After about 80+ hours of travel, our team arrived in Phuket, Thailand, at the beginning of May, ready and excited to be working with SHE Ministries for the month. SHE stands for Self Help and Empowerment and works to help women who are trapped in the commercial sex trade. As a team, we supported this ministry by going into the bars along Bangla Road, one of the most popular red light districts in Thailand, and built relationships with the women that work there.
This is the beginning of Bangla Road. Despite the flashing lights that flood this street, it is a place of complete darkness. Open air bars line the street, and so on either side women can be seen dancing on poles and up on the bars, lady boys are advertising for the next sex show, and prostitutes are standing around waiting for the next man to ask her price.
Our nights out in the bars would often begin around 10 p.m. when the nightlife is just getting started. Most nights we would start by walking down to the end of Bangla Road where it meets Patong Beach, and then make our way back up the street, stopping at the different bars we felt led to. We could only stay at any given bar for about 30 minutes or so to avoid taking up too much of a woman’s time and risk getting her in trouble.
By the second week of ministry, many of us had already begun building relationships with the women we would visit each night we went back. However, whether we were able to build a friendship with a woman, or only had the opportunity to talk with her once, our time spent on Bangla was meant to show these women their true worth. It was an opportunity to love them by simply taking the time to care about their lives and give them a break from the men who are only there for one reason.
One woman in particular, Mae, was someone I was able to build a lasting friendship with. She was in her mid-forties and had come down from the north to work in the bars in order to provide for her family. I met her on our very first night out in the bars. Despite going back to her bar each night after that, it wasn’t until about a week later that I finally saw her again. Although this time, she wasn’t working at the bar, she was on the arm of an Australian man who had purchased her for the week. She was so excited to see us, however since she was on a “date” she couldn’t talk for long, so I asked her to meet us for coffee sometime. She loved the idea, but insisted that we meet the next morning so that this man, John, could join as well. I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of having him there, but I wanted the date to happen, so I agreed.
Sitting at the coffee shop the next morning, I was starting to have my doubts that they would even show up. I couldn’t figure out why a successful business man in his late 40’s would agree to spend his second to last day in Thailand having lunch with three girls in their early twenties. I knew Mae wanted to see us, but I feared that he would talk her out of going. Despite my doubts though, thankfully they showed up. Our coffee date ended up turning into a wonderful lunch and it gave me the time to get to know Mae better and to hear her heart. I had the opportunity to sit next to Mae and talk to her for the majority of the time, while my two teammates talked to John. Despite the language barrier, we talked about her family back home in the north, and how it made her heart sad that she had to work in the bars and be purchased by men. In that moment, it all become so much more real for me. While I couldn’t rescue her from this life, in that moment all I could do was remind her of her worth and her good heart. She told me I was her good friend and as we walked outside to find a restroom we walked hand in hand. It’s moments like these on the race I thank God for instant friendships and the ability to love people so much better than I have in the past.
While I will likely never know if we had any impact in John’s life, having him there made me more aware and sympathetic towards the men on Bangla. He ended up being a very interesting person and was generous enough to pay for our entire lunch. The whole experience opened my eyes to the loneliness that many of the men who spend their time in the red light district are experiencing and what they resort to in order to fill that void in their hearts.
After a month spent on Bangla Road, it never became any less heartbreaking to see these women in a place where night after night they are used for their bodies; a place where their worth is placed in their outer beauty. However, despite the darkness here, it was evident that God is present and working in this place.
The evening before we left Phuket, I had the opportunity to walk down Bangla Road one last time. In those last few minutes on Bangla, I looked up and saw a beautiful rainbow brightly shining over the road. Rainbows serve as a beautiful reminder of God’s promises to us, and it served as God’s reminder to me that although our time on Bangla Road had come to an end, God would still be working in bringing light to this dark place.
Check out this video below my sweet teammate Sarah Kathryn made that will give you a glimpse into our month!
