So many emotions in so short a time…
The best night of my life… Hours later, my heart is breaking…
So happy that I cannot sleep… Then awaking to cry and hear my heart scream, NOOOOOOO…
Feeling like a proud mother, wanting to hold her tight and protect her… Then feeling like a failior when I have to let her go…
I want her to meet Jesus.
I want her to know her worth.
I want her to sleep for days….
Friday March 30th 2012.
I tried to call my friend, we’ll call “Sweet A” (for her privacy), to set up a date, but she didn’t answer her phone. So I join Emily and go to Bangla road for a prayer walk. Guess who we see moping the floor in her bar? “Sweet A”!
She looks like she’s about to drop over with exhaustion, or break down crying. Her shift starts at 2pm and lasts, normally, until 4am.
She is excited to see me. I give her a hug and she tells me that her 19 year old boy friend just broke up with her and she’s heart broaken.
I buy her an iced coffee to get her though the day and, at her request, promise to visit her again that night.
Fast-forward to Friday night.
We’ve visited a few bars and have downed a number of red bulls, waters, and cokes. Next stop is a visit with Sweet A. But since our money is low for drinks we split up and only Lindsay and I go in, while Annee and Ruth stay on the street to pray.
I see “Sweet A” with beer in hand, scooted up close, talking to a young man. She sees me and runs for my embrace. She still looks soo tired and on the brink of tears.
All I can think of is getting her away from that man, away from the alcohol that drowns her pain, and away from the loud and crowded bar.
I’d take her hand without the beat of an eye and walk her right out of that place, never to return again. But, I know she has to WANT to come with me, and I pray that she does.
I ask her if she wants to be there, and she responds with a hopeless “no, I’m so tired.”
I let my thoughts flood out. I told her that she could come home with me and never go back to the bar. I explained how there was a home and a job I could offer her and all she has to do is say yes. I pleaded with her to leave TONIGHT.
The inner turmoil was written all over her eyes as she weighed her possibilities. The music was so loud I couldn’t catch her full response. But I knew it had something to do with money and 2am. I told her I didn’t care what it cost; I would do whatever it took to get her out!
She said a lot of things, but the only thing I knew for sure was that she wanted me to come back for her at 2am (when her shift is officially over).
I didn’t know if that was even possible, we leave Bangla road by 12am, at the latest, to be gone by the time the scene gets really crazy. But I KNEW I had to do something.
Lindsay and I went out to the street to talk with our girls who were praying there. After discussing our possibilities, Annee and I walked back into the bar prepared to pay for “Sweet A’s” freedom.
Again my first sight was “Sweet A” with that young man.
She looked at me with joy and unmistakable pleading in her eyes. I took her aside and asked her if she would leave the bar and go home with me and never come back.
Longing, but hesitation. She told me to sit down and she went to talk to the young man.
I’m praying up a storm wondering what in the world the two of them are discussing and anxiously waiting for her to come back to me. After what seemed like ages she came back and said, “I go with you, you have the money?”
As I walked out of that bar with “Sweet A” the grin on my face went from ear to ear! She explained to me what had gone down between her and the young man. He had wanted to take her home as well. When I had left to talk to my teammates he had really started putting on the pressure. But she had told him, “I not like you, I like her, my friend, she come back for me.”
As I walked down Bangla road with “Sweet A” on my arm, she told me, “you my friend, my best friend, thank you, if I not go with you I go with him”.
We laughed and talked as we road back home in the pouring rain. When we got back to the mission house I felt like a proud momma showing of my new baby to my friends. “Sweet A” slept in a bed next to me and I was too excited to sleep. I just couldn’t get over how good God is, and how happy I was, and how much I loved that girl next to me with the Fathers love. I wondered if the joy I felt was something like the joy God has each time one of His children come home to Him. (Luke 15:10)
I day dreamed about how some day I would bring “Sweet A” to visit me in America and how she would share her testimony and how we’d be best friends for life, and all the wonderful things that were about to happen in her new life!
But, then the morning came and I thought my heart would break. “Sweet A” said she needed to go back to work at 2pm!
Had she forgotten?
Didn’t she know that she was free from that life?
Why would she go back?
I tried, I reasoned, I practically begged, but she tried to comfort me and said that even though she doesn’t want to she has to go back and she’ll be ok. “Sweet A” is a loyal woman and having worked at that bar for eight years (since age 20) she both feared her boss and didn’t want to leave her co-workers hanging. But she said that she would quit in a month.
As I write this blog I am still struggling with the emotions, questioning my actions, and wondering if in some way I had failed my “Sweet A”? It’s hard for me to think of her working behind the bar tonight. It’s hard for me to see Friday night as a success.
BUT… it was!
Sweet A came home with me, and not that other man!
She had a fun night and didn’t have to do anything she didn’t WANT to do!
She felt extremely loved by me, and all the other girls here at SHE.
She KNOWS that there are other options.
She heard about what an awesome, loving, man Jesus is!
When “Sweet A” arrived at SHE and was shown around and introduced to all the nice, smiley (though tired) faces, she said that she liked it already, and that she had never been around people like this before!
What she was feeling was the peace, joy, and love that was flowing out of us because of the Jesus that is inside of us.
Yes “Sweet A” is back in the bar, for now, but all is not lost. PLEASE join with me in fervent prayer for her and all our other friends we’ve met and are reaching out to!
