Since planning this bike ride, my mind has been lost in a maze of memories that takes me back to South East Thailand. Emotions creep back into my spirit as I look back over old journal entries…
(8/17/07) I just couldn’t take it any longer. The Lord has been ripping my heart out of my chest ever since arriving in Thailand. I think that I cried more in the past week than the past few years combined. (I’m not a crier.) After spending a week in Bangkok, I headed up to Northern Thailand to work with the Karen Hilltribe. It is here, up in the mountains, that the spirit of intercession dropped on me like never before. The Lord’s heart landed hard and heavy in my spirit and revelation broke open a floodgate of tears.
I ask the Lord, why does human trafficking (especially for the purpose of sex) bother me so much? Of course I know that it is morally wrong, but why does this specific issue ring louder than others?
The answer: Because it not only steals what we have, but WHO we were created to be. It tears us down at the root of our existence. The virtue that brought man and women into being – Love – is twisted and manipulated. Instead of edifying, it tears down and destroys. Men and women were created to live in perfect union with one another, not to use one another for personal gain.
Men have a heart to protect and rescue their lover. In general, women desire to be ‘rescued’ in the sense that they long to be loved and wanted. As Genesis illustrates, women are the pinnacle of God’s creation, His beautiful crown. I think deep down we are born knowing this; why else during childhood do girls often pretend to be princesses while boys are always trying to ‘save the day’.
The enemy is smart and uses these natural desires to divide and conquer. He will often whisper lies “Go on, you deserve her. Use your power,” or “You’re not worth it. Do you think you deserve real love?” Thus, our very identities are cheapened and love is used to satisfy selfish needs rather than to give oneself sacrificially.
One of the reasons prostitution and trafficking thrives in South East Asia is due to the value placed on women. Often times, due to Buddhism, women are view as things, mere property to be used as men desire. Let’s look at Thailand for example. The saying goes, “To be Thai is to be Buddhist”. How does this factor into the thriving sex industry in that country?
1) For the type of Buddhism practiced in Thailand, women are inferior to men and cannot attain enlightenment (the ultimate goal). Buddha even warned his disciples that women are impure, carnal, and corrupting.
2) Thai Buddhism also carries a central message of acceptance and resignation in the face of life’s pain and suffering. Whatever happens is a person’s fixed destiny, his or her karma. Thus, the pain of forced prostitution for many girls is accepted as part of life.
3) Since women can never achieve the highest level of karma, they are always in dept to their families. They are supposed to consider it a gift from their parents that they were fed and housed growing up. Now they owe their parents a lifetime of repayment. In order to support their parents, brothers and sister and children they often ‘choose’ the life of a prostitute in a big city because it promises quick income; or they are sold for a couple thousand dollars by their parents. Unfortunately, these children often find themselves trafficked to a brothel and forced to service men day and night.
First and foremost, God created each human being to be loved…to be valued for WHO he/she is as an individual. I am an ‘ends’ of love, and so are you. I am not created to solely to be the ‘means’ of someone else’s happiness. To be a recipient of love is not selfish. I first need to know that I am loved for who I am, before I can truly love those around me.
The Well, is one light in the darkness, that is reaching out to these girls in Bangkok. This organization provides not only a safe-house and an alternative way of earning money, but shares the truth with these girls that they were created to be loved. They are not things, but daughters of a Father in heaven who loves them. Please read One Flicker, a blog I wrote after a night out at the bars (while working with The Well).
For more information on the situation in Thailand and several other countries around the world, I recommend you read Disposable People by Kevin Bales. He is the world’s leading expert on contemporary slavery and director of Free the Slaves.
