This month we’re in Thailand. For reasons that will become clear as you continue reading, my team has been split up this month, the men doing ministry in a different location than the women. My women and I are in Phuket. The red-light district is called Patong and we are spending this month ministering to bar girls there.
Bar girls are women of all ages employed by the bars to entertain the customers. Sometimes that means flirting, playing games, promoting the more expensive drinks. Sometimes it is more.
Essentially, each woman there is for sale and there are hundreds of them. These women are not paid a regular salary. They may get commission on drinks and they can accept tips. But their main income is from “customers,” the casual name given to the men that pay them for sex. They can be bought for an hour for 200 Baht, about $7, or for days or even weeks at a time.
For obvious reasons, this ministry is women reaching out to women. Every other night we go out to the bars from 9 to around midnight. Usually the bars are just opening and not flooded with customers, so the women can sit and talk with us. On the nights that we are not going out to the bars we stay back and intercede for other teams who are out ministering.
We are partnered with SHE (Self-Help and Empowerment) Ministries (check them out here: http://shethailand.org). They offer English classes, training in hotel and service industries and jewelry making in a Christ centered environment. They are also in the process of expanding their ministry to include education about farming, as many of the women in the bars are from rural farming communities and return to that when they get out of the bars. (What that means for us is manual labor on their land: creating a fish pond, clearing the field of weeds and rocks…)
We spend much of our time in prayer and worship, strengthening ourselves through God’s spirit, preparing ourselves to walk into the battlefield. During daylight hours we prayer walk through the streets where the bars are located. The darkness is blatant, many of the bars have names like The Devil’s Playground and Demon’s Peace. While often the lies of the enemy are subtle whispers, here he is at liberty to scream and parade around boldly.
God has spent much time preparing us for this particular ministry and we have come out strong, knowing the battle is already won, but feel free to send extra prayers our way this month.
