OUR FOUNDING STORY
INSPIRED BY STING AND THE SONG "ROXANNE"
Our origin story is quite unusual for an International Rescue Organization. It begins with the founder's teenage dedication to the rock band the Police. Sting, its frontman particularly grabbed Joshua's attention as a teen, as Sting also starred in one of his favorite science fiction books turned into a movie. Although Sting didn't play the Messiah in the movie, Dune, Joshua knew he'd read the Dune book as a part of his role, and therefore knew what it was like to be Messiah able to see far into the future and chart a course for mankind. This was a perspective JOshua wanted in his life as well as the presence to know evens exactly as they'd prevail.
Fifteen years later, the imagined connection with Sting deepened when Joshua had a series of life threatening Manic and Depressive episodes and was eventually diagnosed as Bipolar 1, the most dangerous and challenging to resolve. One psychiatrist tried to paint a picture for Joshua that being bipolar can be a good thing when handled creatively, and mentioned Sting as a glowing example. Joshua was shocked to hear this about one of his idols. He'd never heart Sting had any mental challenges.
Even later, Joshua read Sting's memoir when he was pursuing a masters in Creative Non-Fiction and writing his own memoir, Once Upon a Mania. In it, he learned about Sting's particularly harrowing months when he left his marriage to a lot of bad press and ran off to Jamaica where he wrote, King of Pain, his bipolar tome, and which gave him his nickname. the King of Pain.
But the creation of Roxanne Rescue isn't as much about Sting and Joshua's bipolar similarities, but a result. of the inspiration from the most famous Police Song, Roxanne. There are links to the song on youtube as well as to the lyrics below.
The song is about a man who falls in love with a prostitute on a soul level, "I loved her since I knew her, I wouldn't talk down to ya." And he then sets a plan inside his heart to rescue her, "Roxanne, You don't have to put on the red light. Those Days are over, you don't have to sell your body to the night."
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Some of the finer points of Roxanne Rescue come straight out of the song, especially not talking down to a sex worker. We're trying to help them through their challenging and sometimes dangerous lives. It is truly heartbreaking, but even with a route out in sight, some women can't move into a new life. Sometimes they owe their studios too much money. Others have substance abuse issues that block all forward process.
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Joshua, himself has struggled terribly with mental health issues, even while being 24 years free of drugs and alcohol. He knows that deep, inner change is sometimes very slow and other times breathtakingly fast. The attitude we bring to this work is on the deepest spiritual level, of not talking down to someone who is struggling. It requires us to truly love the people we are trying to help, as equals.
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It's not a usual kind of care we provide, nor is it a usual kind of non-profit. In fact from the very beginning, we have hired Roxanne's (Live-Cam Models) for a fundraising jobs despite a steeper learning curve from hiring staff from traditional international employee sites such as Upwork. We find that our employees who used to be in the sex work business are uniquely able to help another worker start the journey. To many normal organizations just get someone a job as their end goal. However, we know there is a deep inner shift that most sex workers must pass through in order to pursue the rest of the lives empowered instead of wounded.