This is long overdue; I apologize for the wait. Please read the previous blog, “Don’t Let It Steal Your Joy – A Night on Walking Street, Part 1” before reading this one.
While I felt love and compassion for the women, I felt nothing but anger for the men at Walking Street. There was only one reason why they would be at the world’s #1 vacation spot for sex tourism, and it wasn’t hard to guess. They roamed about in groups or by themselves, but their eyes were all on the women. I was disgusted to see men walking down the street hand-in-hand with Thai girls young enough to be their daughters, and others that sat on bar stools and watched the girls dance in front of them. Many of the men disappeared behind black curtains into the closed bars where they could pay for “extra services”.
The anger I felt was overwhelming. “WHY?” I wanted to yell at them. “WHY ARE YOU HERE? Don’t you have mothers, sisters, women you love? Why would you treat any woman like this?”
Despite my anger, God was at work that night because something unexpected happened to my heart. You see, I went to Walking Street intending to learn the women’s stories and to see the injustice that I had heard so much about. I expected my heart to break for the women, but I didn’t expect to feel the same way about the men.
As we walked I found myself slowly realizing that the men are just as trapped as the women working on those streets. Maybe it doesn’t look like it; there aren’t the pressures of loans to bar owners or starving families to feed that keep them there, but there are chains. Something has happened in their lives to bring them to a point where going out for a night on Walking Street is ok to them. They’re so lost they don’t even know it. I asked God for a chance to hear and understand the stories of the men as well.
God gave me that chance when I met David.
The churches in Pattaya had a week-long celebration called “Pattaya Praise” and one of the night sessions was an outdoor worship concert in the middle of Walking Street. There’s a ministry that’s set up shop there called Tamar Center, and we set up a full band and loudspeakers on their front doorstep to sing and dance while surrounded by the bars and brothels. Some people from our group pulled in women from the bars to dance with us, but instead of joining them I felt like I should pray for the men instead. Most of them purposely ignored us as they walked by, but I prayed for each of them. I prayed for one older man as he was passing us, and I was surprised when he stopped and stared at the concert with a puzzled expression. He started walking again and I thought he was leaving, but instead he sat down at an outdoor table at the coffee shop next door and continued to stare at the concert with the same puzzled look on his face. I prayed that God would speak to him and tell him what this was all about.
For some reason, I was surprised when God told ME to go talk to him.
The feeling wouldn’t go away, so I walked over and met David. He’s a 72 year old man from London, and he’s been visiting Walking Street regularly for 32 years. He was just as surprised as I was when he started telling me about his life:
That growing up, he never felt love from his father, a military man who was rarely home.
He never felt loved by his mother, who was too busy with eight children to pay him much attention.
His family attended church every Sunday and his mother stressed the importance of family, but he never felt love or loved. Even when his mom was dying he couldn’t tell her, “I love you.”
He never married because he never found someone that he felt he was capable of loving.
I asked David if he was searching for love, and he said, “I suppose so, trying to find it here in these streets, in sex.”
He was surprised at his own honesty with me and asked if I was going to charge him a fee for sitting in the psychiatrist’s chair, but I told him it wasn’t my place to judge. And it isn’t.
I don’t have any right to judge David or any of the men on Walking Street. Yes, I am angry, but after meeting David I can’t judge them. I know that not every story is the same, but I believe these men are held in bondage just as dark as what the women are facing. Places like Walking Street continue to thrive because there is a demand. Hearts have to change for this to end, and chains of the past have to be broken. It has to start with the men.
God loves the women on Walking Street, and He also loves the men. They are all His children, and to each of them He is offering freedom and love. I can’t meet every David out there, but I can pray for each of them.
Learn more about Tamar Center through their website: http://www.tamarcenter.org/en/home
