We were going to a restaurant to get some chocolate for Valentine’s Day. All the couples were out, and it was as busy as I had ever seen Antigua (not that I had seen more than a week of Antigua). People were making out on street corners, pairs were eating dinner by candlelight, and live romantic music was wafting through the air. I happened to look across the street from the restaurant and I noticed a tall, young Hispanic woman. She was very skinny and in high wedge heels, makeup, wearing a beige trench coat and holding a single red rose in her hand. She didn’t look like the short, cocoa-skinned Mayans of Guatemala. I did a double take because it didn’t look like she was wearing anything under the trench coat. Then I noticed her eyes: glazed over, as if she was either stoned or just out of it. A young man, probably of European descent, was lightly touching the front of her coat. He appeared to open it a little, then button it back up. And I just knew right then that this woman was a prostitute, and that this man was a john. I froze a little bit, even though I was still walking. The man, satisfied, took the woman’s hand and they walked away.
I lost my appetite.
I don’t know how I noticed. I don’t know how I haven’t noticed similar occurrences in the U.S. That shook me like nothing else has since I’ve been on the World Race. Not poverty, not malnutrition, not gang wars or emaciated animals—a prostitute and a gringo john. I didn’t expect to see that here in Antigua. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to pull both of them aside and tell them that they’re better than that. They are made in the image of the one true God. They are a prince and a princess, and they should act like it. Such an act won’t bring them love or a respite from loneliness; it will only bring destruction, even more poignant on Valentine’s Day.
Then I wondered, how desperate would you have to be to turn a trick? What if your family couldn’t eat otherwise? What if it was a choice between you and a family member? What if you were so addicted to drugs that you went through the motions and didn’t think you had any way out?
I had been having doubts earlier. I am shy and timid, and I knew before I came on the race that I couldn’t do anything that they were asking me to do out of my own strength, which is a good thing anyway. I am put in the position of having to rely on God more because very little of this comes naturally to me. After I saw that happen, I began to realize more and more that it’s not about me. My God is bigger than my weaknesses, my fears, my doubts, my fears of rejection, and my insecurities. I am enough in his eyes. In fact, how can I not be enough when His power is made most perfect through my weaknesses? I don’t have to be some super Christian who has a tally of people she shares the Gospel to; I just have to be available and obedient to His leading. I was tired and discouraged, but it’s a daily choice to be His hands and feet even when I don’t feel like it.
Today I choose to be available and obedient and believe. Today I choose to bring life to people I meet. Today I choose to listen to Him and allow Him to work through me. Today I choose to be transformed and let Him transform the world through me. Satan may have his throne here, but Jesus is still Lord, and He’s already won. Today I choose to bring kingdom in preparation of the final day when He will wipe away all tears from our eyes and take back this land.
Today I choose to let people know that they are not alone, and that they have a choice. It’s not an easy thing to let Him take over, but it is worth everything. Apart from Him, nothing else matters.
