“Can I buy you?” I cringed as those words exited my mouth. The girls reacted with a mixture of shock and amusement at my question. Mine (pronounced Meen) did not respond. I pursued again. “Can I? Can I buy you out for the night? I want to take you to the walking street market. Would you like to go?”
We were encouraged to pray for the Lord to appoint a relationship with one person to minister to while we were working with Love Acts last month. Emmi, the founder of Lighthouse ministries told us, “One is important, because one can change the world if they have Christ.” Emmi is a beautiful, spitfire of a woman who lives her every moment loving in the name of Christ. The ministry she established has many branches; X-life, Wongen, and Love Acts, but they are all relationship driven and rooted in love. My team served with Love Acts last month.
What if you had to share your faith without ever mentioning the name of Jesus? This was my challenge last month as we entered ministry into the Red Light of Chiang Mai, and after three months of hearing hellfire and brimstone being preached in a legalism bound Africa, I was more than ready for that challenge. Our only agenda was to love. We were to drop all pre-conceived ideas as to what ministry would look like. The Holy Spirit was to be our guide for every interaction, even down to where we should go to minister.
On the first night of ministry we left our house praying that the Spirit would lead us. My partner, Lindsay, and I were talking about how we felt led to this one bar called “The Shamrock.” It was a ladyboy bar with an Irish theme, and a sign outside written in French. It seemed well suited to the both of us due to the French-Irish connections, but I stated that though “The Shamrock” seemed to be perfect, I was feeling led to “The Full Moon” bar. We were completely relying upon the Spirit to tell us where to go. As our conversation continued, she spoke about her apprehension in beginning a conversation with a stranger. I told her that I had the same discomfort, but it used to be my job at Colonial Williamsburg to start conversations with strangers, and it was made easier by being in character. I told her that I always used a hook to draw people in. I would usually have some sort of game, a song, or an activity that would raise their curiosity and bring them to me.
We arrived at the Red Light sooner than we expected. It was only a fifteen minute walk from our home which was located on what was known as the “sin street” of Chiang Mai. As we walked into the darkness of the Red Light, I could only imagine the spiritual battle that was being waged around us.
We walked toward “The Shamrock” and found that “The Full Moon” was directly opposite from it. The TV of “The Full Moon” was playing an Irish cartoon, and as I turned to look for a table, I found the one just before me had a colonial game on it called Shut the Box that I used as one of my hooks as an interpreter at Colonial Williamsburg. This HAD to be our place! All we needed to do was pray for divine appointment in establishing a relationship.
As we sat playing Shut the Box, a beautiful woman named Goi (pronounced Goy) plopped down in front of us. She brought over Jenga and just started playing with us. She told us that we were nice girls, and that most women that came through the Red Light stuck their noses up in the air and refused to talk to the prostitutes. She stopped playing after the first round and began to spill her heart out to us about her baby, his father who left her, wanting to commit suicide, and an attempt at abortion. We were told that it may be difficult for the women to open up, and here we were in the first 30 minutes of ministry with a woman laying her heart out on the table before us. There was a moment in speaking about her son that she visibly withdrew. She excused herself to the bathroom but I knew she had no intention of returning that night.
In the absence of Goi, we just sat there and prayed, but in just moments another young woman from the bar who had been circling around us abruptly sat down with the game of Connect Four. She forcibly began throwing the game pieces in, almost like she was angry, looking around as if she was disinterested in talking to us. A few minutes later she opened her heart up about being in love with this man, finding him with another woman, and when she confronted him, he threw her up against a wall. We had JUST MET these women! Why did they feel so free to share such intimate details with us? My opinion is because they knew they would be received in love, they could sense something was different about us. We didn’t have to say a word about Jesus, all we had to do was listen in love.
Mine especially became close to my heart. We returned to the bar four nights a week and I had an immediate connection to her. I think it was partially because she could only remember my name, but soon she was calling and asking us when we could hang out. She would even ask for us to just come by the bar and sit with her while she opened. We were told that we would have to constantly pursue getting dates with these women, and that they were usually unreliable to show up, but not Mine. Mine seemed like she couldn’t wait until she saw us again. We took her to lunch, to the salon, out shopping, and she even called us once to see if we could go with her to get contact lenses.
We played countless games of pool, and drank so many cokes, but the Spirit was moving in that bar. The whole month we were there it was rare to see a man come in to buy the women.
There was a moment where we were riding on the back of her motorbike and I thought, “This is it! This is what it’s all about!” If most people viewed what was happening they would have seen two girls riding on the back of a bike with a prostitute. But THAT is EXACTLY what Christ intended! Mine is the type of person He is most glorified in. She was the type of person He would have hung out with. He ministered to thieves, murderers, prostitutes, beggars, liars, and others who were considered to be lowly. And to me, she wasn’t a prostitute. She was a woman who was in a lot of pain. She was afraid of being alone. She was a woman I loved so incredibly much.
On our last date out with Mine, I asked her if she wanted to work at the bar and she shook her head. She said “I want someone to take care of me.” Most of the women who are in bars in the red light “choose” to be there because the need to provide for their families falls on the girls. Goi even said to us that if she didn’t have a son to take care of, she wouldn’t be working in the bars. Most of the women working in Chiang Mai bars come from Esan, the hill tribes, Burma, and smaller villages. They feel this is their only option of making money. Some of the women are tricked, coerced, or trafficked, but most of those women are held behind the blacked-out windows of Karaoke bars, bars we could not get into. The women in bars work every night, seven days a week. If men want to spend time with them they have to buy them by paying their bar fee. Mine never could go out with us because the bar she worked in was owned by her cousin, and the responsibility of opening and closing fell on her. She mentioned no less than eight times how she really wished she could go to the market with us.
The relationships established last month were amazing and we saw the Lord’s hand in SO much that we did. The second night we went to “The Full Moon” we met Lake, the ladyboy who was tending the bar. I can only explain it as the Spirit of God, but Lake mysteriously quit the bar the day after we met him. He’d mentioned to us wanting to go back to school, and I encouraged him in that, but I certainly cannot take credit for him quitting. Only God knows why he left, but there’s victory in his leaving!
My teammate, Lindsay, had a birthday last month. The girls wanted us to go out dancing with them, so we braved late night hours to spend time with them. At the end of the night, we were about to go home, and Mine had told the DJ that it was Lindsay’s birthday. She waltzed out with a birthday cake and a huge smile on her face as the DJ played Happy Birthday. Goi even went shopping for a gift for Lindsay. By the end of the month, these women were looking forward to every time we came in, wrapping their arms around us, and asking when we would be returning to Chiang Mai. They were as invested in us as much as we were in them.
So, now I am gone. What does that mean for Mine and Goi? Only God knows, but that’s the step of faith I had to take; to trust that my Papa knows exactly what is next for them, and that He will love and care for them when I can’t be there to do so. Emmi describes it as a big jig-saw puzzle. We were only there for a month, so we are only one piece of the puzzle. She is there for good, so the ministry will continue. Light will continue to shine into the Red Light District of Chiang Mai. In Abba’s ever caring arms, I place my trust that Mine will be loved and cared for. I trust that the Spirit will continue to speak to her heart, and that people will continue to rise up as willing instruments to love her in the name of Christ.
