The title of this blog may have caught you by surprise, made you blush, or made you skeptical about if it actually happened. Well, we’re here to tell you that it’s not just clickbait.
Proceed with caution as you read this blog because it does include graphic depictions of what we experienced in the Red Light District.
Let us do a quick recap to catch you up to speed:
For month 9 we were originally placed in northern Thailand in a city called Chiang Mai but due to the severity of the poor air quality, we were pulled out and given the opportunity to have an ATL month (Ask The Lord). An ATL month allows the freedom to go where we feel our Lord is calling us. Our team felt God highlighting a beach town in south Thailand called Pattaya. We touched base with a church/ministry called The River Church and Lighthouse Cafe. With that small lead, we packed our bags and caught an overnight bus to a town none of us had ever heard of. When we got there, it was like God pulled a cord that raised the curtain to the darkness and brokenness.
Even though our team participated in different types of ministry together, we all walked away with different experiences and perspectives from our nights on Walking Street. We would like to share our journey with you.
Pattaya’s economy is almost completely based on sex tourism. It’s hard to imagine what the city is like without it. We were previously told about the prostitution during our time in Chiang Mai but you have to intensely seek it out or be approached as a white male. Also, during our time in Jaco, Costa Rica we went into a bar that was considered one of the largest prostitution hubs in Central America. Pattaya is different, it’s everywhere, and you can not escape it. It can look glamorous as one of the highest paying jobs in the country – earning 60,000 baht (approximately 2,000 USD) a month. It can also look like standing on the street corner, selling your body for less than a dollar and a hotel room for the night. The majority of the working men and women don’t see other options, it’s a way to escape poverty, and when girls put their bodies on sale, there’s a big demand.
In Thailand there is a celebration called Songkran. It’s a multiple day new year’s festival that happens in April, and that just so happened to coincide with our last week in Pattaya. The Thai people celebrate by wearing Hawaiian shirts, wiping white powder on people’s faces, and throwing copious amounts of water everywhere and on everyone. There is basically no way to escape from the city-wide water fight that ensues other than literally leaving town, which is exactly what most of the missionaries in Pattaya did.
We saw this vacancy as an opportunity to step in and be a light while they were gone.
During our first week, we connected with Shear Love International. This ministry goes into the Red Light District to build relationships with the working women and men. They offer them an opportunity to go to cosmetology school which provides them with a salary, housing, and English classes. The staff walks alongside them in discipleship, and on average over 90% of their students come to Christ and get baptized.
Their team recommended condom outreach as it would be easy to do among the busyness of the holiday. Shear Love strives to meet all the working men and women where they are at. Ideally, they would like to bring all of the women out of this line of work, but that takes time and building trusting relationships. So, one way they can provide for the women’s immediate needs is by giving them condoms. Many of the freelance women (meaning they are not associated with a particular bar or club) are not provided with protection and can’t afford it themselves. We give them condoms to help protect them from contracting a disease or becoming pregnant.
We wrote notes of encouragement along with contact information for Shear Love, attached them to the condoms, and prepared for what we were about to encounter.
You Are Loved
Christ Calls you Worthy
You are Beautiful
You are Strong
Courtney
The 20 policemen stood there lined up like military, turned inward towards one another, ignoring the crime filled bars around them. Tourists and locals alike celebrating the New Year with the biggest water fight in the world, laugh and fall their way down the cobblestone road. The air is thick with the smell of smoke, alcohol, and lust. The neon lights are never ending, and the darkness of Walking Street is felt the moment you arrive. Where’s the justice?
We’re only a team of 4 girls, what are we going to do? There’s hundreds of bars full of working girls, drunk men, and heaviness we can’t carry alone. We stop in the middle of the crowd and pray out loud to our Lord.
We pray for guidance.
We pray for protection.
We pray for discernment.
We pray for boldness.
We pray for the people around us.
We pray for the people we will encounter.
We pray for our own hearts to be open.
We thank the Lord for the opportunity to glorify Him.
