three months now.

Jim: Yeah. I mean, that's a big step.

Salem Hicks: Yeah. You know, I've been doing hair for 13 years now.

Jim: You started at 12 or what?

Salem Hicks: Well, I'm 31 .

Jim: Oh my goodness. I would've guessed 25. So, okay.

Salem Hicks: Well thanks a bunch for that, but but yeah, no, I just, I kind of eventually knew I would start a salon. And then when God led me to Haiti, I really gave up that dream. And I really just felt like, you know, I don't know what God has for me, but this is, you know, a third world country is something I never wanted to end up in.

 And I mean, I had that calling and I'm like, there's no way you're gonna find me in a village. I'm gonna be in a salon. Right? And sure enough, here I am out of Haiti four years and being in a business and it's like, [00:04:00] wow. And the two worlds do come together in a interesting cool way.

Martha: So let's talk about that. Kind of bring us up to speed. How and why did God take you to Haiti and then how has that created where you're at today?

Salem Hicks: Yeah, so I was actually doing hair in the film industry a little bit and kind of running hair departments and just felt like I was supposed to go on a one week trip.

I'd previously gone through my own healing of you know, finally talking about some of the sexual abuse I'd experienced as a child and going through counseling and really being open about that. And went to Nicaragua and visited a ministry out there helping women get out of prostitution and dealing with you know, abuse and just really resonated, looking in their eyes and feeling that connection of like, you know, we've been hurt by this and how the enemy has polluted something God designed that's beautiful and just knowing that God can heal that.

And so now I talk about it freely. And so I had gone through that journey and then a one week trip that turned into a three to four month internship. And I left my entire clientele to do it. I just felt like God was like, [00:05:00] be obedient. Go do this internship.

I could not stop thinking about it. It was in Haiti. And then I got back to Haiti and someone asked if I would help lead a team into a brothel and minister to some of the women there since I'd had a little bit of experience. And I was passionate about helping women get out of it, right?

And so it was the first time that I even was introduced with prostitution in Haiti. I really didn't know what that even looked like. And that day when we were in the brothel, I shared my story of how God had healed me. And as we were praying for them, I specifically heard the words, this is what I made you for, Salem.

And I was so, I knew it wasn't me because I was so freaked out by it. I'm like, no, I'm stuck here. Like I'm stuck in Haiti. That was my first thought. But I went back to the ministry and I started researching, and at the time there was not one organization out of thousands in Haiti that were helping women who had been at risk, abused, trafficked in prostitution, or even highlighting the fact that one in three women in Haiti have been sexually abused.

that's huge. There [00:06:00] wasn't anybody focusing on that. And so I was like, well, I'll partner with somebody. Well, there's no one to partner with, so God, give me vision. Like what am I gonna do? And so he started giving me visions, dreams at night. Someone would speak into my life and just say something that made sense and he just, it was a really intimate time where God created this picture of what he wanted to do.

We had no roadmap. We didn't know what we were doing. We made a lot of mistakes. Sure. But you know, now there's a hundred women a week that come to our center and hear about who Jesus is or get English classes or mental health classes and get counseling and six women living in our residential housing, three toddlers and two babies.

And you know, a couple of them have cerebral palsy and are learning like God does have a plan for my life and you know, my life isn't over and I can do anything through Christ who strengthens me. And so, yeah, it's been a really, really cool thing to see God develop, I guess.

Martha: So that wasn't just for a time. I mean, God had you there for a time, but now you're back in the States. How is [00:07:00] that connection?

Salem Hicks: That's kind of a crazy story too, but I've, I lived there for about four years. Three to four years. And last July 2018 I was evacuated out after being caught in a riot. There's a lot of political unrest going on right now in Haiti and basically a civil war with two political parties, kind of having at it, and so I was grocery shopping for a teen coming in and got caught and almost lost my life, honestly. And was rescued by a friend who found me and led me to safety and was evacuated out really quickly afterwards.

I've been back four times since. Four to five times. But I saw as God removed me from that situation and removed me honestly from burnout I was getting to a place where I'm like, I don't even know if I can function as a healthy individual anymore, right? And I could see it, my family could see it.

So I came out really, forced myself to get into counseling for PTSD and all sorts of things that I was dealing with. And that kind of turned into, oh, my staff are killing it out there and this is Haitian run now. And [00:08:00] I never would've left them. I never would've pried my fingers off of the ministry had I not been evacuated out.

So God really used that to place me in a position of where I was best used, which is being their, the mouthpiece, the visionary, saying, Hey, this is what God is doing. Let me invite you into that.

Martha: And that's so important for our listeners to hear. Number one, that now, I mean, God had to create a situation to make you be removed so you could see what he was already doing and the fact that you have Haitian people ministering to Haitian people. I mean, that's a beautiful thing. And it's self-sustaining that way in the relationship.

Jim: What was the biggest thing you learned about God while you were sitting in Haiti, while you're working four years? Man, there's gotta be, I mean, something that you probably never would've learned sitting here in the states.

