There Was Something Different About December
Like every other December I got excited for my birthday and Christmas. Like every other December I sang Christmas carols, and bundled up with a hat and mittens before I left the house. But this December was different.
During the holidays we always talk about what we are thankful for, but this holiday season I am thankful in a way I have never been before. Yes this December my thankfulness turned into a stirring, a fight, a fire… and it all started with a cave.
The Cave
For ministry this month us women split from all the guys on our squad. All eighteen of us worked together as one team. In the mornings we taught english to twenty-five plus woman who have left sex trafficking, or were at risk of being trafficked. Learning English opens many doors for employment opportunities in Asia.
In the afternoons we would head out with two of our female ministry hosts to ‘Cabin Restaurants’ and ‘Dance Bars’. A ‘Cabin Restaurant’ in Nepal is a place where men will go and buy the ‘services’ of their waitress. The more expensive the dish the greater the ‘service’.
Our job was to play the ‘dumb foreigners’ and go in with our ‘tour guides’ (our ministry hosts) and go talk with the women.
It was on our first day of ministry when we found ‘The Cave’. We saw three girls sitting girls sitting outside the dark entrance to the basement portion of a building. Eight of us headed down the stairs, and into a stone hallway. Due to the power outages here in Nepal, this hallway was very dark, long and narrow – a cave. As the darkness closed in around our team in more ways than one, I heard God say: “Now. Now its time to fight”. In what way I would soon learn.
The hallway lead us to another room with what looked like a row of ‘horse stalls’. The room had about the same hygiene level as horse stalls I might add. Within each ‘stall’ was a table with cushions around it. Yes, you can guess why the walls were so high.
Our group got ushered into the largest ‘stall’ in the back. As we squished around the floor height table, my back was pressed against the stained wall. My squamate quietly mouthed to me from across the table that a 3-inch cockroach was headed towards my head. With no where to move I decided to pretended the cockroach was my friend.
Not a moment later 4 Nepali girls, cabin restaurant workers, came to sit down with us. These girls could not have been more than 16-19 years in age, but claimed to be 23-25. What blew my mind was that these girls were dressed like any of my other friends, all had soft, genuine facial expressions, and giggled at little things. Behind the giggles a hidden sadness, an added shyness resided. They told our ministry host they were too shy to ask questions, but wanted us to ask them questions.
The Heart Clenching Answers
We asked small questions; their names, where they were from. All of the girls were from smaller villages outside the main city of Kathmandu Nepal. This is quite common, Nepali people will often leave small agricultural villages when their family encounters financial hardship. Without an education, many woman who try and find in the city enter the sex trafficking industry. There are also personnel who will travel into these small villages offering work for young woman as house maids in the big city. They will pay the family a sum of money for their daughter. The awful reality is that the daughter is then in debt, and must work until this sum is paid off. That is what trap these women in cabin restaurants, dance bars, brothels, etc.
The Shocking Answers
My squad-mate asked if the women had any dreams. Most said; “no”. One girl said she wanted to open a cabin restaurant herself, this broke my heart.
My squad-mate on a team at another cabin restaurant nearby asked the same question. She received the most shocking answer:
“No, it is pointless to dream”, the woman said.
“My only dream is that I could have been in a different womb so I did not have to live this life”.
Yes, There Was Something Different About December
This December I still celebrated my birthday and Christmas. This December I still put on a hat and mittens.
But this December set met on fire. A fire seeking justice for the injustice and unfair, unclean lives these women are forced into. That men can use them as objects as a fill for their own emptiness. A fire for these women that are so strong in their forced submissiveness, that they can still smile and have a conversation. A fire for those who can’t fight back. A fire to bring peace in a new life and hope for these women. I praise God He used us to start making this a reality for the women we talked to.
A Light in the Cave
God sent a light into ‘The Cave’ that day. For at least one hour we could block out men from buying services by our simple conversation over coffee. The beauty about light is its power, especially in darkness.
“Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night” – Exodus 14:19-20
We may have left the cabin restaurant, but not these ladies. Our ministry host collected their phone numbers and will provide them with a safe exit from sex trafficking if they are willing. They will provide them with skills to begin a new trade; English, sewing, computer skills etc. I pray that these ladies can enter the promised land, that they will hear God calling them home.
“Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left” – Exodus 14:21-22
If you want an inside perspective of the sex-trafficking industry in Nepal and India read ‘Sold’ by Patricia McCormick. Many of my squad mates, including myself, have read it. Heads up, its a heavy read but everything that happened to the main character is the unfortunate reality of many women we met. If your ready to have your eyes opened, I highly suggest it.
