Thailand is a place where God has brought me to a crossroads of my desires as a traveller and a missionary.
I have been wanting to go to Phuket, Thailand for a few years. My desires to come here were soley based, however, on wanting to hit the beach and check out the party scene. At the time, I was studying in Germany and my German boyfriend’s sister had told me about Phuket. The island and its adventure sounded like a beautiful vacation destination.
I didn’t know about the darker side of Phuket, so I dreamed of going there one day.
So when I found out my new all-girls team was placed in Patong, Phuket, for ministry I was so excited! God has totally redeemed and changed my desires for being here, and I couldn’t wait to see what we would be doing.
I arrived to our team orientation after a 12-hour bus ride from Bangkok, severely sleep deprived after two nights of poor sleep, and clutching iced coffee. I was so tired, but so ready to find out what this month would hold.
My spirit woke right up, though, when our hosts explained what they had for us: bar ministry, in building relationships with the dancers, strippers, and prostitutes on and around Bangla Road. Every day, we go out to Bangla Road in the afternoon, when it’s quieter, and every night we go out to other bars. Regardless of how late it is or where we’ve been, many teammates and I return to Bangla Road every night to prayer walk and briefly visit the girls as well. I watch the sleepy tourists and pray for open eyes, I watch the girls and pray for open hearts.
This is all in preparation for a big outreach even on Valentine’s Day, when over 100 volunteers are expected to join us, and we will lead them around Patong and to the places we’ve built relationships at to pass out 1,000 roses. We’re going to bring true Love to dark places on that night, and I can’t wait.
My next few stories will be from and around Bangla Road.
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We had planned to go with our hosts out to a few different streets to scope out different routes for the Valentine’s Day outreach. When our hosts offhandedly asked if any of us wanted to prayer walk Soi Paradise, a street with clubs and bars that cater to homosexual men, we all jumped at the chance.
As we approached the street, I felt excited. Sadly, I think the homosexual community often doesn’t expect a lot of love from Christians, and I personally love giving them a different perspective of Jesus. As we walked, I eyed the older white men with the young, male Thai bar workers, praying for the chains of sexual and self-addiction to be broken as we walked. Shirtless men lined the street, advertising a show, while others offered cards with other services.
At the end of the street, our group huddled. Esther asked our host about how she felt about us going to one of the bars; she encouraged us to go. I couldn’t tell if my heart jumped from wariness, fear, or excitement for the unknown, but I found myself volunteering to go.
Esther, Hannah, and I decided to go back; we prayed for a way to get to talk to the men working in the bars, even just for a few minutes.
With Jesus before us, we walked back to the road of male prostitutes.
We scoped out a bar and were seated outside at a table outside of a club. A young Thai man, named Cam*, was our server and we struck up a surface-level conversation with him. He was shy with us, and left us to take other orders.
Esther, Hannah, and I sat, praying over and observing the street in front of us. My heart went out to all the men: the ones paying and the ones being paid. Waiters and other workers were setting up for a show on the street. Many of the tourists were looking at us in curiosity.
“We prayed for a way in with these guys. Where is the way in here? How do we get to know them, to get what’s really going on?” Esther mused out loud over our juice.
Almost immediately after, three Thai men walked up to our table. They introduced ourselves, and we began a light-hearted conversation. They were amiable and fun, with one of them, Tommy*, speaking English while the others relayed translations in Thai. From the way they were dressed, I figured they were tourists. Conversation was a little circular, but there was a lot of smiling and explaining as we introduced ourselves and got to know each other.
We asked about things like the street show; they said it was a “sexy show,” a magic show, and a cabaret show, and that it started soon. They chatted with us for a bit, and then left us. I was confused as to why they’d visited our table in the first place, knowing that most men on this road were looking for other available men, but my attention was redirected as preparation for the street show wrapped up.
Barrels stood directly in front of the bar on the street, and our jaws dropped in surprise as we realized it was our new friends standing shirtless on the barrels.
We’d asked Jesus for an in to the men; he brought us the show themselves.
“We literally were just talking to the dancers. Jesus brought them right to us!” we sat, laughing a bit out of shock and a sudden self-awareness.
I saw a middle-aged white man take a picture of now-shirtless-Tommy standing on a barrel, and I fought the urge to bat his phone away from my new friend.
At that point, we decided to leave; we didn’t want the men to think we’d come here for entertainment reasons. As we left, we stopped at their table and talked with them again, making fun small talk. We rehashed names and said goodbye. We were walking away, however, when Esther abruptly said, “Oh, we should pray for them…?”
The three of us about-faced, quite awkwardly, and approached their table again (also quite awkwardly).
“Hey…we were thinking…can we pray for you guys?” Esther asked.
The five or so guys were confused, so we mimed praying a few times and tried different wording (I tried “We want to talk to Jesus, about you, for you all!” to no avail). The men grabbed Tommy off of the barrel and a manager to help us translate. Somehow the message was relayed and the manager,who was a man dressed as a woman, said, “Yes, you can.” We started to put our hands on them, but as confusion started to sink in as we asked if we could touch them, we decided to put our hands in like a group cheer.
I was laughing, Hannah was laughing, Esther was laughing, and the guys were laughing at our big team huddle. With our hands in, we began to pray for them. I glanced up; there were smiles and confusion, but our big pile of hands didn’t move. We prayed for protection and conviction; we prayed for freedom and salvation. They didn’t understand it, but I prayed love and worth over the men.
“AAAAAAAMEN!” we lowered our hands in the center and threw them up in a big team cheer, laughing and clapping.
With the all the guys laughing at us and with us, joy lit up that little part of the street for a few minutes. It was beautiful, and it was all by Jesus.
We left Soi Paradise still smiling and already looking forward to going back.
(later edit: We did go back! We saw Tommy and a couple of the other guys. Cam was really excited to see us again, and Tommy told us more about his family and why he’s working there. We also invited Tommy to dinner tonight-he didn’t come but hopefully another night he will!)
*Names changed