Salem Hicks: Hmm. That's hard, man.

Jim: Well so pick a couple things. I mean, because you got to see God in action in a way you probably have never seen him in action here.

Salem Hicks: I'm gonna try to keep it not emotional. I think I just like realized how intimate and real a [00:09:00] relationship with him was. There was no distractions. I heard him so clearly. I think that if people knew how intimate and how available he was at all times in some of my darkest moments. You know, Haiti's tough. I saw things I, I still can't unsee, you know, or unexperience. And God really carried me through that and there's nothing he can't carry us through.

I also think I really had a clear picture of what spiritual warfare looks like. And if you aren't being attacked, if you don't have stuff going on in your life, then you're probably not doing it right. That's just the clear, that's just it. I mean, if I went through stories of time and time again how the enemy tried to take something out, but God brought restoration and redemption through that and used it for his glory.

I mean, we'd be here for hours, but I think that we have a very real opposition and people don't recognize that here as much because it's not right in front of us all the time. We go through struggles, we have stuff happen. Instead of saying, Hey, this situation is the enemy trying to get dissension here. We think, [00:10:00] oh, well that person's, you know, they're a such and such, you know? That's not true. We have an enemy who is out to get us, and I think that the intensity of that is not as as big.

Martha: So, Salem Hicks, you are here in Lynchburg now with a studio, Bloom Studio. Explain what it is and how God is using that today.

Salem Hicks: Yeah. So moving back I kind of got to a place where, okay, I really wanna remove the ministry having to pay for my expenses and my travel and things. And so I've been doing it for so long. I started looking, okay, where can I do hair at a salon somewhere? And I just felt not at peace everywhere I turned. And so I found out through a friend that this space existed and I'm like, well, I'll just go check it out.

Same thing we did when we're in Haiti walking into what is now our residence. I'll go check it out and sure enough. You know, I came in and my dad was with me and we looked around and it was like, do you want to do this? And I'm like, I mean, I guess so. It just really fell in our lap and it just [00:11:00]really, it kind of happened.

And so three, four months later, however long later, we're in Bloom Studio and I really just wanted to help create a space that women could come and feel safe. They could feel like it was a refuge. They could feel as if, you know, they were being poured into, not just physically by how we take care of them, but also spiritually and emotionally.

Being able to talk about what's going on in their life. So that's kind of how Bloom Studio came to be.

Martha: Nice. And it's a beautiful space and I've taken some pictures and our listeners can look at those if they follow us on social media. So I wanna encourage our listeners to do that, just to get a feel for what you've really done here.

So let's talk about that for a minute. When you are with a client what do you and your other people that are working in here, what have you kind of given them permission to live out?

Salem Hicks: I mean you know, Casey, the girl that works with me here, she knows our vision and she believes in it too. And she believes in what we're doing with women in general. And our biggest thing is just taking care of people. And whether that looks like, you know, praying with somebody, whether that looks like [00:12:00] listening to how hard their day has been.

There's one specific friend that came in not too long ago. Was immediately in tears. And I'm like, what's going on? And her dad had just been sent to the hospital. And I'm like, well you can head out, you know? And she's like, no, there's nothing I can do. And so in that time where she was in distress, I was able to talk with her about her dad and how much she loved him and, you know, all these different things.

And really for me, it's like, wow. She felt safe enough to still be here. And we were able to pray for each other and I was able to share a little bit about what's going on in my life too, and that vulnerability, that exchange - two people are coming together and resonating and being real and transparent and honest.

That's what Bloom Studio is about. Women can bloom that way. You know, that's what we're designed to do, you know?

Martha: That's beautiful. And we often don't sit long enough other than when we're getting our hair done. Right?

Salem Hicks: Yeah.

Jim: Salem, you've got a business here that you, I mean, based on everything I read, you started this business to help support your ministry.

Salem Hicks: Yeah. Well, one, I think it's a great place because women come to salons and they connect [00:13:00] with other women. You know, it's really hard to sometimes just put out on social media, oh, this is what's going on, but this is a way for them. There is constant traffic coming in here. So raising awareness to what is going on is a huge thing there.

People come in here, they're gonna leave knowing about what New Life campaign is and what's going on in Haiti. And then we also sell products, then the profit goes into our ministry. And so we have products like BELJOY, which is a social enterprise in Haiti. They use it to create jobs for women, which is, you know, orphan prevention, prostitution prevention. That's really what we believe is gonna help turn this thing around.

Jim: You're listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers. Our workplace is our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.

Outro: Thank you for listening to the iWork4Him PowerPod with your host, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. Want more? Hear the full broadcast@iworkforhim.com. Stay connected and receive power packed content when you sign up for our blog@iworkforhim.com. Or follow us on social media at [00:14:00] iWork for.

And finally, if today's message inspired you, please subscribe, rate, and review the show on your favorite podcast platform. Your review helps launch more workplace missionaries across the nation that's at iWork4Him and online, iWork4Him.com.