During the day, San Jose is a bustling center of activity, especially downtown. People crowd the streets, walking from store to store. Street vendors call out their prices to passerbyers, lowering them and offering crazy discounts as they see their potential costumers walk past their merchandise. Restaurant employees hand out flyers, some even dressed in colorful costumes. Parents and their kids enjoy the sunshine and family atmosphere. In the plaza, the elderly sit on the benches flipping through newspapers while the younger generations listen to music on their iPods. Teens, just getting out of school, walk around in packs, laughing and licking their ice cream cones. Best of all are the tourists, easy to pick out by their snapping cameras and pointing fingers at the downtown sites.
At night, the streets are vacated and a different kind of tourist appears. Instead of cameras they have fancy cars. Out of one of their tinted windows, they dangle their fingers, motioning to the girls standing at the corner. Girls in skimpy clothing and heavy makeup eye the car and watch as one girl casually walks up to the car and talks to the person inside. After a few moments, the door opens, she gets in, and the car speeds off into the night.
In Costa Rica, prostitution is legal.
Because of that, Costa Rica is a popular sex tourism destination. Most of the bigger cities in Costa Rica are like San Jose: transformed in the night. Men, women, boys, girls, and transvestites sell themselves every night. Some of them choosing to because it’s their only option for income, some choosing because they’re addicted to drugs, and some of them forced into it or trapped in that lifestyle.
It’s not a safe job either. It’s not uncommon for cars pull up and pretend to be costumers only to beat or murder whoever gets into their car. Other cars drive by and shout insults out their windows, beating the men and women down with their words. Clients can also pose potential risks, being overly rough, abusive, and demeaning.
Not to mention that the streets themselves are generally unsafe at night with thieves, drunks, addicts, and gangs.
And it’s on those streets that I find myself walking down, a grocery bag of cookies hooked in one hand. With my other hand, I pull down the sleeves of my shirt. It’s a chilly night, and I wonder how the men and women are able to stay warm. Everyone else on my team is quiet, thinking about the woman we just met half a block away. As we came up to her, we watched as her potential client drove away, looking for someone else to spend the night with. She came back to her corner and watched us as we approached. But as we talked with her, she was distracted, her answers short and to the point. As we were chatting, she looked for another client, her eyes flitting from car to car. So we decided to give her space and, after offering her a cookie and saying a quick prayer for her, we left.
And now we’re quiet because we aren’t sure what to expect next. Is everyone we meet going to be like her?
Next we meet two women, standing on a well-lit corner, leaning against a glass window. They don’t notice us at first, too busy looking down at their smartphones. As they hear our footsteps they look up, faces bored. We greet them with “hola,”* and “Como estas?”* The guys on my team shake their hands and us girls give them hugs. As we greet them, they cautiously greet us back, their hugs loose and eyes wary. With half smiles, they accept the cookies that we offer them and put them in their purses, unsure of our agenda. Our translator talks to them in Spanish, and they seem to only half be listening to him as he describes the ministry he’s with. Their eyes are constantly on their phones or on the street, their ears seemingly more attentive to the cars driving by than our conversation.
But they are listening. As our translator asks them questions and they respond. At first their answers are short and self-conscious, but as he talks to them, they open up a little more.
Every so often one of them shyly looks me in the eye and smiles. I smile back, wishing that my smile could convey everything I want to say to her. Things that I don’t even feel like I could put into words even if I had the chance to. That someone loves her, that she has value, that there’s purpose in her life, that…. that… that…
But instead I smile at her.
And her smile widens as she smiles back.
In that smile, I catch a glimpse of who this girl really is. She’s probably about my age, maybe even younger. I imagine her playing Soccer and kicking the ball into the goal. She raises her arms in triumph as she does a victory lap around the stadium, her teammates patting her back. Or she’s sitting in a college class, pencil tucked behind her ear and a frown of concentration on her face as she looks at notes on the whiteboard. Or maybe she’s at home, drinking a cup of coffee (or maybe she prefers tea?) and spellbound by her favorite book, the binding cracked and pages slightly crinkled.
It makes me wonder, who is she outside of her job? What are her hobbies, likes, and dislikes? What does she do with her friends when they go out together?
As our translator asks for prayer requests from the ladies, I keep wondering.
And then we pray. And something cool happens. As we pray, the girls put their phones away. They bow their heads and, for those few moments, they are still. They’re no longer looking or listening for the cars that are passing by. We pray for them, for their families, for them to feel God’ love, and for blessings and protection over their lives. When we’ve finished, their smiles are bigger than when we met them just a few minutes ago. Their hugs are tighter and their eyes brighter. As we leave, they wave goodbye and I wish I could have spent just a little more time with them.
We meet several other people that night, just like those two ladies. Many are about my age, some are even younger, some are several years older. Men, women, boys, and girls. They come from different walks of life, different struggles, different paths.
But they all need one thing: to be shown love.
To be shown Jesus’ steadfast and unfailing love.
A love shown by taking a little time to get to know them, invite them to a coffee date, or just praying for them and their families. A love that shows they’re worth our time and that people do care about them.
Because that’s the kind of love makes a difference in people’s lives.
*Hola = hello
*Como estas? = how are you?