Emma
Earlier that day we visited Shear Love, and as I looked down Walking Street, at the women lining the sidewalk, I am reminded of the women we met that day at the school. They were so sweet, so kind, and so normal. My heart broke as I thought about just how normal these girls working the street are and just how normal doing this work is here. These girls have parents, they have siblings, and they may even have boyfriends or husbands. They have inside jokes with their friends, favorite foods, and hopes and dreams for what they want their lives to look like.
I can feel my chest tightening and I have to tell my lungs to breathe normally as they try to betray me with fast, hyperventilation breaths. I stop in front of one club holding my bag of condoms, frozen as I stand five feet away from a group of girls wondering if I should offer them some. I felt like I couldn’t move, like everything was crashing in on me as I looked at the men going into the clubs, the women standing outside, and my teammates looking at me like I was crazy. After a couple minutes of frozen silence, I returned to my team and we decided to split up, with Carsyn and Mary going into a bar with some condoms and Courtney and I going to a restaurant next door.
Carsyn
After a half hour of mustering up some courage, Mary and I decided to go into one of the strip clubs to pray over the people inside and attempt to give them condoms. Some places check your bags before entering the club and we had two bags of 60 condoms, so I shoved a few packs in my shirt and walked in. Walking into the club was surreal. The women were up on three stages that looked like cattle stalls. They have numbers on them for the convenience of their purchasers.There was a large golden bell dangling from the center of the room which had a sign above it that read “ring to buy a girl a drink.” The men, who looked as if they were stripped of all joy and consciousness throw money at the huddle of women and they dove to the floor to fight over it.
Sadly, I would come to the realization of how tame this night would be compared to the night I would experience a few days later.
We were warned to be discreet, and to not be discouraged if people were not open to listening or talking with us. We were told if we got caught by one of the bar owners we could end up in immigration jail (worse case scenario). This has actually happened to other missionaries our hosts knew. We decided the best way to reach the women was to give the condoms and notes to our waitress, because she would know who would need them.
She smiled, said thank you and we left.
Mary
I tend to avoid situations where I might be out of place. I hate sticking out or doing something or being somewhere that I don’t belong. On top of that, there can be severe repercussions including immigration jail, fines, or in extreme cases being held hostage for being associated with a non-profit in a closed club. Being a white American female, a missionary, and walking into a men’s Asian strip club is completely out of my comfort zone.
When I walked in with Carsyn, the first thing I thought of was Block (advanced AP history and English) my sophomore year of high school. A theme of our class throughout the year was civil/savage and humanizing/dehumanizing. We talked about the ways that certain groups of marginalized populations have been dehumanized – that oppression often leads to taking away the human dignity of people – the dignity given to us from the Lord. What happens behind the closed doors of the Thailand night clubs turns girls, or guys, into products. It strips them of their identity. I couldn’t help but think about how that is what it means to go to work for many girls in Thailand. That just as casual as you would walk into a cubical in America, these girls put their bodies on display and work to be sold to men.
So why did I go in? Even though we didn’t change the sex industry? Even though it was hard? Because that is what Jesus calls us to do. He calls us to try, even when you can’t see the fruit. Even when you fail. Even when you don’t want to.
I kept finding myself asking “how would Jesus walk down this street?”
The one who is able to heal with a touch, who flips tables in the tabernacle, and gives the truth with so much wit. Why can’t I just be like Him? Why can’t we be as bold, daring, and put together as He is during our ministry. To be honest it frustrates me. I find that I am often mad at myself and others who are doing ministry with me because we just can’t serve the way He did. We try. And in some cases, I think we do the best we can, but that’s all we can do. It’s also all that He asks for.
Emma
As Mary and Carsyn are inside the club, Courtney and I sit down at a nearby restaurant. I sit down on the couch and I cry. I cry because my heart is breaking for these girls. Cry because these men disgust me, and I can’t even look them in the eye. Cry because there’s no way I can save the hundreds of girls on this street trapped in lies. Cry because I’m too fearful and upset to even do something about it. Cry because I’m so ashamed that I haven’t handed out a single condom or spoken to a single working girl.
