It's 10pm…
Do you know where your Racers are?
“So Tony has opened up a few more options to us as for as what we can do for side ministries,” Jordan stated. It was the end of out team time/ feedback and we were all ready to go to sleep. Side ministries? Were these really the sorts of things that we had mental stamina for after teaching and a partial night's sleep? Questionable.
“Well, Tony just wanted me to pass this along to you guys: we as a group have an opportunity to go and have dinner with a few girls who are either in the sex trafficking industry, trying to get out or are freshly out of it. It would be at 5:30 tomorrow night over dinner. We'd probably just be spending time with them, I guess.” Jordan paused, “Does anyone feel like this is something they want to do?”
I looked around at the group; no one was particularly jumping at the idea, probably because we were all so tired. I felt quite inclined and so I said I was in as long as someone else was willing to go with me (World Race rules, you know). Well, night turned kiss the face of morning which rolled into the heat of the day. Before we knew it, 5:30pm had rolled about and Squad Leader Will and I stood at the gates of the complex ready for whatever was going to transpire in the next few hours. I dressed nicely, basically in what would be my Race church clothes which included a knee length skirt; I dressed as such because a tuk tuk was mentioned in the evening's description.
Well, a common theme of the Race is that everything is subject to change last minute and your plans may fall through, no matter how foolproof you think them to be. Well, the two motorcycles showed up right on time to fit Will, Tony and I on the back. So much for dressing for the opportunity. No matter! Time to learn how to ride side saddle, folks. No better training ground than the insane streets of Phnom Penh, heh. I felt quite a ladylike sense of accomplishment for sitting with my hands folded in my lap, riding about on the back of a moto through insane eight lane traffic.
Anyway, we moto across town to arrive at a little hair styling shop where we were going to meet with these girls. We took our seats inside among them. We introduce ourselves, then I'm handed this precious 7 month old baby girl, Hetah; soon after that we listened to a couple songs sung in Khmer, followed by Tony giving an intro as to why we were there. I shared my testimony with the four girls who were from the red light district and they all leaned forward and listened intently to the translation. Then Tony spoke. He shared about the difference between brewed ideas and someone's testimony. He shared about Buddhism and he shared about Jesus; he shared the Gospel- the understanding of sin in our lives and the grace God provided through His Son, motivated by His love for us. By the end of the evening, all four of these girls bowed their heads and opened their hands in prayer to know Christ of their own accord.
It was thrilling to be a part of that moment, for sure. We may not have dined with these lovely ladies as we thought we were going to, but I think that it was a better turnout than white rice anyway. We asked them if hey would like us to come back next week and they all said yes in excited tones. When we stood to say our goodbyes, one of the girls, Rose, b-lined it over to me for a hug goodbye and a plain expression of joy upon her face. I was grinning from ear to ear just seeing their changed countenances. “Akun, akun, akun,” they said. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Oh, man, God bless Cambodia in all sorts of ways!
I love this place.
