February 3rd, 2011
This is my ministry for the day. AIM has rules. The primary philosophy behind these rules is safety. Safety is the reason I’m on the beach today.
There are women — excuse me — men who work in the Philippines whose trade is sex. They aren’t exactly homosexuals, they aren’t transvestites, they definitely aren’t women. They are men, who don’t know they are men, and who honestly think they’re women. They’re pretty convincing, too. Locally, they,re called called “bavkla.”
Leah Mohrig, Bethsaida Portalatin, Sarah Gaddy, and Stacey Compton are lunching at a restaurant about 20 yards away. They’ve made a bavkla friend whose name is Ling, I believe. Today we’re here exploring ministry opportunities to the bavkla community. We don’t know what precautions need to be taken with these poor, confused people, so per World Race safety standards I am the protector for our women in this new atmosphere. After today I will give a judgment, considered authoritative, as to whether or not a male presence needs to be here at all. (The girls would still come in sufficiently large and safe groups.) Ironically, I must monitor from afar; any male as ridiculously good looking as me (lol) is not only a distraction for the bavkla, but also puts me in an unnecessarily uncomfortable position as bavkla are disturbingly and aggresively flirtatious. So I pray as I sit at a distance.
The sex trade here is readily apparent; it is mathematically impossible for this many old men to each have a young asian girlfriend on this one beach without some form of sex trade going on. (Trust me, I have two degrees in mathematics.)
The theory behind bavklas goes like this: An impoverished family has trouble making ends meet. If there is a young girl in the family, the parents sell her off in sex trade; business is good. But if they have a young boy, his money-making potential is much less and they have no access to the abundant sex-trade market. So Satan puts it in the parent’s head to rear the boy as a young girl and market “her” for alternative sexual acts and services that don’t reveal his true maleness. For the young boy to pass as a girl though, they must be brainwashed over time to honestly believe that they themselves are women, so that they really act as a woman and not as a guy trying to come off as a woman, which is rather obvious. The result: for all social purposes they are women, and besides a more squared face and adam’s apple, it actually is hard to tell otherwise.
One step at a time; bavklas are very personally closed off, unless they’re trying to get some business. Straight guys don’t want anything to do with them (if they know the truth), gays guys don’t want them cause they’re practically women, straight women don’t want anything to do with them, and lesbians don’t either. And they all view themselves as straight women so they don’t want anything to do with each other.
So today Bethsaida and Leah (the other two went to play volleyball) were able to have Ling open up to them a little. He’s twenty, has been working at the restaurant for 5 years, has a few siblings… I’m sure Bethsaida and Leah will post a more descriptive blog.
After that, we went farther up the beach where they talked with a woman named Paris. This is how God worked: Sarah and Stacey had gone to play volleyball to explore the potential of ministry through volleyball. Bethsaida and Leah and I walked by and stopped at a beach shop. In the meantime, a few people jumped up to get in the game, one of whom was an older white man. His “girl” got up and sat by herself up closer to the water. Bethsaida and Leah felt in their spirit that Jesus was asking them to go talk to her, so they did. I didn’t see any guys watching out for Sarah and Stacey (I had originally come to watch out for only Bethsaida and Leah), so I sat back and watched them play while Paris was being ministered to out of the corner of my eye. I could notice Paris opening up to the girls and sharing her life and heart. But God orchestrated the whole thing, because if it wasn’t for the two playing volleyball there wouldn’t have been that opportunity to love on her.
Anyways, that was great because Bethsaida and Leah were able to operate in the very thing that God had placed on their hearts, ministering to sex-trafficked women. It was cool to see them light up and glow and even after we had come back and had dinner they still glowed as their shared the day’s story. It’s easy to think that I didn’t do anything that day, but I have to remember that no ministry is higher than the safety of our girls; that was my ministry today, and I’m zealous for them.
We also chopped brush for a few hours this morning to clear the land for a future structure, but that’s all I have to say about that.
On the business side of things… I’m technically not fully funded, I’m remaining on the race by promise to pay any remaining balance by the end of the final month. Right now that balance is about $4,000. Please help me pay it down by donating! Also, for security reasons I’ll be out of contact for the month of March. No news is good news.
