Maggie slid her pink connect four token in the slot to the left of my yellow piece, leaving an open space for me to drop the winning token into place. Involuntarily, both of my arms shoot straight up in a double fist pump, looking at Maggie with the biggest grin on my face as we high-five and start laughing.
We’ve already played 3 rounds of connect four and this is the first game I’ve won. Maggie gets up from behind the bar, heading towards the shot glasses and tequila bottles, swaying back and forth to Ed Sheehan’s Shape of You. She told me if I won she would give me a free shot of tequila. Still smiling I start shaking my head saying, “No no, thank you, thank you, but Coke would be great!” She pauses for a moment with her hands on her hips as if to say, “You’re turning down free alcohol?” My reply is simply a laugh and nod. She scoops me a fresh glass of ice and hands me a chilly red can from under the counter.
We settle in to play a few more rounds of connect four and later bust out the Jenga blocks. Maggie doesn’t speak much English and I know only a single greeting in Thai, and yeah, this is the first time we have ever met but it feels like friends coming together for an afternoon of fun. An hour and a half later my squadmate, Gracie, and I say goodbye to our new friends at the bar and set our feet towards home.
Up until a few days ago, I’d never been to a bar—it’s never really been my scene, and honestly the atmosphere sets me a little on edge. Up until a few days ago I’d never played a game of pool, but I found myself leaning over a table learning how to break and scratch from a tiny Thai woman who spends her nights with the men who travel here from thousands of miles away to buy her body. Her attention is divided between our game and the customers taking up a table nearby—three middle-aged white men are running their eyes up and down her figure, smiling in a way that raises every hair on my arms. Occasionally she walks over to them, moving her hands up and down their backs, sitting on their laps and laughing as they slap and pinch different parts of her. When the men aren’t looking I see the vacant expression on her face that reminds me she isn’t choosing this because she enjoys it. She’s choosing this because of a generational cycle that believes this is all she and so many other women would ever be.
And this will be life for the month; walking into bars and getting to know the women who work in them. We’ll sit down, order a coke, and ask the Lord to make space for conversation. We’ll pay for their time so that the desperate, broken men who travel here from around the world won’t have any time to buy. We’ll follow the example of Jesus, seeking out those who find themselves in places and situations I’m sure they never imagined they would be in when they were little girls and boys dreaming about what they wanted to be when they grew up. We’ll take in the lights and music, the dancing, the strip poles, the alcohol, the desperation that surrounds us on every corner.
We’ll walk these club-ridden streets in the darkness of night praying in the light of Jesus and extending love and friendship. Because that’s all we really know to do right now.
