“Broken, abused, and exploited, for the sick satisfaction of selfish men.
Only a coward would try to ignore it, but we can raise our voice and bring it to an end” – For Today
One of the craziest things being in a relationship with God is my schedule doesn’t matter because I’m on His schedule. After I had left India last month and gone to Nepal, God went ahead and said, “Alex, you and three of your squad-mates are going back to Kolkata, India to continue making disciples into disciples” and that’s exactly what He did.
So when we arrived back in India, we had a main focus towards those on Miracle Street. We had seen great healings occur in our previous month in Kolkata that literally took on biblical proportions from the book of Acts. We wanted to not just heal people in the name of Jesus, but we wanted them to have a full time relationship with Him…but that’s not where this story goes. (That’s the Part 1 blog, check it out)
When I wrote my first blog about India titled “India Part 1”, it was based on two things. One, I already spent a month in India and didn’t think I was coming back and two, I had other blog ideas about my experience in what I thought was my one and only month in the country. Little did I know that Part 2 would be literally be an experience from my second time in India.
(1st Day)
After arriving in India, the four of us met up with two people who our squad-leader had met previously and the two people had a heart for ministry in the Red Light District. So into the Red Light District we went which happened to be one of the largest for sex trafficking. About 12,000 women in this city alone are trafficked here and live a life of complete darkness, but most didn’t have a choice.
Families from neighboring countries and also India itself will sell their own women into sex slavery for multiple reasons. Sometimes they sell their daughters to the pimps because they can’t afford to take care of their children. The pimps offer the family money for their daughter and tell the families lies that their daughters will have work and live a safe life. Instead they sell their daughters into one of the closest things to a living hell on earth.
Some of these women are adults who have unfortunately been in sex slavery for years and there are those who are just kids below the age of ten. These women aren’t even seen as human beings regardless of their age through the pimp’s eyes.
So as I was beginning to walk through the Red Light District, I began to feel very uncomfortable because I knew we stuck out like a sore thumb. I should’ve been trusting in God to protect us, but instead the enemy began to feed me lies. “What if the wrong person sees us?”, “This is dangerous stuff”, etc.
This was odd to me because I believe I do well in uncomfortable situations, but this time was different. I legit felt like my jaw locked up and couldn’t work because I was caught off guard by the fact that the Red Light District is a way of life for these women and the men who use them.
Yes, I knew the statistics beforehand and yes I had been told the Red Light District was rough, but nothing truly prepares you for something like this. You don’t know, what you don’t know and I didn’t know what being in the Red Light District was like in a third world country until this month.
One thing about me going silent though is it made me super attentive to detail with my sight and I began to observe everything that we passed. Some of the images will be ingrained into my head until the day I die such as:
-Seeing an alley filled with men pushing and yelling to pick out their woman of choice at lunchtime
-Walking down the road to see a row of 10-15 women lined up waiting for “customers”
-Looking at a woman in her eyes as I walk by, to then see her look down immediately in shame
It was in these moments where frustration started to build up in side me. I wasn’t mad at God, but I started to search for a reason of why is happening to these people, excuse me, HUMAN BEINGS!
I immediately thought of my sisters and nieces because if they were born in this part of the world, then there is a high possibility they could have fallen into this lifestyle. I began thanking God that they were born in the United States where they are safe from this environment.
Yes I understand and know that sex trafficking exists in the United States, but it isn’t as rampant or corrupt as India. In India, sex trafficking is illegal, but the police are corrupt. All it takes is a simple bribe from the pimp for the police to the look the other way as if nothing is happening.
We continued to walk through the Red Light District and my frustration began to turn into anger. I walked behind the women on my team protecting them and began to pay attention to the men we passed by. Nearly every man we walked by would undress the women on our team with their eyes. In all honesty, my anger that started boiling inside of me wanted me to get in the face of these men and shake them to the core that you shouldn’t do that, but I never did. Only thing that held me back was God.
