This month our contact Emmi told up to go into the bars in the red light district in Chang Mai Thailand. We were told to pray and go where God led and go back to the same bar each night. On the first night we prayed and walked around in the bars. We sat in two different ones and did not have any real conversations with any of the staff or patrons on the bars. We were discouraged and wondered what we were doing wrong. It was a hard environment to be in. It was hard to witness women throwing themselves on older white men. It was hard to witness children selling trinkets to tourists and begging for money. It was hard to witness men so confused about their own sexuality that they would prefer to dress and act like women and sell their bodies. It is a heavy spiritual environment, heavy with confusion made worse by the loud music and flashing lights
On our second night in the bars we prayed and walked around and felt like God was leading us to a bar called “Same same but different”. We didn’t know if this is where we would end up or if it was just for that night. We sat at the bar to make it easier to start conversations and ordered a sprite each. We tried talking to the ladies working and came to realize that the only one who spoke English well enough to carry on a conversation with us was Mai.
Over the course of our time in the bars we had many conversations with Mai over many bottles of sprite. We came to find out that she is a divorced mother of two boys and only started working at the bar to support herself after the divorce four years ago. Her sons live with their father because she has to work every day from 1pm to 2am and only can afford a one bedroom apartment. Her sister owns the bar. We talked about her hopes and dreams for the future. How she would like to open a restaurant in her house and have her boys live with her. She seemed to be confused when we would come back just to visit her or when we brought her lunch. She seemed to wonder about why we were there but she never asked. She was open to answer any questions we asked and seemed to like to visit with us. It didn’t matter to us what her role at the bar was. Even though she told us she is 34 years old we saw a lost little girl searching for a better life. It was hard to leave Mai knowing that we didn’t have any easy answers to get her out of this lifestyle. All we had to offer was a hope for the future. We tried to provoke in her a desire for something more, a desire for a better life.
God sees our potential even when we don’t see it for ourselves; he wants us to have a life of peace and freedom. If we choose to follow him there are no easy answers but he offers us freedom and hope and a way out of whatever darkness we are in. Please pray for Mai that she will see a way out of this lifestyle and God would continue to put Christians in her path to show her love.
