How Much?

How much?

How much is she worth?

 

How much money would you be willing to pay to hang out with
your waitress for the night?  Five
dollars?  Ten dollars?  More? 
Less?

 

What if she was your best friend?  What if she was your little sister?  What if she was your daughter?  What if she was your wife?

 

How much then?

 

Take a walk with me. 
We’re in Chiang Mai, Thailand. 
It’s nearly midnight, but you wouldn’t know it by the looks of it — the
lights flicker and glow enticingly, the music blares, the streets pulse with
all of the people on them.  We walk into
a bar, slide into a booth and a young woman comes to take our order.  To call her a young woman might be a little
bit generous — she can’t be much older than eighteen.  She’s pretty, the way that all of the women
here are pretty with their fine bone structure and round cheeks and sweet
smiles.  Can you see her?  Who does she look like?

 

To me, she looks like my little sister Shelby.  She looks like my best friend Jess.  She looks like my younger cousins, Allie and
Ginny and especially Paige.  Could this
have been Paige?  What if she hadn’t have
been adopted from South Korea when she was a baby — would she be standing at a
table like this somewhere, taking drink orders and preparing for whatever would
be happening later that night?

 

If you read this blog, chances are that you know me.  You’ve probably talked with me or spent time
with me at some point… After reading these posts for the past seven months, you
surely know what I’ve been experiencing and learning lately.  So what if it was me?  What if I was the girl “waiting tablesâ€� at
these bars and I was tired?  What if I
was tired of my life, but I had no other options?  Would you help me? 

 

If you read this blog, chances are that I know you.  And after being blessed by your generosity
and support thus far, I know that you
would help me.  To many of you, I am your friend, your sister, your
daughter — or at least, I could be.  You wouldn’t pass by me when I was
desperate.  I know that you wouldn’t.

 

So let’s not pass by these women when they are
desperate.  Let’s not pass by the young
girls stuck in these bars.  Let’s not
walk past them, most of whom are not here by their own design.  Close your eyes and see your little girl,
your best friend, your only sister, exploited and alone.  What are you going to do about it?

 

My team and I are partnering with Lighthouse in Action
ministries this month.  We’re walking
those streets, sitting in those bars, talking with those girls and our goal is to
be Jesus.  We’re not walking in with Bibles, preaching a
message of condemnation or anger.  We’re
walking in to be girlfriends.  We’re
trying to get to know these girls, to build relationships.  The program director made it very clear:
we’re not a SWAT team running in to grab the women.  We’re farmers — we’re planting seeds,
watering them, and maybe even harvesting a couple if the season is right.

 

How do we do that specifically?  Our ministry this month centers around two of
my favorite things — praying and dating. 
Every day and every night, some part of our team will be in the prayer
room, interceding for this country and the women that we meet.  Then we spend two days and two nights a week
in bars, getting to know the girls and inviting them out on dates.  We want to take them to lunch, to the movies,
to get our nails done — the regular things girlfriends do with one
another.  Ministry this month is deeply
relational.  Success is not counted in
how many women we personally pull out of the bar scene; it’s about the depth
and quality of friendships made.

 

But I need your help. 
My team needs your help.  We have
to pay to buy ourselves [non-alcoholic] drinks in every bar we go — even the
ones we go in just to pray.  We have to
pay to buy the women drinks and the price doubles.  I’m hoping to get to the point where I can
offer to pay a girl’s bar fee, pay to take her out of there for the night.  Then on any of the dates we have, we’re
paying for the women.  But all of this
requires cash, something that runs pretty short after seven months around the
world.  My team and I are trying to raise
some money so that we can treat these women. 
We want to make some real, quality friendships — friendships where we
aren’t trying to get anything out of them, but just showing them the love of
Jesus through our lives.

 

If you would be willing to partner with us on this, please, please, please contact me.  Any
money that we have left over after the end of the month will be given to this
ministry; a prominent bar is closing at the end of April and the director has a
vision for a rehabilitation program, where the women can come to learn about
Jesus, but also to learn practical job skills. 
The four-month program costs about $1,000 dollars per woman, so any
money that we do not use “dating� the girls will go directly towards that
project.

 

So there we are, sitting in the booth.  The pretty girl’s name is Nam and she’s ready
to take our order.  What will you
have?  Coca-cola?  A cocktail?  Maybe the girl herself?

 

How much?