As most of you know, I’m with a group of 14 girls in Chiang Mai for this month. It’s a very colorful, beautiful city nestled between mountains in Thailand. It’s still a drastic change from last month in the Philippines and, certainly, from the previous months in Central America. The Philippines, with its Spanish influence and multicultural diversity, was actually a nice transition between the first 2 months and the following 4 months in Asia.
Here, we quickly learned that to be Thai, is to be Buddhist. Buddhism is a huge part of their identity. Ornate, golden temples and shrines line every street; orange-robed monks are seen frequently.
Walking down the main street lined with bars towards evening, you would be greeted with the stark reality another type of life. Girls everywhere—standing or sitting near the sidewalk in front of the bars (their respective employers)—waiting to start their night of work. In this city alone, there at least 20,000 male, female, and child prostitutes during the tourist season. In the off season, that drops to about 5,000. This is certainly the most obvious and disturbing need.
A few nights ago I was (for the first time) part of the few girls from the team who went out and talked to these women. As one them told me, “I don’t like my job. I have to do it to have money to support my family.” This is a very common story. Most of these women send money to their parents and families who live 5 or maybe 12 hours by bus from Chiang Mai. They rarely get to see their families. They describe it as a “lonely” life, working daily from mid-afternoon to midnight or 2 am, and only having off work if they’re sick. It’s really heartbreaking.
Every night, 2-4 girls from my team go out to the massage parlors and bars in the red light district and form friendships with some of these women. There are opportunities for education, employment, housing, etc., but these can only be discussed after there is some amount of trust and relationship built. So that is where we come in. The sex industry receives a lot of attention, because it is such a disturbing reality and a big focus of the ministry we’ve partnered with for this month.
However, there are a lot of other things going on here at our ministry site as well. Our host is an amazing woman who operates both a café downstairs and a hostel, where we live. We have a wide-open opportunity to help out in the café and get acquainted with the 5 girls and 1 guy who work here. These 6 who are employed by the café are individuals who have had their lives radically transformed, having either come out of the bar scene/sex industry, or having been on their way into it that lifestyle.
Quite honestly, I am most excited about this opportunity. Our host has told us that her staff sees teams come with a strong emphasis on the girls in the bars, either by going to the bars, or by doing follow-up activities—“coffee dates”, specially planned events, gifts, etc.—and the staff sometimes feels left out. Almost as if they felt more pursuit and active love from these groups of people in the past when they still worked in the bars. I think that’s pretty sad, first of all, and I’d like to make the staff here my main ministry focus for these next few weeks. They are all amazing, and I have already enjoyed spending time with them, giving them little gift-tokens of friendship, and having them help me practice my Thai.
An additional reason I’ve chosen this focus is that I really have a desire, wherever I go, to support those people who are serving long-term. Ministry hosts can very get worn out with having teams constantly coming through plus being personally involved in their own ministries, so I’d like to make it a personal goal, throughout the race, to really invest in, support, and encourage those people who will be here continuing these ministries when we leave. (That passion was really brought to light last month, as I found this to be nearly a universal need in missions.)
I might have another focus, too J. I’m thankful for my new team—I went from having 3 other girls on my team, to having 13!—and see this as another unique (overlooked?) opportunity to impact and influence others. I’ve discovered in the past few years that I love living in community, largely because doing life together lovingly and honestly can make such a difference in someone’s life. So I’m eager to have that chance here. I hope to really get to know some of the girls well and to be purposeful in building a few of those relationships as well.
So there’s a bit of a synopsis about what’s going on here and where I’m at with everything. Thank you all SO MUCH for your prayers and support!!! Love and miss you!
X
