To be honest, this month I have faced discouragement…a lot. 
Imagine seeing your friend, who you have prayed over, visited, and grown to love so much, get sold right in front of you to a person who had the intentions of only using and abusing her. Hard to relate? I would have been right there with you until God walked me into these bars of Thailand.
The hardest thing I’ve faced is to see the reality of human trafficking be thrown right in my face, but when the girl becomes a face you’ve grown to love and care for and not just a statistic, it just becomes personal.
I used to think all these women were the “victims”, all the men were the “bad guys”, and we were there to come to the rescue. Naive thinking? Yea, probably. But the right way of thinking usually comes by experience for the most of us.
I have never felt such a godly jealousy over someone’s life till being here. Angry at Satan, the real enemy, deceiver, bad guy…however you want to call it; Pleading God to call His creation back to Himself and save them from this horrible life. I just want it all better again.
One of the girls I have invested a lot of time in to came today to visit SHE ministry. We can communicate with most of the Thai women in the bars, but this particular woman speaks very little English. Some of the workers at SHE were there to communicate deeper and I learned a lot about her story that I never knew. Let me show you a glimpse of my precious friend’s story…
I’ll call her Grace just for her privacy. Grace is 28. She is from the northern parts of Thailand where it is quite rural and people are really poor. She is a 2-day bus ride away from her baby boy who is 5 years old. He’s being watched by her parents who are both 73. They have a business, but still don’t make enough money to live on and they are in severe 
debt. Grace’s husband left her a year ago; she doesn’t know where he went or why. In her mind, the only way she can make money is to work in the bars selling drinks and selling herself. Mainly because of her lack of education and that she can’t communicate in English. The truth is, there is a lot of money in the prostitution business. Grace was telling us that if she went with a man for 2 hours, she would get 1,500 baht (comparative to roughly $45); the night 2,500 baht ( roughly $75), and on top of that she makes money on the amount of drinks she can sell to customers. In this world, that’s big money. She told us her main motive for being here is to find a foreign husband. It is funny how so many women think that marriage will solve their problems. But in this culture, its not really even for love, but rather survival. They need money, and if they can marry a foreign man, then he will be the sole provider for their family…however that may look like. I like to think of Grace as completely an innocent victim in this whole mess down here, but her motives are mixed right in the midst of it. These men come to Thailand broken and lonely looking for love. What gives them the idea that if they buy love for the night that it would be at all legit or satisfying? They are here for survival of their heart. We talked to one man telling how a lot of these women are just out for money and are quite manipulative. I believe it. I see it in their faces. Grace has only been at the bars for a little over a month. Over the past few weeks that I have been visiting her, I have seen this innocence of hers slowly fade. The world is tainting her.
I read this verse recently … “I will heal their waywardness and love them freely…I will be like the dew to her; she will blossom like a lily.” Hosea 14:4-5
purity and restored innocence”. I think that is quite appropriate.
God’s love is unrelenting. He loves us “freely” and never stops. That is what we are to do to the men and women of Bangla Road. “Grace” was her made-up name, but it fits the whole situation. God is teaching me to receive His grace and walk covered in that received grace. When we receive and believe the identity that God gives us, we learn to pursue and love others with a grace that covers all rejection, hurt, and pain.
In that, I find God’s loving encouragement to help me press on.
Currently, Grace may begin coming to SHE for English lessons. But her heart is still to stay in the bars to find a foreign husband for herself. I will keep loving and praying for her because with God, there is always hope.
