I walked down the crowded street in a sort of daze. Maybe it was partly due to the fact that it had been a while since I’d been around so many people, around so many flashing lights and activity. Maybe it was partly due to the fact that I was tired at the end of a long day. Or maybe….maybe it was partly because I knew without a doubt that I’d never been in a place like this. The word “evil” came to mind very quickly.
There’ve been a handful of times in my life when I’ve stepped into a situation or a place and felt oppression. Darkness. Evil. Screaming at me to turn back, to go home, to run. My human instinct is to do just that – the element of sustaining survival being it’s first, hardwired priority. So even walking on the main road toward Bangla Road was, to some extent, intense: I felt that with every step, I was getting closer to that Darkness; it was where I was headed. And a voice in my head was asking me to turn back.
This is Bangla Road:
From what I can tell, hundreds if not thousands of tourists pass through this little stretch of a sad excuse for a road. Some are on family vacations, some are alone or with a few friends. It’s not really a touristy place though. Really nice, with stores sporting the latest fashions through clean windows, signs written mainly in english, air-conditioned five-star-looking restaurants.
But not a place I’d ever bring kids, let alone my husband or boyfriend.
If you’re familiar with the “red light district”, that’s what this road is. It’s where women who are caught in the prostitution ring wait for their next client. It’s where men, searching for love, a good time, or a companion for a night go. As we walked past numerous bars, I made it a point to smile at every woman I saw waiting at tables. Women we’d typically tag as “prostitutes”. They would all smile back. And as we’d make eye contact briefly, I would see into their eyes – and would see emptiness.
You can tell me that these women choose this lifestyle, that it’s their fault they’re in the place they’re at, that it must not be that bad because it’s their career.
But what if I told you
that some of these women have been trafficked?
Tricked and threatened into a terrible lifestyle?
Some of them
are living in poverty
and need a better
income – to survive –
and find themselves
on a street like Bangla
waiting to catch the eye of another stranger who
might be willing to buy them for the night.
That’s Bangla Road.
Three of us stopped on the side of the road. I pulled out the
guitar, and Jobie pulled out her violin…and for the better
part of an hour, we just worshipped God.
We talked with a few curious passerby, people asking us why we were playing right there on the side of the street. But there was one man, named Jake who was a store owner nearby – and he sat just to the side of us for the majority of the time we were there. He understood a lot of English; he could understand the words in the songs as we stood there worshipping in one of the darkest places on earth that I’ve ever been.
Maybe it was just for him, that we went that night. Maybe it was for the girl across the street who didn’t take her eyes off of us even though she was working. Maybe it was for the couple of people we talked with, or the handful of people who stopped long enough to listen. I don’t have an answer. I don’t have evidence that a life besides mine was drastically changed; no proof to share with you. But I do know that God used us, somehow. I carry the light of Christ with me wherever I go, because He is a part of who I am. I can walk into Bangla Road, feeling tangible oppression from Satan’s army, and I can battle against that army with the Light Jesus entrusted to me.
I can battle with words of worship
I can battle with prayer
I can battle and rage war on the darkness that surrounds me – and NOT be overwhelmed by it.
It looks like I’ll have another opportunity to visit Bangla Road, in less than 24 hours of me posting this blog. Ideally, I’ll have a blog about what happened.
One of the songs we played that night goes like this:
“There is power, in the name of Jesus, there is power, in the name of Jesus…to break every chain, to break every chain, to break every chain.
“There’s an army rising up. There’s an army rising up…to break every chain, to break every chain, to break every chain…”
If you were to pray for something, pray that chains be broken. Pray that the freedom and completeness that is only found in Jesus is revealed to the thousands stuck in slavery. Pray for the men, the women, and the children who are drowning in this sea of evil…trafficked or not – looking into their eyes tells you that they may be entertained but not happy. Joy couldn’t be further from their eyes. They need a way out, they need truth. They need to see their value.
And: There are thousands and thousands of them around the world.
Fight for them.