Courtney
I sit with Emma inside a quiet restaurant, watching the chaos outside, and my mind is overwhelmed with emotion, anxiety, and confusion. Emma starts to cry and express what she’s experiencing. I feel physically calm and able to hold conversation and offer her comfort. This is from the Lord.
I’ve been here before. I’ve walked this scene in my life. The drunk, crazy, party scene; I almost feel numb to it. This time it’s different. I see it through our Lord’s lens, and my eyes begin to fill with tears.
We sit, and we cry, and we pray.
Carsyn
After we left, it felt as though we had ripped the band-aid of intimidation off and a blanket of boldness was draped over us. We were much more expectat for what our second night would bring.
We go home after Carsyn and Mary return from the bar with heavy hearts and heavy bags still full of condoms, but expectant and hopeful for the next night.
Going into our second night on Walking Street, we were prepared in the sense of being prayed up individually as well as a team. Songkran was in full swing, so the number of people were at least doubled. Entering the street, the atmosphere felt almost lighter with the laughter and fun that the celebration brought. There were families with their young children participating in the festival, having squirt gun fights and watching as others were doused in ice cold water. Although it seemed to serve more as a distraction to what was happening behind closed curtains.
Emma
The whole team was very thrown off by how overwhelming the red-light district was the night before, but we felt more prepared this time. I spent the day praying about whether I should go at all – whether God wanted me to go and if it would even be helpful for me to go. I thought about interceding in prayer from the house, but that didn’t feel right and I know myself well enough to know that I would not be as intentional and productive from far away. I thought about diving headfirst into the ministry and going into the bars with my team, but my heart did feel heavy to intercede so that didn’t feel right either. I decided to join my team in Walking Street but intercede in prayer from there rather than go into the bars. As we began our prayer walk down the street, I told God that I wanted to feel what He was feeling, but I didn’t want it to make me crumble.
Give me Your heart, Lord, but let it be fuel to fight rather than an overwhelming pressure to bring me down.
Courtney
Are we like the policeman; fully aware of the evil surrounding us, but not acting on it? Are we staying within our own Christian comfort zone, only motivated when it’s convenient? God equips us with wisdom, authority, protection, and boldness to step up and step out.
You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.
Let us not ignore the evil and injustice, but face it and destroy it with His mighty love and grace.
Carsyn and I walk up to the first Go Go.
We are immediately turned away; “No women allowed, only men.” |
We walk to the second bar, the bouncer points at my dress, which is soaking wet from being targeted by the hundreds of people shooting water guns, and shakes his head, “No”.
We walk to the third bar, and they don’t even blink an eye, check our bag, or motion to stop us.
The music is deafening, there are men sitting at every table, and half naked girls standing inside a ring with numbers on them. There are fully naked women in the center of the club entertaining the men directly in front of them. I find myself focusing on the men; their empty and lust filled stares almost make me gag. I can feel my entire being start to fill with anger.
Carsyn
Twice we were offered entrance into a live sex show. We respectfully declined and continued on our way. We ended up gaining admission into the club I had gone into on the first night. We would soon realize that what we witnessed the first night would be PG compared to this night. There were twice as many working girls this time and more than twice the amount of customers. In the middle of the room was a woman in a ring that had gymnastic rings dangling above her. This woman was completely naked, surrounded by men twice her age. The men are motorboating her vagina, massaging her vagina, and their heads are being washed by her soaped up body.
Are you uncomfortable yet?
Try envisioning all of that for about an hour and you might have an idea of what my mind experienced. It was daunting. Absolutely heartbreaking. Something I will never be able to unsee. You would think the common thing that united these people was the sex industry, but what really unites them is the brokenness that each individual carries.
