Bourbon Street without the French influence and American refinement. A crude Gatlinburg of sorts. This is my ministry location for the month and it is awesome. As you walk through the Patong Beach bar strip you are first overcome by the diversity. There are families, tourists, locals, burnt-out beach bums, travelers, wanderers, wackos, and everything in between. The variety is endless and everyone is in a focused pursuit of something. Whether it is relaxation, freedom, sex or drugs, everyone wants something and they are eager and able to find it here. This striving is visible. Everyone is dressed in the way they feel will most help them reach their pursuit. Families with Polo wearing, camera toting parents and eager toddlers seeking a relaxing vacation wander the streets snapping photos and eating exciting foods. Backpackers with their long hair, European style, and laid-back attitudes walk around (beer in hand) taking in the sights, eager at the opportunity to experience another culture. The most common sight in the area is the pair of middle aged men. They wander with their “youthful clothing” (often an ill-fitting tank top and Crocs sandals), cheeky grin, and an affinity for the Thai bar girls who are constantly bombarding them with offers to see shows and experience everything else. This last group is the most difficult to understand and the most painful to see. Their striving is the most visible and the satisfactions they seek are the most physical. One of the biggest challenges of the month has been to set aside the preconception that all men fitting this description are here in pursuit of prostitutes because sadly, many are.
We sit down at a bar. A group of Americans ordering non-alcoholic beverages, uncommon in this place. Red Bull is a great choice, it makes our motives a little more unclear, which is exactly what we want. If we say we are here to encourage the prostitutes to seek work outside of the bars, the managers will not let us return. We have to be careful. The conversation starts simply. Have you lived in Phuket your whole life? Often the answer is no, families and friends left behind for the promise of higher wages and a better life. This promise is empty and the girls who arrive here quickly find themselves trapped in a nightly cycle of intoxication, sex, and money. Our conversation continues over a game of Connect Four. The girls are surprisingly good at this game, I guess they should be, they play it often. Do you like your work? Many are incredibly honest in their neutral assessment of their work. “Its okay.” They can’t say what they really feel, what they really want. We continue the conversation. We laugh often with the girls, they have a sense of humor and laugh genuinely with us. We have found that if we bring joy to this dark place, it is contagious. Others notice the group of Americans sitting at the bar, playing games and drinking non-alcoholic beverages, having a great time.
For our first week here, my group of four has had the strategy of building relationships with the bar managers. We have about four bars we are working on and have had positive experiences with both the prostitutes and managers at these bars. If the manager is happy, everyone is happy, if they aren’t, we won’t be given the time of day. The work we are doing is very sensitive to many variables, length of stay, depth of conversation, forwardness about our motives. We find ourselves in a delicate balancing act that I find quite energizing. As we move into week two, I am eager to take some of our surface level relationships in these four bars to the next level. There are several girls we are praying about introducing to our ministry’s English class. Once in the English class, away from the bars and managers in their time off, the girls are presented with other opportunities: Hospitality Management Training, work at the ministry, etc. The key to freedom is getting them to the English class and we are excited to propose the idea of attending the class to several of our new friends next week.
This month is truly unique, and I love it.
Thanks for reading!
-Jeff
