Wednesday night was one of our last nights of bar ministry, so we went out with the hope of setting up some dates for this weekend. We stopped by a few of our favorite bars to visit our girls, played some pool, and by the end of the night, we had not one, but two dates set up for Thursday.
I spent most of the night talking with my friend Wok. She speaks really good English and is a total sweetheart. She told me more of her story, and it's heartwrenching. Several years ago she was married to a Thai man. He became sick with kidney disease and they couldn't afford his medicines. So she got a job in the city working at the bar, selling her body to other men to save the life of the one she loved.
He died two and a half years ago. She's back working at the same bar. She sends most of the money home to support her parents and her 13 year old son. She told me how much she hates her job.
I was looking forward to the opportunity to talk to her more on our lunch date to see if she'd be interested in the change program. Unfortunately, I never got that chance.
Wok never showed up. When we called her phone, she said she had just woken up and would meet us in an hour. An hour later, no Wok. I called her back and she quickly handed the phone over to her "friend." Presumably the man who bought her last night. He rudely told me it was his birthday, so Wok would be spending the day with him instead. We would have to see her another time.
As we rushed across the city to meet up with Na, we got caught in a full on downpour. Soaking wet but laughing, we arrived at Roger's Bar excited to take Na to the movies.
We never made it to the movie. Na also bailed on us because she had to go see a customer. I guess when it rains, it pours.
The one bright spot of the day was we got to take Sugar, a girl we had just met the previous night, out for lunch and foot massages. She has only been working at the bar for a week. She has two small children and she came to the city looking for work to support them. She spoke very little English, but enough to get her point across that she is very unhappy in her new profession. She told us how the same English guy has bought her every night since she started. Each night he pays her bar fee of 400 baht, roughly $13 (half goes to her boss and she gets to keep the other half) and then the negotiations as far as what he wants to do with her start from there. For the price of an Olive Garden dinner, you can buy a girl for a night in Thailand.
She just kept repeating, "No like, no like." And when we pressed her for why she was doing it then, she said "No boom boom, no money."
With the help of a Google translator app, we tried to tell her that we could help her find another job. She seemed so thankful that we wanted to help her. We made plans to take her to Wongen Cafe the following day to meet with Emmi, the director of Lighthouse in Action.
As much as I'd love to tell you there was a happy ending, Sugar didn't show up yesterday and we were unable to reach her.
The past few days have been really discouraging. I've been struggling to understand and trust God's timing. This month got off to a great start, but as we wrap up our final few days, it's easy to feel like we didn't accomplish anything. None of the girls we developed relationships with seem to be in a position to leave the bars. None of them will be joining the change program. None of them have accepted Christ.
YET.
The amazing Bethsaida, a former World Racer who moved back to work with Love Acts full-time and is serving as our contact this month, shared some encouraging words with us during a late night debrief.
Our role is not to save these women, it was to plant a seed. There will be other teams that will come along to water and harvest that seed in God's timing.
She told us not to take the rejection personally. We have NO idea what these women go through. I want to believe that each of the women that stood us up would have met us if they could have.
God is simply showing us HIS heart. Think about how often God gets rejected by us. No matter how many times we turn away from Him, He loves us the same. Even when we ignore Him, when we stand Him up or put the things of this world ahead of Him, He continues to lovingly pursue our hearts.
So I won't give up on these women. Even though I have to leave them, I'll continue to fight for them in prayer and patiently wait for the day God chooses to save them.
