In the past 18 hours I have experienced two extremes of Thailand, from the ugly, sinfilled streets of Patong with countless faces of people searching for love and women selling their bodies to the beautiful beaches with crystal clear, turquoise water and the peaceful ebb and flow of the waves.
This month my team, Blue Sky, and Team Lit2Blaze will be working with SHE Ministries here in Phuket, Thailand. Last night was our first night of ministry, so yesterday afternoon the 12 of us loaded up in the back of a truck and made our way to Patong. We then prayer walked down Bangla Road, where we would be ministering. Bangla Road has more than 200 bars, each bar has on average 6 girls, so every night on this one road there are approximately 1,200 girls selling their bodies. Our purpose is to get to know the girls and after building trust we offer them a way out of the bar with a guaranteed job from SHE (making jewelry.)
To prepare our hearts before we went out we gathered together for prayer and worship before heading back to Patong about 9pm.
So, how do you minister in a bar? Find a bar that is pretty slow for business, take a seat, order a coke, challenge one of the girls to a game (connect four or dice) and then start a conversation.
My heart breaks seeing these beautiful daughters of God so lost and hurting. My prayer for the last year has been to be the hands and feet of Christ and to share his love with those around me…and now I have that opportunity. When I walk down Bangla road, it is with the feet of Christ and when I talk with the bar girls it is with the love of Christ that I speak.
