The illegal trade of human beings is something we at Adventures are passionate about ending for good. So this January, Human Trafficking Awareness Month, we’re telling real-life stories of people who have been trafficked, bringing awareness to their plight and hopefully an end to the trade.
Assaulted twice before the age of 25, Maria Hall of 2015 R Squad felt like she was worthless. Then God transformed her life with His unconditional love. In month 6 of her Race, Maria was able to share what God did in her life with sexually exploited women in Thailand.
I’m done letting the lies of the world dictate my life.
I’m done letting my past experiences determine how I view myself, and I’m done letting men determine my value or worth.
I have spent what seems like a majority of my life viewing myself as an object. I was assaulted at 16, and afterwards thought the only thing that I was good for was my body, because there obviously wasn’t anything else about me worth loving. I let what people called me become my identity.
I was ashamed when Christians, and especially Christian men, talked to or looked at me because I was afraid that they could see me for what I really was.
I let the world tear me down. I worried about my appearance all the time, because to me, that was all I had. No one cared about the inside—just how I looked on the outside.
Though since the age of 12 I dreamed of being a wife and mother, I became convinced it was never going to happen.
I didn’t think I would find someone who would actually want to marry me. I wasn’t the girl guys wanted to date or take care of.
I was the girl guys wanted to use and throw away. I was trash. I was nothing.
At least, that’s what I believed.
For years I let men use me and treat me that way, because I thought that was the closest thing to love I would ever find. At 24, when I was assaulted a second time, I knew that I couldn’t possibly become any more broken. I turned to God for the first time and begged Him to save me because I knew I couldn’t save myself.
What He did next changed my life. He told me to move across the country by myself to somewhere I had never been, where I didn’t know anyone and didn’t have a job. When I got there, I started going to a local church, and the most amazing thing happened:
They didn’t see me as a broken and dirty woman. They saw me as a beautiful daughter of Christ, and treated me as such. I realized I could start over.
God took all the lies I believed and pain I felt and replaced them with His love and assurance that I am His and His alone.
He showed me He had been fighting for me the whole time.
I promised Him that I would follow Him and do what He asked of me, which led me to the World Race.
Then, in month six of my Race, I went to Thailand.
Not too far from lodging is Patpong, the oldest and largest red light district in Thailand.
Advertised as a night bazaar, what began as two bars during the Vietnam War now stretches entire city blocks. Over 4,000 men, women, and teens work within these bars. Tourists come from all over the world to shop for cheap knock-offs and souvenirs at the market, which is a street lined with open bars, giving glimpses of dancing, bikini-clad girls inside. The higher up you go in the buildings—they are eight or nine stories—the more degrading and violent the shows.
These girls are treated as objects, down to the acts they are sold to perform.
Touts line the street, selling sex shows from a menu. It’s a business transaction, plain and simple, no hearts or feelings or dreams or souls involved.
This is where you will find her.
Who is she, you ask? She is every girl dancing in Patpong, selling her body because she doesn’t feel like she’s good for anything else. She is the girl who returns to work night after night, hating her life, but not seeing a way out.
She was sent to Bangkok to pay off family debts, because in Thai culture, women are the breadwinners of the family. Men can go to the temples to become monks, which will earn them merit in their Buddhist faith. So the girls support the family—as well as cook, clean, raise the children, and take care of their husbands.
She dances because her mother did it while she was growing up. In fact, her mom still dances at the bar across the street.
Told she could pay off her debt by going with a customer just once, she is now trapped.
She has been told her whole life that she is trash, and deep down, she believes it. She once dreamed of having a family when she was little, but there’s no way anyone could love her now.
Now I’m not comparing my situation to these girls’ at all. Some of them have gone through things that I could never even imagine. But our deep-seated beliefs are the same: that we are objects. That we are worthless. That we are somehow “less than.” That we are damaged and dirty.
The other night, I sat in a bar and heard a man calling the dancers a derogatory name, and I got angry.
He knew nothing about these women. He saw them only as objects, not human beings. He didn’t know that the woman that I was talking to has two children. He didn’t see how her face lit up when she talked about them and showed me pictures. He had no idea the joy she clearly felt from someone asking about her and her life.
He didn’t see the pain that lingered behind her eyes as she wondered, “Will one of these men pay for me?”
All he saw was something that he could buy, not the incredibly beautiful woman that she is.
The truth is that she—and I as well—was created in the image of God. She is fearfully and wonderfully made. She is deeply loved, she is chosen, and she has infinite value because of who she is—not because of how she looks or what she does.
He calls her His Beloved.
She probably feels like there’s no hope for her, like she can’t dream for her future because she will always be defined by what she’s doing right now. She probably feels too dirty to ever be beautiful, wanted, or cherished.
But the truth is, no one is too far gone for God’s redemption or restoration.
Because God specializes in taking the broken and making them beautiful.
The healing that God has done in my life within the past 2 years is absolutely incredible. Since I decided to let Him into my heart, He has not stopped the healing process. Yes, it’s hard, and I know that it’s a long process, but it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever experienced.
The freedom that I have from knowing that I am worth something, and that no one on earth can define who or what I am, is beyond words. I am no longer bound by the chains of lies and deceit.
I am fighting for myself, and God is fighting for me. He is fighting for all of His daughters, and now, I will fight for them too.
So I’m done. I’m done looking to men to find my worth. I’m done feeling like I’m “less than” and I’m done letting the world define me.
The question is, will she ever be done?
Are you fed up with the sex trade? Do you want to be a part of seeing it end?Click HERE to find out how you can GO and end it in Fall 2016!
Or, if you feel God calling you to a short term trip to areas of prevalent human trafficking, check out our Passport trips to Southeast Asia HERE, 6-month Beauty for Ashes trips HERE, and short term trip to the Patpong Red Light District in Thailand HERE.
