I feel my squad mates arms around me as we stand in a circle praying over what we are about to walk into. My heart is beating a little faster in anticipation and my palms feel tingly with apprehension. My heart grasping to the hope that maybe just by bringing Jesus in us we can shed some light on some of the darkness. The six of us turn the corner into the red light district and on to the busy “walking street” in Pattaya, Thailand.
Immediately my senses are on overload. There are thousands of people walking this street. Men. Women. Children. With each step my eyes and ears took in more and more of the darkness around me. Flashing lights, blaring music, half dressed women, men with lust filled eyes, tourist flashing photos, characters on stilts with frightening masks. I turn to look at the girls with me. All of us silently in shock because of everything happening around us. I quietly start praying. For the men who are here to fulfill the hole in their empty lives. For the “innocent” bystander who has come to see the sites. For the children brought by their parents now fully exposed to the darkness at such a young age. For the salesmen pushing graphic menus in my face offering any sort of “favor” you could think of. For the women. So many women. Women with false smiles and empty eyes wearing anything to keep your eyes on their body. Women who are dancing on the bar. Women in glass cages, their hands never leaving their pole. Girls not even 15 standing on the corner waiting for their potential buyers. Women sitting in mens laps nervously trying to please them. My prayers fade as I’m overwhelmed with every emotion that is flooding my heart. Sadness. Disgust. Anger. Helplessness. Guilt. Love. Judgement. Disbelief. Hurt. I’d go from tear filled eyes to an anger filled face with each passing second. There was so much going on around me that there wasn’t room to process anything I was feeling. Fleeting reminders that we are the light enter my mind as I try to cling to those thoughts before the next thing grabs my attention. The weight of the evil around us was tangibly growing with each moment we spent walking that street.
We come to the end of the street and all of us just stand there in sort of a haze. In a way it feels wrong to even crack a joke or talk about anything other than the madness we just walked through. We decide as we walk back we would like to go in to a bar and try to talk to some of the women. We split in half, 3 going in to one bar and the other three going in to another. We order three cokes and tell the bar mother we would like to buy a drink for one of the girls. She quickly tells us only after they are done dancing. Our alumni squad leader starts telling us that the owners of the bars go to the hill tribes and tell parents they will give them money to for the girls to come work in their “restaurants”. We sip our cokes. She tells us that some of these women have kids and no education so they feel they have no other way to make money. We watch a bar fight. She tells us that some of these girls don’t even try to get an education. They get fast money by doing this so why waste time and money on knowledge? We watch a man come up to a girl and touch her leg awkwardly laughing. She tells us some of these girls are taken and live a life of captivity. We watch another girl try to grab a man as they walk by coyly laughing and feigning the lightness of what is about to happen. The girls are still dancing. We overhear a man ask a woman where she wants to go and she responds with “wherever you want”. I just keep thinking, “what is happening?” “How have I never realized how horrible all of this was before?” I see my brothers in the faces of the men and feel my sisters hurting caught in this terrible mess. My mind keeps replaying over all the times I’ve turned a blind eye to scenes like this. All the times I’ve played my own role in objectifying women or joked about things that happen here, or played a part in downplaying my own sin that keeps streets like this alive. Whether or not I was there to partake, there have been many times that I removed myself from the equation. All of this has nothing to do with me. That was a lot harder to do sitting smack dab in the middle of it.
The rest of the girls from our group met up with us as we sat at that bar. The girls were still up there dancing. We decide to all pray silently over the entire bar. My heart is broken. How much more does God’s heart break? He watches his children wandering in this darkness every night. We eventually pay and leave without ever having a chance to talk to one of the girls. It’s almost midnight as we ride back, not speaking a word. Tears slide from my eyes unsure how else I can express what I just experienced. We walk past the gates of the conference center that we are staying at and see our squad mentor sitting at a table with some of the girls who stayed to pray over us as we went out. They softly start to worship our Savior and I’m struck with the contrast between darkness and light. How can I emerge from the darkest place I have ever been with praise coming from my heart? It feels so wrong to experience such evil and then turn around and sing about how God’s love is endless. But I guess that is what it is all about. He is still good. He still loves every one of those people on that street. He still desires for their hearts to experience the fullness of His love and the freedom of His grace. He longs to show each of those men that He is so much more satisfying than any of those women could ever be. He longs to hold each of those women in His arms and cover them with his purity and the truth of the beauty that He gave them. His heart cries for those caught in the lies that this scene promises. Satisfaction! Fulfillment! Happiness! How He wishes he could uncover their eyes to the truth of that street. To the death. To the sadness. To the emptiness. To the hurt. To the desperation. To the searching.
I wish I could adequately portray the effect that this night had on me. I wish you could see what I saw and feel what I felt. I wish that those men wouldn’t have to use women to feel fulfilled. I wish that those women wouldn’t use their bodies to make money. I wish that the women trapped in trafficking would be set free. I wish that we as Christians could rally and shed so much light on dark places such as the walking street. I wish that we could lead people to the Father so they can be set free by the truth of his gospel. I wish we could put petty issues aside and unite together under one cause, the cause of Christ. I wish that we were driven by His love and led by His Spirit. I wish that I would stop pointing the finger at God to fix the problem and look in the mirror and realize He is in me and will fix it if we let Him.
In a way that experience encouraged me to dream big, because during that night in Pattaya, in the smallest way, He was able to make those wishes come true.
