I knew he was watching us from the shadows. I knew that he didn’t like that we were talking to them, and I’m sure he wanted us gone. I would have loved to know what he thought about us in that moment. Or maybe I wouldn’t. I’m not sure. All that I know is that when my eyes met his, I could tell that he was not very happy to see us there.
We are just finishing up our second month on the race and we were extremely blessed to be able to spend October ministering to the people of Penang, Malaysia. One of the coolest ministries that I’ve gotten to do on the race so far, (aside from helping to deliver a baby in The Philippines) is being able to participate in something that we affectionately refer to as night ministry. Night ministry happens here every Wednesday night (hence the well thought out title), and it was the first real taste of ministry that we got here in Malaysia. This ministry is primarily to reach out to the homeless people that live in the part of the city that we also live in and invite them to the homeless center that we work through, but it is also used as a time to reach out to the people caught in the sex industry. Although I didn’t expect it, I fell in love with the people that are caught in this form of slavery, and my heart has literally broken for them.
I didn’t know before I came to Malaysia what an enormous hub Penang is for sex trafficking and sex tourism. On our second week of night ministry, we were just walking the streets looking for homeless people and praying silently over the city when the leader of our group said to us ‘you see that girl over there? She is a prostitute.’
It’s funny how your mind can accidentally skip over the negativity of a place when you are unfamiliar with it, and even more so, how people can voluntarily block out the fact that this is life for a lot of people that they pass on the streets every night. Before that moment, I hadn’t taken notice to anyone who particularly looked like a prostitute hanging out on the street. Since that moment, it’s all I can see when I venture out at night. In every dark alley, there are girls waiting to be bought, and if you sit down outside a hotel or a hostel, you will eventually see several going in/coming out with clients. I’ve seen rooms advertised by the hour that, trust me, are not used for tired travelers who just need a quick nap. As if seeing them in the act of being bought and knowing what was going on inside every brothel that I walked past wasn’t bad enough, it was not too long before I was informed that up to 90% of the women and girls who are working as prostitutes in Penang are not doing so voluntarily: They have been trafficked.
On this particular Wednesday night, we did not have a lot of leaders show up for night ministry, so we split into groups and we decided to stay in close proximity of our base just for safety’s sake. Our group had three guys and three girls, one of the girls being a local resident of Penang. We started our hour on the streets out by talking to a local security guard that we usually get to chat with while we are out and about. He is Hindu, but he is always very happy to see us, and we usually just check in on how life is with him, and sometimes he is open to prayer also. We then just began walking, having brief conversations with people on the streets,, but nothing major. Since the day when I began to fully process the amount of prostitution going on around me, I have kept an eye out for girls around every corner. Usually, I just try to make eye contact with them. While I realize that this is not in any way helping them escape the lives that they are trapped in, I would like to believe that in some way, a moment dedicated to them by someone who is not trying to buy them for their bodies may at least offer them a tiny bit of hope that there is something better for them in this world outside of the horrific life that they are being forced into. While we were walking along on this night, I glanced to my left across the street and saw a girl standing between two pillars on the sidewalk. (In Penang, most of the sidewalks are covered by a part of the building that is behind them and there are pillars closer to the road holding up the part of the building that covers the sidewalk.) When I saw this girl, I made eye contact with her, but instead of giving me a quick moment of eye contact and then looking away like most of the women do, she held my stare. It only lasted a few seconds before I looked away and kept walking, but those few seconds were more than enough to make me think about the choice I had to make. It took me two whole blocks to do it, but by the end of the second block I had decided that I was going back to talk to that girl. Since it’s kind of intimidating for a group of six people to walk up to a prostitute, and its a touchy subject for men to be involved in anyway, I stopped our group, told the other two girls that were with me that I wanted to go talk to her, and off we went.
I didn’t really know what to expect out of this encounter, after all, I don’t make it a daily habit at home to talk to prostitutes on the side of the streets. In all honesty, I’d have to say that I fully expected to walk up to her/kind of say hi to her, and then keep going because I was ultimately prepared for her to shut us down and for her to walk away from us the second we actually tried to talk to her. I was fully prepared for this to happen, and at this point I was just happy with myself for working up the courage to talk this girl in the first place. Lucky for us, God had other plans.
She watched us as we approached her, probably thoroughly confused why three white girls were coming up to her in the first place, and I awkwardly said hi to her. To my surprise, she not only said hi back, but also turned herself to be in a position where she could actually have a conversation with us. We introduced ourselves, and started asking her questions about her life. Most of the girls here who are stuck in prostitution won’t admit it to the general public, because prostitution is illegal, and they can technically be put in prison for it even if it is not done by choice. While this girl was telling us her ‘story’ I kept watch of the man that was standing at the corner of the two streets about ten yards down from us, I knew he was watching us, but when I first noticed him, I assumed he was a customer, and my mind automatically took the ‘he can wait’ route. It was not until I made eye contact with him, half accidentally and half to make him aware that I knew of his presence, that he stepped out of the shadows, crossed his arms, and I glared at us. It was in that moment that I realized not only was he not a customer, he was the one who owned this girl, and he did not like the fact that we were there talking to her. We kept talking to her for a few minutes, all the while keeping an eye on the man on the corner who just continued to stare at us with his arms crossed. I wasn’t scared of him. In that moment I was more worried about getting this poor girl in trouble for talking to us than I was about him retaliating out against us. For all he knew we were just dumb tourists who were lost and asking for directions. After about five minutes of talking with this girl, another woman who was also involved in the industry approached us. We we introduced ourselves, but it were not more than a minute into the conversation before I glance back at the spot where the man had been standing and realized that there was now not one but three men standing there, glaring at us with their arms crossed. Pimp’s apparently don’t like it very much when you take business away from their girls for that long, even if they do assume that you are just a dumb tourist. When I saw all three of them standing there watching me, I was immediately uncomfortable. I still was not scared, because I knew that I had the highest power on my side, but decided in that moment that it was still probably not a good idea to overstay our welcome. We said goodbye to the girls, continued on our way, and have not run into them since.
Looking back on that night, there are a few things that really stand out to me. I wish more than anything that we would have had an opportunity to pray for the two of them. Even if it was a fifteen second prayer, I wish I could have stood my ground for that much longer just to let those girls know that they are loved. On the flip side, I also have spent a lot of time thinking about how perfectly that encounter went even without the presence of prayer. Since signing up for the race, I have spent a lot of time in discussion about telling the love of Jesus versus showing the love of Jesus. In an area of the world where Christianity is not always received with grace, it is sometimes better to practice showing rather than telling, and I pray that these girls, even though they are caught up in a horrific life, were able to see glimpses of God through us that night. I realize that in the grand scheme of things, one conversation with two girls really does not have an impact on the horrors that are occurring here on a nightly basis. It can, however, have an impact on the lives of those two specific girls. Even thought we were not able to share the gospel with them, I sincerely hope that God did a number in their hearts during that conversation, because he sure did in ours.
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I am still in need of approximately $2,900 in order to reach my next deadline on December 1st.
If you feel called to give, please do so by following the link to the left of this bog.
