(The amazing Kyla just so happened to have randomly saved one of the blogs that I had lost due to my computer breakdown back in the Philippines. She also hooked me up with some dope music. Here is the recovered blog, praise the Lord!)
The Red Light District of Manila, the heart of the Philippine sex trafficking and prostitution, is my home for the next twenty days. Where I live is called Friendly’s Guesthouse, a hostel run by backpackers for backpackers (and other hip tourists). My dormitory is on the roof of a four-story building. Four stories below are streets littered with signs of sexual prostitution. Four stories below are bars, nightclubs, and black market brothels. Just outside the gate of my temporary home away from home is a transsexual woman soliciting sex. I took a quick walk around the block with another team leader and the squad’s logistic man, Jake. The atmosphere is depressing and perverse. Sex is everywhere. Lust seems to dominate everything. Even the suggestive telephone numbers plastered across crude billboards have apparent shock value since many of the numbers start with 666.
Yet God is here. We, Team Judah, and our partner team for this month, Team Libre, came together last night to worship on the veranda overlooking the cityscape. Here, in one of the sorest spots of a country ranked 4th amongst the nations in sexual slavery, with nearly half a million prostitutes, many of which are children, we sang praises to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Our prayer is to glorify God in all we say and do, regardless of where we are or how we personally feel.
Shortly after our worship session, God revealed Himself to me.
After putting away the guitar and finishing singing, I immersed myself in the Bible. For about an hour I continued to study scriptures uninterrupted, until God decided it was time for me to get up and move. I knew for a fact that God wanted me to move from where I was to a new location, so I did. I picked up my materials and moved to a two-person couch near a television set that had been unused all night. Within minutes, a woman sat down next to me on the couch to turn on a show she wanted to watch. Moments later, she glanced at me reading the Bible and casually said, “I used to do that stuff, too,” before returning her attention to the TV. I thought for a second and asked, “Why did you stop?“
She began to open up to me. With reluctance at first, she embarrassingly explained that she doesn’t do religious things anymore because she has done a lot of bad things in her life. I immediately told her with my sincerest smile, “That’s okay, so have I.” She seemed surprised at my response, and as we talked, she began to open up to me more and more.
Her name is Ruth. She told me that she had overheard us worshiping God, and that it felt good in her heart, but she was with some friends who were making fun of us. She told me, “My head was with you, but my eyes were with my friends.” Many thoughts came to my mind, but I smiled and remained silent and she went back to watching TV. I waited for the Spirit to guide me because I sensed a huge importance in the moment and wanted to weigh my next words with care. I prayed, and then understood the situation with much more clarity.
I asked her, “Do you know why your heart felt good when you listened to us worship?“
“Maybe because I did that stuff when I was young.”
I asked her, “Do you want to know what I think?” Ruth smiled at me and said she did, so I told her what I felt, “I think God is calling you back to Him. He remembers you as a girl and loves you the same. I think God wants to forgive you.” Immediately tears came into her eyes. “I believe that,” she said, “because it has happened many times. Many times I feel this way, but I don’t listen.” My heart broke for her and I realized in that moment that God put me there to help her listen.
