This story is not glamorous. But it is what I saw and thought and I want to share it for the simple fact of I want people to know these things happen.
Friday evening was dance bar ministry.
Our goal was to get girls’ numbers who did not want to work anymore and to show them they were loved.
Our squad of 55 divided into 4 groups. Our 7 guys split up among the groups to be prayer warriors for the women in our squad as we talked to the dance bar girls.
So my team picked one bar and I nervously walked up the two flights of stairs. I was immediately greeted by a security guard, the strong smell of cigerettes and seeing the smoke in the air, bright colors and loud music, and a girl dancing on the stage in a tiny, tight dress and high heels.
Our group divided up among the tables in the room–we basically took it all up which was neat. We were told to buy sodas for ourselves and for the girls who came to sit with us. We were told talk to them and get to know them. We were given the acronym of FROM which stood for family, recreation, occupation (goals), and memories as a tool to get to know them. As we talked to them and built trust, we were to ask if they liked working there and if they didn’t, get their numbers so that we could talk to them later about other opportunities for them.
At my table we had two tiny girls that came over to us. They were 5 ft. nothing, but some of the sweetest, most precious girls. They were about 21 and had so much energy in their eyes. I totally fell in love with them.
We bought them some sodas and we got to know them despite the loud music. We had 4 women of our squad and one of our men at our table. It was definitely hard for me to see a brother-in-Christ in that environment, though. Even though he was praying for those sweet girls and the conversations we were having with them, I knew it was a uncomfortable environment for all of our men as they were doing everything but looking at the stage. It made me want to do everything in my power to protect the men in our group, especially the one sitting at our table. It then made me think of how much more we should do our part in protecting them every day as sisters. Though it isn’t our “job” to protect them, it also is. There are things we can do to make it easier for them to have pure minds and hearts just as much as they have a responsibility to respect us.
Honestly, though, the dancing was really not as bad as I was imagining.
But there were other things I noticed. There was one girl who claimed to be 17 who was probably more like 15.
She was the one dressed the skimpiest. Danced the dirtiest. But she was just a child. I have counseled girls at my camp her age–and here she was doing what she could to earn money. Later in the evening, it broke my heart even more when I saw her behind us with a 50 year old man’s arm around her young shoulders giving her a cigarette.
The older women looked tired as they danced on the stage or sat with us. And not just physically tired, but soul tired.
But there is something I want you to get from this besides that dance clubs, prostitution, etc. are real.
Yeah, these girls are “dance club girls” but I prefer to call them “daughters of the Most High God.”
It breaks my heart that these girls are so dehumanized and shown around as something to be bought and used.
Their identity does not come from what they do and I don’t want any of us to believe that either. They are precious. They are God’s. And just as much as we were lost before we knew God and are redeemed, same with them.
Also, here are some things we got to do because you funded us.
1. Most of our teams took up whole rooms because of our number. I would like to think we kept some people from coming in.
2. We got girls numbers to give to our host to see if they want to get out.
3. We got to love on these girls. We got to care for who they were as humans, find out who they were and find out what they wanted to do.
4. Who knows the seeds God has sown through us?
Please pray that any and all girls come to know that they are worth more, that they will want to leave the dance bars, and that there will be way for them to.
*If you want to know what else I learned from that night, please read my next blog “The Exploitation of Women” coming soon.
