Each month, as ministry begins, I’m never quite sure what to expect. So far we’ve had: manual labor and street ministry of Honduras, sex education and old folk recreation of Guatemala, organic gardening, construction, and kid ministry of Nicaragua, English classes of Romania, and catering, cleaning, and remodeling of Moldova. It is finally month six of the race, and G-squad has made it to the long-anticipated “men’s” (called manistry) and “women’s” (called womanistry I guess?) ministry month in the beautiful country of Thailand.
I have been placed with a group of 17 other women from my squad to live and minister in the red light district of Phuket, Thailand. The organization we are working with is called SHE ministry, which stands for self help and empowerment. They are fueled by the constant flow of volunteers that come to love and serve both in the bar outreach and day programs (English, hotel management, cooking, and other trade-oriented classes) for the women who want an out from sex trafficking.
The red light district of Phuket is called Pathong, and the main strip of bars and sois (pronounced soys) is called Bangla Road. I will probably be referring to these places many times over the next few weeks as I desire to thoroughly record my thoughts, prayers, and experiences throughout this month. I truly believe that this may be one of the most impactful seasons of my life! Really!!! Just wait! God is going to blow up my life like never before and I hope that you too will be impacted as I share stories in conversation and writing.
Bangla Road during the daytime.
Like I said before, as ministry begins, I’m never quite sure what to expect. Today we had the opportunity to visit Bangla Road twice as part of our orientation. During the day, we piled into the back of the pickup and headed to Pathong. It looks exactly like a tourist town, filled with a mix of local vendors, restaurants, ritzy hotels, and of course Starbucks.
We broke up into smaller groups and walked down Bangla Road, an area filled with open bars, shops, strip clubs, and other ‘adult entertainment’ venues. Sharon, one of the directors of SHE, informed us that there are approximately 200 registered bars on Bangla, each employing 6-8 girls. That equates to approximately 1400 girls that are subject to the sex industry each night.
As we walked, we began to take everything in… the stale smell of beer, greetings from the bar mom who was still in her pajamas at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, rows upon rows of empty bar stools that would be filled in a few short hours, various groups of men and tourists walking casually by, families with small children taking an innocent shortcut to get down to the beach…
Please pray for the people that will sit on these bar stools each night.
All was mostly quiet and no one seemed to notice us much as we passed by. We prayed quietly, asking God to reveal to us His heart for His people and the ministry we would soon dive straight into… what we could only imagine it might be like… right into the middle of a place our ministry contacts call, "the pit of hell”.
(stay tuned for Bangla at night)