As the day continued the women on my team would strike up a few conversations with women who were trafficked in the R.L.D. The conversations were positive and uplifting. Some of the women were so happy to see us and truly cared that we had love for them, while other women could care less we were there.
Something else the conversations did was draw attention to us. Men would begin to circle around us because they were curious and nosy about why there are a few white people in this part of town. It was our job as men and as brothers to our women to support them by protecting them with our presence as men of God.
What I should’ve done when men of the Red Light District approached us was turn around and be human to the men who were all up in our business. Instead, I was short with my words to the men who knew English and just as short with my words to those who didn’t know English. I still focused on the task at hand in protecting our women, but I could’ve done a better job at being human and being a man of God. I know the Father would’ve loved the men in those streets unconditionally, regardless of their choices.
The only real conversation I held with a man that day involved someone who was wasted from drinking. Even then I didn’t get to talk much because he argued with me about Jesus, Allah & Shiva and began to raise his voice at me. I’m not sure about y’all, but from past experiences in life & my testimony as a whole, arguing with a drunk man is useless. They are always right even when they are wrong, so I decided to not argue back to him and just shake my head with yeses & nos.
As the day ended, I began to reflect on what I experienced on my first time ever being in the Red Light District and it was in that moment that I felt God really speak to me and my heart. I felt God say, “Alex, I love the women who are oppressed in the Red Light District and I also love the men who use those women”.
I legit felt the one of the biggest slaps in the face I have ever felt in my life from the Lord. A few hours before I wanted to get up in the face of the men in the Red Light District and instead God, in the most loving way possible, got up in my face to tell me how it is. All of a sudden, I heard the biggest question in my spirit…
If I was born in India would I be any different than the men here?
I really began to think about that question in relation to the status of where my heart was as Christian. Now, I don’t like playing the “what if?” game in life, but I felt God took me to this place in my heart for a reason. Truthfully to answer the question, probably not.
Great, so I’m this 24 year old American who grew up in a Christian home in the United States and knew Jesus basically from the start of my life. It took me all 24 of those years to finally realize that knowing Jesus and having a full time relationship are two completely different things, but I basically was handed an opportunity to know Jesus. I didn’t do anything special or work harder than anyone else for that opportunity. I honestly just got flat out lucky to grow up in a loving home.
I grew up learning and was taught to respect women at all costs by my parents and saw great role models in my older sisters who also told me the same thing. It was what I knew growing up. Which brings me back to a statement I said earlier in my blog by saying, you don’t know what you don’t know and you know what you know. Basically you’re only as smart as what you know.
Jesus and respect for women are things that I knew. What some men here in India know for life as a lifestyle is going into brothels and picking out any woman they wanted for a set period of time at anytime of the day. Sometimes the men come to the brothels during their lunch break, some at night and some even come to get their day started in the morning.
I could write about how disgusting and awful the fact these men will do this (and it is disturbing and disgusting), but instead God took me to a place of forgiveness and love for the men in the Red Light District.
God literally for a second put me in the men’s shoes. I began to see through their eyes that most of the Indian culture sees the men as far superior than the women. Heck, men and women even sit on opposite sides of bus transportation. They show women very little respect and most likely they learned that from their fathers and their fathers saw that through their fathers. Perhaps their father went into brothels and so they grew up knowing that it’s normal and okay to have sex with innocent women who are forced into sex slavery.
These men are looking for something to fill the emptiness in their hearts (whatever the emptiness may be) and try to use sex to fill the void. They may have been abused in their childhood. They may have grown up in broken homes and the only way they know to feel loved is to purchase a woman for a day.
When we get hurt in life emotionally speaking, there is a part of our heart that is wounded and a hole is left there. When we have a hole in our heart, we try to fill it up with things that flat out can’t satisfy us. Some of us turn to alcohol, drugs, or sex. Some of us turn to the internet whether it’s pornography or even Facebook. Some of us turn to our bank accounts to solve our problems by purchasing nice things. Regardless of what our material items we use for comfort, nothing can satisfy our spirits or our hearts like the LOVE OF JESUS!
