On the bus to Changmai on Sunday, I prayed that the LORD would completely direct the night. We were headed there to do a night of bar ministry in the Red Light District and didn’t know what to expect. He hit me with His wisdom, giving me the words “Watch. Wait. Slow to anger and abiding in love.” I sat in Numbers 14, where Moses intercedes for the sins of Israel, begging the LORD not to destroy them, and prayed over what the LORD would bring us through.
We had dinner with the team, Kayla and Stacey (our female squad leaders), and a girl from Stacey’s race, who is working with girls in the sex industryin Changmai. We were blessed by her honesty about what it’s like to work in the intervention side of human trafficking, her huge heart for these girls. She urged us to pray as we walked around the Red Light District and to drop any assumptions we had about what we’d see.
“This isn’t a ministry that can be completed in one night,” she said. “It’s about building relationships. Ultimately, that will cause change, not one night in the Red Light.”
This night, I knew, would wreck me completely. I was ready for it, anticipated how it would happen, with tears and vehement prayers. But it wasn’t like that at all.
When we showed up in the Red Light, I was shocked at how different it was than how I’d imagined. I’d pictured the Vegas strip, bright with flashing neon signs and full to bursting of slimy-looking white men. It was much more concentrated than that: one main road and a few side streets, surprisingly subdued. The small bars were crowded next to each other, one sitting almost on top of the other, with brightly colored signs and patio furniture set up outside. Many of the couches had several Thai women sitting alone, and they waved to us as we passed. There were no men with us. The realization that they couldn’t afford to care which gender they slept with hit me, but I didn’t feel anything.
We walked down the street near the Thai boxing ring. There were two boxers in the ring, but a French tourist quickly explained to us that the fight was staged. The whole thing seemed surreal. But I didn’t feel anything.
A midget boxer walked by collecting tips, his body covered in tattoos. And I still didn’t feel anything.
We walked down the main street, looking into several more bars. One had a group of middle-aged Irish men sitting outside, each with a Thai “girlfriend” on their lap. I heard one of the men drunkenly ask how much it cost to buy her for the night. The response was 400 baht, or roughly thirteen U.S. dollars. He put his hand up one of the girl’s skirt and she didn’t flinch at all, didn’t even look at him. And I didn’t feel anything
.
Leanna and I went back to the Thai boxing ring and sat down at a bar. Immediately, a girl named Far (pronounced “Fa-ah”) sat down next to us. In her little black lacy dress and high heels, long dark hair and multitude of cleavage, I was almost fooled. It turned out that Far was actually part of the Thai sub-culture called “Lady Boys”, where boys are raised as girls. Although she looked very much a woman and identified herself as such, Far had actually been born a man.
She ordered our Cokes and started talking with us. She’d worked as a boxer in Pattaya before coming to Chaingmai. “That was before I was pretty like you,” she said, touching my arm. “I used be really dark. Dark from sun. Then I used cream and now I pretty like you. Lady boys be pretty too.”
She asked if Lee and I were friends and I smiled, said yes. Then she asked if she and I were friends too. I said yes, of course.
“Oh,” she said. “Good. How much to be friends?”
Leanna and I looked at each other, confused. Then we realized we’d just been propositioned by a lady boy. Laughing, we shook our heads. “No, no,” we said. “Let’s have a coke instead. Maybe we can play a game?”
So we played Connect 4 and drank Cokes and laughed when she called us “Falangs”, the Thai equivalent of “gringos”. After a little while, a real client showed up and Far went to sit with him. And I wasn’t sad or angry. I was perfectly at peace. In fact, the only thing I felt was compassion. To me, Far was just a girl with big, sad eyes who didn’t know she was worth real, abiding love.
In thinking about it later, I realized that I’d expected to be broken for the women in the bars. I’d expected to feel righteous anger at the men who buy them. I’d expected to be sick to my stomach. I’d spent the first few days in Thailand looking at the white men and the Thai women with them and assuming that they were only together for one reason. And then God asked me,
So what if they are?
So what?
Does it change the fact that I loved them? That I died for them? That I deem them worthy?
Does it change your ministry?
Will it change how you love them in my name?
And my answer was absolutely, unequivocally: No, it doesn’t change a thing.
So instead of being angry, my team bought roses. We bought three little kids out of roses they had to sell before they could go home. And we ran up and down the streets handing them out to lady boys and prostitutes and bar tenders. We smiled and laughed and said “You are beautiful! You are so special! You are loved!” We spoke truth into the dark corners of Chaingmai. We fed some street kids. We held hands with a lady boy. We let a bartender rest her hands on our shoulders.
Because whatever their lives look like, it doesn’t change how much Jesus loves them. So no, it won’t change how much we love them either.
