So, how did Tuesday and Friday nights go, I’m sure you are wondering… I’m so glad you asked. 🙂 It was amazing, and I can’t wait to keep going.
We met at the coffee shop about 9pm, 8 racers and Mark and Sharon, where Mark gave us some basic instructions, and prayed. The plan is to visit certain bars where they had visited before, and where girls knew them. We would start out together, but split after the first bar, since 10 people in once small bar drinking sodas is a little funny.
First, a little background and scene setting…
The whole scene is a little overwhelming – one main street (completely pedestrian at night), Bangla, with dead end side streets that are each lined with 25-30 small outdoor bars. There are girls and lady boys calling passersby to sit at their bar and enjoy drinks and games. Some girls are dressed how I imagined them to be, while others are more clothed in short shorts and tight t-shirts. The seem to simply be cocktail waitresses, selling drinks, and playing games, but everyone knows the truth that they are more available. They are entertaining and love to talk and interact, since that’s really part of their job.
While some streets are filled with relatively calm bars, other streets are devoted to lady boy bars, and others to the scene I would never expect to find at home except in windowless, darkness filled buildings. The tourists are primarily men, but a good number of women along with their men, and sadly, even children watching all the action.
The first bar we visit is the one I will most often return to, Sydney Bar, where Mark and Sharon have begun developing relationship with a couple of the girls there. I quickly connected with Un (also known as Spikey, she says because she spikes her hair), and Sharon and I talk with her. Her English is good, but not excellent, and with the incredible noice of all the surrounding bars, it’s hard to hear. But there is something about her that draws my heart.
After Sydney Bar, we moved on to another, where Joy and I played a dice game with the girls and chatted. I think on Tuesday, we visited about 4 bars. It will vary based on who is there when we visit and if they are interesting in talking. In some places, when we order only soda, they leave us alone, but in certain bars, the ones we focus on, they want to chat a lot and will be next to us as long as they can. They enjoy talking to people who listen to them, and not only the other way around. Un expressed this to me.
On Friday night we went out again, and I didn’t get to Sydney Bar until soon before we had to meet to end the evening, but had a chance to talk to Un a bit more. Again, it was so hard to understand her, but from what I could get, she’s 24, looks 30, and has had her heart broken by a client with whom she fell in love. That’s the story of too many of these young women. She tells me how she tells her customers that she loves them, because that’s what they want, but in Thai she says things that are quite the contrary, but they can’t understand and are getting what they want, so it doesn’t matter. I invited her to go to the beach with us the following day, but 10am is too early to get up when you work the night shift. On Tuesday, she was dressed for business, but on Friday, full length jeans and a normal t-shirt, apparently not trying for much that evening.
She is obviously unhappy in her life, but it’s what pays the bills. I can’t wait to talk with her more and will continue to invite her to visit us here at the shop so that I can understand and hear her better.
Before I left on Friday night, she made a joke about how she could ‘love’ Chris for 5 minutes, but not 6, laughed, then got real serious and said, “but you… I could love you 24 hour.” Of course, at first, I wasn’t sure what she meant…, but quickly realized that it was actually Jesus she was seeing in me, as she continued to tell me that she liked when I came, because there is something about me, and when I smiled, it made her feel happier. It was at that point, the Holy Spirit brought back to me some of the things he has spoken to me, namely that my smile would bring healing to girls. As I type now, my eyes fill with tears, feeling so blessed that God has chosen to use me this way. Wow.
Please pray for Un, that her heart she would continue to be open to a friendship with me and Sharon and Mark, and that she would come to visit us at the shop doing the daytime. Pray for me for discernment and wisdom and a supernatural ability to hear and understand her while in the bars. I want to be Jesus to her, showing His unconditional love and compassion that her heart would be drawn to Him.
