Friday June 9, 2017
My team and I arrived in Myanmar on Sunday June 4th and will be staying on a compound about an hour outside of Yangon. We are staying in a rural area absent of Wi-Fi so my blog posts will probably be sporadic for the next three weeks. We are partnering with two other World Race teams. Our ministry this month is to college students who also live on the compound and attend the Bible school here. We are taking turns preaching/leading worship each morning and evening and teaching Bible/English lessons twice a day. In the meantime, we are living in one house, bathing over a trough with buckets, and using a squatty (a hole in the ground and if you’re lucky there’ll be an outhouse style covering).
I’d like to focus this blog by sharing our experience in Thailand. I know this one has been long overdue, but I found that I couldn’t bring myself to sit down and take the time to process everything over our 19 days in Thailand. There were several things that happened, including a team change, each one of us getting sick and half of us taking trips to the hospital for medicine (we’re all okay now, and it was nothing serious. We just had a stomach virus and needed medicine), our old squad leaders heading back to the USA and raising up new squad leaders to take their place, taking a week to debrief with our mentors and leaders, and of course, finishing our last couple of weeks of Ask the Lord ministry.
Although I’m not going to go into great detail, I want to say that I feel convicted to write what I saw and expose the sex industry for what it is: sin.
Thailand was hard. It was the hardest country for me so far, and I found that I would gladly take the flies, mosquitoes, and giant, poisonous spiders of Africa over what we faced in Thailand.
The red light districts.
It’s one thing to know it exists and hear the facts about it, but it’ll never compare to seeing it in person. During our last few days in Thailand the squad stayed in a hotel located in the center of some of the most notorious red-light districts in the country. Because each woman on my team has been given a heart for women trapped in prostitution, this obviously weighed heavy on us.
Our ministry for Thailand consisted of intercession and prayer walking.
When we first arrived at debrief, I felt so helpless. I remember sitting in the lobby my first night there and watching as man after man led girls upstairs into their rooms. You didn’t have to seek to be exposed to the prostitution…it was in your face all the time. It was right outside of our hotel, and you could hear the music and sounds late into the night.
Many people on the squad felt the heaviness of Thailand, and believe there was a spirit associated with where we were that targets self-worth and some even struggled with their own self-worth while in the country. I couldn’t sleep during my time there. And there was one night that I remember reaching a breaking point.
A squad-mate had just told me that she saw a group of white men take a young child with them for the night, and I was sitting in the lobby of the hotel trying to read my Bible. I watched as a young Thai girl walked downstairs with an older Western man. When she kissed him on the cheek I thought I might throw my Bible at the man. Then my anger turned to a deep sense of helplessness and sadness. I felt like there was nothing I could do. I remember tears of frustration coming. There was so much sin, and the people didn’t see it like that. They justified what they were doing. The girls often had little choice and grew up in a culture which taught them it was okay, and the men think of it as an act of business (that by contributing they are helping the girls to make a living). That was when God began to emphasize the power of prayer and intercession.
Although, there was much darkness there was also light. And God is still King and in control. One night we did an all night prayer and worship session. Our mentor opened her hotel room for us to take turns going in and praying and worshipping Jesus Christ in the midst of the surrounding darkness. Some people on the squad said that you could hear the sound of worshipping on the streets.
Another night, our squad met with another World Race squad who was in Thailand and we worshipped on the beach together. I remember people stopping and watching us. In the middle of all the bars, strip clubs, temples, and people praying to other gods, we worshipped. The light of Christ broke through and banished any darkness in the area.
During our debrief there was one place that was worse than all the others: Walking Street. When our team first prayed about how God wanted us to spend our time in Thailand, all of us felt called to participate in a prayer walk and focus on the prostitution because it’s so heavy in Thailand. We met as a team and felt called to prayer walk through Walking Street.
What we saw during our time was heart breaking. I watched as girls danced in glass boxes on top of buildings wearing things which left little to the imagination to fill in the blanks, some stood at the doorways of buildings dressed in different outfits depending on the theme of their show, older women jumped at the men who walked by trying to convince them to come inside and they would point to a young woman or girl who would usually blow a kiss and gesture for them to come, men would stand in the middle of the street with papers advertising what was available along with the price (and just because we were female doesn’t mean we weren’t thought of as potential costumers), all the while the police “patrolled” the area.
What was a wakeup call for me were the amount of children and infants that were there. It made me sick to think that someone innocent like a child should be exposed to the present darkness.
There is darkness, but there is also light.
I remember hearing the Holy Spirit softly remind me of this in that moment. So, I called on the one true Light, Jesus Christ. I prayed for Him to shine bright in this place and to reveal the darkness for what it was…sin.
On our way back someone pointed out that the bars were nearly empty. They pointed out how desperate the people were for business because there aren’t enough customers. I didn’t notice this until it was pointed out to me, but I realized they were right. I realized that little by little the industry is dying.
My request to those who read this blog is to partner in shutting down this industry through praying. Thailand is a beautiful country with beautiful people, but sadly it’s exploited and the sex industry robs it of it’s innocent beauty.
Although the present darkness may seem overwhelming, the light of Jesus Christ is ever present. God is in control, and He’s in the business of pursuing the heart of mankind. He brings restoration and reconciliation.
