There’s a place where all of your darkest desires can become reality. Alcohol, drugs, gambling, and prostitution are accepted and encouraged. Come on in and forget your troubles. Your senses are stimulated with loud music, flashy lights, and the smell of booze and cigarettes in the air. A playground, but the only children you see are those selling flowers to the men who travel long way to escape their realities.
You see smiles everywhere, afterall, Thailand is the “Land of Smiles.” Women greet you, pleading you to come sit down at their bar and buy a drink, maybe even buy a drink for them. For less than $20 you can pay to leave the bar with a woman or a man. Other prices get negotiated later depending on how you want to spend your time with them.
If you look beyond the bright lights, beyond the loud music, beyond the fake smiles, and beyond the false sense of fulfillment, you see people desperately seeking something. You see women, men, and children all searching for hope and for somebody to love them. You see women who might be smiling at you but inside they are dreading the possibility of you buying them. You see men who travel miles to be invisible. You see children who should’ve been in bed hours ago with tired looks on their faces.
Beyond all this, you see Jesus. You see Jesus laughing with the children. You see Jesus giving strength to the prostitutes. You see Jesus befriending the men, maybe even playing a game of pool. You see Jesus telling these women that they have worth and they are more than what somebody can pay for them. You see Jesus pouring truth, love, and acceptance into the ladyboys.
The Red Light District used to intimidate me. Our first night there it was difficult for me to make eye contact with anybody. But not anymore. Jesus is there. Jesus was there before any organization started working with the people there. Jesus walks those streets during the day and he sits at those bars at night. The Red Light District may be a place of darkness, but the light of Jesus is beginning to flood the darkness out.
