We Found Hope in a Hopeless Place

 

But this month one of my daily prayers has been for The Lord to show me the harvest, to show me the hope on Bangla Road, and there was no denying the quiet voice telling me to go back to the girl on the motorcycle.

 

Suddenly, I can no longer see the crowd or the chaos or the bright flashing lights…all I can see is a young Thai woman, sitting atop a motorcycle, who has somehow already found her way right into my heart. 

 

I grab my teammates and we walk back to her. As I approach her, I see the tears coming down her face. I smile and ask her name, Chi*, and tell her I want to make sure she is okay, and find out why she is sitting all alone.

 

I learn her story. That she arrived in Phuket a few months prior because a friend told her there was "much work" here.

 

But so far she hasn't been able to find any work…except to sell her body. 

 

She has two children who live in Northern Thailand, which is fueling her desperation to find work and make money- by any means possible.

 

She explains to me that the source of her tears are from a man she met at one of the discotechas on Bangla. As best as I can understand, she tells me that she met him & liked him, but she desperately needs money- so she  had him pay her as any other customer would. 

 

She hands me her phone and shows me a text with words which break my heart even more.

 

"Chi, stop calling me. I have a girlfriend, okay? I'm beginning to think you only want the money" 

 

I look up from the text and into her eyes and tell her there are other options. I tell her that I know people who will teach her English, who will help her find work, who will help her find hope, the true hope…that she no longer has to sell her body to try to support her children. There is a God and His people who will love her beyond belief.

 

We talk for a while, her tears are gone and replaced with a radiant smile- and after talking a while longer, I finally tell her how beautiful she is, hug her, and walk away…with her email address in my hand and a prayer in my heart- a prayer that her story will end differently.

 

The hardest part is- she is not the exception.

 

I remember the faces of each woman I've met.

I remember their stories.
I remember my ladyboy friend who has been trapped "working" for the same bar since she was 13.

I have seen girls tears as they tell me about the children they miss and the jobs they hate.
I have watched beautiful Thai girls, girls who are my friends, girls my age and younger, be groped and used and sold to men old enough to be their fathers and grandfathers.

I have seen their suprise when they realize we are there to spend time with them and get to know them, rather than treat them as objects, as they've come to expect.

It's all enough to break a person of having any hope, that's for sure.

But In a place where it is so easy to become discouraged and disheartened by the things we are seeing day after day…I am realizing something. 

I'm realizing that in the darkest of places- there is the most desperation.
And where there is a desperation- there is a yearning.
A yearning to be loved. A yearning to matter.

It's all anyone on Bangla wants, really- tourist and Thai alike. It's all anyone wants.

 

And where there is yearning and a desperation…there are people who are ready to believe in something more. So… in spite of everything..there is an incredible amount of hope on Bangla. A hope in which we who know Him, were saved. Even when we can't always see it with our own eyes. (Romans 8:24) The harvest, my friends, is ready. Hope is here.