Mary
When you read this, your heart might ache for the girls, but there are men too. And in some ways this makes my heart hurt even more. Not just the men who are engaging with the women but men who work as well. They are called “ladyboys”. In Asian culture, pregnant women will go to monks and ask for a blessing. If the monk predicts the baby to be a female, the baby will be raised as a female regardless of the sex they are born with. They are so feminine it’s hard to tell that they aren’t actually girls. The mental damage is unreal. Their identity is confused. Their worth is questioned as they struggle with understanding why they weren’t born as women when they were expected to be. But this doesn’t happen to women – they are never raised as men. Why? Women are the providers for the family. They are the ones who are expected to take care of their families and support them. For this reason, having a girl is very important in this culture, and if you don’t have one, many families turn one of their boys into a girl. Even more surprising, a number of men who work as ladyboys in the bars, selling their bodies in gay clubs, are not actually gay. Some were never raised as ladyboys from birth. They call it “gay for pay” which represents men who do this kind of work just to pay bills and escape poverty.
Courtney
“Lord please help change my heart towards your children.”
I continue to pray over each person I see. Slowly, I feel my heart softening. The Lord filling it with compassion, showing me the men through His eyes, and my heart breaks. These men are no different than me. Their sin may look different than mine, but we are the same broken humans in a fallen world. We have the same Father who loves us and gives us mercy we don’t deserve.
One of the girls walks up to our table and takes a seat next to me. She laughs at our soaking wet clothes, and introduces herself. We ask simple questions about her family and life in Pattaya, we laugh at my attempt to speak a few words in Thai, and for a few minutes she seems comfortable, like she didn’t need to impress anyone and could just be. She casually gets up walks away, and takes her place on stage. My heart drops. I didn’t have anything to give her, except those few minutes of feeling safe.
I ask the Lord to reveal His truth.
For each person to feel hope and know there’s a different way.
For His spirit of peace.
Emma
I got an image from Him then of a father sitting at home while his daughter was on a date with a boy. The second this father hears that the boy has mistreated his daughter in any way, he is jumping out of his lazy boy, grabbing the shotgun out of the closet, and going to get his daughter. He doesn’t hesitate, he doesn’t sit and feel sorry about this happening, he takes action! This is how He feels about every single one of His children in the red-light district. God says that we don’t fight with things like shotguns, though but with prayer and faith in Him, so we decided I would sit with one teammate in a McDonald’s in the middle of the action while two other teammates would go into a bar with some condoms. We sat at a table with three chairs, two for us and one for Jesus, and we just talked to Him. We talked to Him about all the hurt we were feeling and seeing. We lifted up the working women and men, the children, the customers, the owners and the pimps and the brothel mothers. We covered every inch of this place in prayer along with our teammates that were interacting with the women. We prayed for their protection as they did something that is technically illegal here and for Holy Spirit to speak through them and hold them up as their support.
Through all of this, my heart felt so much lighter than the night before. The amount of pain and brokenness we saw was still the same, if not more. It still disgusted me to see men come up to women they didn’t know and put their hands all over them. I was still repelled by the menus held out to us of acts we could pay for as casually as ordering a meal. But, God was showing me more of His heart. Yes, He hates this, He is deeply saddened by everything that goes on here, but He uses that sadness and anger to fight for love.
He doesn’t just accept what is happening and move on, and neither will we.
Our team reconvenes after several visits inside different clubs, and with several condoms left we head to Beach Road. This part of the city is known for prostitution; there are hundreds of freelance women standing on the side of the road waiting for work. We split into groups again and approach the first group with caution. We say hello in Thai, and ask if they would like a free gift while holding out the condoms. We received mixed responses, but most of the women responded with a smile and gratefully took the condoms. We spent over an hour of walking down the road meeting and talking with these women, while simultaneously praying over them and the men that would approach them right in front of us. We will carry the women’s gentle hearts with us and continue to ask the Lord to invade their life with His hope.
We will be discussing these experiences for months to come but for now this is what The Lord has placed on our hearts to share. We hope you’ve gained a better understanding of what our month in the Red Light District looked like, how it has impacted all of us collectively and individually, and what The Father is doing in this city. Our hope is that you step away from this blog feeling different than how you started it.
Thank you for reading.
Team 4 Count
