2 years ago, this month of October, I arrived in Thailand. I found myself wandering amongst the busy streets, the bustling markets, the crazy tuk tuk drivers and all the chaos. I had no idea what my month had in store. It was month 2 of the World Race. Just at the beginning. I felt unsure of who I was, unsure of my calling and I definitely felt unprepared & ill-equipped but ready for an adventure.
We were living in Chang Mai, Thailand. A beautiful city of so much life, but riddled with bars and protstitutes amongst the night life. My team was assigned to bar ministry that month. We were asked to basically go out and roam the streets at night, to pray, to interact, and to find the “one”, as our contact said, “find the one that needs Jesus from you.”
My team spent the first few days overwhelmed. We knew this was going to be a challenge. Roaming the streets at night, hearing the loud club music, watching dozens of drunk tourists flirt with local girls dressed up in tight skirts and big heels. Most of these girls were younger than me, most of them were my sisters age, around 15 years old. Beautiful, full of life and so much ahead, but stuck in a bar because there weren’t many other options for work.
Prostitution is legal in Thailand, and many young girls choose it because there isn’t really any other choice. Bargirls get tips, and tips from foreigners, rich foreigners, and that money can be sent home to their families in the poor mountain villages. They can work at the bar and be well taken care of, or they can try to find another job that pays less than enough to live on. So, for lack of better option, many of them get stuck in the cycle, either actually prostituting themselves, or just working the bars and flirting with older men enough to get by. Either way, it’s not a lifestyle they enjoy.
Walking the bar streets at night, I remember feeling so heavy. My heart broke a little more with each step I took. I saw faces, so many faces, filled with pain, with regret, with hopelessness and fear. I cried every night when we went home. Something had to be done, but what could I do? I don’t speak Thai. I don’t know anything about the politics or laws in Thailand. I don’t understand their situation, the fear, the hopelessness, the lack of options. I could tell them about a life of freedom and let them dream of a different job or different life, but what does dreaming do for their reality? Sometimes it gives them hope, and sometimes it just hurts.
We spent the days and nights prayer walking, covering the street in the name of Jesus and asking Him to show us where to go. Who was He after? He led us into this little bar, tucked far off the street in a small alleyway that led to the Muy Thai Boxing ring. Our contact hadn’t really wanted us to go down that way, it’s one of the darker and more enslaved areas full of seedier characters than she normally preferred her American friends to take on. But we prayed about it, asked for her permission and followed the Lord’s lead down the dark alley. In the smallest & emptiest bar we found 4 girls- 3 triplets & their best friend. They looked us up and down, decided we probably weren’t going to be giving them any tips and remained unimpressed. But we heard the Lord tell us to go after these women, and so in we went.
We were immediately bonded to them, burdened for them and their lives by Jesus. Standing in the bar and looking at them I could feel there was so much bondage around me, but who was I to try to free them? How could I even? There was no way, not by myself. Even if I could get them out, where would they go? Where would they work? Where would they live? Who would be their friend? A new life would be better, but it would always be easier to go back to easy money- it would always be temptingly familiar… I had almost become defeated before we had even started! Who could really help them, really change their hearts, or really make them want something different hard enough to work for it, work really really hard for it?
Well, Jesus can. But the truth is, no matter how much I believed Jesus could do miracles, a part of me didn’t really understand what kind of miracles He could do through me. Like I said, I don’t speak Thai. Ministry in the bars couldn’t really look like our Romans Road evangelical approach to sharing the gospel, because they didn’t understand a word I said, and the few words they did know weren’t really about subjects I wanted to talk about. So that left our team with the adventure of making up ways to communicate on our own.
I stammered “hello”. They stared, but we didn’t leave. And so our friendship began.
Since we couldn’t really communicate, we started with smiling, which turned to laughing and dancing, then hugging, to playing pool, drinking a coke, bringing them ice cream & rotee dessert (delicious!). When I say we had no verbal communication, I mean we had NO verbal communication. But it didn’t seem to matter. We showed up everyday. We didn’t have anything to say, but we stayed anyways. More laughing, more playing, more hugging and dancing and helping them set up the bar- talk about conflict of interest. We literally helped them clean, set up and open the bar everyday. Why? Not because we loved their job and really wanted them to make a warm and welcoming space for all drunkards and one-night stands. But because we actually cared more about them than their circumstance, and since we couldn’t tell them with our words, we decided to show them the best way they could understand- we showed up for their life and became a part of it.
