One morning, I woke up with tears streaming down my face. Have you ever had a dream like that? One with emotions so real it stirs you to respond in real life?
I did. It was month ten and I was in Eastern Europe, but in my heart, for some unknown reason, I was back in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
I remember the dream. It was Christmastime and I was back in the states. I was surrounded by all my friends for one of our annual Christmas traditions: lighting luminary candles. In my dream, I saw myself, taking part in the festivities like normal, but the image of “normal life” was suddenly blinking back and forth, suddenly interrupted. I started seeing scenes from the Red Light district where I spent December of the Race building relationships with the bar girls and prostitutes of Chiang Mai. I saw their faces; I saw the faces of the men purchasing them. I felt overwhelmed at the thought of their pain, their brokenness, their hurting.
Dream-Katy, surrounded by lights and hot coco and friends was suddenly having a break down. My heart took in everything around me and cried out, “But what about the bar girls of Chiang Mai?”
I cried in my dream, and I woke up crying in my bed.
I don’t know why God put the girls on my heart. But I prayed for them. For Dari. For Tup. For the so many, so many others.
In Botswana, as we were faced with extreme poverty on a daily basis, I started asking, “Lord, what do I do with this? What happens when the people back at home don’t understand why it’s Christmas and I’m upset because I’m remembering what I saw in Thailand? Or when I go into a hospital and am reminded of the abandoned little girl named Anita I met month one in Guatemala? Or I see a little kid with nice shoes on and remember the dirty, beautiful, bare feet of the street boys I danced with in the Philippines? What do I do with that? What is it going to be like for no one to ‘get it’?”
I heard Jesus say something pretty cool. He told me,
“Katy, when you feel like no one gets it because they weren’t there. Remember that I get it…I was there. And I’m going home with you.”
Seven months later, Zion Café is continuing to do amazing things. The same week I had this dream, we got an email from Zion letting our team know that one of the Thai bartenders we pursued—inviting him to our Christmas party, hanging out with him in the bar, having cookies and coffee together and playing Uno cards—recently decided to quit his job. Today, he is no longer working in the Red Light district. Instead, he’s a tuk tuk taxi driver.
Praise God! Jesus, is doing amazing things. And I’m thankful he would move my heart enough to ask me to pray. To not forget. To continue to have compassion.
I never shared this in my blog, but back in December I got to create a video for our ministry in Thailand. A ministry called Lighthouse In Action that is bringing men and woman out of the sex industry by offering employment at a coffee shop and hostel called Zion Café–and through it all, offering freedom in the love of Christ. In this video, I got to tell the story of one amazing girl named Aom.
You can pray with me. And you can find out Aom’s story, right here.
If you’d like to help support ministry of Zion Cafe, you can donate to Lighthouse In Action and know that you are supporting a ministry that is truly transforming darkness by spreading light.