Now I’m definitely NOT saying that what the men do in the Red Light District is by any means even remotely okay, but there’s a cause and effect to everything in life. I did however start to get a feeling that if we love on the men in the Red Light District then they would be able to experience the Father’s true love. If we love the men in the Red Light District just as much as God loves them, then the Kingdom can grow and satan’s darkness will be pushed back into the light!
I finally understood what God had been trying to get across to me the whole time. Keep on showing love towards the women who are oppressed, but do the same for the men who don’t even know what true love looks like.
After the first day in the Red Light District, we had been invited back for a second day and I knew immediately I was going back. I wanted a second chance to show both the women and the men what God’s love and His Kingdom can look like.
(2nd Day)
So the second day we split off into teams of three again and went to a different Red Light District than the one we went to previously in the week. Once again I felt lots of heaviness spiritually in the environment we were in. I know there was a lot of stuff that didn’t want us there, but this time I wasn’t going to let anything that wasn’t of Jesus Christ to alter my thoughts or my actions.
Throughout the day we stopped to talk with a handful of the women on the dirty streets and alleys. Our women in our group would converse with the women of the Red Light Districts and it was a beautiful thing to see. There were so many smiling faces even from one woman who was deaf and mute. Even though she couldn’t speak, I could still feel her love radiate from this human being. It touched my heart to know that women can still be happy in this awful environment.
While the women would converse with the other women, there were times when we would again draw a crowd of people interested in us and had zero care about our personal space. Even though these men were legit breathing down our necks, I actually didn’t care because I just wanted to love them just as much as the women.
My first priority the entire day was to protect our sisters in Christ to make sure they were never harmed and my second priority turned to loving the men who were so lost. Anytime I’d have a man or two behind me I’d try to strike up a conversation with them.
I’d ask them simple questions in English such as “how are you?”, “what is your name?”, “where are you from?”, and most of the time they would walk away. Either they didn’t know English or they realized if they wanted to hang around us they would have to have a conversation with me because I love them so much and they chose otherwise.
I found it shocking that these men would want to listen to the women’s conversations or just stare at them, but as soon as we cared about them and wanted to talk they would simply leave. I realized in some situations that our love for the men in return helped protect our women, but I wanted to talk to these guys. I wanted to know who they were and how they live their lives, but I rarely got the chance too.
There were a few conversations I was able to have with the men of the Red Light District about sports, my bands on my wrist, and my tattoos. We would talk about cricket or futbol, but the bands and tattoos ended up being useful tool to share love with these people.
I where bands that say “I Am Second” and “Being Human”. I was able to explain to one man that I’m second because God is first in my life and yours. I continued by saying how you should treat all men and women with respect and love everyone in life by being human.
In addition, the tattoos drew attention to me, but I didn’t mind because I was able to explain to one man that my mandarin tattoo means “forgiven”. I was able to explain that the Father has forgiven not just my sins, but all of your sins as well.
As the day ended, I was so thankful for God giving me a second chance at loving others in the Red Light District because it gave His Kingdom a second chance at being known. This is obviously not about me because it’s about the women and men being loved.
This ministry opened my eyes in so many ways that I can’t even explain. I had the impression in my heart before I went that I’m supposed to love the women, but hate the men because of the awful decisions they make with these women. I couldn’t not have been more wrong.
Because God is a god of pure love, then there is no room for hatred towards any human being, male or female in the Red Light District, or anywhere else in the world.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? – Matthew 5:43-48
It’s easy to love people who love you, but it’s hard to love the same way towards those who persecute & harm others or yourself. It’s not hard for God to transform our hearts though.
I pray for the women and men of the Red Light District in Kolkata, India that their hearts will be changed and that their hearts with be filled with the Father’s love. I also thank God for giving us the green light to GO forth into the Red Light District.