Slowly, day by day, they started to believe in us. They started to get excited when we would show up, instead of thinking we were those annoying white girls who distracted them from higher paying customers and took up their time, we became more of an excitement for them, like a perk in the day. We became people that didn’t need or want anything from them, we just wanted to be with them. We showed them love, and they started to believe that we really meant it.
The month went by too quickly and before we knew it the time had come to leave. So what did we do then? Our time was up, we spent everyday with these young women, loving and showing up only to leave them exactly where we found them. By performance standards, we didn’t have anything to offer them. We couldn’t really change their lives. I couldn’t even tell them about Jesus. The only thing we could offer was goodbye lunch at the café we were staying at. Run by a native Thai woman who ardently loves Jesus and dreams of providing a place for women to have refuge from the bar life, we decided that was the best place to take them. American missionaries come often from the World Race to work at Zion Café, so our friends would have a chance to meet new friends who would love them like Jesus, and our contact could actually talk to them about Jesus in a language they understand. We brought them to the café, introduced them to our friends, and left the rest in Jesus’ hands. We cried when we parted, prayed over them, and hugged until the last moment we were in that place.
But then, we had to move on. Like any of you who have ever gone on a short term mission, it’s at times like these you wonder to yourself if it’s really worth it. Did it even matter? I played with them, smiled at them, hugged them and loved them, but did I really do anything at all? I remember praying inside myself, “Jesus would you really bring us all the way to fall in love with these people, to pray for them, love them, give them hope and then send us away? Why can’t we save them?”
Fast forward to about a year later. The contact from Zion café emailed me. It was a short message, but it changed my world. She told me that the triplets and their friend, whom we had brought to the café that one time, well they had come back almost every day. Almost EVERY DAY! She said she was mentoring them. She said they were learning English. And she said they wanted to get out of the bars.
I cried. What a testament of God’s power of miracles. The four women I could hardly say hello to. The four women who I merely played with and loved for a month, who I cleaned bars with and danced to Katy Perry songs all night, well they were ready for a different life. They had hope. They had strength. And they had people around them to help them get it. I realized that day, from that single email, that I don’t get to save the world. It’s not my job, and the second I think it is I have some serious humility to hash out with the Lord. Because it’s His job, that’s why Jesus came. To seek the lost and to SAVE them. His job, not mine. But my job is to follow Him, to listen to where He leads, to who He’s after and to show them His love in WHATEVER way I can.
Jesus saved those women. Jesus plucked them out of a bar in the back alley ways of Chang Mai, Thailand. And Jesus is building His kingdom in them.
I couldn’t have understood then what I see now. I didn’t know how good He was when He asked me to leave those women where I found them without any assurance I would ever know what happened to them. I didn’t understand how His love really worked, and that silly dance parties and sharing a coke was enough to make someone believe that I cared, and eventually enough to show them that God cares too. Sometimes I think we underestimate God, that He’s a God of show and big productions, alter calls and big miracles. Don’t misunderstand me, He IS-all of that and MORE. But I have learned that He is also a God of the small miracles, the miracles that we take for granted and barely notice in the midst of our every day. Smiles don’t seem like sharing the gospel, but when that’s all we have, it’s more than enough for God to work with. He’s a God of miracles in kindness and goodness and small acts of love. Because He is a GOOD God, and He LOVES us all- every single one of us.
Here we are today, exactly 2 years later. I’ve moved to Gainesville, Georgia and working my first 9-5 for the World Race, seeing God transform lives around me all the time. I got a message on Facebook from one of the girls I met in the Thai bar. She now speaks English, so she messaged me & sent me a picture. It’s a picture of her and the triplets on their first day of work at Zion Café today…
(The four women on the left are my friends!)
The age old debate about short term missions is full of valid questions and concerns. There is a time and a place to talk about impact, influence, and the difference between helping and hurting. But I believe God calls us to “short-term” missions more often than we think. The grocery story, the gas station, your favorite restaurant and everywhere in between… He’s a God of the small miracles. As C.S. Lewis would say, “I have found it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.”
Never underestimate a little kindness & the goodness of our God.
