I see God in a lot of different places. I see him in the
power of a thunderstorm, or the majesty of the sea. I see him in the beauty of
the mountains, and in the joy coming from people. He is all around. Sometimes
its easy to overlook.
But I don’t think I’ll ever forget the time he showed up in
the Red Light District. Of course he’s always there, just like he’s always with
me, or he’s always with a tiny church in Africa. But its not every day that I
see him show up and show off in one of the darkest places that I have ever
seen.
The other night some of the girls from the three teams that
are here at SHE went out to Bangla Road. We go several times a week to talk
with the girls there and build relationships with them. Some of them are there
by choice and some aren’t. Our mission is to just get to know them and show
them that they are loved.
On Monday, two of my teammates and I were at a bar playing
jenga with a couple of the girls there. All of the bars have little games like
jenga or connect four or this really hard nail game that is just impossible to
describe to you. What the bars use as a way to keep customers there turns out
to be a pretty great ministry tool as well. In the middle of our jenga game,
all of the lights went out. Not just at the bar we were at, not just on our
street, but all of the lights in the entire Red Light district went out. We
were sitting in complete darkness.
I know without a shadow of a doubt that God and Satan are
fighting for that place. They are fighting for control. Good thing we already
know who wins. Earlier that day, one of the girls on our squad prayed that God
would do something to stop people from coming that night. That he would do
something to keep people from going to the bars and buying women. God hears the
prayers of his people. He shows up in the darkest of places. Darkness flees
from light. Its rather amusing that God used darkening the streets as a way to
overpower evil darkness. That he showed up in the most unpredictable of ways.
