My team and I spent our last week in Thailand just South of Bangkok, in a place called Pattaya. We learned that Pattaya was a very heavy place spiritually and that it is famous for their sex industry. Being a team of all girls we thought this would be an advantage point and that we could make relationships with some of the women in the red light district.
Our first night we got dressed up and made our way to Walking Street ( the main street where all kind of shenanigans take place). It was so overwhelming, I have never been in a place like that. Everything from the noises, smells, flashing lights and pictures of live sex shows being pushed into our faces, to the amount of women and ladyboys on the streets waiting to be purchased screamed out to me. All of these things were hard to see, but that was nothing compared to what I was seeing happening on the inside of people. As I looked the people walking past me in the eyes, I could see lust and desperation looking back at me. Desperation to be loved and accepted. A lust for life and authenticity.
I saw these already beautiful women putting on more make up, looking at themselves in the mirror, brushing their hair- positioning themselves to be noticed.
We decided to become regulars at one bar for the next few days to just play pool and hang out. The bartenders and women who worked there showed us so much kindness! At first I think they wondered about us; why four American girls wanted to drink Ice coffee, Scweppes and play endless games of pool. As the nights passed they got used to seeing us and learned our drink orders. It wasn’t clear to me then, at the beginning of the week, who we were there for, but now I can see it was for them. They served us with so much joy, and we loved them and showed them respect and honor – it was beautiful.
During this week I could disect and write about a number of things, but the thing that struck me the most was the masks people hide behind. The masks that we use/ wear to hide our brokeness, our hurts and wounds.
As we would walk up and down Walking Street my initial reaction was “How can people do these things without remorse?”. God quickly reminded me that if I had been here just a few years ago I would be gladly indulging in all of these things without a second thought- we are all capable of sin. It is how we attempt to fill our emptiness, how we try to erase the memories of things we wish we could forget, and a way to numb the pain inside. It is what we run to instead of running to God – in turn that becomes our God. I regarded idolatry to golden statues and money, not things like people, sex, alcohol/drugs or even acceptance. “Am I looking for fullfilment in this?” When I am hurting do I run to a drink instead of bringing my brokeness to God? Do I look to sex to feel seen and validated?
So often we see others’ sins and brokenness but don’t notice our own. We compare and judge one sin to another. We think to ourselves, “I’m broken, but not that broken.” What does that even mean? Who gave us authority to judge someone else’s brokenness or even our own? God doesn’t measure our worth based on how we sin; sin is sin in His eyes.
We have no answer, no hope inside of ourselves. Everything we have is because of Jesus and His sacrifice. He came and made a way for us to live a righteous life. Yet we walk around embracing our false identity and false sense of security behind the idols and masks stratigically placed over our face. Could it be that Jesus is enough for it all? Enough for the emptiness inside the woman who is willing to sell herself, for the man who looking for love and acceptance to the point of paying for someone to fill his loneliness, or even enough for me to choose Jesus instead of running to my comfortable mask of deception?
“Your greatest challenge is believing and living the Gospel. Could it be that there’s a God with a love so scandalous, so wide, so deep, so vast, so high, so expansive, so welcoming, so inclusive…?”- Judah Smith
