I would love to paint a picture for you. Colors splashed on
a canvas. Acrylics. I would love for it to be a beautiful painting, but I’m
afraid it is a bit dark, unclear, unsettling. Regardless, it is art. It is
life. And not everything is pretty.
But in everything, is hope. Hope is yellow. Yellow can be
painted over, hidden, but it is still there, underneath, waiting to be
revealed. Waiting to be scraped out from under the deep reds, blues, blacks.
Imagine this painting is a portrayal of a street in Thailand. In a
bustling vacation hotspot for, oddly (or not so oddly), only white men with
money in their pockets. It is a street lined with bar after bar. Neon lights.
Flashing signs.
The painting has one bar that stands out. It is big. Really
big. It feels like a pool hall. Except the pool tables are bars, individually
tended by 20 girls each. It looks clean, but it feels dirty.
The way the scene is depicted, you start to question, “Am I
viewing a bar or an ingeniously (though rather conspicuously) disguised
brothel?” If you peruse the room in the painting, you will notice the gender
separation-all men on the stools, all women behind the bar (with the exception
of fairly regular sightings of “lady boys” who often appear “in charge” behind the
bars).
The painting draws you in further. So colorful. Beautiful.
One girl, about three bars back, catches your eye. Innocent, young. Dark eyes,
pink lips. Smile not faded yet. Why?
The paint that depicts her face must be the finest paint,
because her features are flawless. She welcomes you into her section of the
painting. Invites you to sit at her section of the bar. Several other women
blend into the background, all in their very revealing costume, applying
makeup, waiting.
As you look even closer, you feel a certain warmness in the
mannerisms and actions of the girl that caught your eye. She serves you a coke
with a smile. When you dive deeper into the emotion behind the painting, you
learn that her name is Tang. She is “20” years old. She has worked in the bar for 1
month.
There it is. One month. The depth of that paint. The
darkness, yet light, of it. Deep, sensual, sinister colors on the surface. Yet
there are yellows that leap off the canvas because of hope. All is not
tarnished, yet. All is not broken, yet. All is not lost, yet. That young smile
still shines. But the dark colors, that deep acrylic, it is trying hard to hide
and smother the yellows of her life.
Endnote:
All painting and picturesque poetry aside, this scene is
true. Hard, cold, fact. Not pretty. Not painting. Not art. But real.
Tang is real. The 20 other women, at just one bar, in “ninja
lingerie” are real. The “lady boy” transvestites are very real, and very
beautiful. The room filled with 18 to 20 bars is real. The white man, who sat
two stools away from me at the bar, is real.
The whole street, city, country, is real. The stats are
choking. Heart wrenching. There are not thousands, but 3 million people in Thailand in the
sex trade industry.
The spirit of perversion, lust, and shame in this country
is real. The Jezebel-ian spirit here is real. The way my stomach felt the
entire time I was on “Walking
Street” was unlike any other feeling I’ve ever had
in my stomach, but it was real. The darkness that I felt was real.
Tang is just one. She is in the bars, like most women, to
support her family. Men do not support their families in Thailand, women
do. Women, though, often have only a 4th grade education. What other
job can you get at that level?
And so, as I sit in my bed tonight, at 10:54, writing this
blog, Tang is with a man. Doing what he wants her to do. Touching him as he
pays her to touch him. Being beaten by him when she is through. Having his
shame, his hate, cast on her.
As my tears hit the keyboard, as my heart aches, as my
mind races, as my soul cries out, I ask you; rather, I beseech you, to pray.
Please, pray. Pray for hope to prevail. For darkness to be slain on this earth.
For the evil to be overcome. For the release of the captives. The captives of
the dark spirits over this place. For one more. One more to walk out. One more
to choose life. One more to claim victory. One more to claim Christ.
And for me, please, pray that I remain strong.
That I remain hopeful. That I remain full of compassion.
And that I remain in a stride of walking forward and
speaking boldly, and “that my words may be given to me in opening my mouth
boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in
chains, that I may declare it {truth} boldly, as I ought to speak.” Ephesians
6:20
