“It makes me so sad,� a girl on my team said. “I don’t know where to go from here,� added another. “It’s kind of frustrating…� yet another. “I found myself not even wanting to be there,� someone said before tears started rolling down her cheeks and we all gathered around her to pray. Each night after we get home from the bars, we talk about what happened that night, how we are feeling, and we pray for ourselves and the girls we’ve met. This was a particularly rough night. Part of our job is to build enough of a relationship to invite the bar girls to lunch at SHE, the organization we are working with. Every Tuesday and Thursday the girls are picked up at a Starbucks and driven to our place where they eat, attend English classes, and learn more about the choices they have. SHE specializes in jewelry making and restaurant/hotel training and many women who have come in the past have either decided to leave the bars and hand make jewelry, find another job, or go home to their families. We had hopes that some of the women we’d met would come to lunch the following day, but overall the situation looked bleak. The next morning, we woke up in time for the phone calls. One of the Thai women who works with the organization takes the phone numbers, dials, and we all sit nearby anxiously awaiting the response. Most don’t answer their phones. Others answer but can’t make it because they are either hung over from the night before or are still with clients. Then there are those moments when one says yes, she will make it and everyone gets excited. That day, the three girls my group had invited didn’t answer. They’d seemed excited about joining us the night before, but we knew when there was no response that they probably weren’t going to make it. Even though there had been no answer, I decided that I would still go, hoping that one of them would still show since I‘d told her the time and place. So I hopped in the front of a pickup truck with a camper and headed out to Bangla Road hoping and praying that the girls from Guitar Bar would be there. But first we had to make a stop at an apartment that was on the way. Jodi and I looked at each other, tears in our eyes, and say “Um, what?� They left. And now they’re here. We arrived at Starbucks and the girls from Guitar Bar were nowhere to be found, but despite the disappointment we were filled with hope. These girls were ones previous teams had met. The teams didn’t get to see the fruit of their work and we may not get to either. But that doesn’t mean this process doesn’t work. So the following night we headed out to the bars again and just kept working.
I’m not sure how it happened, but one minute I was sitting in the front and the next minute I was in the back of the camper squished between bags and boxes that belonged to two women. They walked out of the apartment and Jane, who works for SHE, nonchalantly said, “Oh, I think they are moving in today.�
