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an area of a town or city containing many brothels, strip clubs, and other sex businesses.
4:30pm- Leave ministry and head back to the church we are staying in.
5:15pm- Eat dinner.
6:55pm- Catch a songthaew (small truck-public transportation) to the BTS (sky train).
7:15pm- Ride BTS downtown.
7:50pm- Meet up with the rest of the outreach team and spend time praying before we enter the red light district- pray over the bars, women, and patrons.
8:30pm- Arrive in the red light district and prayer walk down the street
8:50pm- Head into a bar to talk to women. Sometimes the ministry knows of specific women they want to talk to, sometimes we pray about who to talk to and then invite her to sit with us.
Until 10:00pm- Buy overpriced drinks (after all, we are paying for time with a woman) and talk to women. Form a friendship and share about the ministry, that they can have a new job with better hours and consistent pay. Talk about the love of Christ. Get the woman’s contact info and a picture so that ministry staff can follow up with her in the future. Try to set up another meeting, outside of the bar setting. Hug the woman, remind her that she is valuable and loved for who she is, not what she can do or give. Say goodbye and praypraypray the Lord continues to nourish the seeds he led us to plant.
10:01pm- Leave red light district, praying that our presence as believers changed the atmosphere, that God’s light in us shined brighter than the red lights lining the street. Praying for the women we spoke to, and the many women we didn’t have the opportunity to meet. Praying too, for the bar owners and men (customers) who play a role in the entire broken cycle.
This is an overview of our weekly bar outreach experience. There aren’t words to adequately describe the environment of the red light district, or the experience of being there talking to girls and young women who feel they have no other options in life. (Shoot me an email if you’d like to have a more in depth discussion.)
Culturally, women in Thailand are financially responsible for their parents and siblings, in addition to their own (future) husbands and children. Many families are in debt, so their daughters carry the weight of repaying the debt and its accrued interest. Girls grow up feeling the burden of caring for their families. So many young women decide to work in bars instead of other fields because they are able to make a lot of money quickly. Many young women don’t know they will be working in the red light district; they are told they have a job in the city and show up to find themselves employed in a dance bar.
It is heavy, good Kingdom work that we’ve had the opportunity to join in this month. The Lord made these women, loves them, and wants to redeem the darkness in their lives.
The ministry we are working with this month gives them an option other than the sex industry. This ministry provides jobs in a coffee shop, or making jewelry and other goods. When women choose to leave their “bar lives,” this ministry steps in and gives them dignity, a place to live, a job they can be proud of, and a first step in a new direction.
The women get to be part of a daily worship and devotional time. They are taught life and job skills they might not have had before. They are taught English and empowered to make a better life for themselves. This ministry supports women holistically and works to show them the redemptive love of Christ. In Christ, they become new creations and receive a new, higher inheritance than what they have in their earthly lives.
If you would like to know more about the ministry we are working with this month, please click here. There are many ways you can support what they are doing here in Thailand: pray, give, go.
Pray for this ministry. Pray for the full-time employees. They are fully support based and in Thailand for the long haul and they work with the women day in and day out. Pray for the women they rescue. Pray for the bars to be shut down and for the sex industry to be no more.
Give to this ministry. All proceeds from the coffee, bagels, and sandwiches, along with the jewelry, clothing, accessories, and fabric goods the women make go directly into the salaries of the women. The family that directs the ministry do not receive a salary as part of the ministry. To help support their family, please visit their website and click on “support us.”
Go to Thailand. This ministry always needs volunteers! They are happy to have your help for a few weeks, months, or years! If you feel led to serve in Thailand and would like a ministry to connect with, reach out!
