It’s seen in the movies, written about in the news, talked about at conferences, but today it was staring me in the eyes. “It” took on the form of a girl whose hair is as black as the room where she sits. The dot on her hairline shows she is married, but her occupation is not one we would think a married woman would have. For 12 hours a day she waits. Waits for a man to come in and ask for a dance. Waits for a stranger to come and take advantage of her. Waits for a little more of her soul to be sold.
Her face is young, but her eyes are aged. She has seen too much to be 21. She has experienced things I can’t even begin to imagine. She shares bits of her story that cut me to the core. I hold her hand and smile when all I want to do is cry. I feel the weight of shame that sits on her heart as she struggles to make eye contact.
When she does smile the atmosphere of the room changes. There He is. I tell her that even amidst her struggles her smile is a gift from God. It is something she has to hold onto. Is that all I can give her? The “fixer” in me wants to provide her with money, a job and a way out of her marriage. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to know what happens when we exit that building.
On the bus ride back our translators tell us they have rescued one girl from that “Cabin Restaurant” before and the only reason they were allowed back inside today was because foreigners were with them. We make a joke about being the Trojan Horse, but if our skin color paves the way for a relationship to be formed between those girls and our translators then, by all means, parade us around all day.
My prayer these first three weeks in Nepal has been for us to be the light wherever we go, but that’s not enough. We need to pray that we are not only the light, but that the darkness also comprehends and accepts the light.
John 1:5-11 says, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.”
Jesus, it is my prayer that we were witnesses to the light, to You, today. That You were recognized and received amidst the darkness. That the hope of Glory replaces the hopelessness in those hearts and in that place.
