I realize it has been a while since I shared stories of what
I have been doing. So I decided that I would spend some time and share a few of
the stories I have from Thailand, Kenya and Uganda.
Patong, Thailand. Our ministry in Thailand was spent going into
the red light district of the resort town Patong. We were living in Phuket
about 15 minutes away from Patong. Phuket is a small island off the southern
tip of Thailand, and yes it was breathtakingly beautiful. However the night
life was not. The first night I walked down the streets of Patong I was hit by
the reality of “the night life of Thailand”. Our night consisted of going to
the bars drinking cokes, playing connect four and Jenga with the bar girls
trying to see if any of them wanted to quit working in the bars. We built
really good relationships at a few of the bars so we would go to those bars
every time to build on the relationships we had made.
Walking down the main street became much more challenging
and heartbreaking as we began to notice one ladyboy prostitute that would
always stand in the same place every night. A ladyboy for those of you who
don’t know is a man that has surgically turned himself into a woman. In
Thailand there are many ladyboys and the reason these men turn themselves into
women is because prostitution is a way for them to get money. On night we saw
the same ladyboy but this time there was a tourist talking to him,
propositioning him. We stood nearby praying, feeling sick, hoping that maybe what
we were seeing was just a friendly hello or small talk, but we knew it was much
more than a simple hello or small talk. As the ladyboy and this man began to
walk away I felt like I could throw up because I felt so sick to my stomach.
They disappeared into the crowd of people. I couldn’t stop thinking about it
all night. I felt hopeless for this place and for the prostitutes and for the
tourists. I spent the next few days just thinking and asking God about my
hopelessness for this place. Then I felt God speak to me that he always has
hope for this place, for the prostitutes and for the tourists. So I began asking
to see through his eyes and made a decision that I was going to have hope.
I began to feel sad for the tourists, the couples who came
to “spice up their relationship”, the bar girls, the prostitutes. I felt sad
not out of hopelessness but out of seeing their desire to be loved. As I sought
to understand why they were there I began to see what was generally behind it
all; the need to be important, either through love or through money and sadly
for the men, the need to feel like a man, and the need to feel wanted.
One night while we were at one of our regular bars I notice
a tourist man in his late 40’s talking to one of the bar girls at the bar. It
was different than most of the things I had seen. I had seen so many men at
this bars not being able to keep their hands off the girls. This guy however was
looking at the bar girl with longing in his eyes. I almost felt him begging her
“please love me and notice me. Tell me I am important.” It struck me. I felt
saddened for him and his desire to be desired.
I wondered if all of the people here in the red light district of
Thailand, all the bar girls, prostitutes, tourists and ladyboys knew that they
were desirable. Desirable as in loved not desired as in attractive.
Then it got me thinking. How many times in the United States
do people dress provocatively to attract attention to feel desirable? How many
men and women go out to the bars in the United States looking for someone to
“hook-up with” for the night? Isn’t it all for the reason of wanting to feel
desired, to feel loved or important, beautiful, or for the men, to feel like
they are “men”? It all made me sick but I was slowly seeing that the same
problem is back in the United States, and around the world. I was burned with
this pounding in my chest, with this deep sadness that overcame me for them.
Don’t they know God desires them? He desires them just for who they are. He
sees them beyond the façade, the clothes, or lack thereof. His desire, his
love; is pure, is holy, is lasting. Sadly many of them didn’t know that. The
world had plagued them with lies “you’re important if a man looks at you and is
attracted to you”, “you’re a man if you sleep with lots of women”, “you need
money so go sell yourself”. It was all so heartbreaking.
For some reason the thing that stung me the most that month
were the men. The men who had believed the lie, the lie that told them they were
only men when they could get all the women. The lie that they were men if they
did “manly things” like get trashed with their friends and “pick up chicks”. I
felt outraged as I saw young boys probably about 18 years old going into a
topless bar completely trashed. I felt so angry as I watched another group of
college aged boys at one of the bars. For some reason one of the boys in
particular caught my attention. I felt like I could hear him screaming “I don’t want this.
Is this the best life can offer me? Is the best of life a bar full of empty
beer glasses, a bar full of empty friends with nothing to offer me, a bar full
of empty promise of feeling better in the morning, a promise that I will feel
more like a man when I can prove to my friends that I am their standard of man!?”
For all of my male friends and family members I just want to
say that is not what being a man is. I have learned that a “man” is a man who
stands up for what is right, a man who isn’t afraid of what his friends will
say but rather what God would say. Man was made to stand for virtue and honor.
A true hero is one who stands in the front lines because he knows he is
standing up for what really matters. Who he is isn’t defined by what others say
about him. He knows that he is up for the task and that with God’s help and
army behind him he will not fall. As a sister in Christ I just wanted to
encourage all the men out there that God is the one who gives you substance and
honor.
The stereotype the world has placed on men, on women, on how
to find true love or worth is so distorted. And where I was, the red light
district of Thailand was certainly distorted. The selling of sex was blatant
and in your face. One night we saw the same ladyboy standing in the regular
place dressed in next to nothing waiting for someone to choose him. We decided
that we needed to talk to him and at least find out his name. My teammate Sarah
and I walked over to him and introduced ourselves. His name was Nas. For some
reason as he began to tell us about himself he handed me his license. His
license showed him as a man, rather boy. He was 19 years old. In the license
picture his hair was long; he looked like any other teenage boy. He then began
to tell us that he had gotten a nose job and breast implants. We asked him “why
did you decide to become a ladyboy?” He then began to tell us how his mother
had gotten into a bad accident and had to find a way to pay the medical bills
so they sent him to Patong to prostitute himself to get money to send home.
Then he began to tell us how his family now disowned him for being a ladyboy
prostitute yet they still take the money he sends home to support them.
He was 19. He had surgically turned himself into a woman so
that he could stand every night on the street waiting for someone to “desire”
him enough to buy him. We asked if we could pray for him but his English wasn’t
the best and he though we said “we want to pay for you” he asked where we could
go and my heart sank. Did he really think me and Sarah wanted to buy him? I
couldn’t imagine a conversation with two innocent looking girls and thinking
they wanted to buy you. We then had to leave because as he put it “he had to go
back to work”.
Keep Nas in your prayers and all the tourists, prostitutes, bar
managers, couples, women and men who are seeking for desire. Pray they will
find the one who desires to love them with a pure love; Jesus!
