As a child, you learn a lot from your parents. Especially if you had parents like mine, I owe my ability to read, write, go to school and college to them. They taught me a lot of good things.
And as life goes on, you eventually learn you teach your parents a lot too. Whether it’s a difference in personality-maybe you bring them a new perspective. Maybe you even teach them a new hobby or skill if you’re lucky.
But me, I trained my (conservative, Christian) parents to go to strip clubs; and I might even place this newfound opportunity under the positive list of categories above.
…
It was Parent Vision Trip (PVT) on the World Race, where parents have the opportunity to visit their kids for one week and do ministry alongside their kids. Amazingly, my parents decided to drop a ton of money and consider PVT to be a “good idea.” So in the beginning of March, they met me in the wild, chaotic city of Manila, Philippines.
And after I invited them, I found out our designated ministry for the month was Anti-Sex Trafficking with a ministry called Wipe Every Tear. My response was something along these lines:
“Aaaaghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
As fear and horror clutched my esophagus, I tried to take a breath. I knew what this ministry entailed as I’ve done it many times before. It meant watching girls in almost no clothing dancing on tables. It meant talking and ministering to some of the sleaziest men I’ve ever known in existence. It meant sitting in a ministry I loved and was passionate about, but sitting awkwardly in my vulnerability with my parents.
Picture going into bars, lights flashing and smoke all around. The girls are wearing strings for underwear and barely a bra-sometimes only stickers. You go up to the bar and look at the line of empty-hearted girls, pretending to be strong while they dance and attempt to buy men’s attention. You go to the pimp, take a deep breath, and buy a girl with less money than it would be to buy a soda. With that money you get time to talk to them, and in the midst of it you try to convince them to leave and come with you- to a safe place, a place for them to have a hope and a future. It’s a great thing, until you realize you’ll have to debate with your middle-aged, father and mother on what naked girl the Holy Spirit is telling you to buy; Not to mention realizing these girls are most often bought by men that look just like your father, and know He will get their undivided, desperate attention.
This picture happened to be on my “never, ever, ever” list.
And words cannot express how awkward it was for me when I walked into my first “high-class” strip club in the city of Angeles with my parents. The girls, depressed, yet plastering a fake smile on their face as they grinded on the filthy tables. I sat next to my dad and took an uneasy breath as I watched their shocked faces, trying to take the situation in.
And then some girls came over.
My mom was flawless in instantly talking to a girl about opportunities for school and freedom- all paid for by our ministry at Wipe Every Tear. And my dad bought more time with the girls to give us more time to talk- and an extra soda for us all, to help them relax.
Both my parents formed relationships with the girls as easily as I had in the past months. They cared about the girls and were passionate to continue to save more and more girls. Soon, as often as Jesus’ love continuously washes over us, it didn’t seem so weird to sit with my parents in a strip club, and I realized I had underestimated them.
…
Today I randomly got sick and was too sick to go out to the strip clubs with my parents on the last night of ministry.
My parents went without me and brought 4 girls to freedom. Praise the Lord.
If you would like to know more about Wipe Every Tear, please visit them at wipeeverytear.org
