Bars, Roses and Women

I’m on a plane from Bangkok to Nicaragua. Multiple hours of
travel left. Plenty of time to get some words formulated to share some stories
about this last month. But this is one of multiple attempts to share what we
have been doing. I think this might be the most difficult ministry to explain
so far. So I’m just going to tell some stories and hope that you can start to
piece together what life looked like this month.

Distractions and Gathering
The setting is Chiang Mai, Thailand, a city about eight
hours north of Bangkok by bus. It’s a popular tourist destination, full of
foreigners or “farong�, as the Thai would call us. It’s a city of distractions.
Elephant rides, rafting trips, ATV tours, jungle zip lining, Western food,
waterfalls, motorbikes, pad thai and sex. Someone described “Bar Street� where
we focused our ministry as a “gathering of broken people�. Guys looking for
love or satisfaction in alcohol and women. Women looking for money or life in
working in bars and selling their bodies. Children being sent out on the street
to sell roses or bracelets to the tourists who gather here.

Blue Grass Bar
One of my first nights out in ministry I hung out at Blue
Grass Bar, a narrow bar on the corner of an alley. As two of my teammates were
in conversation with women they had previously met, I sat on a stool near the
alley and played Connect Four and Jenga. To my left was one of the girls
working at the bar. In conversation with her from across the table was an
elderly white man. This girl works here in the bar, drawing customers in to buy
a drink or her body for the night. As I sat next to her, I was in an internal
struggle. Knowing that things like this happen all over the world is one thing.
Sitting a few feet from it is an entirely different thing. To be able to reach
out and touch this situation of injustice…what do you do when you can do that?
“What am I literally supposed to do right now?� I prayed. He left. I don’t know
if another man came by for her that night or not. 

Me and Anna at Cherry Bar with one of the girls.

Ont and Roses
There are young girls and boys up and down bar street with handfuls
of roses. They come up to you in the bars offering up the roses. “Ten baht? Ten
baht?� The story we heard was that these rose-selling children are not allowed
to go home until they have sold all of their roses. If they do, they are
sometimes beaten or not allowed to come home. One of the boys was Ont. Highly
energetic, very little English, he usually ended up with hanging around with
some of our team at least a few nights a week. There wasn’t much we could
communicate. But he did like to entertain us with the second grade trick of
turning his eyelids inside out. Or trying to grab our cokes. Or one time almost
pulling me into the moat. Another night he was sick and throwing up out on the
streets. Frustratingly, there’s not much to do for that. No Zofran tablets to
offer the kid. He refused the Sprite Anna bought for him, but finally took the
water. And laid in my lap for a while. Another night we raced each other along
the moat from ThaePae gate to where the team was meeting. The last night I saw
him, I was with Anna at “her� bar-Cherry Bar. He came in when he saw the two of
us sitting there. Sat and watched some of “The Princess and The Frog� while it
was playing at the bar. And then stole my pen and notebook.

Easy Corner and Yui
One more story for this blog. Close to our last week in
Chiang Mai I ended up with Jennifer walking around Bar Street one night. We
decided we were going to find a new bar to hang out at and see who we met. We
ended up at “Easy Corner�, a small bar near the moat. I started a conversation
with On, who was very friendly, but easily more interested in drawing in
customers to the bar. Meanwhile Jennifer had started a conversation with Yui,
who was teaching her phrases in Thai when I started listening in. Her English
prior to work in the bar had come primarily from a Thai-English dictionary, so
what I’m sharing is what was interpreted from broken English in a loud bar
setting.

Sydney and Yui

 Married for six
years, last year started conflict between her and her husband when he became an
alcoholic. Yui made the decision to leave him when it became an issue with her
two year old son, Geo. The impression I got was a loving, adoring, protective
mother leaving her husband to protect her son. The second night we went to
visit Yui at Easy Corner she pulled out her camera and started showing off
pictures and videos of Geo, complete with a video of Geo dancing in front of a
television playing the “ABC� song. Her job in the bar was solely for the money
to support her son. I believe during the week she was there, she only worked at the bar, never going home with
customers. My desire for her was just for her to be able to go back to her
parent’s farm, free to love and raise her son. Two nights before we left Chiang
Mai she quit her job and went to visit Geo. I think she ended up going to
Bangkok for a job. I don’t know if Bangkok holds a life with Geo, her husband
or work in a bar. I can only hope that the conversations we had with her, the
little bit of love we were able to show during out time with her continues to
speak deeply to her heart, past the broken English, loud music and brokenness
of lives around her.

Sitting at Cherry Bar with two of the kids watching Princess and the Frog.