Here is a journal entry I wrote my first week here in Chiang Mai, Thailand:
How do you tell about this? How do you explain?
Do you tell about the pained look you see in someone’s eyes?
Do you talk about the old white man you see with the teenager Thai girl?
Do you mention the girl constantly, seductively calling, luring the college-aged boy over to her, only so that later that night he will take her home. She will get paid.
Do you tell about the conversation with the girls at the bar that had to end abruptly because one of her regulars had come. She had to go to him and you had to watch.
Do you tell about the girl at the bar, being completely used, bought by a western man right in front of her mother’s eyes. Her mother owns this bar and she watches her daughter do this everyday. She chooses this for her daughter. Only, she probably doesn’t feel like she has a choice.
Do you tell about all the little children running around, trying to sell flowers in these bars. Not fazed one bit by all the disgusting things going on around them. It’s normal. This is their normal life. This could soon become them, if it isn’t already.
Do you mention the bar where you know you need to go in to talk to these girls, but there’s never been a possibility because every time you go by, they have customers in there, all over them. Getting violated. Getting used. Every. Single. Day. This is their life. This is their normal.
And the ladyboys. Do you talk about the ladyboys, the ones who have stolen my heart. Who are living as someone they are not. They are men. They are men, but somehow they have transformed themselves to be somebody else and now sell themselves too. They have no choice. They have to provide for their families. This is how they feel. This is their reality.
And these men. These customers. Do you share about the old men, the college-aged men, men from all over the world coming in to use these women, these men. The purpose of their trip is self-satisfaction, to use these women, these ladyboys, these kids. And they don’t care. They are in pain too, so much so that they don’t care that these women, these men, these kids hate their jobs. It doesn’t matter to them, even if they know.
Well, yes, apparently I do mention all of these things and right now this is my life. These people. These friends. I get to love them. I get to smile at them. I get to hug them. I get to laugh with them. I get to see their lives, their hurts, their pain, and love them. I get to share a little bit of Jesus with them. Show them they aren’t forgotten. They are loved.
The girls, the children, the ladyboys: these people are easy for me to love. I do. I love them.
The bar owners, the customers, these men: Love them. Really? They are the ones hurting these girls, these ladyboys, these children. Really LOVE them?
God does.
