Update: My team is now in our 3rd country-Vietnam! Our work here this month has started and I can’t wait to share stories about it with you! However, in the last week of Nepal and hectic travel days, I have been behind on blogs, so I have a few more stories to post from Nepal! Here is one of them.
Crowded streets. Flashing Lights. Tourists laughing. On the outside, this all makes for a fun downtown scene. But we felt the darkness and we knew that behind closed doors in the very streets we walked, women were being bought as objects of entertainment.
My group had been assigned a specific dance bar. We were told to go in, buy a girl a drink, {to spend time with a girl, you must spend money on a drink to purchase her for the time} and to ask some questions to get to know her. Our intent was to show them they are loved and valued. To give them the opportunity to get out of the bars, if that is what they wanted.
As we walk in, there is flashing lights, loud music, and a haze of smoke. We spread out throughout the room and look up to the stage. At any one time there are 1-3 girls dancing. Faces expressionless, bodies doing movements that have been memorized and practiced.
Soon, my friend Kimmy and I are able to call over a girl. We buy her a Coke and start to talk. She is 24 and has been in the bar for a year. She works 7 days a week from 6 pm- 12 am. In the times she is not in the bar, she is to answer calls from men that get her number from the dance bar. She doesn’t like the short dresses and she wants to live anywhere but Thamel, where she currently resides. She gets no holidays and she misses her family.
While most come to the bar to talk and look at her as an object, we came to be her friend. To see her for who she is as a person. She is a daughter. A sister. An aunt. A granddaughter. She is a beloved daughter of the king. We got to know more about her and her family. She wants to be a beautician. She likes romantic comedies and dogs. We talked about everything from celebrity crushes to aspirations and the joy she carried was contagious. She’d leave us at times to go dance, and Kimmy and I would pray for her until she returned. She always returned-we got the privilege of spending the whole evening with her. In the end, we were able to give her the number of an organization that can help her leave the bars and train to be a beautician. We don’t know how her story ends, but we know there is hope. While others see her as an object- she is not up for sale. The Father paid the ultimate price for her and she is dearly loved and free…one day she will live in that freedom.
Sex trafficking is not something often talked about and is easy to ignore. I had not seen it first hand until this night, but it was always something that I knew we should fight for. My focus has usually been on the girls who are trapped and wanting to reach out to them. I’d feel anger towards the men who trap them and the men who purchase them. But the Lord worked on my heart during our ministry in this area. I felt called to pray for the girls, of course. But the Lord also convicted me to pray for the men. My friend Janibel and I spent time doing this in the bar. Praying for the men to be convicted-that their eyes would be open to what they are doing. Prayers for healing in them for whatever caused the void they have. Prayers for them to know that they too are deeply loved by the Father. We focus on wanting bars to shut down and for girls to leave the trade, but we also need to focus on the men who profit from these girls and for the men who create the demand. They too have a purpose and value much higher than they know and have the ability to walk in freedom and love with Christ.
There are no easy answers to eliminating the trade, but it is something that shouldn’t be ignored. Do some research-raise awareness. Join us in praying for the men and women in this trade. Freedom is available.
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