She used to be the owner of a strip club in Texas, catering to people who delight in seeing and doing things that are far from godly.

But Teresa Fears, the owner of Teresa's club in Longview, Texas, had an epiphany when she became friends with the "church ladies" of the Mobberly Baptist Church, according to the Baptist Press.

Fears first met Laney Wootten, one of the church ladies, who befriended her on Facebook. Wooten found out that although Fears owned an establishment that a true Christian wouldn't want to be associated with, she was also a woman with a passion for helping special needs children, regularly volunteering her services at a children's care centre for sickly children and feeding homeless people from her club.

Hesitant at first, Fears eventually became friends with Wootten and the other church ladies.

During a time when Fears was feeling depressed and suffering from chronic pains, the church ladies visited her at her home, bringing with them beans, cornbread, flowers and a book.

That marked their "first truly meaningful spiritual conversation."

"Teresa said later the tangible things we brought to meet her physical needs spoke to her and the fact that we went to the trouble to track her down because we were concerned," Wootten told the Baptist Press.

Mobberly associate pastor Gregg Zackary and his wife also reached out to Fears, even going to her adult club twice to offer help when they learned that Fears was heartbroken.

After meeting with the pastors of Mobberly church and other ministry leaders last August, Fears surrendered herself to Jesus.

After that meeting, she posted on Facebook that she was closing the adult club.

"Her perspective changed totally, and she saw it as evil, not honouring to the Lord," Zackary said. "She was not pressured. It was the Holy Spirit who convicted her."

Fears was baptised on Dec. 4.

An even more dramatic transformation attributed to the Holy Spirit occurred at a county jail in North Carolina last year when convicted murderers, rapists and other criminals came out of the water as newly baptised Christians, casting off their sinful past and beginning new lives as followers of Christ.

Thirty men and nine women at the Durham County jail in North Carolina were baptised one Sunday, some of them crying uncontrollably after feeling the power of the Holy Spirit inside them, according to CBN News.