Changing the Atmosphere

I wanted to take a moment and share some of what I have learned in the past week about prostitution and the sex industry here in Pattaya.

“Pattaya has a multi-billion dollar multinational sex industry with links to drug trafficking, money laundering, and an expanding regional cross-border traffic in women.”  (source: Mark Baker, http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/thailand.htm)

There are two things that I have learned over the past week or so that I want to address, the first thing is how some of these women get into prostitution.  There are a lot of little villages or slums around here and often times what will happen is a man will leave his wife and children and then the woman is left to care for the children but with no skills or means to do so.  They come into a near by big city to try and make money, they quickly find that the easiest way to make money fast is to work in the bars selling themselves.

 The other thing  I want to talk a little about is the men. At first I was very angry, I didn’t understand how they could do what they were doing.  There were times I just wanted to scream and have an episode!!  The Lord quickly changed my view, I was speaking to a woman who has been here for a year and a half doing ministry, her and her husband have spoken to some of these men and walked some of them through inner healing.  Most of these men have been hurt in their past and are looking for love, this is the place and means of which they have stumbled upon it.  It is a simple yet very sobering thought that the same Jesus Christ who died to save me also died for these men.

Last week we went to an evening of prayer and worship at the Pattaya House of Prayer, it is located in the middle of the party scene of Pattaya.  The walk to find it was very real, let me paint this picture for you…

Bars, restaurants and clubs cover every square foot of this beachfront strip; bright lights, loud music, and the thick smells of smoke, alcohol, and street food flooded my senses as we walked.  Women selling themselves and bold men buying their time.  Every once in a while I caught the eye of one of the men or women, I could only imagine what they must have been thinking.  My heart broke.  When all the bright lights are off at the end of the night and the dance music muted and the buzz of the alcohol gone, what is left?  The hearts of desperate boys and girls?  Young women robbed of innocence before they had a chance to live.  Men so numb they have become unaware of the affects of their actions.  Women who know nothing of their worth; that it is not in the money they make or the men who “choose” them. 

In the middle of it all, after walking through all of this we file into a building, wedged right between two nightclubs.  We climb the three flights of stairs that lead to the Pattaya House of Prayer.  What a humbling thing, what a revolutionary thing.  To pray.  To worship.  To release His glory and His truth over this town as the parties raged below us.  It was sweet.  We encountered the heart of God in that little room.  That is what it’s about, in the midst of everything, in the midst of some of the darkest darkness we can still encounter God…WE MUST.  An encounter with the Holy, all Powerful, and all Loving God is what will change this city.  The atmosphere is changing, and we won’t stop until earth looks just like Heaven.